Internet Privacy Workshop

Today I held a workshop for middle school girls through the local chapter of my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc . The name of the group is Delta Academy. The group is comprised of middle-school, at-risk, primarily African-American girls. The goal of Delta Academy is to develop strong, confident and respectful young ladies and prepare them to take an active role in their success and society.

The group meets twice a month and covers a variety topics including positive self esteem, proper, hygiene, preparing for college and technology.

My workshop was on Internet Privacy and Cyberbulling. The workshop was well received by the girls. I also (voice) recorded the workshop which I plan to develope into a podcast at a later date. The source I used as a basis for the workshop was NetSmartz.

Educational Use of Blogs

I plan to use a blog in a class I am teaching this summer. It is a field experience class for my cosmetology students called Client Services Externship.

I am going to give the students a topic pertaining to the salon experience. I will require them to respond to the topic and comment on at least one of their fellow classmate's post.

It will be interesting to see how the students will respond to this activity. I'm sure some of them won't like it; others will.

Below is a link to the podcast where I set up this blog. It was during the TechForum conference held in Chicago on April 28, 2006. David Warlick presented a Mini-workshop entitled "Harnessing Web 2.0." During that presentation, I am the the "ma'am" that created this blog in front of the group.

http://m2.slapcast.com/mp3/dwarlick/dwarlick-2006-05-10-1.mp3

The entire presentation broken into four podcasts can be found at:

http://davidwarlick.com/connectlearning/

Digital Media Class

It couldn't be more perfect timing!!! Just a few weeks ago I learned about the new Web 2.0 technologies and now I'm going to be able to learn more about them and utilizing them in my Digital Media Class.

I am pursuing a master's degree in instructional technology at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, WI. My purpose for pursing my master's degree is to document my computer experience. I am pretty much self taught since 1990! I have also been teaching computer courses since 1989; however my formal education does not reflect this.

So far the program has been VERY interesting and useful. Even though I am not a K-12 educator (whom the program primarily geared to), I am still receiving useful information that can be applied to my classroom. I look forward to learning more about the Web 2.0 technologies and using them in my classroom while completing my Digital Media class.

Tech Form

Friday, April 28th, I attended Tech Form in Chicago. It was phenominal! I would like to personally thank David Warlick (web20warlick) for helping me set up my first blog. I would also like to thank Hall Davidson for his inspiring keynote address.

I learned so much, it was mind boggling! I am also energized to utilize the new technologies I learned in my classes. Immediately I would like to set up and use a Wiki for a class I am teaching this summer. I am going to set it up so that the students can update it after every class with lecture notes. At the end of the summer, they will have a set of notes to study from to take their final exam. Wow, how nice that's going to be!