Is RTI a CoP.....

I have attended two events through the RTI Community of Practice that I joined on the TA Communities stie. The third event I missed. I assumed that as the other events I attended, the information would be recorded and posted from the webinar, but no. I am still trying to find if it has been posted in another area or on another site--since the second webinar was recorded and posted through air.org, a live meeting host.

As far as what we have learned in the course, I am not certain if the RTI CoP is really a CoP. It doesn't seem to meet the criteria. Although there is some history of documents recorded and materials from past webinars available, not all materials or webinars are available within the community site and links to some events are non-existent. Unfortunately, the site seems to operate as a link to lectures on the topic of RTI--but there are no discussions available for perusal or contribution on the site. Some of the webinars have threaded discussions or simple questions from participants responded to by the lecturer, but interactivity is extremely limited and controlled by the lecturer. Consistency in the mechanism that is provided for discussion seems to be lacking across the events offered to members of this "community." The community consists mainly of a list of current and past participants--but I see no evidence of any interactivity between participants.

I am trying not to judge this site too harshly as there is good information and I feel that the sharing of up-to-date information is one of the purposes that is fulfilled by this community. I am mystified, however, that an educational site that is connected to some of the governmental educational sites has missed the mark on providing the interaction component here.

Disaboom is a Bomb....

As much as I was interested in Disaboom as a possible community, I am disappointed with the type of community that has developed within some of the groups on the site. I appreciate the articles, the information about various conditions or disabilities, but I do not like the very nasty comments that seem to creep through some of the group threaded discussions. There is a sharing of too much personal information (if what is said about others can be believed), and I feel that there is a definite lack of moderation. The groups do not seem to moderate themselves very well either. I was really quite hopeful for this site as a type of community that could offer some insights and a place for students with special needs to learn about and express their thoughts in constructive ways with others that have differences. I am really bummed that Disaboom seems to have bombed-out on my first impressions. I really am somewhat fearful of entering into any discussions with anyone, rather a very peripheral participant at this point, since I don't want conflict and confrontation. I would rather maximize information sharing in a positive way. The site is waaaaay tooooo negative in some discussion areas. I like a little more positive spin on any group I join. I will still keep searching around the site and take what I can from it; maybe I will be willing at some point to participate more directly if I can find a group that seems more reasonable. I will keep you all posted!

Techno Stressssssssssssss....

What a night! Whatever you worry might go wrong--it did! I had my second presentation tonight on Brown, Collin, and Duguid's article, Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning (1989), and worked like a dog on the article and the presentation. Then, got everything ready to go except to load the handouts and PPT onto WebCT and took a catnap. Of course, I got up with just enough time to upload and go to class.

Unfortunately, while I napped, my Vista was quite busy downloading every frigging update known to my computer. As soon as I hit the space bar to wake it up, the darn screen froze, unfroze, froze again, unfroze, and a variety of little dialogue windows opened. After shutting them down, I tried to get onto WebCT--no deal--it would not load. I got a general error on IE. My next move was to pull up Windows Live Mail--instead I got an error saying it was not available or had been moved. Then I decided to try Firefox browser--but it too errorred out. So, I opened MSN browser and after it greeted me with a friendly "hello," it froze. Then I thought I would just restart the darn thing and try to open it in Safe Mode. Unfortunately, there were a MILLION updates that needed to load and a message that said DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER UNTIL UPDATES ARE COMPLETE. I figured it might take a couple minutes--so I got ready to go and called a taxi. 10 minutes later the demon Vista was still churning away. I waited--15 minutes, and then the whole screen went black. Well, I waited for another 5 minutes and the windows logo briefly flashed, the computer restarted and bypassed safe mode and went to black again. I gathered up the handouts I printed and headed for school.

But, no matter, thank goodness, I had printed my handouts earlier and this is a very good lesson in presentation management--backup, backup, backup with low tech materials--just in case. Other than getting to class a little late, the presentation went well. It was quite a bit different than my first presentation experience, where I used UMConnect (Adobe Connect) to present an online, live, synchronous presentation and discussion. Tonight's presentation was off-line, live, and synchronous with a face-to-face audience and a slightly rattled and appologetic me. Actually, I liked being able to see everyone's reaction and found it rather enjoyable to not have to deal with technology!

There were a few drawbacks, however, over the online presentation. There was no recording of my presentation, which did not allow for as much personal reflection for improvement as the last presentation. Although I had handouts for everyone, and darn glad of it, the verbal discussion was not recorded either. Although everyone participated in the discussion and I appreciated that very much, there is no record for either the students or myself that documented what happened in presenting the article. The only artifact we have is the PPT Presentation and the handout file, which I loaded on WebCT as soon as my computer kicked-in.

But, I survived a techno nightmare with paper backups. Let this be a lesson to me!

P.S. I have tweaked my Windows Vista once again to turn off all automatic updating--but now my Windows One care Software is swearing at me in yellow! MS might call it Mojave, but I am calling it VexationVista....