Working Smarter - Learning 2.0
Posted on May 23, 2008
Filed under CourseDesign, Learning 2.0
I’ll be talking about learning 2.0 a bit during the workshop next week. Like everything 2.0ish, it’s about the web and using it more effectively, creatively and efficiently. Attending to a few habits can make a noticable difference in the way you work over time. Because we work so much on computers, those patterned, repetitive habits become invisible and many of us have never been shown different ways of working. For example:
- We navigate our desktop and workspaces solely with a mouse as compared with combining keystrokes with mouse-movements. The latter technique affords us the interactive use of both hands, rather than the procedural use of one hand: Now I’m typing-Now I’m using my mouse. It’s a subtle distinction but when you observe someone else, it’s easy to notice. A common task where this comes in handy is cutting/copying and pasting. You can use your mouse hand to position your cursor, while keystroking CTL X/C and CTL V to copy/cut and paste text.
- Browser tabs allow you to have open multiple pages in one browser window. Cycling through them can be done with CTL and numbers (1,2,3 etc). Since we often have multiple applications open, tabbing reduces the number of actual windows we have to cycle through.
- And speaking of cycling through applications, holding ALT/Tab PC, Apple/Tab Mac, lets you cycle through all your open applications quickly.
Working with 2 hands instead of one; it’s gotta save time.
More Learning 2.0.
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Following on from this, does anyone use voice recognition (VR) software to enhance teaching and learning? I know Microsoft really tried to push this in their XP operating system but it doesn’t seem to have caught on. VR, in concept, seems an ideal tool to help with a number of issues that have popped up in this blog. It would help us interact with our computers more efficiently (“look mom, no hands,”) as well as provide a delivery method that may circumvent some of the pains associated with some traditional assessment indicators (such as essay writing).
Ed Tech folk - is VR even on the radar anymore?