Adult Learner Blog and Random Ed Resources

Adult Learners & the Web 2.0 Community
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/07/07/community-as-curriculum-a-syllabus-starts-tomorrow
“Welcome to Educational Technology and the Adult Learner”
This blog is an online course focused on teaching adult learner trainers to use technology tools. The course explores, by example, how technology can facilitate introducing new technologies to adult learners with little live technology experience. Web 2.0, Skype, Del.icio.us, Moodle, Angel Sandbox and many other technologies that are new to me.
The author of the blog, Dave Cormier, is a web technologies specialist at the Univ of Prince Edward Island and cofounder of Edtechtalk. He and his family , and Edactive Technologies, a social software consulting firm located in the United Kingdom.
His bio is posted at this link: http://innovateonline.info/?view=person&id=15387
There are links in the blog to trade journal articles published in Journal of Online Education and the author is very active as a university professor working with adult learners and education technology issues and tools. This blog is useful for professional development for myself as an adult learner using web technologies both in employee communications and management and for resources to provide innovative training opportunities and workspace in our organization. The focus of this blog is “community as curriculum” or I would say that it is community as the classroom. The curriculum is organized and annotated for sequential use but the beauty of the sight is the plethora of technology tools collected in this site. Newer posts introduce divergent ideas and are very interesting as social bookmarking is discussed and some education philosophy topics are broached and may be interesting to read.
I think this blog will be a good introduction to a community of online educators who think a bit differently than what I learned in education preparation courses at college. In just a few visits I have access to more education tools links than I knew existed so it will be a welcome place to revisit to begin to grasp the enormity of web 2.0 education tools.
I am surprised to learn how topics diverge so quickly in the blog sphere. Just a click can put me in an elementary science use of technology and another click can send me to adult education in the next generation of public school students. Ultimately, I will find a blog that has less chat and more meat as I don’t care to waste time reading someone’s rambling thoughts. I don’t have time for that. Somewhere in our readings this semester I heard the topic of ‘mature blogs’ and perhaps that is what I’m talking about—one that sticks to the topic and is for the busy professional.
Instructional Design Blog https://staff.tlt.psu.edu/category/free-tagging/instructional-design
“Teaching and Learning with Technology”
Penn State blog that focuses on instructional design issues. This blog appears to provide specific tips and tricks posted by subscribers. This blog is loaded with random topics from how Google Earth will affect the teaching of astronomy to how to tag web content effectively. Concept maps and tricks to use is a topic I will revisit as I am developing a way to use them in adult learning situations with current job. Perhaps the most cutting edge topic that is discussed at length is the mobile learning issues that are with us as right now. Finally, a project management of instructional design projects section is will help me finish up these courses and assist me as I begin my work.
This blog is more focused and the issues covered appear to link back to the Penn State education web site. I find this to be desirable because it appears the information may be a bit more credible. I realize the limits in that thinking but none the less, it is better than some bored rambling person who has time to waste.
My favorite link is this one: https://staff.tlt.psu.edu/feed/item/2753. Throughout the text there are links to free web 2.0 community tools. I think it is important that I keep up with technologies and tools available as I am part of a team of educators who are looking move as many training products to the web as possible. The entire focus of the blog is curriculum writing for adult learners. Topics vary from Algebra to technology tools but the writing is concise and friendly while the information is instantly applicable.