Technical Writing Presentation at Oklahoma Centennial OWFI 2007 Conference

OWFI, the Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc., is a regional writers' organization dedicated to "promoting higher standards for the written word." I have been involved with OWFI as a member, volunteer, and Executive Committee member (treasurer, webmasteer, president, and conference chairperson) for over five years now. OWFI holds an annual writers conference that brings agents, editors, famous authors, and writers from around the world. This year's conference is held as an authorized Oklahoma Centennial event.

During this year's conference, I was one of the speakers. My session was titled: "Find Your Niche in Technical Writing." With over 20 years of experience as a technical writer, an author with more than 16 technical books published, and a writer of magazine articles, newsletters, greeting card verses, and courses, I was honored to b e invited as a speaker.

For those of you who attended my session on Saturday, May 5th, and for those of you who wish you'd been there, I'm providing you with access to some of the presentation materials that I brought with me.

To access those materials, visit my website: http://www.dorothycady.com

What if Online Education Were Free?

That is the concept and idea behind MIT’s decision to go with their OpenCourseWare (OCW) program and make available more than 2000 of their courses online at no charge. The courses will be open to the public—which means available across the Internet to people around the world, and all for no fee. Not all of these 2000 course will be available immediately. It will take MIT a few years to get them all ready and released.

Want to see what’s available? Head over to MIT’s website. Here’s the URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

It isn’t necessarily all it sounds at first. According to the MIT Open CourseWare website, their courses do not grant credit for or certification towards a degree, and there’s no access to MIT faculty. But still, if you just want to learn, they do provide the knowledge.

To Blog or Not to Blog…That’s Educations’ Question

(This blog seems quite approriate as I'm currently attending a Blackboard Users' conference.)

Blogging caught on pretty fast. People use it in place of online journals. Marketers use it to spread the news of their product or service. Businesses use it to counteract bad things that are said about them on other blogs and to get a step up on their competition. Traditional media uses it to keep up with online competition, even hiring bloggers to write for their traditional media publications. Educators use it for…well, what do educators use it for? Is there any real reason to use blogging as an educational tool? Does it provide a better education for students than any of its predecessors, such as websites, email, or online journals? What is the blogs’ role in education?

According to some bloggers, there are plenty of ways educators should not use blogs. For example, James Farmer is creating a “what not to do when using blogs in education” list. Farmer is a consultant, writer, technologist, and teacher living in Australia. He believes blogs should not be used to replace other tools that have found effective educational niches for themselves, including “discussion boards, listservs, or learning management systems” (http://blogsavvy.net/how-not-to-use-blogs-in-education). So, if blogs aren’t a replacement for other online technologies, how can they best be used in education, online or classroom?

Through your comments, I’d like to share with the readers some of the best blog sites that are educational in nature. Here’s one that I’ve found. The author’s information on digital storytelling and blogs is quite interesting. Feel free to post links to other blogs related to education that you particularly like when you post a comment to this blog.