This chapter was quite funny for me, as I perpetually felt half in half out throughout the entire reading. I of course know the difference between .com and .gov, and I understand about search engines and the like, but what surprised me was the new measures some of these online sources are reaching, specifically the "avatar" aspect of learning, I have heard or familiar with "avatars" mainly from the film, the concept makes sense i suppose but I find it hard seeing how it can be used to foster a learning environment. I also wasn't aware that online classes have a higher drop out rate than regular classes. This makes sense, because i often feel that having assignments online like D2l for example fail to connect students to the work at hand, often because the simply do not feel apart of any class.
The other thing i was pleased to learn is the "course management systems" which can save on to the system hardware website pages, so re-loading to the site when Internet may be slow would be obsolete.
I feel like I would really like to use this technology in my own classroom as I seem to always have trouble with the Internet at the most important times.
I would also be most keen on using the smart boards, quite in the same manner we use them in class (our own lab and other class I have) the smart boards offer such a great multimedia tool to the classroom that help enhance rather than minimize pedagogy.
My one question would pertain back to the "avatar" teaching. What is the practicality of setting up virtual classroom with virtual students and instructors when a "real" one would be more effective and would remove the middle man as it were?
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