Yesterday I posted abut the K20 Center’s OK-ACTS Leadership Seminar. While the change pedagogy and introduction to classroom technologies is great, I think there is room for improvement. One key activity is a guided reading of resources that happen to be located on the web. The resources might as well have been PDFs located on their desktop. There is little indication that these resources exist beyond the confines of there own computer. A excellent opportunity exists during this session to give them a taste of Googling, many of which may have limited experience.

This is the bane of many traditional webquests. Wherein lies the power of the internet when resources are handed to you on a platter? It just doesn’t work that way. Lists of links made by someone else are inherently subjective. I would suggest a guided search: create search phrases that insure the sought after resource is returned in the first 5 items in Google. The assignment is to read the one item, but engagement lies in the opportunity to also look at the other 4 hits which may provide added value.

Let’s take it a step forward… into the realm of social networking. I would have del.icio.us installed as a browser add-in. Have them tag it in del.icio.us. Show one example of how the article could have been located using a del.icio.us tag search.

The technological expertise of the participants is very wide ranging. These two suggestions add very little complexity, but allow far more opportunity for greater exploration.

There are certainly additional ways to introduce the participants to social networking, and I understand the need to keep on track with content. Yet, the authentic world of technology is increasingly built upon social networking tools. We should stretch the participants in the right direction.