Web 2.

0 and Collaborative Research Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Vince Lombardi
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/effort.html#ixzz1kxWnPKwA This course is designed to give you experience in effective research practices in a digital environment. It is also designed to give you experience in working with a team to research a problem, select an effective medium to help solve a problem and work with others around the world on a project. During this course you will: create and write a blog about your learning create a short presentation which will be cloud based work with others in a class wiki micro blog using Twitter and Tumblr. Discuss and evaluate various Web 2.0 tools for social costs and benefits write a comparative essay based on your research about social media. Work with databases and learn effective digital research practices appropriate for a 21st Century workplace and post-secondary education. Participate in Literature Circles reflect on personal emotional status during research process and group processes. Work as a group to choose a project and non-governmental organization (NGO) currently working in Africa with who to partner. Create an e-portfolio to gather evidence of best work and learning experiences.

Timeline: The first 8 weeks (until Spring Break) will be focused on research process and social media, including evaluating your personal digital footprint in preparation for work-force and post-secondary readiness. Netiquette and cyber-safety will be part of your practices in this class. You will choose social media to contrast or compare for social costs and benefits, as well as possible academic costs and benefits. Your research will include reading leading bloggers in your topic area, using databases, effective use of Google Tools. You will also journal in your blog about your thoughts and feelings about the research process and the many things you will be learning. Your essay will be a maximum of 5 pages, double-spaced and will use MLA (9th) for citation style. IT WILL BE DUE BEFORE SPRING BREAK. This essay will be worth 30% of the total for the course. Included in the 30% will be blog entries about process, notes, citations, evaluation of sources. A more specific break down will be given at the end of the first week. After Spring Break, we will focus on collaborative projects of an international type. Based on our Literature Reading circles and current events research, we will discuss the top 5 issues facing continental Africa. After choosing one of these issues on which to concentrate, we will seek out an

NGO with whom we can partner to complete a project that will either assist a community/group in Africa or raise awareness of how actions in Canada can impact Africa. As the course nears its completion in June, you will begin to gather, sort and evaluate your digital work and learning to put together an e-portfolio to be shared with others. You will assist in evaluating a classmates e-portfolio, as well as assessing your own. Evaluation in the second part of the course will be as follows: Literature Circle Participation: 10% Project work: 10% e-portfolio: 25% The remaining 25% will be divided between digital projects like: Tweets, Blog entries, visual presentations, discussion participation, wiki participation, peer and self-evaluations and other digital artifacts which are evidence of developing comfort in using Web 2.0 tools. At the end of this course, there will be an evaluation of the course and instructor. Thanks for your interest in this course! Im looking forward to the journey!! Mrs. McVittie