Where do we go from here?

“Where do we go from here, now that all of the children have grown up…” - The Alan Parsons Project, 1981

The lyric snippet above is not from one of my favourite songs or musical artists, but it kept running (and romping) through my head anyway as I pondered the end of this course and the beginning of my future as an educational technology learner/teacher/enthusiast. Well, I’m not necessarily a fully mature digital adult yet, but I’d say I’ve grown up a bit during this course.


Where do I go from here? Well, I’ve contacted a couple of colleagues in my school, including the tech guru, to try to spark more excitement about Web 2.0, see what’s workable, find out what I’ve missed in my back yard. Mr. School technology has informed me that a Moodle was created to stoke edu-tech fires, so I should be able to login to that in the upcoming week. I would be extremely dissatisfied if I was unable to set some wheels in motion on a school level, so I’ll work with those who are already online to help spread the Web 2.0 love.

What about my own development – how have I done so far and how do how do keep it up and take it to the next level? One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that you don’t know how ignorant you are until you know how much you don’t know (doesn’t that sound like Yogi Berra?); in that respect, my edu-blogging journey has been an absolute success. I never guessed that such a fantastic array of ideas and tools would be available, only a few keystrokes away.

I started off hoping to go from “technological infancy to a techno-toddler (and then teenager!) in a relatively short period” (from my first post), which I may have accomplished – I’ll have to check my teacher-librarian candidate stages of growth timeline. When I look at my first blogs, I see a writer who is struggling with new technology as well as expressing his own ideas about Web 2.0 tools that were being explored. Complaints about another person’s technical difficulties do not make for interesting reading, so I’m glad to see that I have mostly curtailed that annoying habit. I have also become much better at learning how to use new applications as well as finding information about possible educational uses for those apps. My first few blogs were lame – no useful links, superficial commentary or analysis, no evidence of serious thinking, void of personality or character. I feel like I’ve started to move forward as far as all of those problems are concerned.

Perhaps the best aspect of this course was the opportunity to read/write/dialogue with classmates – it was inspiring to see those who are much farther along in teacher-librarianship and educational technology as well as those who seem to have been a little closer to my level of learning. But as useful as Delicious and RSS feeds can be, it takes other people with similar interests to forward some amazing links and put forward some fantastic ideas, and that’s why I hope some of us can still find the time to keep it up. I was at a Special Area Group session (provincial professional development day) recently, and saw one of our peer’s work being referenced - way to go jatacadia (Jo-Anne)! I wish I could point out more specific references to things I’ve learned from my classmates, but they would range from adding a cool app like Shelfari to pointing out cool links that I’d missed. The fast pace of this course meant that I was just able to check out the sites shared on Delicious, but not to keep track of who aimed me there in the first place.

My school’s tech guy has been forwarding some interesting articles that are inspiring me to continue exploring many of the concepts we have explored for this course. “Kids gain valuable skills from time online” (found at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/19/BUKE147TA1.DTL) is a nice short article focusing on pros and cons of youngsters and their use of computer time. The article stems from Living and Learning With New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf), a 58-page paper which looks like fodder for anyone interested in edu-tech. Of particular note may be the section entitled Genres of Participation with New Media, with key phrases being Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. The next questions seem obvious; where do our students fit into concerning those three terms? Where are we as educators and Web 2.0 participants?

Another thought-provoking article, “Is Technology Rewiring our Brains?” by Gary Small, M.D. and Gigi Vorgan spotlights Digital Natives and how new online tools may be changing things more than we think (http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977496300). Small and Vorgan have written a book entitled ibrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind that looks intriguing.



Although my school technology expert has stated that he is simply pointing out articles of interest and not trying to start dialogue, I’m hoping that conversations start anyway so I can continue the kind of healthy discussions we’ve been enjoying in this course.

I’m sharing “Is Technology Rewiring our Brains” with my students in a media literacy unit this week as I begin to use the things we’ve learned in this course in earnest. I can’t wait.

What's Next? Let's Make Introductions...Think Fast!

Think fast! Remember that silly command, followed by someone throwing a Frisbee (or something else) at you, with only milliseconds for you to decide to catch or duck? Here’s a new instant decision scenario for you: chocolate or vanilla? Habs or Leafs? Wikis or social networking sites?

Clearly, that split second decision may not always turn out to be the most beneficial; opting to catch the Frisbee with a burger in one hand and a beverage in the other inevitably leads to problems, but getting out of the way may mean that your dog introduces some new bite marks in that disc (or worse, some poor bystander doesn’t take kindly to childish games). I usually try to put myself in a position to make my own decisions, so I’ll take door number three; maple walnut, Bruins, and blogs.

The reasoning behind my decision-making analogy lies in the fact that I have been instructed to chose one web 2.0 tool to introduce to my school colleagues. If I am only allowed to introduce one Web 2.0 tool to staff at my school, I will wholeheartedly push for blogs. Why? The short answer is that I believe that blogs could/would/should have the most positive impact on both teachers and students. Also, as Richardson explains in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom,

Thousands of teacher and students have already incorporated Weblogs into their classrooms and into their practice. Blogs…are easily created, easily updateable Websites that allow an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection. They can also be interactive, allowing teachers and students to begin conversations or add to the information published there. Weblogs are the most widely adopted tool of the Read/Write Web so far.

Teachers who are hesitant to jump into the unknown can solace in the fact that there are numerous educators who are already making the leap into Web 2.0 via blogs, ready and waiting to assist in starting blogging, sharing blog uses in the classroom, and becoming instant guides through this strange and wonderful world of edutech.

Simply put, I believe that educators and students who have not fully explored blogging do not see the opportunities offered for learning and collaboration. I will freely admit that not too long ago I thought that most blogs were personal journals, which didn’t interest me at all. We all see websites as means to find information, but many blogs can be means to find information and take it a step further – post a comment, ask a question, subscribe to further blogs or comments…in other words, to interact more and hopefully learn more. Therefore, the first thing I’d like to do is introduce blogs, add RSS feeds, then move onto creating blogs.

I would direct those unfamiliar with blogs and blogging to:

Weblogg-ed - What better place to start than Will Richardson’s site? Aside from the plethora of information found on the site, I think Richardson has created a shining example of good writing in the edublogosphere. But more specifically, the Edu-blogs link from supportblogging.com (http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers) is amazingly comprehensive, and the Weblogs in Schools wiki link is superb ( http://weblogged.wikispaces.com/Weblogs+in+Schools). Richardson’s short and sweet list of benefits to blogging in the classroom is great:

Benefits:
-Motivation
-Writing Skills
-Reading Skills
-Collaboration
-Network Building
-Community Building

For a more comprehensive explanation of why blogging can be a great thing, check out Anne Davis’s rationale at http://anne.teachesme.com/2007/01/17/rationale-for-educational-blogging/ .

Commoncraft’s Blogs in Plain English is another good introductory tool:



Here’s one site for those who know little about blogs. Not only do you get answers to basic questions, you can learn how to start a blog, add images, links, and so on.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/what-are-blogs-anyway.html


A scan of other bloggers’ reasons for blogging in education reveals a wealth of information, but Martin Weller’s lists of reasons why he blogs at http://www.microbiologybytes.com/AJC/whyblog.html is succinct and relevant:

My blog:
· is a place where I think, plan and reflect
· forces me to read in order to gather the input I need for my output
· is a place where I play with technology and ideas
· often surprises me
· is a place where I collaborate
· is currently the most satisfying part of my job
· is slightly dangerous
· is compulsive

Wouldn’t most teachers be curious about Weller’s reasons for blogging? I know they’ve made me think.

At the same time as I think many teachers would see benefits to student blogging, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those same educators were hesitant to create their own blogs. I think that one way to help teachers think a little further about teacher blogging is to introduce it as an alternative form of professional development. I think many teachers would welcome some deviation from the norm in this area. Luckily, some keener-type bloggers have been doing some fine blogging on just this topic! See my previous post, then go to:

http://jacquiesgreatdigitaladventure.blogspot.com/

http://alangelaar.blogspot.com/

http://jansjourneysinweb20.blogspot.com/



Now, let’s look at the challenge of making blog use by teachers and students a reality in my school. First, all teachers in the division have been given a directive to have their own website up this school year. Although the work from the teacher’s end is miniscule, it will be difficult to get many educators to do not only that but create their own blog as well as keep it updated. The only option I see at the moment is to start really small. Before introducing blogs to the entire staff, I would try to get 2 or 3 influential teachers involved, get them hooked on reading some blogs, then get them to create their own. If I want to introduce teachers to the benefits of getting their students involved in blogging, I have to get them familiar with the process first. I also want to see what ideas those educators have for using blogs in their classes.

I am starting today on my Mission: Blogging At the School Level. I am forwarding my own blog URL to a few select teachers, as well as the technology guru in my school (if I really intend to get blogging integrated into my school, I need to get him onside/online). I’m going to ask them to look at my blog on professional deveopment with blogging, then discuss it with them when time permits. Who knows where the conversation will take us?

Refreshing Professional Development: Blogging in/as/for PD

Dear Valued Educator,

Do you try to make all of your students learn the same way? Do you expect that an isolated learning experience (say, one to three hours every month) is sufficient to inspire deep knowledge? Do you think that individual learning is important, or do you think that large-group work is good enough? Can you show evidence of your learning based on those experiences?

Yours Sincerely,
A Questioning Fellow Teacher

If you answered yes to all of the above questions and you’re happy with the results, please skip the rest of this blog – it’s not for you. If, like me, you see the absurdity of my admittedly-exaggerated questions, read on, Macduff!

Many of us have come to see that we need to be a little more thoughtful and flexible in creating learning experiences for our students. So why the heck do we continue to disregard our own knowledge about how people learn when we are involved in our own professional development?

I’ve heard teachers grumble about PD sessions that were not useful, not well-planned, or not held at timely enough intervals. I’ve also been to PD sessions that were inspiring in many different ways. What I’ve also found is that a day or two after PD, I had some ideas, questions, and stimulating discussions with my peers on the previously-raised professional learning topics. Unfortunately, for some, that may have been where the learning surrounding that concept or issue ends.

How can professional development become more exciting, memorable, stimulating, inspirational, creative, and interactive? The magic answer is, “You’re looking at it.” Weblogs such as this one could be the key to unlocking much more fruitful and efficient PD for many. Let’s revisit the questions I posed above.

Do you try to make all of your students learn the same way?

If educators getting involved in reading and writing blogs on professional development, the situation of sitting in a room with the rest of the staff members listening to one speaker is no longer the same. Teachers can read a blog when they are ready to do so wherever they can connect to the Web, post comments or questions, perhaps do some quick research or follow some handy links, share some of that research or new links with colleagues, even revisit the blog if they want/need to do so. If a teacher has their own blog, they can post their own thoughts on the issue being studied. The time and space limitations that are imposed upon whole-school PD don’t have to be so restricting when a person can be brief or thorough according to what their learning need are at that point – PD based on blogs can offer that sort of flexibility.

Do you expect that an isolated learning experience (say, one to three hours every month) is sufficient to inspire deep knowledge?

Hopefully that scenario is not happening in many of ours schools or divisions. Unfortunately, I have heard about some instances where a variation on that theme is being played. Will Richardson posted about his own experience as a the hired gun public speaker:

“Either way, the experience usually serves to overwhelm, and at the end of the day (or hour) the participants head back to the craziness of their teaching lives where I’m guessing much of what they have “learned” fails to take root.” (http://weblogg-ed.com/category/professional-development/)

Again, through blogs and ensuing comments, dialogue about what is important to individuals, groups, and the whole school does not have to end or wait until the next PD opportunity. Some learners need time to process what they have learned, while some clarify their thoughts by writing – why not take advantage of those skills? Also, teachers at one school can develop their learning within a much larger context, be it division-wide, province-wide, or even globally – the Read/Write Web is not concerned with staying inside boundary-lines.

Do you think that individual learning is important, or do you think that large-group work is good enough?

Not everyone does their best learning in group settings, and some learn better individually depending on what is being learned. If a PD topic requires personal study, it’s sometimes hard to accommodate for that in staff meetings. PD through blogs could help encourage more than one style of learner – a person could read, listen, view, write, follow some links for areas of interest, receive comments or feedback from others (perhaps even from those not on staff), and so on. In this way, learners can benefit from self-directed learning as well as group collaboration, with dialogue and sharing staying as priorities. I found a diagram created by Kim Cofino at http://langwitches.org/blog/2008/11/16/second-k-12-online-conference-lan-party/ that got me thinking:



I believe that if we can use blogs (as well as wikis, RSS feeds, and other Web 2.0 tools) in our professional development, we might be able to use aspects from all 3 of the models shown in the diagram. Doug Johnson is one expert who has written about the need for “ongoing, individualized, onsite instruction and support” in professional learning, specifically as regards learning about technology (http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/why-what-how-and-who-of-staff-development.html). What do you think?

Can you show evidence of your learning based on those experiences?

If an educator can comment, recommend further links, open new lines of dialogue, bring in new contributors, and share opinions on PD issues on blogs, at the very least some level of learning will be shown. Surely some of us wonder how much professional development occurred on an individual basis after a particular session – PD blogs could at some level provide a gauge for learning and level of engagement.

I don’t think I’ve said anything revolutionary here concerning using Web 2.0 tools to revamp PD. Are these ideas feasible? Like anything in bureaucratic systems, changing how we create and utilize PD takes some thought. Will Richardson suggests a fairly simple start:
“What about giving teachers new to these technologies just enough to get them started and then take the school year (or more) to immerse them in the tools and networked learning environments where they can learn at their own pace (with some appropriate nudging and guidance from time to time)?” (http://weblogg-ed.com/category/professional-development/)

I feel confident now about the different tools and ideas we’ve been exploring in this course that I am looking forward to talking to the technology guru in my school about some of the possibilities for future PD. I have little experience with working with PD committees (none in my current school), and I can’t say how hard it will be to redesign professional opportunities, but I listened to a colleague discuss limited opportunities just a few days ago. If I can just start small and introduce some blogs that would interest others, help colleagues find some useful, appealing blogs, encourage them to comment on them and start a dialogue, a tiny step towards more rewarding PD may be taken. It seems clear to me that we should explore ways to make PD more effective and enjoyable. Here’s a few blogs and websites I’ve been following that may spark some ideas:

Doug Johnson

Langwitches

Weblogg-ed

Web 2 Tools for the Read/Write/ Web

Classroom 2.0

RSS Feeds - All You Can Eat (and More)

“(RSS feeds are) a way to leverage the talent of millions of individuals to identify truly useful information in the tidal wave of data the Internet has become.”

http://technologysource.org/article/rss/

The above quote, supplied by Mary Harrsch, epitomizes many of the positive aspects of using RSS, which some people say stands for Real Simple Syndication (Richardson), others say stands for Rich Site Summary (Harrsch), and others say means RDF Site Summary. Technically, the three different RSS explanations refer to different formats, but whatever you believe RSS stands for, hopefully you agree that most of us need a way to organize the morass of information we accumulate. RSS, simply put, lets a user subscribe to weblog entries, websites, video, audio, news and more in order to get information sent to a person who wants it. A person doesn’t have to go back and check a site or blog to see if updates have been posted, because updates are automatically sent to your blog aggregator (such as BlogLines, Google Reader, etc.). All you have to do is remember to check your feed aggregator (also known as a feed reader) and your online info will come to you. Furthermore, you can share that information in a number of ways – you can pass it on easily, a person can check what feeds you are subscribing to, you can tag the info for others, and so on. RSS is becoming one of those Web 2.0 tools that help users see things in different ways, with so many different kinds of related applications and organizational tools available that a basic description does not do it justice. For anyone looking to get started with RSS, the Common Craft video below will give you quick, simple steps.



In a wonderful piece of writing entitled Web 2.0 Ideas for Educators: A Guide to RSS and More, Quentin D’Souza has underlined the fact that where RSS feeds were formerly associated with simple blogs, the last five years have seen an amazing growth in their utilization:

“All types of web applications are using feeds to share data within social networks, through enhancing accessibility to productivity tools, research tools, watch lists, and sharing peer created content. The numbers of applications that are using feeds are growing daily.
New tools have come into existence because of RSS feeds and the trend seems to be continuing to grow. These tools allow you to remix and reformat the content of a feed in a countless different ways.”

D’Souza is not kidding when he says that there are “countless” ways to utilize feeds. There are many aggregators and other fine sites which allow a user to decide how to use search terms, organize, share, label or tag, and so on. I have been using BlogLines and Google Reader for a short while now, and I still don’t feel like I have started using them to their full potential yet. Subscribing is simple, making groups is easy, and creating useful search terms is painless, but I get the feeling that I’ll still make some useful discoveries in the future. For example, I haven’t figured out yet why video from YouTube or TeacherTube will show up on my Google Reader pane but a Voicethread will not.

Now, will RSS feeds help make the next great technological leap in education? Harrsch calls RSS the next killer app for education, specifying that she “would define a killer application as a program that provides the capability for an average person to use technology to solve every day problems and enrich their lives.” Richardson seems to be of the same mind, entitling a chapter of his book (Blog, Wikis, and Podcasts) “RSS: The New Killer App for Educators”. Why are these experts so high on RSS? Well, the benefits of simplifying research and getting updates sent to a learner/educator are obvious. But when further educational opportunities are explored, that’s when things get interesting. Harrsch gives an example of a teacher that finds a useful website and e-mails colleagues to share ideas for classroom use. What could the same teacher do with a blog and RSS feeds?

"If, instead, you post your finds with your ideas for implementation to a Web log equipped with RSS generation capability, you provide a unique information source that can be accessed by thousands of teachers like you that are looking for ways to improve their learning environments. In essence, you have helped to establish an online community of practice specific to teachers of social studies."

The advantage in the second example is that the teacher is accessing and enriching the Read/Write Web; others can learn from that teacher’s work, can comment on his/her blog extending a dialogue, and so on. Not only that, but it’s truly a worldwide opportunity – did I mention that Google Reader has a translator that can make feeds readable in a number of languages?

Will Richardson has pointed out some big pluses to RSS feeds as pertains to teachers and student work in the aforementioned book (as well as on weblogg-ed.com). If a teacher is trying to follow classrooms full of students who are each blogging, it would make sense to use feeds to only view when a blog is updated. Also, Richardson says he has been able to go completely paperless through the use of Weblogs and RSS feeds – I still could not do this in my school yet, but the possibility is intriguing. Furthermore, in what almost seems like an aside in his book, Richardson suggests that RSS could be a fortunate thing for the “lack of media and information literacy skills students have” – which to me would suggest that using RSS feeds may drastically change the way we look at student research, online literacy and student-directed learning.

Personally, I was more than a little perplexed with the information literacy skills displayed by the majority of students in some of my courses. Using RSS feeds should allow me to give them an easy outlet for new avenues of information. When I start one of my next courses, I will give students a choice of topics relating to a novel we will be reading later in the course. Students will be directed to choose three of them, sign up for a feed reader account, and use search terms to start collecting data. When we get to the assignment a month or so later, hopefully they will have some great choices of information to pick from. I think this will be a grand learning experience for both my students and myself, and we’ll see if it works the way Richardson suggests.

What other uses could be found for RSS and student learners? Here are a few general ideas:

· RSS in combination with class Wikis = timely information shared by peers in an engaging, learner-ownership community of learners
· Direct students to RSS feeds when information needs to be really timely – if used properly, feeds can provide learners with extra updated data that may not be found as easily if they’re simply using mainstays Google and Wikipedia.
· Get creative! If you’re using Google Reader, for example (not a bad ideas to use a web-based feed reader so students can access it anywhere), can students find useful info originally written in a different language? Once students (and teacher) are fairly comfortable with RSS, what can be done with merging RSS feeds, remixing, what-have-you?

Finally, there are clearly some positive aspects to using RSS feeds in different educational ways. What about any negative aspects or problems? Armelle O’Neal listed a few potential minuses at http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/rss.mspx :

1. RSS feeds provide no history, which means that although you always get the newest information, you can easily miss an article of interest to you if you don’t check the feeds for a few days (when you’re on vacation, for example).
2. RSS feeds are a bandwidth waster because they automatically download RSS files (usually hourly) to check for updates and changes.
3. RSS feeds are complicated to set up. As people hear about RSS and understand its value, they also become disappointed by the fact that it is not as easy as surfing the Web.
4. RSS content doesn’t lend itself to search. Many search engines include RSS feeds but they struggle to identify which information is new and, hence, greatly limit the value of search operations on this type of content.
5. RSS feeds usually only show an abridged version of the content, which can be cryptic and may require you to open your Web browser to see the full article.

Number one could be a problem, but as long as we’re using it during the school year, it shouldn’t be a biggie. The second point may be a problem, but I don’t know yet if it will hinder student use. Problem three I disagree with, because it seems pretty simple to set up an RSS feed.. Number 4 doesn’t appear to be a big problem from what I’ve seen so far. Problem number 5 is not a problem to me at all; the purpose of using RSS fees is so a user doesn’t have to look at everything, and that would include seeing an abridged version, at least at first. RSS users can always create a clipping for later viewing or open up a web browser if they need to do so. We should keep in mind that O’Neal’s article was published in 2006, and it possible that the severity of some of these problems have decreased in the interim.

Overall, none of the potential problems above outweighs the great opportunities for educators and learners in using RSS feeds. I haven’t even begun to discuss some of the possibilities of using RSS feeds when using Technorati or FeedBurner, but this blog is becoming a little long-winded. How about I just leave you with a promotional quote from Technorati’s site:

“If Google is the world’s reference library, Technorati is becoming its coffeehouse” – Time magazine
Please excuse me, I need to go get some coffee.

Social Networking: Do You Know What Your Kids are Doing Right Now?

The term “social networking” for me conjures up images of upwardly mobile men and women working parties and social gatherings, handing out and collecting business cards, planning future meetings, making contacts, schmoozing amid cocktails in order to widen a valuable (often invisible) web of people who may at some point have some of the same interests and be mutually beneficial to each other.

While that “web” may still be unseen in some ways, social networking in Web 2.0 makes many of those connections much more visible than before. I’ve been on Facebook for about a year and a half now. I’ve watched and been involved in renewing connections with friends, former business associates and colleagues, and grown new friendships with former acquaintances. People don’t have to ask for my friend’s e-mail address if they can simply send them a message after finding them in my list of friend’s on Facebook. The last two concerts I attended were almost exclusively planned through Facebook contacts. In fact, the last band I saw only got back together in response to a “Reunite…” Facebook group devoted to getting the musicians back together (Reunite the Watchmen is now my favourite group on Facebook, because it has positively impacted on my life).

In my former life when I wrote about music on a regular basis, MySpace was the main social networking site for maintaining and gaining contact with artists and other music industry people. If I got a query about interviewing an artist or reviewing an album, often it would be through MySpace, where instantly I could listen to the relevant musical selection and decide whether it would be a suitable assignment for myself. In fact, Myspace can accept a lot of the responsibility for the idea that today anyone purporting to be a musical artist can now be heard everywhere at any time.

So although I had in fact been using social networking sites for my own purposes for some time, I had until recently not considered possible educational uses for the same electronic spaces. How could we use sites that seemed centred on entertainment or social purposes to help learners further their education?

It seems that many have already come up with a number of ideas in this area, including rationales for doing so. First, it’s clear that social networking sites of one sort or the other are here to stay, and students will utilize them for their own reasons. In an article entitled Scaffolding the New Social Literacies, Stephen Abram points out that not only have MytSpace and FaceBook become prominent in learners’ lives, younger kids have flocked to sites like webkinz.com and clubpenguin.com. Abrams goes on to ask an important question:

“By creating safe places where you need letters from your teacher to get online, or protecting kids by narrowing the rules, can kids ever develop the critical thinking about their identity and privacy that will be essential for success in their future?”
(http://www.sirsidynix.com/Resources/Pdfs/Company/Abram/MMIS_23.pdf)

Let’s think about this for a minute. Will learners build their own skills in maintaining privacy and security if educators disallow social networking sites in schools? Will the majority of students somehow extend their own knowledge in these areas without any guidance from teachers? I have seen no evidence that the hoped-for result will magically appear. Abrams suggests that, just like we scaffold personal knowledge of our community and our world starting in elementary school, we should scaffold tools for students to use in social networking situations right from the beginning. Makes sense to me.

If we are to be honest, social networking sites are a great example of a Web 2.0 tool that young people have already embraced; more mature lifelong learners could probably learn a lot from our students in this area. One of my students last year did an amazing presentation about her blog, which was hosted on Livejournal. If we were to look at Facebook sites as speaking directly about our students’ interests, hopes and desires, wouldn’t we be gaining a much stronger rapport with our customers/clients?

As Jason Johnson stated in his article The Case for Social Networks, “At its core, the issue is not about technology at all, but about helping students understand where the public sphere ends and the private sphere begins, how to converse in those domains, and how to be part of a community”. (http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2006/1/25/the-case-for-social-networks.html) Social networking is one of those places where students are now finding their own identity, their own voice, and their own communities. As educators, it is up to us to help them on their journey, which is often about learning in its own way, instead of sticking our heads deeper into the sand (or snow, if you are in Winnipeg like me).

At the same time, there are a number of issues which many educators have to face before we can delve into social networking with our students. First of all, how many of us can access them from school? Nings seem to be one way to go in our classes. One of the best things I’ve learned in the past two weeks (courtesy of Traci Gardner) is that Ning networks can be made private and available only to invited members (http://ncteinbox.blogspot.com/2008/09/social-networking-ning-thing.html). I haven’t had enough experience with Nings to give examples, but I recently joined one and will see what could be done. At any rate, a comment posted in response to Gardner’s article has got me a little worried that nings too may be blocked in schools. Mrs. Stanford wrote:

“I am in love with my ning site for my class. However, my school district which had previously approved the site has now deemed the site inappropriate due to the site bypassing the proxy that blocks sites such as youtube.”

Ouch. Social networking may be one Web 2.0 tool that requires some strong lobbying before sites are made easily available for school use. Clearly teachers and librarians are making use of nings to make valuable connections, share resources, and extend learning communities. Just check out some of the groups connected through http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/ and you should get the idea that there is already something out there for almost everyone.

I’ll leave the last word to Stephen Abram, who wrote an appealingly eloquent introduction to his article on Scaffolding the New Social Literacies:

“OMG – reading literacy and numeracy, civic literacy and all the rest. Now we’re hearing that schools must expand the teaching of information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, critical literacy, health literacy, technacy and transliteracy. And, do it all across the curricula. Dozens of types of literacy are discussed on websites and Wikipedia. How can we possibly keep up with another one?”

Abram goes on to explain that what he calls “online social literacy” is essential because young people have already embraced social networking, many at an amazingly early age. How can we keep up with another type of literacy? Perhaps the questions should really be, How can we afford not to do so?

Blog 7 - VoiceThread and where it could take us

My mission this week was to explore a multimedia sharing site. Before I headed over to VoiceThread, I checked out a few sites extolling the virtues and explaining the uses of same site. VoiceThread seems like a mixture of a number of the Web 2.0 tools we’ve been exploring- blogs, podcasting, YouTube & TeacherTube, photosharing sites, and so on. The possibilities are almost inexhaustible, at least if it isn’t blocked by your school division (I haven’t checked yet if it is available in mine).

If you haven’t seen VoiceThread in use, the following video gives a pretty good example of some of the things you can do with it.



above from http://web2bookmarking.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-on-voicethread.html

Although the video shown above may not automatically suggest myriad educational uses to viewers, hopefully everyone can see that VoiceThread can be a greatly interactive Web 2.0 tool.

Brenda Dyck has written a nicely concise piece of writing on educational possibilities of VoiceThread, which you can read in its entirety here. Dyck makes a good point that student voice as proposed by Dewey is given a great opportunity in this kind of student work and collaboration. For me, Dyck’s suggestion that VoiceThread allows for differentiation is also a strong one; students can speak, listen, view, type comments, and draw with the doodler all in one spot. The kind of integration that lets so many skills, strategies and learning styles all come into play at once seems like a forward move for the technology-driven world we are inheriting.

The kind of student engagement many of us work for daily may have found a friend here with this kind of multimedia application. It would seem hard not to be engaged; using VoiceThread almost seems like play, doesn’t it? You can doodle on a picture, zoom in and out at will to look closer or get the big picture, listen to range of voices (and replay them if you need to). Here’s a young student’s VoiceThread on global warming and its effect on polar bears.



As you can see and hear, the girl who created the presentation has received comments from a far-flung oceanographer, a teacher abroad, friends, family members, and of course many other young people. What’s interesting to me on this site is that there are fruitful comments and silly ones; clearly some people are taking it seriously and some are not, and at leas one is critical. Putting one’s work out there, even if you are a young person, seems to entail being prepared for all kinds of feedback. But that’s what’s good about VoiceThread, postings are meant to be viewed and commented upon by others. The learning process does not stop at creation of a product, it continues through comments made by others (who are not necessarily teachers). Voicethread allows for a unique way of garnering reaction from anywhere and allows commenters to respond in numerous ways. Students may be able to learn something about accepting criticism and disregarding irrelevant comments.

I had some problems using Voicethread myself. I could upload pictures, doodle on them and type comments, but could not record my oral comments. My mic worked fine for other applications such as Audacity, and I worked through VoiceThread’s Help for audio, but I was still unable to record my voice for commenting purposes. Clearly I have a lot more to learn before I can use VoiceThread in the classroom. Here’s what I was working on, please imagine my best deejay voice extolling the virtues of Halloween safety with my sons as examples as you check it out.




http://voicethread.com/share/240744/

While browsing others’ VoiceThreads, I found that others’ comments were also not always audible. Sometimes they were just recorded too quietly for me to make out what they were saying, but sometimes I could not hear anything. Sound on that people had attached to videos was clear, but comments were often not audible. I wonder if anyone else has been dealing with the same problems as I have.

Nevertheless, once I get past my technical problems I think there could be a pretty wide range of uses. First, as mentioned previously, the use of VoiceThreads generally could be fantastic for student voice, student engagement, and differentiated learning. I believe that the ease of visual uploading, doodling and typing comments for almost instant response is more in tune with student expectations these days, with texting and IM occupying more and more of students’ time.

For some of my students who are reluctant to collaborate in small or large group settings, VoiceThread could allow them to voice their comments without that fear of speaking with a whole class watching and listening. I have seen this work when using PhotoStory in the past; students had a lot of fun recording their voice even when they were scared witless by the idea of speaking out loud in class. If this kind of multimedia application were used consistently, especially in more than one course, some students may gain more confidence in their own voice. In the same vein, some young learners may be more comfortable speaking into a mic than to a teacher, so VoiceThread may be able to allow educators one more way for students to show evidence of learning.

One of the easiest ways to get students involved in this sort of collaborative work is to let them browse and comment and then look at some of those threads classmates responded to. Once I iron out my kinks with VoiceThread, that’s where I will start; direct them to some initial threads to get them started, let them browse, then let the sharing and commenting on other classmates’ work. It may take me some time, but I will master VoiceThread; then the fun will begin.

Wiki, Let's Go.

As a classroom teacher that has watched students rapidly move towards hitting Google and then Wikipedia for all of their needs, wikis occupy an interesting place in recent student technology usage; almost all of my students have used wikis, but few (if any) have had the opportunity to utilize a wiki in a collaborative sense. Like my students, I haven’t had the chance to participate in wiki-ing (would that be the correct verb?). What have we been missing out on? I searched for benefits of wikis and came up with some interesting information. In his blog entitled The Real-world Problem With Wikis (http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=781), Kevin Lim offers the following brief pros and cons of wikis:

Problems:Quality issues (i.e. accuracy and reliability of information)
- Real-world conflicts on what or which version should get published
Benefits:
Speed: Live, real-time publishing
Relatively cheap to maintain
Relatively easy to use
Collaborative, democratic knowledge sharing
Grassroots empowerment

In a very basic way, Lim has summed up what I believe should be clear to many educators; there is really only one reason to “stand against” wikis (Lim’s problems, to me, are related and can be considered to be the same), the issue of reliability and accuracy. From an educational point of view, this may be a moot point (more on this idea to follow) or even a learning opportunity. In Andy Carvin’s article called Turning Wikipedia into an Asset for Schools (http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/07/turning_wikiped.html), he suggests that students should collaborate to choose a topic, check facts, correct mistakes, and cite sources on Wikipedia entries:

“Get enough classrooms doing this, you kill several birds with one stone: Wikipedia's information gets better, students help give back to the Net by improving the accuracy of an important online resource, and teachers have a way to make lemons into lemonade, turning Wikipedia from a questionable information source to a powerful tool for information literacy.”

In other words, if you’re not using Wikipedia as a primary source but as a learning tool, Wikipedia could be amazingly educational and empowering. In Blogs, Wikis. Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Richardson informs readers that if “we begin to look at Wikipedia as another opportunity for our students to contribute what they learn and know to a larger audience, I think we can begin to appreciate it for the really incredible site that it is.” Both Richardson and Carvin make a powerful point that goes to the core of working toward making Web 2.0 tools work for us; if a potential weak element of Wikipedia, its openness, can be flipped to become a positive, what could be better?

But it may be that many of us are missing the point of wikis because we are fixated on Wikipedia, which is the only wiki we are familiar with. Even if Wikipedia is associated with problems of accuracy and reliability, it should not preclude us from using student- or class-created wikis to create learner-driven information.

The idea that wikis are not necessarily about creating simply finished products, but can continue to grow (be edited, added onto, and so on) should allow us to see a web tool as a living entity as opposed to one that is completed and then forgotten. I plan to create a wiki for two of my English classes. The wiki will require students to add pages based on issues arising from the novel April Raintree and the film Where the Spirit Lives. Students will not only work on their own pages but also ultimately read, add, edit, and evaluate others’ pages. So far, I’m thinking about creating one for each class, then having students edit each other’s work. Alternately, I may use the wikis with new students the next time I teach the course. If everything works as planned, we will be able to move towards the ideals Richardson has proposed:

“In using wikis, students are not only learning to publish content; they are also learning how to develop and use all sorts of collaborative skills, negotiating with others to agree on correctness, meaning, relevance, and more. In essence, students begin to teach each other.” (65)

Unfortunately, I cannot fit in the required time to start our wikis before this blog post is due. I did create the wiki and folders for my two classes using pbwiki.com. Not only was it ultra-simple and quick, I also received the following email:

Hi there,
It's Kristine from the PBwiki team, and today I'm going to share some of the best tips for preparing your wiki for your students.
Log into your wiki to follow along. Go to My.PBwiki.comand chose aprilraintree.
Give Students Clear InstructionsTo make sure your students understand how to engage with this new online resources make sure you post clear directions om the front page.
Add student assignments and instructions on the front page.
Treat your wiki front page as a short introduction with links to other pages.
Type a few bullet points and create links to the pages (to link, edit a page, select the text, and click "Insert Link").
If you have handouts, create a page called "Handouts" and upload the files there. Next, use a creative activity to engage your students on your wiki. Here are three examples:
Individual pages- Ask each student to create a wiki page, posting information about their interests and what they hope to learn from the class. Be sure to comment on the pages, and engage them by referencing their personal interests in discussions. Use this as an easy icebreaker to have students get to know each other.
Online spelling list – Create a page titled ‘Spelling’ and post your spelling list. Ask students to post the definition or upload a corresponding image.
Class notes - Each week assign one student to write up the class notes, including important points and class discussion. Be sure to comment on the notes, and add additional insight from the lesson.
For more ideas see how other educators have used wikis in their classroom. Check out our public directory of Educational wikis.
Thanks!
KristineThe PBwiki Team

It’s clear that pbwiki.com is actively working to recruit and retain educational wikis if messages such as these are being sent to people like me. Since I hadn’t done much on the wiki, I took the advice I was given and started a page (and a folder) for handouts; again, it was quick and simple. Although I am not getting my students involved in the project yet, I like the fact that pbwiki has a dedicated section that is committed to helping wiki rookie teachers such as myself.

I also signed up for a wikispaces account to see what that service had to offer; after all, librarywiki said that pbwiki, wikispaces, and wetpaint were the most popular open source wikis. Wikispaces also seems to have made an effort to make educational wikis easy and accessible for teachers and students. I also took a look at wetpaint, but it seemed a little too slick; I was surprised that Lee Lefever does an ad for wetpaint on the home page , and when I clicked on “popular wetpaint sites”, what I saw seemed to be advertisements for television shows or upcoming movies.

I thought I had read that you need to have e-mail addresses to add users to edit pbwikis, but you can create usernames and passwords easily. Changing the look of a site was easy on pbwiki, but wikispaces kept giving me the message “Space settings updated – There was a problem uploading the file”. Wikispaces seems like it is set up to make your site visually attractive, with its easy-looking directions on how to change your wikis logo, content, theme, and so on, whereas on pbwiki you have to upgrade to premium to change your logo, for example. So far, they both seem relatively easy to start up, but if my students and I can’t make the site actually look appealing, it might be a little bit harder to initially get them engaged. Clearly I’ve still got work to do before I can bring it to my students, but that’s okay because we’re not there yet anyway. Wish my students and I happy wiki-ing.

In search of virtual school libraries

Virtual School Libraries – to some readers of this blog, VSL is probably a familiar term. Since I am not a librarian yet, Virtual School Libraries are something I have actually never considered. Yet a search for virtual + library gave me more than twelve million results!

The first place I found showed me how much catching up I had to do for this week’s blog. Margaret Butterworth wrote “The Concept of the Virtual School Library” in 1992, so I’m only around 15 years behind her, right? http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/e6/83.pdf
Yet I find that so much seems to have changed since Butterworth presented her paper at Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship. Highspeed internet access is taken for granted by many, and the ability to download data, especially video and audio, is so much greater than it was 16 years ago, so to me it seems that many of the ideas Butterworth presented have now become now reality.

I next decided to try to get a definition for Virtual School Libraries or at least virtual libraries. Wikipedia tells me that virtual library is an older term for what is now known as digital library, but the entry also states that a digital library is a “type of information retrieval system” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_library). Since I’m still figuring out what a virtual school library is or could be, I’m not sure that the term “information retrieval system” encompasses the whole concept. At any rate, according to Wikipedia a digital library is listed as having the following assets (as opposed to traditional physical libraries):

· No physical boundary. The user of a digital library need not to go to the library physically; people from all over the world can gain access to the same information, as long as an Internet connection is available.
· Round the clock availability. A major advantage of digital libraries is that people can gain access to the information at any time, night or day.
· Multiple access. The same resources can be used simultaneously by a number of institutions and patrons
· Information retrieval. The user is able to use any search term (word, phrase, title, name, subject) to search the entire collection. Digital libraries can provide very user-friendly interfaces, giving clickable access to its resources.
· Preservation and conservation.Digitization is not a long-term preservation solution for physical collections, but does succeed in providing access copies for materials that would otherwise fall to degradation from repeated use. Digitized collections and born-digital objects pose many preservation and conservation concerns that analog materials do not. Please see the following "Problems" section of this page for examples.
· Space. Whereas traditional libraries are limited by storage space, digital libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain them and media storage technologies are more affordable than ever before.
· Added value. Certain characteristics of objects, primarily the quality of images, may be improved. Digitization can enhance legibility and remove visible flaws such as stains and discoloration.

Okay, so now I’ve learned that a digital library is expected to do more than information retrieval. I next tried to find a good example of a digital or virtual library. A plethora of elementary and middle school libraries popped up, but I was still looking at the big picture, so I continued my search. Moving on, I found a reference to the European Library, which again is referred to as a digital library and not necessarily a virtual library. However, the information I discovered amazed me nonetheless. “The European Library is an Internet service that offers access to the resources of 47 European national libraries. The resources, both digital and non-digital, include books, magazines, journals, audio recordings and other material,” according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_European_Library). A person can access resources from 47 libraries from one site? Holy cats! Furthermore, the plan for the future is to provide access to not only libraries but “all major digital heritage holders” (including museums and other archives) in Europe! The provisional launch date for the European Digital Library, which will be known as Europeana, is November 2008. It sounds to me like the future has arrived.

So from Europeana you will be able to, for example, listen to Albert Einstein explain his theory of relativity, look at original manuscripts written by Cervantes, or peruse the Preview to a Grand Piano by Chopin. From a historical point of view, this is great news for a digital rookie like me; anyone can look at artifacts, writing, or pieces of art that previously we may never be able to physically come near. Also, the European Library/European Digital Library is hiring! Who wants to join?

Subsequently, I looked deeper into virtual libraries, starting with the WWW Virtual Library (http://vlib.org/admin/AboutVL). Here I was told:
“The WWW Virtual Library (VL) is the oldest catalogue of the Web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of HTML and of the Web itself, in 1991 at CERN in Geneva. Unlike commercial catalogues, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert; even though it isn't the biggest index of the Web, the VL pages are widely recognised as being amongst the highest-quality guides to particular sections of the Web.”

A quick scan of what the WWW Virtual Library had to offer led me to move on; for example, the section on Education had been “decomissioned” and no longer existed.
At this point I felt it was time to put my understanding of the bigger picture (what a virtual school library is and why it is important) on the backburner and go directly to some examples, because the big picture was still seeming too fuzzy. I went to http://www.virtualschoollibrary.org/, where I was given the following informational blurb:

"The Virtual School Library will strive to serve the literary and research/information literacy needs of its visitors, particularly those without access to a professionally staffed school library. Information literacy is defined by the National Forum on Information Literacy as the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand."


The Virtual School Library looks like a site mostly dedicated to helping elementary-age students find books or do research. It contains many links and can send a viewer to many library-related sites, but of course it doesn’t have a comprehensive database such as the European Library site. But is it a virtual school library as envisioned by Butterworth?It’s not necessarily a one-stop spot for reading, researching, and collaborating.
At this point, I’m still vague on what a virtual school library should do and what a virtual school librarian should do. Discovering an article entitled “The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time has Passed” made me feel even more behind. But then the author of that piece of writing, James J. O'Donnell, gave me this morsel: “The ‘virtual library’ is a dream that many share, something many have imagined but none has seen.” (http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/virtual.html) Okay, at last I can feel a little less ignorant. O’Donnell goes on to trace the idea of a virtual library back to the second century BC, which of course led me to believe I am even farther behind in this route of discovery that I hoped, but I soldiered on. O’Donnell goes on to tell readers:

“In an information waterfall, the virtual library that tells us everything and sweeps us off our feet with a storm of data will not be highly prized. The librarian will have to be a more active participant in staving off infochaos. If the traditional librarian has been conceived as a figure at home in the discreet silences and cautious dealings of a Henry James novel, now perhaps the right models will be found in James Fennimore Cooper or the Star Wars films: something between Natty Bumppo the 'Pathfinder' and the Jedi knight will be the best mascot for a library school.”

Wow, there’s an interesting image for us. More importantly, the image of a librarian sternly shushing students may fade away as we forge the way like Jedi knights through Web 2.0. But the question remains for me, is this idea still in the future or is it here and now?

One virtual school library I was impressed with was the Springfield Township Virtual Library (http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/). The databases by subject area alone looks like a wealth of student/teacher information, and the online reference catalogs area also appear well done. At the same time, both of these sections of the virtual library could also be daunting for a newcomer – here’s where the Jedi knight librarian wades in and saves the day. A simpler version of a virtual school library is the Virtual Middle School Library, which of course makes sense since it is formatted for use by middle school students instead of high school students. How do they compare otherwise? They both send viewers to sites for resources (students, teachers, parents), both have subject directories, both can help you find magazine and journal articles, and they’re both available all day, every day (I wish my local public library was open all the time). Is this the kind of virtual library I’m looking for? More importantly, are these the kinds of virtual libraries students are looking for?

An article I found about student opinions on library use (Pew Study: Students Prefer 'Virtual Library') revealed that many students are using the Internet as their library already. That idea doesn’t seem new to me, but the powerful idea that librarians can help students learn more efficiently and more enjoyably through a virtual school library is what is slowly dawning on me. The possibilities seem almost endless, but a few of the things librarians who create their virtual libraries could do are:
· ensure that students aren’t directly sent to sites that are filtered in the school, frustrating everyone.
· help students and teachers use some of the catalogs, databases and reference sources that may seem unwieldy to utilize.
· assist in setting up collaborative learning options using Web 2.0 applications.
· connect virtual library clients to amazing new sites like the European Library.
· Develop virtual libraries that are user-driven, so that students, teachers and parents find them user-friendly and gravitate toward them instead of always heading for Google and Wikipedia.

I think I’ve finally learned what a virtual school library is, or at least what I think it should be – just see the list above.

First REAL podcast

Podcasts and the art of sound

“Podcasting is one of the most exciting and wonderfully disruptive technologies to emerge in recent history.”

The quote above, from the Podcasting in Education site (http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~magps/boylit/Podcasting%20in%20Education), is a thought-provoking one for me (it is not directly attributed, but it seems to be from the webmaster Shaun Else). “Wonderfully disruptive”, that’s an interesting phrase; what does it mean? The term makes me think that podcasting is disrupting old ways of education, old ways of listening, old ways of being entertained, and/or old ways of learning. What does it mean to Else? Well, he has specific reasons for using podcasting in the classroom, such as increasing literacy:

“As the Ministry of Education document "Me Read? No Way!" suggest some of this gap may be an expression of lack of interest, and/or lack of appropriate strategies used by teachers. I have proposed the use of podcasting in the classroom to elevate interest in literacy among boys, if not all students. Based on approval from my administration, I submitted an application/proposal for a grant from the "Halton Learning Foundation" to fund the hardware needed to begin using the podcasting in Maple Groves for the 2006/7 year. We started Radio Maple Grove as a small club and through use in class, and I have been promoting it's use as a class tool/strategy with staff. Radio Maple Grove is a place where audio about books, speeches, and other school happenings are showcased.”
(http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~magps/boylit/Podcasting%20in%20Education)
To me, that quote leads me to believe that podcasting is less disruptive than forward-thinking. Using podcasts as a new way to get students more involved in reading, writing, and communicating makes sense in today’s world. Not only can students, teachers and other collaborators benefit from online broadcasting; parents can as well. Parents can listen to what their children are doing while jogging, riding a bus, as they’re driving…the possibilities are far-flung. For busy parents such as myself who don’t always get the opportunity to celebrate their kids’ successes, having the flexibility to listen when time permits, podcasting could be a huge boon.
There are some other implications for educational uses of podcasting. One big plus for podcasting as opposed to using videosharing sites such as YouTube is that the impetus for blocking sites is lessened; I suppose the possibility of hearing questionable content is less than viewing and listening to questionable content. Consequently, the chances of more students and teachers being able to use podcasting to a greater degree are much higher than YouTube. Also, without the pressure of creating visually stunning or highly entertaining images, students can focus more deeply on speaking more effectively and hooking people’s attention with sound (incidentally, Daniel J. Schmit has called the last two points unique features of using podcasting effectively in the classroom – see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/technology/techspecial2/25podcast.html?_r=2&oref=slogin ). For English teachers like myself, gaining a whole new world of prospects for speaking and listening is like finding a pot of gold.

Perhaps at this point I should admit that my knowledge and appreciation of podcasting prior to recent personal research of amateur internet-distributed radio was sorely lacking. I do own an iPod and I have downloaded a few podcasts over the last couple of years, but I had no idea that it had become such a phenomenon. The Education Podcast Network lists 154 podcasts relating to English Language Arts alone (see: http://epnweb.org/index.php?request_id=39&openpod=4#anchor4)! Well. What else have I been missing?
So after scolding myself for being so backwards, I dove into creating my first podcast. After downloading Audacity, I had a goofy time with my new headset microphone - I still haven't figured it all out yet. At any rate, I managed to record a few seconds of an introduction. Unfortunately, podOmatic was undergoing site maintenance when I began to upload. Aargh! Finally I was allowed to finish uploading. My first test worked, but even after a few tries, I couldn’t get a Flickr RSS feed to hook up with my podcast when viewed/listened on my blog. The images worked fine when viewed on podOmatic, but went to black when watching and listening from the blog.
I’ve been trying to upload a “Real” podcast but podOmatic keeps giving me an “Internal Server Error” message. I really wanted to delete my earlier tiny test podcasts and insert a real one, but technology is refusing to be my friend right now. I’ll try again later, sometimes friends just need some time alone.

Social Bookmarking and flying through tag clouds

Okay, it was time to delve further into the powerful possibilities of sharing and learning via social bookmarking.

So I registered for Delicious and instantly made a big mistake, which was importing all favourites from my computer into bookmarks. Then I spent an inordinate amount of time deleting all of those of my various family members, those I didn’t think I would be returning to very often at all, and those I didn’t want others to see. I’ve just started to wrap my head around the idea that unless I specify otherwise, anyone can see what I’ve been looking at: I don’t think you need to know which fantasy hockey sites I’ve perused or which obscure music portals I’ve accessed, do you?
One of the next things I tried was checking out a tag cloud for popular tags, choosing social networking to see what could give me more information about bookmarking (which I added as another tag to narrow the search). Unfortunately, the first ones that popped up looked more like advertisements or promotional materials than useful sites.

But one site, D-Lib Magazine (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html), has published an article called Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Review (I found it through Delicious). This site offered some interesting insights which now seem obvious to me, such as the similarities between Delicious and Flickr: both are popular in part because of their sharing capabilities. It’s simple, easy and quick to connect with people, links and images. FFFFOUND! is another site that specializes in socially bookmarking images (http://ffffound.com/).

At any rate, the important point is that we don’t have to just look at any site Google sends us to, now we can choose from recommendations from others without even having to ask for them. In fact, we don’t need to always forward links to others if they are already a contact on Delicious, because they can check out our bookmarks whenever they like. The D-Lib Article also included an interesting point about how views about learning, reading and writing are changing. In the old days, we couldn’t necessarily share our sources – we didn’t all have the same books or journals; all we could do was cite our references.

“Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference?” (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html)

Of course, one of the drawbacks of social networking as I have seen so far is the problem of social networkers using different tags for the same links. If those we are sharing with don’t use same tags, the system falls apart and we revert to searching, skimming and scanning. The writers of the D-Lib magazine article think that there are ways to improve upon this problem, but it hasn’t happened yet:

"Anecdotal evidence (see Jon Udell's screencast on del.icio.us [23]) supports the view that there is a natural tendency towards the convergence of tags. Strategies to facilitate this development are also possible. In a blog entry entitled 'Folksonomies: How we can improve the tags' [24], Lars Pind has suggested various possibilities including the following: a) 'suggest tags for me', b) 'find synonyms automatically', c) 'help me use the same tags others use', d) 'infer hierarchy from the tags', and e) 'make it easy to adjust tags on old content'. Currently only option e) appears to be in common use, presumably because it is the easiest to implement. (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html)

I think the possibilities put forth by Pind above would be very helpful for myself as well as for students. At http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking I learned that some "bookmarking sites allow members to rank the site’s usefulness as well.” On Delicious you can see how many other people have bookmarked sites but I haven't found rankings I'd like to see yet.

Another bookmarking site I’ve started to check out is Digg.



As I understand it, Digg essentially lets a user submit sites they think are good. According to the site, “Digg is democratizing digital media. As a user, you participate in determining all site content by discovering, selecting, sharing, and discussing the news, videos, and podcasts that appeal to you.” (http://digg.com/how) I can see how you could build a network through which fruitful collaboration could be gained, so far I don’t see it as being as useful as Delicious. One of the simple tests I’ve started using to check out a new site such as this one is to search for a really obscure musical artist who happens to be one of my favourites (his name is Robyn Hitchcock). Delicious came up with 180 results, Digg none. Clearly this is not a scientific test or a breaking point in whether or not I use the site, but Delicious seems more useful at this point anyway.

Stumbleupon is another site I had heard of but never tried (http://www.stumbleupon.com/tag/stumbleuopn/). Like Digg, this site works on users rating other sites, but it also seems to be more of a bookmarking site as well. Essentially, you can filter by tags, look at another user’s rating of a site, rate it yourself, and see some other recommendations based on Stumbleupon’s search engine all on the same page. It also passed my Robyn Hitchcock test, but so far the site still seems like one built for specified surfing more than a true social bookmarking, sharing, collaborative site like Delicious. Both Digg and Stumbleupon are colourful, graphically pleasing sites that might be realy appealing to those younger than I or anyone who needs visual stimulation. Delicious is aesthetically simple, which I don't mind, but I think Digg and Stumbleupon are going to be popular with students beacuse of their visual appeal and their thumbs up/thumbs down rating schemes.

The obvious uses of bookmarking sites like Delicious are ones I should be able to use right away with my students. I don’t have to give them a bunch of urls or links if I can just show them bookmarks. But the real collaboration will be when they bookmark sites they’ve found and share them. I will easily be able to see which ones they deem worthy of sharing, so I’ll be able to find out some good information about their ability to evaluate websites (and I can do this on an individual and class basis). As long as we’re using the same tags, we’ll be sailing, and many of us will be able to access our bookmarks from home. This aspect of teacher/class collaboration is what excites me the most, because student ownership, authority and confidence are definitely areas I need to foster in my classes.

Furthermore, I can see some eye-opening experiences could be gained by working with classes from other schools. Once students start to see that they’re adding to a knowledge base outside of their own school, the exhilaration I’m feeling with the possibilities of social bookmarking, sharing and collaborating now will hopefully be passed on to them.

TeacherTube hits Narcisse snake dens

I uploaded a video of a cool young learner becoming comfortable with a reptile. It is not too educational, so I will probably remove it later; I just wanted to see if I could do it, and it was simple as pie.

Blog #2 - Video sharing sites

“The Devil doesn't even torture the souls of the damned anymore, he just sits around watching funny YouTube videos all day.”

– retrieved from Wikiquotes, quoted from Questionable Content , a webcomic written and drawn by Jeph Jacques (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Questionable_Content)



My mission was to explore video sharing sites to learn more about them and determine how they could be utilized in educational capacities. I followed the Trailfire to the Wikipedia entry on YouTube (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube). The first surprise I received was realizing that YouTube only started 3 ½ years ago. Holy cats, it sure didn’t take long for it to become a phenomenon. My impression of YouTube to date has been that it was wonderful place if you want to catch a funny bit from some television show you missed, see a music video that never seems to show up on the tube, or watch some amateur video silliness. Of course, the Wikipedia entry also informs readers potential that YouTube uploaders are told:

Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. The Copyright Tips page and the Community Guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone else's copyright.

It is clear that many YouTube users are simply ignoring the warning. People are quickly and easily uploading just about anything they want to show or see with very little, if any, thought given to copyright or property law. It may be that Web addicts are cheering a form of popular “ownership” wherin uploaders do what they want. I have heard that YouTube administrators will remove content that is deemed obscene or an obvious copyright infringement, but the sheer volume of content makes speedy improper video removal difficult. So improper or inappropriate content may invariably be a part of YouTube unless some drastic changes are made (such as making the ease of uploading much more rigourous, demanding proof of ownership, and so on).
The end result is YouTube’s content is seemingly only semi-regulated.

From an educational standpoint, teachers and students in some areas are unable to access YouTube from their school. My school division disallows entry, and I cannot unblock the site even for isolated teachable moments or mini-lessons. Of course, this also means that students who sneakily make a video of an angry teacher in class can’t share the joke in a computer lab.

At the same time, there are certainly people out there who are using YouTube for more than entertainment purposes. The next Trailfire link I followed sent me to 100 Awesome YouTube Vids for Librarians, which is a place where you can find technical, practical, and of course silly videos. Having checked out a few of the videos, I will testify that not all of the videos will be deemed awesome by everyone; when I looked at the video descriptions of the two you can watch below, I thought I was going to learn something quite different than I did. Here’s the description of the first one (which I thought would extol the virtues and different uses of different Web 2.0 tools):

Web 2.0 Tools in Libraries 2.0 — Which Ones are You Using?: This video encourages librarians to make use of MySpace and other 2.0 tools. Send in your feedback to participate in the discussion.

And here’s the video you will find if you follow the link:



The description of another video led me to believe that I would learn something ultra-important about blogging. The description reads:

Henry Madden Library, Library 2.0: Librarians who want to experiment with blogging should watch this video.

And here’s the video:



As a person who is not a librarian at this point, I did not get a lot out of this site, but some of the videos may be more useful to me in the future.

The next trailfire link zoomed me over to An anthropological introduction to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU ). I was immediately struck by the fact that the video of a young man lip-syncing to a goofy song is one that I watched (more than once!) a long time ago. As with the “Did You Know”, (watch below)



and “Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us” (see my previous blog) videos, there seems to be a growing body of visual/and or audio clips that I’m seeing referenced on numerous sites, in school staff meetings, and so on. The concept of a sharing community and being connected via the use of video from or on the Web as I look outward is also making me look inward, as well as at the people around me who are ingesting many of the same images, sounds, and ideas (hello, fellow bloggers/lurkers!). Some writers have suggested that we are reaching or have reached a state of hyperconnectivity that may not always be positive. (See http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/ for a lengthy further discussion on this topic.) I am not seeing that problem of hyperconnectivity as a problem for myself yet; I am just starting to get excited about the idea of learning and sharing “alongside” others all over our globe.

To get back to An anthropological introduction to YouTube, one of the points made by Michael Wesch about increased commercialism and increased individuality struck a chord with me. The idea of increased commercialism automatically made me think of TeacherTube, which has so many intrusive ads I was often distracted when trying to explore the site’s possible uses. Having an advertisement overlapping the bottom quarter of a video I was trying to evaluate was annoying and perplexing until I saw that you could remove it. One version of increased individuality can be seen in the number of videos on YouTube that copy, imitate, or pay homage to something else. The Free Hugs phenomenon and the Charlie Bit My Finger Again copycats shown by Wesch in his aforementioned introduction to YouTube are a couple of examples. In my search for possible educational uses for YouTube and TeacherTube, I focused on videos that tagged Shakespeare and MacBeth. There are numerous videos that could serve as an introduction to Shakespeare, an inspiration for students looking to se how they could update an act from Macbeth, and various videos that could help learners gather some background information about the Bard's life and times. If you have long class periods, the brevity of most videos means that a teacher could potentially break up a lesson with one, go back to instructing, show another one, and so on. I found Lego re-enactions of acts from Macbeth, Star Wars-like versions of the play, newly created endings, and many modern day interpretations. In fact, I found so many I haven’t had the time to view them all; I need an assistant to rate them all for me (I can’t pay, but I will share my educational richness, which is growing each day). However, I can see how TeacherTube can fit into Richardson’s idea of FOAFs connecting and sharing ideas, resources and passions. But perhaps some of the readers of this blog can tell me: How many of you would be comfortable with using use the video below in a classroom near you? How many of you would not be allowed to do so?



At this point, I can’t access video sharing sites from my school, and I find myself thinking of ways to get around that problem. Of course, I can’t (and don’t want to) do that if it goes against the intent of the school division’s policy that restricts those sites. I need to have further conversations with other educators in my division.

Whew! My blogging fingers are burning (but maybe the Trailfire is to blame). I’ll leave you with a quote from Will Richardson that I believe to be really thought-provoking:

"I say this all the time, but I truly believe that filters make our kids less safe. They step off the bus into unfiltered worlds with no context for making good decisions about the stuff coming at them. It’s a huge problem. But on some levels, the bigger problem is what we are doing to our teachers. It insults the profession to not at the very least provide desktop overrides for teachers when they bump up against a filtered site." – Will Richardson, on his blog from September 27 (see http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/my-flickr-conundrum/ from http://weblogg-ed.com/ )

Jigzone.com lets you make a puzzle out of your photo

I'm trying out more photosharing/manipulating sites; Jigzone.com lets you make puzzles quickly and simply, it took less than two minutes. It's fun. Just click to mix and solve.

Online text, how the Web works, and how formatting developed

Here's a clip I found on YouTube called “Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us”, nteresting submission mixing aesthetics, concepts, simpler ideas, and basic information about how the Web works (especially online text). It could be part of a Media Literacy unit. I watched a Middle Years student of mine teach us how to use basic HTML last year; this video would have furthered a fruitful class discussion afterward.

Technology problems in my school division

I have just found that both Youtube and Flickr are blocked in all schools in my division. Not good. I'm going to look for other options that may give me and students some of the same tools.

Shakespeare's Globe

Shakespeare's Globe
Originally uploaded by Kieran Lynam

All right, here's my attempt at beginning a collection of photos to use when I teach Shakespeare next month. I'm thinking of using Flickr somehow in an introduction, perhaps getting students to share and/or annotate them. Any other bright ideas out there, I'd love to hear them.

monty

monty
Originally uploaded by chris the teacher

Okay, here's one more try at linking my Flickr photo to my blog.

Blog Post 1: Photo sharing sites

Wow, the possibilities of uses of sites such as Flickr could be pretty far-ranging. Sharing community or school photos around the world, ge0-tagging photos with maps - these seem to be some obvious choices. geography and history are obvious courses for this. Will Richardson rattles off four questions in his chapter on Flickr )for example:What if you could invite other people from around the globe to have discussions about those images? What if you and your students could annotate them with your own descitpions and observations?) that really broadened my outlook about how using an image-sharing site could be educational. From my point of view, even things like a relatively simple gallery walk could be so much more collaborative, with each student commenting on a different picture thy had chosen to work with. Also, celebrating community, a part of my curriculum that welcomes more options, could definitely benefit from Flickr. Flickr's Creative Commons area is great, a fine tool to ensure students are not using images without permission and give them a place to search securely yet freely.
However, I tried to follow some of the "simple" directions and was less than successful. I don't think I'm the only one, see http://jacquiesgreatdigitaladventure.blogspot.com/ - but the second try worked for this perservering blogger. I created a slideshow and put it on my blog easy enough, but some other applications fell with a resounding thud. I still have questions I haven't fully answered: How do you geotag on Flickr? How do you move to a private space in Flickr as Richardson suggests?

Here's a short video for all of you teacher-librarians and other interested parties:

First Blog

As late as I am to this blogging party, I am going to prove to my dogs that an old one can learn new tricks. All you see (and will see in the future) on this page comes courtesy of my work for the Teacher-Librarian Distance Learning course at the University of Alberta.
I chose to use Blogger because it was suggested by author Will Richardson in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts. Richardson recommends Blogger because it’s free, it’s easy to use, and many teachers have used it with students; the latter point is essential, because I aim to find a wealth of educational applications as I go through a process of sprouting from technological infancy to a techno-toddler (and then teenager!) in a relatively short period. Also, I suspected many of my fellow students in this course might go with Blogger and I might be able to discuss the pros and cons of using it, share some ideas, and learn more than I might if I went with a different one.
As it turns out, I found it quite easy to follow other colleagues sites and see who was following mine. For some reason I had problems uploading photos, receiving “corrupted file” messages. At any rate, I have now found the process of actually posting a blog is simple, as is editing a submitted post. These are, for me, the imperatives, because any of my students should be able to participate; looks good so far.