Social networking... education's friend or foe?



"Life is partly what we make it,

and partly what is made by the friends whom we choose."



Photograph courtesy Flickr: Gwennypics

Tennessee Williams from thinkexist.com



I suspect that when Tennessee Williams coined this phrase, he wasn't thinking about the World Wide Web.  After all, Williams died in 1983.

Just the same, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from his words, whether we place them in the context of the real or virtual world. 

Let's take a closer look...

Social networking... t'week'ed for me!

By definition, social networking is "an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities"(Wikipedia).

Immediately, I would happen to guess that most people associate the massive social network, Facebook, when they hear the words "social network".  After all, doesn't everyone have a Facebook account?! Currently over 500 million Facebook accounts exist, in 70 languages. (http://www.connectsafely.org/pdfs/fbparents.pdf).  Even the Queen of England launched a British Monarchy Facebook account on November 8th! Now, who requires further proof that social networking is huge! (By the way, there is also a Royal Channel YouTube channel.)

As for me, I have had my own Facebook page (Yvonne Denomy) for sometime.  I will admit that I was slow to start.  Like many of my web explorations, my Facebook account sat virtually unused.  Remnants of my inactivity still haunt my profile (no hobbies, education, work etc. listed).  I never noticed this before... I think I'll add some info there.  But truthfully, it has only been this year when I started to use my Facebook page more. My reluctance wasn't about safety or privacy, but more feeling that Facebook was a place for teens.  Interstingly, according to Richardson... the fastest growing population joining Facebook is the over-55 crowd (p.132)!  Perhaps due to the course requirements (and feeling kind of young being much, much younger than 55... wait is my age on my Facebook profile?)... or maybe the fact that I am home full time again, I have been participating in social networking a lot more than in the past. I would say that I am even enjoying the participation.  Proof: I have started to update my status every week or so... or when something happens. I even posted a video from my last week's blog for feedback.   On a personal level, I don't worry about my exposure on this site. I feel I have enough sense to monitor what I put on there... and I have privacy settings that limit my account to 'friends only'. 

http://www.connectsafely.org/pdfs/fbparents.pdf

But as a parent of a teenager, Facebook creates a whole new dilemna.  In last week's Twitter EdChat, the topic that emerged was social networking.  Interestingly, one of the participants shared the following Facebook for Parents brochure. I think reading this is a must read for every parent, by the way, and in my opinion, the facts will interest any user.

Being a fairly relaxed parent, I decided to really explore my son's account. I was first surprised and relieved to hear that there are automatic protections in place (I didn't know this) for teens between age 13 (minimum age for an account) and under 18.  These protections apply providing your child has been honest about his/her age.  My son had... so a little relief there. 

I viewed his profile page... I had never done that.  All was well.  I did find a few little safety and privacy settings that I wasn't comfortable with... I asked him to please change these settings so we changed them together. Likely not a huge deal, but safety is important. Certainly there is risk in any online domain.  An interesting quote from this document, "A child's psychosocial makeup and environment (for example, home and school) are better predictors of risk than any technology that the child uses" (p. 3).  I thought about this quite a lot, and have to agree. 

All the same, safety in these networks depends on your knowledge and your behaviour as the user.  I would advise anyone publishing their personal information on the web to know what you are sharing, think carefully and make decisions accordingly.

Before I head into the classroom, a few short words about other popular social networking sites.  Of course, another ever popular site is Ning. I checked it out this fall, but chose not to sign up (as this site was no longer free and I felt that with Facebook, and so many other free social networks available you have to make choices). 

One choice I have made and my favourite, LibraryThing.  I really enjoyed creating this account http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ydenomy over the summer for my Selecting Resources for Children and Young Adults course. I still look back from time to time and try to remember what I read, especially before I head to salon as my hair stylist always asks me for a new recommendation for her teen daughter, an avid reader. I find it so great to be able to go into LibrayThing and check out what I've read, or knowing that she loved the John Green books I recommended last visit, I'll see what other books John Green fans are reading before my next visit in two weeks.  I admit that I haven't added... but I am a little behind in my reading these days (after immersing into coursework this fall). 

I also recently signed up for Ping, the iTunes social networking site.  It's pretty new and I'm not entirely sure what connections I will make, but music is something I love... almost as much as books! 

By the way, why do all these Ning sites have to end in 'ing'.  In fun, my family and I invented a few more Ning sites. Here is our list:

To network with those who share my new passion... triathlon... How about "Tri-ing"?

A network for bankers: Ching-Ching

A network for cooks: Ding-ding (bad idea?)

A network for potters: Ming

A social network for violinists: String

Okay, I never said they were any good.

Social Networks... T'week'ed for education 

Not surprisingly, social networks aren't really taking off in the world of education.  After all, when it comes to school, a long standing tradition of individualism versus collaboration has taken root (I think it's changing though).  But if parents (even technologically savvy ones like me) aren't effectively teaching their child about online behaviour, who is? How are our students learning to be responsible online citizens if they aren't learning it in school? I really think that we need to begin rethinking how we view social networks, like Facebook, in education.  Take a look at this Prezi, for starters.

1st Grade Facebook on Prezi

This Prezi started me thinking about some of the great reason for connecting on Facebook.  At the same time, questions emerged for me about teaching students to use the teacher's class account.  I have to ponder this some more.  I guess for now I am wondering if there are better ways.  At the same time, I agree with this teacher that with so many parents already online, why go elsewhere?  It certainly provided some great thinking for me though, and I hope for you, too.

But we do really need to quit taking away all the technology at the door.  After all, let's not forget that the students go home and use it as soon as the bell rings. Further yet, they used it before they came to school, too, on social network sites like Webkinz and Club Penguin (my daughter's new favourite... MapleStory).

I also can't help but agree with Richardson that this is publishing!  Students are engaged in more writing than ever, thanks to social networks like Facebook.  They are 'micro-bloggers' as Richardson states.  Why not take advantage of it?  Instead, what do we do? We ban it. We take it away. We filter it out.  We let them go home and learn, on their own, to be responsible consumers and publishers.  What's the better option? I think schools need to get on board.

I recently read an article by Michelle Davis (2010), Social Networking Goes to School.  The first line... "At New Milford HIgh School in New Jersey, the school's official Facebook page keeps its 1,100 fans updated on sports events and academic achievements." Wow. This makes sense to me.  Why not have a school Facebook Fan page, for starters. Or a library page, for that matter.  What a great way to keep parents, students and family/friends updated.  My son's school still uses automated telephone calls to announce events (I guess that works, too, if you actually stay on the line).  Milford High's Principal, Eric C. Sheninger, informs the readers how he used to block every social media site out there, for students and staff, but has since changed his mind. "I'm passionate about engaging students and growing professionally, and I'm using these free tools to do it." (p. 14)

Of course, like we would expect for ourselves and our children, educators should take some caution (don't 'Friend' your students, my first advice).  Certainly though, let's find a way.  How about VoiceThread (a tool I highlighted last week), or LibraryThing.  The perks... building a global awareness, collaboration, feedback and assessment, topic expertise, and let's not forget student engagement.

Social networks: t'week'ed for professional learning

I see social networks as fantastic resources for professional learning. I had actually blogged about the idea of using Library Thing for collaborating on new curriculum resources last June.
http://theliteracylady.blogspot.com/2010/06/library-thing.html

Of course, Twitter is becoming the professional network of the new generation... stay tuned for more on this next week.

Until then... choose your friends carefully. 

Additional reference cited:
Davis, M. (2010). Social Networking Goes to School. The Education Digest, 14-19. Retrieved from http://www.eddigest.com/





Look Out, Oscars! Here I come!

Okay, maybe I won't win an Oscar, YET, but a girl can dream, right?!  Unfortunately for now I'll have to settle for the Golden Raspberry Award (aka Razzie). Learning should count for something though, don't you agree? And learn, I did. 

Check this out for starters...

Get a Voki now!

Voki, Memoov, GoAnimate, Prezi, Animoto, Jing, Mindmeister... the list goes on and on. It's not surprising that multimedia sites are growing on the web and expanding their place in the lives of students, both in and out of the classroom. Multimedia is the new writing, after all.  As Kist says, "New literacies classrooms feature daily work in multiple forms of representation " (p. 8).   Unfortunately, most classrooms still have a long way to go before they fit Kist's vision of the new literacies classroom.  And before I can get there... I have some learning to do.

Of course with so many web-based multimedia and presentation sites to explore, the challenge was keeping track of all these sites and then sharing all the information with you, the reader of my blog.  To facilitate this process, I put the WWW to work for me. Instead of putting all the details on this blog, I decided to keep a web journal of my learning on Jog the Web.  As I learned I added important comments to the Jog about the tool, its strengths and weaknesses and of course, educational extras. I hope you will enjoy all my learning... Web 2.0 Presentation and Multimedia Tools (*Please note, for ease of viewing, please right click on the link and open the JogTheWeb tour in a new window).

Multimedia and Presentation Tools: T'week'ed first for me

As you likely guessed from my Jog, I absolutely loved exploring all the tools this week. I found tools I will use for me, personally, as a graduate student in Mindmeister where I have set up a thinking map to organize my ideas, links and references for my capping paper. I created a story with Storybird to reconnect with friends.   Most of all, I found a little entertainment in creating animation videos with GoAnimate and Voki.  I even took some risk and posted this terribly, ghastly Halloween animation video on my Facebook.

GoAnimate.com: My favourite show by YDenomy

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

The highlight... My 15 year old son thought my video was "so bad that it was almost the greatest thing ever" (It's not that bad, is it? I did get some 'likes' from my friends).  Anyways, I guess it was so bad that he was actually proud of me and asked if he could post it in on his own Facebook account.  Imagine that! His friends even commented on it.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), it seems that they all agreed with him. Yes, I suppose I should be sad but it made my week!

As I posted and shared along the week (and saw the response from my son's account), I noticed something interesting. There is certainly a different level of collaboration, feedback and online participation between my generation and that of my son.  He couldn't believe that my friends didn't comment on my video in the same way as his did.  It really made me think about my own experiences in sharing and publishing online over these past two months. I understood more fully the importance of my participation in the Read/Write web. This brought me back to a quote by Will Richardson, "To truly take advantage of the Read/Write Web, we must be literate in the ways of publishing... We must teach and model the ways in which ideas and products can be brought online" (p. 149).  This is the new literacy, after all.

The Golden Apple Awards

Photograph from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eherrera/

So how do we teach and model these tools as teachers?  First of all, I would suggest you do what I did.  Take time to explore the sites for yourself! As you are exploring, ask yourself... "What worked for me, as a teacher, parent etc.? What do the students need/want to share? How much time do I want to dedicate to the task?"  Then, think about the right tool for the job.

Until then, I decided to present a few awards for myself. In making my decisions, I wanted to think about what teachers might look for in good presentation and multimedia tools so I established the following critera:

1. Ease of set-up
2. Organization
3. Differentiation
4. Engagement
5. Assessment
6. Safety

Of course, keeping with online presenting and multimedia this week, I have decided to use an online tool to share details of the critera. (Mindmeister). 

(Of course, please feel free to suggest feedback!  What do you want to see in an online multimedia or presentation tool?)

Given the criteria I have selected... the winners are:
1. For ease of set up. The winner is Wallwisher.  It will take you less than a minute or two set up your wall. Students don't need to sign in. Anyone can leave a post it!
2. For organization... the winner is StoryBird.  This site allows you to set up your account and manage your entire classroom in minutes.
3. For differentiation... the Golden Apple goes to Glogster.  I love how this site could really support students who need audio (but don't demand that everyone use it).
4. For engagement... the winner is GoAnimate.  Although I think this tool would require some thoughtful task design to allow for high-level thinking, it was fun, original and demanded some skill (but not too much).
5.  For assessment... the Golden Apple goes to none other than Voicethread.  I selected this tool because of the ease of leaving comments and providing feedback.
6. For safety... I choose Screencast-O-Matic.  NO downloads, no accounts required and no faces needed to produce an effective and quality videorecording.

Feel free to agree or disagree. Let me know... leave a comment, if you please.

For further exploration of multimedia tools and schools, be sure to visit:

• ALA Top 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning
• Accessible Enlightenment Blog
• Jane Hart's Top 100 Tools 2010
• Web 2.0 Tools for Kids

T'week'ed for Professional Development

I hope that we are all practicing what we preach! As instructional leaders, we should be modeling new ways of publishing and presenting online.  Try a Prezi, Sliderocket, or Voicethread.  Why not create an avatar for yourself and share a story in GoAnimate or publish on StoryBird.

For myself, as a staff developer, I have always tried to stay up on new tools and model them in my work with teachers.  However, this past week, I realized that I had certainly fallen behind.  Yet despite new tools, Prezi still remains my favourite.  I know I have used this tool over and over (and still love it!)  Here is an example of a Prezi used in professional development session some colleagues and I facilitated last year.

Thinking About Instruction Grade 3 on Prezi

Give Prezi a try... if you haven't already!

One new discovery for me was Glogster. A fellow student had used Glogster in her presentation this past summer and I was excited. Unfortunately, I never got around to completing my Glog until this past week (and I am thrilled with the PWIM example included in my Jog the Web tour).  For me, this type of application is perfect for the classroom.  I hadn't given it much thought, however, as a professional development tool until stumbling on this link last week.

http://mwedwardstechnology.blogspot.com/2010/04/glogster-workshop-result.html 

I loved that the teacher above had gone away from the workshop and set up a Glog depicting her understanding of Text Features.  Smart thinking!  It made me think that perhaps time at the end of a session would be well spent on completing a 'What did you take away from today?" technology application such as this.  As well, WallWisher is a great "Exit Pass" tool for providing feedback about the session (just not with large numbers of participants, I recently heard).

All in all, a great two weeks of learning.  Before I leave for the week, I want to take you to where I see the future of Multimedia, but it's already here.  My son showed me a video by one of his favourite bands, Arcade Fire, called The Wilderness Downtown.  By entering your childhood address, you are taken on a nostalgic journey through the suburbs of your own life.  Take a trip for yourself.  Think about where multimedia has already gone... and imagine the possibilities in the future.

Have a great week!

Wikis... Keys to "Working Together" in the 21st Century



 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaedli/

Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.

Henry Ford, from thinkexist.com

I don't think anyone would argue that Henry Ford got something right when he recognized the importance of "working together" to his company's success. After all, over one hundred years later the Ford Motor Company remains one of the top automakers in the world. Ford certainly didn't do it alone.

But does working together in Henry Ford's day look the same today?

I hope not!

You see, things have changed a little since 1903. 

I recently watched this TEDTalk video of Tim Berners-Lee, the MIT scientist generally credited with inventing the Internet, speak about "why" he invented it.  Listen to just these first 30 seconds...


Berners-Lee "wanted to reframe the way we use information, the way we we work together."  Did he accomplish this task?  Has the way we "use information and work together" changed since the internet came into our lives?  I hope so.

Old Ways of "Working Together"

First, let's look at the "old" way of "working together". Let's go back to 1903 when the Ford Motor Corporation was founded. I would suspect that "working together" in Ford's day was dependent on the success of the assembly line. Each person, with their own specialized job and knowledge, performing their job to the very best of their abilities, in sequenced isolation. Once every month or so, a meeting was likely held in which problems were addressed, fingers would likely be pointed, and everyone would discuss ways each other could improve their performance in an effort to improve overal quality and production. Likely one or two people helped to oversee and manage the process.

Hmm... I don't know about you but something sounds strangely familiar.

Education: The 21st Century Assembly Line?

It's a scary thought, but am I wrong?! Be honest!! "Joey" comes to me in Kindergarten where I teach him all that I know, to the best of my abilities, before he goes on to "Mrs. A" in grade 1 and "Ms. B" in grade 2 and so forth... Once a month (or perhaps once a week, if you are very lucky :)), everyone comes together in one meeting space, complains a little (or a lot), points some fingers and determines ways to "improve Joey'" before going back to their isolated work space. 

Chances are good that your school setting isn't much different than Ford's assembly line. 100 years later, not much has changed. The biggest difference is that we aren't building cars and trucks.  We are building lives and futures.  It seems unfortunate to me that Berners-Lee's vision of improving the way we "work together" has somehow eluded education.

Educators!!! It's time to say "goodbye" to the days of assembly line model of education. "As we move toward a world where everyone has access to ideas and where collaboration is the expectation rather than the exception," (Richardson, p. 59), let's abandon the factory assembly line model of learning for once and for all. Let's say "Hello" to new ways of working together. 

The 21st Century Model of "Working Together"

The bottom line... technology has drastically improved our ability to "work together" and I think that even Ford, the innovator that he was, would have jumped on board the 21st century model of collaboration.  We have the power to improve the way we share knowledge and ideas, collaborate, communicate, learn and teach!  Let's not wait for that staff meeting or PD session to occur to improve the quality of our teaching and student learning (and let's be honest, do weekly/monthly meetings improve the quality of our teaching and student learning?!)  Let's explore new ways of fostering the collaboration process: the 21st Century Model of "Working Together".

One such avenue worth exploring is the 'wiki'.

Wikis make working together easier. How? The word wiki comes from Hawaiian word for "quick" and although a wiki may not have the polished look of a published webpage, there is something to be said for technology that is quick, especially when it comes to the busy life of the teacher. 

Over this past couple of weeks, I have been thinking about the power and place of technology as simple as the Wiki... for me, my students, my library and my colleagues.  Let me begin.

Wikis... t'week'ed first for me!

One thing I have learned over the past two months or so is that before I can understand the collaborative process behind technology, I need to understand the technology for myself first.  So I set out to explore a personal use of wikis in my own life.  I went back to something I love and always want to learn more about... something that I know other people have knowledge about that will help me improve something I love, too.  Running.

The process:

Although I have collaborated with teachers and edited a wiki in the past, I had yet to set up a wiki on my own.  I was most familiar with wikispaces.com so I wanted to try something new.  Wetpaint caught my attention after reading the section on Wikis from Will Richardson's book, so I set up an account and developed my first wiki, the Wiki Run Club.

Yuck! I found Wetpaint difficult, time consuming and not at all user-friendly. I was horrified that the ads soon took over my wiki (which didn't even feel like my wiki, but the advertiser's wiki).  Sure, an upgrade (about 20 dollars a month!) would allow me to remove ads.  Not acceptable, for me!  I discovered the education Wetpaint.com wiki option a little too late (which should apparenty remove the ads http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/).  Still, I just didn't like the way it worked.  Maybe more time is required with this space.. but for me I was frustrated with the navigation. Pages that I created moved into folders that I couldn't find... it was difficult to move the folders to new locations... After some frustration and anger, I abandoned Wetpaint and went on the hunt for something better.  My criteria... something with less ads, preferably none. And of course, free, please! I'm a student, after all!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms



To look for something better, I decided to do a search to compare different wiki hosting sites.  In my search, I found this comparison chart which turned out to be quite helpful. It led me to PBworks (a free, ad-free wiki) that I had known about, but not yet used.  PBworks turned out to be a much better option. 

Within a few minutes, my account was set up and my New Wiki Run Club was soon underway. 

PBworks (the PB stands for Peanut Butter, by the way stemming from the company's belief that making a wiki is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich) turned out to be a great wiki hosting site. Very similar to wikispaces.com, this web 2.0 tool was easy to use, and although not the most beautiful web space, a practical and quick way to dialogue, collaborate and share knowledge and ideas with other runners. I especially liked the ease of editing, and organizing the space (which is important, too!)  I turned to the User Manual to figure out how to upload pictures, which turned out to be a relatively simple process, in the end.  Just finding the 'upload' function was the hardest part.  The guide was a great resource though, and I wouldn't hestitate to turn to this resource anytime.  New criteria... something with a great resource (user manual) like this is a must.  It's important to remember that users of the wiki will have varying degrees of comfort and technology skill.  I know from experience that good ideas can quickly die if the comfort and easy isn't there (I"ll talk more about this in the professional learning section).

 I invited some of my running friends to contribute to get the ball rolling.  Hopefully, I'll see some new ideas in the Recent Activity section soon. 

Something worth thinking about... I absolutely love the fact that wikis

"involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki)  This is what makes it so powerful, in my opinion.  The ease of becoming a creator and contributor (not just the factory worker)! I hope to learn more about the gear other runners can't live without, their favourite running events, books, questions and so forth.  Most of all, I hope that it will become a meeting space for all my running friends (make running dates, plan routes, just chat).  Wait and see!

One further note about wiki hosting farms. I explored Wiggio and Wikia.  Wiggio seemed to have some added features that I liked, a nice built in calendar and polling tool, but I couldn't see any way to allow easier access other than invitation through email. Wikia looks great, similar to both wikispaces and PBWorks.  I would definitely try it out next time.  Regardless, the tools are there and there are many that don't have the ads, such as Wetpaint. 

Wikis... t'week'ed for learning

With a little more comfort in using and understanding wikis behind me, I'm going to address collaboration using wikis as a tool for professional learning, classroom learning and library

Wikis for Professional development

As I mentioned earlier, I have been a contributor to a wiki.  A few years ago, our literacy professional development team set up a Professsional Inquiry Wikispace which we hoped would support and network teachers with diverse learning needs within the Professional Inquiry Model that we had established for teacher learning.  Of course, things didn't go exactly as planned. Lack of wireless networks in our meeting space, emails being sent to SPAM, and just general lack of teacher comfort in using wikispaces and technology, in general, soon made our wikispace nothing but a "make work" project for the PD leaders. Without the teachers contributing and collaborating, or even viewing, the wiki was soon abandoned. 

As I reflect on this, I still see great potential in the wiki as a teacher learning tool, especially in enabling teacher inquiry.  Now with new wireless access, teacher laptops and added teacher comfort in using technology over the past 3 years, I hope that leaders in our division would reconsider wikis and would help teachers set up collaborative learning spaces for the new inquiry model, Collaborative Inquiry Teams. One lesson, I would leave it completely open (no permission necessary to contribute).  Could there be drawbacks to the open access of this? Perhaps, but I have learned that the wiki is flexible, and can be bent back to the way it was if something goes terribly wrong.  I would worry far less about secure contribution today (unless there is secure information or student learning data being shared)!  My worry now would be empowering teachers to use it well, not preventing access from using it. Lesson learned!

For my own professional learning as I explore web 2.0 tools in the classroom, I discovered a wealth of great wikis.  Some of my favourite wikis to support my own learning include:

• http://theconnectedclassroom.wikispaces.com/Classroom (I love the focus here on 21st Century Skills)
• http://web2thatworks.com/index.php?title=Web_2.0_Tools (I liked how this wiki explores Marzano's principles of effective teaching and incorporates graphic organizer links and ideas)

Wikis in the classroom:

I set off in search of best practice in using wikis in the classroom. First, I was amazed at some of the great wiki resources offering suggestions to teachers for classroom use.  I hope you have noticed that I see a lot of potential for wikis in the collaborative classroom.  If you are thinking about starting a class wiki, consider taking some time to view the following wikis and website which offer some tidbits of information that you might find helpful:

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/ A great first place to begin!
http://etoolbox.wikispaces.com/ A virtual toolbox of ideas for integrating technology into education.  Be sure to follow the wiki link.
https://educators.pbworks.com/ (A great wiki with links to classroom wikis.  Be sure to check out the section on Best Practices!)
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/Web2TL/wiki.html (Saskatoon Public Schools Online Learning Centre offers tips and links for integrating Web 2.0 tools into your classroom).

A few details educators should know are that wikis can be kept secure (inviting only those students and parents who would need access) in this situation, and that all will not be lost. Teachers should feel comfortable that wikis can be recovered to previous states if something goes terribly awry. 

Despite the potential for students to really become contributors to the wiki content, many of the class wikis that I viewed still used old ways of learning... the teacher created the content and the students viewed it.  Many of the wiki descriptions themselves gave away the underlying philosophy of the teacher as creator: "This wiki has been set up to help students...", "This site is all about biology", "This wiki is a one stop information site for my students", "This is a collection of resources and week by week outline" were just a few examples that show that the power of wikis is not completely understood.  Although I recognize that there is still good teaching behind sharing information on the web, to make wikis truly collaborative, we need to begin to let go of some of the control and allow students to build their own content and understanding.  As Will Richardson states, "the more autonomy teachers give to students in terms of negotiating the scope and quality of the content they are creating, the better." (p. 61) Yes, it means we may need to allow some "not so great" examples of quality.  Let's remember that students learn from these examples, too.

So...I set out examples of students collaborating, learning from each other while building the content themselves.  Some of the better examples I saw:

• http://mpolselli.wetpaint.com/page/Poetry+Powerpoints (Students in this grade 3 room share their poetry with their peers.)
• http://codeblue.wikispaces.com/ (These grade 6 students collaborative on body systems).

One final idea that I had for class wikis was that of the Class Scribe, an idea that was shared at a conference a few years back.  Students could have designated days to post a few of the big ideas from the learning for that day.  Other students could then add and edit, completing a better recap of the day's learning.  The added bonus: Students who were ill that day would still know what they had missed.

Wikis in the library:

Just as in the classroom, the library is a great place to use the technology of a wiki.  I see this as a great collaborative space to post links, questions, discussion and ideas, especially related to inquiry learning and information skills.

As well, consider using your wiki for book advisory, schedules, book suggestions (see the Webinar with a great How-To for this).

I stumbled upon this great webinar and its corresponding wiki site: https://newtoolsforschoollibrarianship.pbworks.com/



I also loved the Children's Book Wiki and think this is such an excellent way for teacher librarians to build their knowledge of children's literature.  Check it out at http://childrensbooks.wikia.com/wiki/Children%27s_Books_Wiki .

Wikis: the Key to "Working Together" in the 21st Century
In closing, let's learn to "work together" in new ways.  Let's abandon the old, assembly line model of "working together" in favour of something new.  After all, it's no longer 1903.  Explore a wiki today!

Quit Being "It" - Playing Tag in the 21st Century



If you are anything like me, you are tired of being "It" in the information game.  And here's why...

Picture the following. You... one, lone individual... have just been plunked into the vast, Sahara desert.  "You're It!"  Somewhere in this vast, open space, you'll find a treasure.  You've heard that buried in the sand are golden nuggets.  All you need to do is find them. A difficult task, sure enough.  Doable, though? Perhaps.

Photo DVIDSHUB. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvids/ 

Let's make it a little harder. Imagine every nugget of gold looks exactly like a lump of clay. Every time you are sure you have discovered gold, it crumbles between your fingertips. You begin to feel a little anxious.

Now, let's throw in a sandstorm.  Every time you turn, all the sand shifts and moves.  Just as you think you have discovered the sure path to a golden nugget, the landscape changes completely. You start to get disoriented. You begin to lose track of where you've been.

I would bet that no matter how long, hard and fast you search, that perfect, golden nugget will remain just out of your reach.   This is you, the WWW and information.  With greater than 10 billion pages of information (Richardson, p. 89) available at your fingertips, is it any wonder that you, all alone, find yourself continuously sifting for the golden stuff.

But, what if you could enlist some help?  Another "It" to chase down that golden nugget with you, doubling your chances? Or, better yet! What if you could recruit an entire community of "It"s to help you locate that nugget?  Ah, maybe even better!! What if you could retrace exact footsteps that would lead you straight to a pile of golden nuggets?

Enter Social Bookmarking. Now, let's play 21st Century "tag"!

Social bookmarking... T'week'ed first, for me

"I <3 my delicious network and its searchability." (Will Richardson on Twitter, October 5, 2010)

Let's just say that I had grown accustomed to playing "It" in the desert sandstorm. That is, before this week's blog assignment on social bookmarking. 

At its simplest level, social bookmarking allows you to store your links online.  It doesn't seem like such a big deal, does it?  That's what I thought at first, too. Certainly, this would mean access to my bookmarks regardless of where I am working or on which computer I am using.  A nice option, but it was no big "Aha!" either.

Then, as I read and reflected throughout these past two weeks, I discovered the power of collaborative, collective knowledge lurking behind social bookmarking!  "Aha!" This is the big deal.  So, just how does it work? You see, social bookmarking is based on user created 'tags', sort of like the Dewey Decimal for 21st Century Dummies.  The big difference is that when it comes to social bookmarking, you will find no dummies here.  Let me explain.

You see, when users create "tags" for their web links, they are actually assigning key words or tags that reflect their personal, constructed meaning of the site's content.  And when they share those tags online, they build onto the collective and collaboratively constructed meaning.  As more and more tags are created, or repeated, and new bookmarks added to our collective understanding, a new socially, constructed meaning, or 'folksonomy' emerges. This user constructed understanding can then become a powerful resource.  Will Richardson explains it well in Taming the Beast: Social Bookmarking: 

"In a nutshell, the operating principle behind these concepts is this: if I find something interesting enough to save, odds are good that you will, too. And together, using these tools, we can build comprehensive resource lists much more effectively than any one of us could working alone."

Now this is smart stuff!

The best part yet is that these tags and comprehensive resources become a user-generated, searchable engine.  Unlike Google, that computer-generates searches by popularity, social bookmarking sites help you connect with the information that other users found to be worth bookmarking.  Further stated in Teaching Today:

"The advantage in using social bookmarking sites is the human collaboration involved in the searching framework. (...) Sharing is what makes social bookmarking so powerful. More often than not, it is the Web savvy user who allows their tagged bookmarks to be available for public viewing, and this results in links to sites of higher quality."

Basically, thousands of users have already sifted the sand for you!  Caught you... You're It!

The learning process... putting Social bookmarking to work for me!

Although I was somewhat familiar with social bookmarking sites, having signed up for my own del.icio.us account (YDenomy) this past spring after hearing Will Richardson speak so highly of these tools at the Saskatchewan IT Summit, my account sat virtually unused. I guess I didn't have time to explore the tool in depth, so my use of it was limited, to say the least. At best, I used it to bookmark sites for future reference at the office.  It also filled a small void in organizing my bookmarks, but I certainly hadn't considered this aspect fully until recently. In addition to my Delicious account, I used Evernote, to share and organize content online.  Again, I wouldn't say that I really used this tool.

One of the key learnings from all the reading and thinking I did was the importance of tagging content.  I would often bookmark but not tag.  I now better understand why tagging is so important.  But, don't worry about getting it right or wrong.  I was a little anxious about this, at first.  I soon realized that it isn't a big deal if you don't 'tag it right' because it's based on your understanding, after all!  Of course, practice makes perfect (or at least comfort, when it comes to the web).  I found this article Tips from Top Taggers helpful, as well. 

Over the course, I heard significant praise for Diigo, so decided I needed to check it out and compare Diigo to my del.icio.us account.  It took only a minute to sign up for a Diigo account (YDenomy) using the Quick Link to my Google account option.  I did experience some glitches while trying to download the toolbar and had to close out and reopen the download several times before success.  But finally, with the Diigo toolbar installed, I have to admit that I am already really loving it!

A few features that are different to del.icio.us include the Read Later option.  I have found this to be a great tool while I am working on assignments, and following Twitter (my multitasking maximum).  Basically, when someone Tweets a great link, I just mark it for Read Later (as not to get too off task). Hopefully, I'll make time for those ''Read Later" links... my only concern.  

I liked the highlighting option, as well.  I see this as being useful already for when I am following the week's Trailfire and want to remember quotes that I might like to share in my blog post. Currently, I keep a draft post of the week's topic (this works, too).  I do think the challenge is consistency, so find something that works for you!

I like the Capture tool, as well. Right now, I use Jing to capture from the screen.  Diigo has this included on the tool bar, as well. I also found the Diigo Capture tool very simple to use.

Another bonus with Diigo was the ability to bookmark a .pdf document from the web.  For whatever reason, I was unable to do this on my Delcious account.  In the end, it looks like I am going to be a full Diigo user soon.

Finally, one last but cetainly not least use of any social bookmarking site is its power to organize and locate information we have saved.  This is a HUGE challenge today.  In fact, when I asked friends and colleagues about their greatest challenges in the information age, difficulty organizing digital information was at the top.  Here is a sampling of comments I heard over the course of the weeks...

• Remembering document names.
• Finding the document again.
• Remembering where I stored it.
• Everything housed individually, not enough folders.
• Scroll through too many lists.
• Consistency from one colleague to another in saving and storing shared documents.
• Backing up resources.

In general, I can see that social bookmarking would eliminate many of these difficulties.  Using tag searches, for example, should help locate the document, regardless of the name.  This results in less searching and scrolling through lists of documents.  The main thing, is try to be consistent.  Another huge bonus, something that I am just learning and look forward to learning more in the next while is the ability to use RSS feeds to get the information delivered right to you! I have just started to figure this out... somehow I have subscribed to my own Diigo favourites (not what I had wanted to do).  But, learning will continue about RSS feeds shortly.

Regardless, after a week or two of playing with these tools, I can't imagine why I never used them more fully before.  If you haven't been using social bookmarking tools for your personal and professional learning, you're spending too much time sifting!
 

Social Bookmarking... T'week'ed for Learning

Lastly, I would like to talk about using social bookmarking sites in the classroom, library and staff development environments.

In the classroom, I see great collaborative opportunity for students.  Students working together, especially on inquiry projects, could create their own tag and build their own resource list.  Of course, you could add to their resource list by adding sites you think they could use, as well.  Most of all, I really liked Richardson's suggestion about individualizing instruction by setting up a class feed and a separate feed for each student.

"That way, every time you run across something you think Meredith might be interested in reading, you simple add the tag "Meredith" to it and her feed with automatically update." (p. 96) 

Great thinking! The wonderful part of this, it's just so simple.  Of course, it does require each student to have a Google Reader account and "Yes", it takes a little set up.  But in my opinion, once this is done, the pay off will be huge!  I think it's a worthwhile investment!

The more I learn, I am also seeing that 'tagging' in itself supports student learning.  By asking students to identify important key concepts and words, they synthesize their learning.  One of my favourite lessons, from Kyleen Beers' When Kids Can't Read, is entitled Most Important Word.  In this lesson, Beers (2003) states that this process "forces students back into the text to consider what was the most important aspect of that text." (p. 174)

In the library, teacher-librarians could easily add a link to their Diigo or Delicious accounts on their websites. For some, especially at the onset, it may be best just to store relevant websites for both teachers and students on their own accounts.  In a way, this replaces the need for Pathfinders, Trailfires or JogtheWeb paths. That said, I still think these are great options for younger students, too.  If teachers had a Google Reader account, you could set up an RSS feed for teachers, as a teacher would for a student.  Then, when you come upon a site of interest to that teacher, it would be delivered directly to their Google Reader account, too.

Finally, I see huge potential for staff developers with this tool.  This year, in Saskatchewan, we have all new curriculum documents.  Imagine if teachers could build a collective resource list of pertinent resources!  Why not establish a tag, such as SK3Science (for grade 3 Saskatchewan Science curriculum), share it with all 70 Grade 3 teachers in our division (or go beyond) and let's get building.  Teachers wonder why they reinvent the wheel over and over!  I ask, "Why are we all sifting the sand, searching for gold nuggets?"
"If the information is important enough to gather, organize and update, isn't is also important enough to make available, uniform and current by placing it online."
(Doug Johnson in his Blue Skunk Blog, Three Ring Binders: A Little Rant)
Additional Resources:
Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.

You Go, Squirrel! This gal's gone squirrely for YouTube...

Video sharing: T'week'ed first, for me!
I think I may have gone nuts!  Despite all my reservations about YouTube, I can honestly say that making this Squirrel Boogie video, and the learning and experiences that followed out of such a silly endeavor and some serious thinking, was the highlight of my week.  Well, the highlight actually came when my 11 year old daughter informed me that she "would personally be proud of creating this Squirrel Boogie video!"  She has since added my video to her YouTube channel and has guaranteed me that her many important subscribers will boost my views! Does life get better than that?!

I will admit that I started my thinking about video sharing this week from a fairly negative stance.  In general, I didn't see much use for YouTube in my life.  Apart from viewing the occasional clips with my students, I didn't see a lot of value in this Web tool, and frankly, I was pretty confident that my life would not be hindered by the demise of videosharing sites in the future. 
But as I thought about it, I came to a few realizations. First, I guess you could say that I'm just not a video kind of gal.  In fact, I readily admit to being a very text dependent learner.  I don't watch television (at all!) and I have wondered if there is, perhaps, a part of my brain that is incompatible with video processing.  I have just never caught on. As a result, I don't own and have never owned a video camera. Of course, I do have video taking capability... a WebCam and a digital camera (used to capture all the videos on my YouTube account). So unlike Flickr, which might help to ease my photo overload problem, I definitely don't have a video overload problem. 

A lack of video? That I do have! So, I am sorry to disappoint you, but in this post there will be no wedding or birthing videos to entice you on. Thank goodness, right?! People probably show that stuff online, I bet. But along with that, in this post you will find no "First Christmas, First Steps, First Words" videos either...  hmm. Do I regret not having those moments forever captured for all to relive? I don't think so. Not yet anyways. Will my kids? Maybe. But don't you think it is okay to enjoy that Christmas concert live, too, and not through the lens of some camera?! I figure by the time I get a good shot of my child through the viewfinder, the event has ended! Yet when I go to that Christmas concert and see all the video cameras running, I see that most people don't share these same values. I can't help but wonder what I am missing. People LOVE video! Still, capturing those memories to relive them is one thing... posting them for other people to view them, that's something else entirely.

But you know what shocks me? It shocks me as to what people will share of themselves.  Deep inner thoughts. Embarassing moments. Intimate details. Incredible, really.  What would be the motivation?  Fame? Fortune? Revenge? Fun? Curiosity? All of the above? Okay, I am quite competitive so after viewing Michael Wesch's video, Anthropology of YouTube and hearing him talk about his video becoming a No.1 video, I have to admit there is this part of me that would love to hold that No. 1 spot, too.  As long as I don't have to actually be in it... or any of my kids... or reveal any parts of my inner or outer self to do it. 

So, who will star in my first video? The squirrels from last year's trip to Emma Lake! Perfect! Stars who require no special forms or permissions, and no salary! Thanks, Lori and Mary, for making this possible.

The process:

My first question was "Is YouTube the best tool for this job?"  Basically, I think the answer is still "Yes".  I took some time to look over some of the other sites (TeacherTube, MetaCafe and Vimeo grabbed my attention) and virtually they are similar.  However, with YouTube having such a dominant piece of the market here, it's hard to go elsewhere.  There was a part of me that wanted to post to TeacherTube, but again, I think if you are going to do it, just do it!

YouTube was especially easy to sign up for, seeing that I discovered that I already held an account.  I somewhat remembered creating the account. If memory serves me, I wanted to mark a favourite video for work. Not exactly powerful use of technology. Just the same, it saved me some time... well, not really as I had to go through the whole sign up process anyway (maybe 1 minute of work) to discover that I already existed on YouTube.  Here I am... My YouTube Channel (Denomy KG) 

But with the easy part out of the way, now begins the real work.  Creating my first video.

Surprisingly, creating my first video was relatively easy.  I have used Windows Movie Maker before so I felt pretty comfortable with this tool. I wasn't sure that it would work for uploading to YouTube, but I thought I could always convert it, if need be (not needed, Windows Movie Maker works just fine). But first, I wasn't sure if my camera files would even work with Movie Maker, having never used it before in this capacity, but they imported easily.  Within a minute or two, the project was underway with my squirrel video already imported.  I thought about leaving it as is, sounds 'au nature', but after viewing Michael Wesch's Anthropology of YouTube video, I felt a little inspired to try something creative, "repurpose" something in a new way, as Wesch would say.

On the drive to my son's lesson, I ran my thinking past him and was surprised to discover that he didn't think it was TOO lame.  He suggested music like Yakety Sax or something fun.  Thanks, son, for not just shooting me down, and for offering some good advice. Unfortunately, there was no creative commons license here. So finding some similar and suitable music was a little more complicated than uploading Yakety Sax. I have used Jamendo.com previously so went to that site first off.  When I heard this song by Diablo Swing Orchestra, I knew it would work perfectly. A quick download, import to MovieMaker, followed by some quick clipping and cropping and Voila! A miracle unfolded.  I actually like it!  I wasn't even ashamed to post it on YouTube. After all, I think there are worse videos out there than this one (I hope you would agree).  My daughter helped me with the upload (reminded me to take out the .wmv from the title, a good thing to know).  And success! It took a few minutes all tolled, but surprisingly quick and simple.  And... I was excited to see it there!  Wow! I couldn't believe it.  My first video! Now, how to make it No. 1... refresh, refresh, refresh (says Michael Wesch).  So help me out, please refresh it a couple of times!

Video sharing: T'week'ed next, for learning!

Now, for the really hard part. How do I make videosharing via YouTube a good tool for educators? I think I am like most educators, a little reluctant to use YouTube for viewing, and exceptionally reluctant to post videos from the class to YouTube. You have to be kidding! All the permissions that go along with posting video or images of students to a public domain.  Yikes! Not worth my time and stress, I am afraid.

But as I read through Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, I was soon inspired with an idea.  This idea stemmed from one of Richardson's favourite videos Parents.  I loved this video, not just the powerful message, but the simplicity of it.  And the fact that there were no student images, Simply Genius!  I could see this working for me quite nicely.  Perhaps not exactly the same way, but similarly.  Words, perhaps, instead of images. (I did tell you that I am very text dependent, correct?)

So I started to do some extra reading and thinking... and decided to take a closer look at our renewed Saskatchewan curriculum documents for possible curricular topics.  Right away I saw some possible avenues from health and social studies curriculums.

Possible topics include:

• nutrition and physical excercise
• harmful substances and misuse of helpful substances
• healthy/unhealthy homes
• safety at home
• violence and its effects
• power and authority, peer pressure, bullying

Finally, the idea for this Diary of a Young Girl came to me. (Please note, this is a fictitious example.)

 I can see what Richardson means though... video does take a little more planning, writing, thinking and so forth.  But I was thrilled with the end result  I have to thank my daughter for her help with this, although she does not want to be credited. 

I can see this type of video journal diary being used as an excellent reader response to literature. For example, I have done print journal entries like this using picture books.  Generally, I use RAFTS (Role, Audience, Format, Topic, Srong verb).  One that comes to mind is a personal favourite, The Other Side,by Jacqueline Woodson.  Following the book, students assume the role of Annie or Clover (role) and write a letter (format) to Mama or Community (audience) to persuade (strong verb) others to tear down the fence and eliminate racism (topic).  If you think back to my Sticks and Stones video, the RAFTS prompt here might be something like "As a victim of bullying, write a diary entry to share with bullies, teachers, students and others that will recount some of the effects of bullying on the victim".  RAFTS prompts are one of my favourite after reading strategies.  If you want to learn more about RAFTS, a site I really like is Writing Fix.  Of course, this can be left in paper form, but I think hearing the voice and seeing the words on screen really brought the message to life, beyond the paper.  I think that is the power of the Read/Write World of Web 2.0.  I hope you agree.

A little more thinking on this topic also reminded me of a YouTube video shared by Dean Shareski at last year's Assessment Conference.  Here is another great example (once again, no face shots... I like this) that puts some of the collaborative power of video sharing sites to work.

I really like the ability of video sharing sites like this to help build student understanding and get feedback to further their learning.  It made me think of math right away...this might be a great way to seek help with a tough math problem (just can't get that right answer... what am I doing wrong?). Or perhaps to seek feedback on making that Structure stronger in grade 7 science.  Just a couple of extra ideas to get you thinking, too, I hope. 

Finally, why not have your students use those pet and animal clips to create videos for sharing and creating video (I bet your students have these, too).  This will help your students understand new literacies, as William Kist elaborates on in his book, The Socially Networked Classroom, by stating that "in a new media age, many texts we encounter contain multiple forms of representation (music, print, image,) within the same text." (p.20) We need to help our students be creators in this new literacy environment, providing them with opportunity to practice new skills by selecting the right music, text, visuals and video to share their message.
Next week, social bookmarking.  Hope you will be back to learn with me.