CRobi Blog

Did You Know 4.0!

2011-03-01T18:59:00.001-06:00

This is interesting. It's already old, but I just saw it and wanted to blog it!

Booktrailer: Fire by Kristin Cashore

2010-07-26T15:46:00.005-05:00

Quentin Blake: Glogster Poster

2010-07-18T17:25:00.001-05:00

The following 6 blog posts (7 including this one) constitute the "written" version of an assignment I did for EDES 501: Recourses for Children and Youth. This assignment was a critical review of a children's book illustrator and I did mine on Quentin Blake.

Click here to see the Glogster poster I created:

Christine :)

Biographical Background on Quentin Blake (Podcast)

2010-07-18T17:21:00.000-05:00

Quentin Blake was born in 1932 in Sidcup in Kent and started drawing when he was a young child as most of us did (Blake, 2008, Meet Quentin Blake, ¶ 1 & 9 ). As a young teen, Blake was inspired to submit drawings to the publication Punch by his Latin teacher’s husband, who was also an artist and a man he looked up to (Jefferies, 2007). When Quentin Blake was 16 years old one of his illustrations was accepted by Punch and he became a published illustrator. Later, although he loved drawing and was making a meagre living at it, he decided to attend Downing College at Cambridge to study English rather than study art. “I knew I wanted to be an artist and that I would have to train, but I thought that if I went to art school I would never go to a university, whereas if I did go to university I would still have the option of doing art," Blake notes to interviewer Stuart Jefferies in an article that appeared in the Guardian in 2008. After he finished at Cambridge he went to London University where he studied Education for a year. It was only after this that he enrolled at Chelsea school of Art and began to study art.

Quentin Blake has managed to keep his private life private and all that is really know about his personal life is that he never married and never had children of his own. He says, “I tend to approach the subject of children's books as a teacher rather than a parent. In other words, I try to identify with the children in the books rather than look upon them as a benevolent adult,” (Jefferies, 2007)

He began illustrating children’s books when he convinced his friend John Yeoman to write a book so that he could illustrate it (Blake, 2008, Meet Quentin Blake, ¶ 14). Throughout his career as an illustrator Blake also taught at the Royal College of Art and was head of the Illustration Department from 1978 to 1986 (Blake, 2008, Biography, ¶ 2). In 1968, Patrick was published, which was Quentin Blake’s first children’s book that he both wrote and illustrated. He wrote this book so that he could incorporate colour into his illustrations because prior to that he was seen as a black and white illustrator (Blake, 2008, Meet Quentin Blake, ¶ 15).

Quentin Blake has written or illustrated over 300 books, 323 to be exact, for adults and children and has formed lasting and memorable partnerships with, authors such as John Yeoman, Joan Aiken, Russell Hoban, Michael Rosen and of course Roald Dahl (Blake, 2008, Biography ¶ 3) . Blake first met Roald Dahl in 1975 when he was commissioned to work on the Enormous Crocodile, leading to many other famous collaborations including The BFG. To see a complete bibliography of works illustrated or written by Quentin Blake go to http://www.quentinblake.com/books/search.php .

In his work as an illustrator he has received many awards and honours including the “Kate Greenaway Medal (1980) and the Red House Children's Book Award (1981) for Mister Magnolia; the Kurt Maschler Award (1990) for All Join In; the Bologna Ragazzi Prize (Italy) and the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Bronze Award) (both 1996) for Clown; and the Kurt Maschler Award and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Bronze Award) (both 1998) for The Green Ship,” (The Children’s Laureate, 2008, ¶ 5). In 2002 he was awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award for Illustration. Blake has also been recognized by both Great Britain and France. He was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1988 and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 (Children’s Laureate, 2008, ¶ 7 & 13). He also received “the 'Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres' [from] the French Government for services to literature and in 2007 he was made Officier in the same order,” (Blake, 2008, Biography, ¶ 5). In 1999 Blake was chosen as the first Children’s Laureate and has since been employed as an exhibition curator for many museums including the National Gallery and the British Library (Blake, 2008, Biography, ¶ 4). He still illustrates children’s books, his most recent collaboration being Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and Gravy by Michael Rosen, which was published in 2006.

Selected Works (Script Video #1)

2010-07-18T17:19:00.000-05:00

Why did I choose Quentin Blake and Selected Works (video #1)

I was first introduced to the illustrations of Quentin Blake in grade 5 when my teacher, Mr Faris read The BGF by Roald Dahl aloud to my class. I remember thinking how perfectly the pictures represented the story and how there seemed to be a picture in all the right spots in the book and how the BFG looked exactly like my grandfather, which is how I had imagined he would look! It is only now, as an adult, that I realize it is a bit unusual for a novel to be illustrated in way that The BFG was.

I suppose then I chose Quentin Blake out of a sense of nostalgia having grown up with Roald Dahl’s strange stories always accompanied by Blake’s unique illustrations. Whether it was when the BFG and Sophie spluttered while eating a snozzcumber, the close up of Mr. Twit’s beard, the Prince cutting off the evil stepsister’s head or Little Red Riding Hood walking off in a wolf-skin coat, Quentin Blake’s distinct style just seems to naturally suit Dahl’s sarcastic, witty dark sense of humour.

Other selected works of Quentin Blake’s that I have come to love from my years reading Roald Dahl books are The Magic Finger, Esio Trot, The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me, George’s Marvelous Medicine, Boy, The Vicar of Nibbleswicke and of course there are many others. Recently I have come to know Loveykins and Mrs. Armitage: Queen of the Road both of which are written and illustrated by Quentin Blake and Tell Me a Picture and Magic Pencil which are both non-fiction books to which Quentin Blake selected and/or contributed artwork. These last two are really about the importance of art and of children’s book illustrations as a form of art.

This assignment has been very entertaining for me, since I hadn’t previously known that Quentin Blake both illustrated for authors other than Roald Dahl and was himself a writer/illustrator. I have been able to once again enjoy Blake’s work as I did as a child and I have gotten to know (and love) his greater body of work. The one thing I learned about Quentin Blake that I especially love is his tireless advocacy for the inclusion of art in a child’s life. Not only is this evident in the books Tell Me a Picture and Magic Pencil but it is especially evident in his work during and after being named the first Children’s Laureate in 1999. He discusses much of this work on his website in the “Meet Quentin Blake” section.

Blake has also done some unexpected illustrations including an illustrated version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, an illustrated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and a book by Dr. Seuss called Great Day for Up.

That concludes the selected works portion of the assignment. Next please proceed to the video below for my critical review where you will get to glimpse some of Blake’s illustrations in The BFG.

Critical Review of Quentin Blake (Script Video #2)

2010-07-18T17:17:00.001-05:00

Critical Review of the Illustrations in The BFG (video #2)

Quentin Blake uses a painterly technique where he combines ink and water colour. His process is somewhat unique, as he uses a light box to help him create his finished illustrations, something that used to be looked down upon by other artists. He describes the process like this:

“I do a free-wheeling sort of drawing that looks as if it has been done on the spur of the moment, although in reality it's not quite like that. I start with lots of roughs - some of which turn out to be quite close to the finished drawing, and some of which are discarded . . . For about twenty years I've used a lightbox, which I find really useful. On the light box I put the rough drawing I'm going to work from, and on top of that, a sheet of watercolour paper. Ready to hand is a bottle of waterproof black ink and a lot of scruffy looking dip pens. What happens next is not tracing; in fact it's important that I can't see the rough drawing underneath too clearly, because when I draw I try to draw as if for the first time; but I can do it with increased concentration, because the drawing underneath lets me know all the elements that have to appear and exactly where they have to be placed,” (Blake, 2008, Illustrating a Book, ¶ 5 & 6).

Blake uses this light box method to both apply his water proof ink and his water colour paint. If you’d like to learn more about his technique or see him in action I would encourage you to click on the link “Quentin Blake in Action!” at the bottom of this Glogster poster (or go directly there by clicking here).

It is Blake’s style of “free-wheeling” drawing with ink and then soft overlays of watercolour that make his illustrations so utterly unique, being instantly recognizable to most people who have only read a single children’s book illustrated by him.

When analysing Blake’s work for the elements and principles of art, it is easy enough to pick out the two strongest: that of line and texture. Blake uses line to convey movement and whimsy as well as spontaneity and drama. About his own drawing he says,

“What I want to convey is movement and gesture and atmosphere. I like drawing anything that is doing something . . . I don’t draw from life. I draw as though I’m trying to capture something that isn’t there,” (Jefferies, 2008), and “I came upon the possibilities of spontaneity . . . That kind of drawing is the basic act that for me makes illustration so attractive,” (Rose, 2002, p. 50).

This spontaneity is evident in his illustrations and helps to shape the feelings of whimsy and movement from his characters. There are two wonderful examples of how he uses line to portray these elements he sees as vital. The first is the drawing that shows the BFG eating a snozzcumber on page 52. You can actually visualize the movement of the BFG as he convulses and gags. The lines on his face clearly illustrate his disgust for the vile vegetable and the fact that his body is leaning back gives one the impression that he is about to spit the morsel out with a violent hack. The minute details of the tiny bits of spittle and Sophie’s petite body running for cover add to the hilarity of the illustration and support the text in a magical way. The second example of Blake’s use of line is the illustration showing the BFG catching dreams on page 83. The very idea of catching dreams brings to mind a whimsical and light-hearted activity, which Blake easily portrays with squiggly lightly drawn and thin barely there lines. It is clear that when Blake needs to portray a light mood, he relies on line to do most of the work. This is in contrast to his use of shading with gray scale water colours which he uses to portray more serious and scary moods and moments.

Since most of his illustrations for The BFG are black and white, colour plays only a significant role in the cover illustration (seen on the right side of this Glogster poster). However the translation of watercolours to black and white adds a beautiful gray scale depth to the texture of the illustrations. When one looks at the cover art for The BFG, one realizes that, as in most of his other coloured artwork, Blake seems to be intuitively good at knowing just where to make the colours darker or more faint adding to the sense of texture that many other more classically famous water colour artists achieve. Shadows and shading are well placed; there are appropriate shadows of the rocks and of Sophie on the BFG’s hand and the light airy pink of the background gives the scene depth and the reader a sense that the BFG is friendly and kind. It should be noted that colour does play quite a significant role in many other works by Quentin Blake, even though his use of colour is limited in this book.

As I said a moment ago, the shading effect of the water colours when translated into black and white provides a unique texture and strength to the illustrations. One specific example s of this is when Sophie first sees the BFG in the shadows on page 14. Sophie’s first glimpse of the BFG is while he is skulking about. The illustration is dark and the reader can barely make out a figure standing in the shadows. This is exactly how Sophie is described as seeing the being and by incorporating the dark shadows into this illustration, the reader is directly transported into the narrative and begins to experience the book from within, with a front row seat, as Sophie does. Another example of this texture in Blake’s work is when the helicopters are lowering Fleshlumpeater into the pit on page 200. This is interesting not just for the shading in the pit, getting ever darker as the pit gets deeper, but more so for the illusion of movement the water colour shadow gives to the helicopter blades.

When analysing Blake’s illustrations in The BFG it’s easy to think about composition because of Blake and Dahl’s attention to the details of layout, design and placement of the illustrations within the text. This is done so well in the book, that one forgets that the text and illustrations are actually separate. The effect is that the reader feels these illustrations are a part of the story rather than about the story. Quentin Blake talks of tirelessly planning the layouts of book illustrations so that this very effect is achieved saying

“I like organising a book, which means that I often have to reconcile spontaneous drawing with quite a high level of planning . . . disposing the pictures properly so that they can help each other and make a sequence,” (Rose, 2002, p. 50) and “I try to get as close to what the writer intended as possible - to get on their wavelength. The text, not the pictures, must lead the way. Sometimes, though, the pictures come first. Often, in fact, the shrewd writer has already incorporated moments which ask to be illustrated,” (Blake, 2008, Illustrating a Book, ¶ 2 & 3).

There are actually many excellent examples of how composition is used in The BFG, if you take a moment to really look and think about the drawings and text and how they interact. The book includes full page illustrations such as those on pages 27, 56, 167 and 169, half page illustrations such as those on pages 49 and 185, small vignettes scattered throughout the text, a great example of which is when Sophie is reading the labels on all the dream jars on pages 110 and 111, and illustrations that spread across two pages.

Often the full page illustrations complement or belong together with another half page illustration on the facing page, as if they really make up different components of a single illustration and the text was simply put into the intervening spaces. This use of composition gives the reader a sense of moving the story along from page to page. One specific examples of this includes when Sophie first meets The Queen on pages 152 and 153. On the first page’s illustration located at the top of the page, Sophie sits on the window sill as a maid looks astonished to find her there. On the facing page’s illustration located at the bottom of the page The Queen looks up towards the illustration of Sophie and it is not hard to imagine that you are seeing two things that are happening at once during the same “scene” in the book. Interestingly, Blake manages to draw in his distinct style, yet still make The Queen appear regal and distinguished in every appearance. Another fantastic example of this interplay between illustrations is when The Queen has breakfast with Sophie and the BFG on pages 168 and 169. Again the two illustrations play off of each other as the Queen and Sophie look up towards the BFG and he looks down towards them. Finally a third example of this is when the BFG is giving advice to the ‘Head of the Army’ and the ‘Head of the Air Force’ about how to capture the mean giants on pages 178 and 179. The BFG sits atop the right page waving his hands about while the army and air force men stand with the Queen on the bottom of the left page looking up at the BFG with a look of bewilderment. These last two examples also show the size difference between the BFG and the people, since they are always looking up at him from below, thus enforcing the physical characteristics of the BFG throughout the novel.

Many of the illustrations that are spread out over two pages (two pages one drawing) give the reader a sense of moving along through the story, of quickening the pace or of the action of the moment. This is especially evident when the BFG has just snatched Sophie and he is running home. We don’t know if he is good or bad and the illustration across pages 18 and 19 shows him bounding over land as though flying through the air with his cape flowing behind. Blake also uses colour and texture here to show the situation is potentially ominous. The character is coloured darkly and there is a stern look upon his face. This illustration adds much to the tension of the moment and in my opinion persuades the reader to read on to find out what happens next. This illustration is an excellent “hook” into the meat of the novel. Another example of this sense of moving the story along through double page illustrations appears when the BFG is caught by the other giants. They bully the BFG and the illustration that is spread across these pages gives the reader the distinct impression that the poor BFG has been tossed from page 74 to page 75 and that he is about to be tossed back again. This illustration cleverly shows a tossing motion from left to right, encouraging the reader to turn the page and continue on to find out what happens.

In my opinion the illustrations of Quentin Blake are what made The BFG the classic it is today. His ingenuity at depicting the quirky fanciful characters of Roald Dahl’s through his use of line, texture and shading and his composition talent in putting the pictures just where they need to be add to the enjoyment of the novel and enhance the reading experience. Quentin Blake’s illustrations of Dahl’s work flawlessly depict both the whimsical aspects of Dahl’s characters and the hilarity and absurdity of the narrative. In fact, I feel that Dahl’s eccentric narrative could not have been more aptly captured by anyone other than Quentin Blake.

References for Critical Review Video

2010-07-18T17:15:00.000-05:00

All scanned images in this video are from the following book:

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q. (Illus.). (2007). The BFG. New York: Puffin.

Images obtained through the internet are credited as follows:

Self Portrait Illustration: Image retrieved from http://webofstories.com/play/16711

Blake in his studios: Image Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3093814/Quentin-Blake-I-dont-feel-I-fit-in-any-age-group.html

The BFG and Sophie: Image retrieved from http://www.show.me.uk/site/news/STO1086.html

Blake in a dark jacket: Image retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/image_galleries/quentin_blake_launch_gallery.shtml

Cover Illustration of The BFG: Image retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/images/image/48918-popup.html

Illustration of Blake and Dahl: Image retrieved from http://flipsidefinds.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

Blake with gold: Image retieved from http://www.800.cam.ac.uk/page/47/quentin-blake.htm

Music is credited as follows:

Friendly Day by Kevin MacLeod retrieved from: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?feels%5B%5D=Humorous&Search=Search

Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod retrieved from: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?feels%5B%5D=Humorous&Search=Search

Breaktime by Oh by Kevin MacLeod retrieved from: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?feels%5B%5D=Humorous&Search=Search

All illustrations contained in this video were created by

Quentin Blake and are thus copyrighted by Quentin Blake.

Other Selected Works

2010-07-18T17:12:00.000-05:00

Although many of these were not mentioned in my assignment I wanted to include a list of some other selected works either written or illustrated by Quetin Blake.

Selected Nonfiction:

The Laureate’s Party (2000) by Quentin Blake

Words and Pictures (2000) by Quentin Blake

Tell Me a Picture (2001) Quentin Blake

Laureate’s Progress (2002) by Quentin Blake

Magic Pencil: Children’s Book Illustration Today (2002) Selected by Quentin Blake, Introduction by Blake

Selected Children’s books written and illustrated by Blake:

Mister Magnolia (1980) by Quentin Blake

Simpkin (1995) by Quentin Blake

Clown(1998) by Quentin Blake (This is a wordless picture book!)

The Green Ship (2000) by Quentin Blake

Fantastic Daisy Artichoke (2001) by Quentin Blake

Loveykins (2002) by Quentin Blake

Mrs Armitage: Queen of the Road (2003) by Quentin Blake

Selected Titles Written by Roald Dahl and Illustrated by Quentin Blake:

The Enormous Crocodile (1978) Blake’s first collaboration with Dahl began in 1975

The Twits (1980)

George’s Marvelous Medicine (1981)

The BFG (1982)

Revolting Rhymes (1982)

Boy (1984)

The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (1985)

Esio Trot (1990)

The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (1991)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1998)

The Magic Finger (1998)

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (2001)

Selected Titles of Other Books Illustrated by Quentin Blake:

Great Day for Up (1974) by Dr. Seuss

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1982) by Tim Rice and Andrew Llyod Webber

Animal Farm: a Fairy Story (1984) by George Orwell

Sad Book (2004 )by Michael Rosen

The Rights of the Reader (2006) by Daniel Pennac (translated by Sarah Adams)

For a full listing of Quentin Blake’s work click here.

References for Quentin Blake Assignment

2010-07-18T17:08:00.000-05:00

References

Blake, Q. (1968). Patrick. Great Britain: Jonathon Cape.

Blake, Q. (2001). Tell me a picture. London: National Gallery Company Limited.

Blake, Q. (2002). Loveykins. Great Britain: Jonathon Cape.

Blake, Q. (2003). Mrs. Armitage: Queen of the road. Great Britain: Jonathon Cape.

Blake, Q. (2008). The Quentin Blake Official Website. Retrieved from

http://www.quentinblake.com/index.html

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1978). The enormous crocodile. Great Britain: Jonathon Cape.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1980). The twits. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1981). George’s marvellous medicine. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1982a). Revolting rhymes. New York: Puffin Books.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1982b). The BFG. New York: Puffin Books.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1984). Boy. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1985). The giraffe and the pelly and me. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1990). Esio Trot. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1991). The vicar of Nibbleswicke. New York: Scholastic.

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q (Illus.). (1998). The magic finger. New York: Scholastic.

Dickens, C. & Blake, Q. (Illus.). (1995). A Christmas carol. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Jefferies, S. (2007, September 28). A free hand. The Guardian, section G2. Retrieved from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/sep/28/art.booksforchildrenandteenagers

Orwell, G. & Blake, Q. (Illus.). (1984). Animal farm: A fairy story. London: The Folio Society.

Rose, A. (Ed.). (2002). Magic pencil: Children’s book illustration today: Selected by Quentin Blake.

London: The British Council/The British Library.

Seuss, Dr. & Blake, Q. (Illus.). (1974). Great day for up!. New York: Beginner Books

The Children’s Laureate. (2008). “Previous laureates: Quentin Blake.” The Children’s Laureate. Retrieved

from http://www.childrenslaureate.org.uk/Previous-laureates/Quentin-Blake

Maps World

2010-03-08T20:18:00.001-06:00

Maps World,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

Check this out!

Post # 1: Introduction

2009-11-11T12:20:00.001-06:00

The Evaluating Phase of the Inquiry process is the phase where students engage in self-assessment of their inquiry project. This self-assessment involves both self-reflection and self-evaluation.

Self-reflection involves students looking back at goals and feedback. They reflect on whether their goals were met, how they can continue to meet goals or how they might revise or adapt the goal to meet their learning needs. While engaging in self-reflection, students also think about how work or learning could be enhanced or improved for next time. The process of self-reflection also involves revisiting goals often and setting new goals as the inquiry process proceeds and as new understanding of the inquiry process takes place. Self-reflection doesn`t just happen at the end of the inquiry, but should happen throughout the inquiry process.

On the other hand, self-evaluation involves looking back at co-created criteria, exemplars of the evolving process, and feedback from teachers and peers. Students use that information to decide whether the criteria have been met. Then students decide on what needs revising, redoing, and/or editing to meet the feedback and criteria. The process of self-evaluation also involves students and teachers revisiting the co-created criteria at the end of each stage of the inquiry or on a regular basis to ensure that the criteria still apply. As the criteria are re-evaluated students and teachers decide if revising and editing the criteria is necessary and do so together. Self-evaluation can also take place throughout the inquiry process as long as clear criteria have been set and exemplars are available for each stage of the inquiry.

In order for self-evaluation and self-reflection to take place we need to teach students to set goals, create criteria with our students, provide timely and constructive feedback, teach students to provide timely and constructive feedback to their peers and provide exemplars of the evolving process, not just best work exemplars.

What’s my context?

As I endeavour to work with the many willing teachers at my school, I need to find a way to incorporate goal setting, co-created criteria setting as well as self-reflection, self-assessment and peer feedback in meaningful and engaging ways. I also need to convince the teachers that taking yet more time to do these things are in fact in the students’ best interests, but also in their best interests as well.

What does the research say?

Anne Davies, a world renowned Canadian expert on classroom assessment practices summarizes the research on involving students in their own assessment in Making Classroom Assessment Work (2000).

According to Davies:
“When students are involved in their own assessment they are required to think about their learning and articulate their understanding, which helps them learn, . . . mistakes become feedback they can use to adjust what they are doing . . . [and] while all students show significant gains, students who usually achieve the least show the largest gains overall. Self-assessment asks students to make choices about what to focus on next in their learning. When students make choices about their learning, achievement increases; when choice is absent, learning decreases.” (p. 9)

Watch this video of Anne Davies on Classroom Assessment, note what she says about research on assessment.

Violet H. Harada and Joan Yoshina, authors of Assessing Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners (2005) also noted that “when students participate in the assessment process, they develop the following behaviours (Chappuis and Stiggins 2002):

• Students understand what is expected.

• They access prior knowledge.

• They have ownership over making the learning happen.

• They are able to give themselves, as well as others, descriptive feedback as they are learning.

• Assessment goes beyond measuring; it becomes motivating.” (p. 2).

The Alberta Learning document Classroom Assessment Toolkit for the ICT Program of Studies (2003) states as its second principle that “Assessment should be collaborative: Students benefit when they are involved in the assessment process. Assessment practices should help and encourage students to:

• be responsible for their own learning and develop a positive attitude toward the use of technology in meaningful, real-world situations

• be involved in establishing criteria for evaluating their products or performances

• work together to learn and achieve outcomes

• feel competent and successful using technology

• set goals for further improvements.” (p. 8, Retrieved on November 9, 2009).

This document also lists many research based reasons why self-reflection is an important process to engage our students in (see pages 19-20).

Finally, Focus on Inquiry (Alberta Learning 2004) says, “Students will be more successful in inquiry when teachers provide . . . opportunities for students to . . . review their processes of learning at the end of a lesson, day or week” (p. 37) and if they “reflect on their KWL charts and talk/write about the inquiry process and products, read their personal journals and reflect on them, . . . and use a rubric and checklist to evaluate their products and processes” (p. 71).

Post #2: Goal Setting for Inquiry Learning

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“Setting goals is a powerful way to focus students’ learning.” (Davies 2000, p 8)

According to Focus on Inquiry (Alberta Learning 2004), “assessment practices should provide opportunities for students to revise their work in order to set goals and improve their learning. . . [and] assessment practices should help encourage students to set goals for further improvements” (p.31). This document also suggests using a journal to record reflections (p 37). To facilitate reflection, this journal might also be an excellent place to record goals for the Inquiry Project.

Goals should be set both for the overall inquiry project AND for each stage of the Inquiry Process. In order for students to reflect on their work, they need to have something to reflect on and goals help focus this reflection. Goals also help students strive for excellence. However, in order to set goals for inquiry, students need to know the criteria for the inquiry and they need to understand what each of the stages of inquiry entails.

If it is the first time students are engaging in Inquiry, teachers may want to do an introduction to Inquiry where you describe each of the stages and what students will be doing in each stage of the inquiry. Using the chart on page 38 and the questions in the chart on pages 39-40 of Focus on Inquiry (Alberta Learning 2004) may also help guide students towards goals they could possible set for each stage of the Inquiry phase. These could also be adapted to become the basis for co-constructed criteria for the inquiry process (see next blog post).

In Knowing What Counts: Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting, Gregory, Cameron and Davies (2000) make many good suggestions for ways to include goal setting in instruction. They suggest a strategy called “Breaking it Down” in which “teachers brainstorm lists with [their] students by answering questions such as, “How can we get better at writing?” . . . Then students select their long-term goals from these lists” (p. 43). In the case of Inquiry, teachers could ask, “How can we get better at research?” as a starting point for an overall Inquiry project goal and then perhaps, “How can we get better at planning?” as a starting point for a more focussed goal at the planning phase.

Gregory et al (2000), also suggest using planning frames like the ones found on pages 45-48 of Knowing What Counts: Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting. (I have included pictures of these frames on the eClass discussion site).

For more from the series by Gregory, Cameron and Davies check out: Knowing What Counts free online resources.

Another way to help students set goals is to use the well-known goal-setting acronym SMART. This acronym states that goals must be:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic and

Timely.

This is a good outline to teach students to follow when they set their own goals. Anne Davies provides an excellent example of an adapted form of the SMART goal-setting format in this slide show (see page 10). On this graphic organizer, students first set their goal by writing it in a complete sentence. They then go through each of the letters of the SMART acronym describing how the goal fits each letter. Next they describe step by step how they will go about achieving their goal. Finally, the students are asked to think about obstacles to their success and then list ideas of how they might overcome these obstacles. This might be an excellent exercise to complete with students at the beginning of an Inquiry project to help them set a long term goal for the whole project.

Post#3: Setting and Using Co-Created Criteria

2009-11-11T12:01:00.003-06:00

Anne Davies is a strong advocate for involving students in their own assessment. In Making Classroom Assessment Work, she notes that “when students work together to set criteria, self-assess, and reset criteria, they come to understand the process of assessment and they practise using the language of assessment. This way, students gain a clearer picture of what they need to learn and where they are in relation to where they need to be, making it possible for them to begin to identify next steps in their learning.” (2000, p. 8)

In the article Involving Students in Communicating About Their Learning, Davies also notes that “when students learn, self-assess, and later, when ready, show their learning and receive descriptive feedback, they are developing the skills and habits of self directed, independent, lifelong learners (p.2) . . . [and] students who have experience being involved in the classroom assessment process are better prepared to have meaningful conversations about learning with others and more ready to be partners in collecting evidence of their learning to show others” (p.3). (Retrieved from http://annedavies.com/images/PDFs/involving_students.pdf)

Focus on Inquiry says that “students will learn to understand the evaluation criteria for the inquiry and evaluate their own inquiry process, using established criteria” (p. 71). This document also states that “assessment practices should involve students in identifying and/or creating criteria” (p.31).

In the Manitoba Education Citizenship and Youth document titled Independent Together, Chapter 6 addresses the idea of using Inquiry projects with multilevel learners in multilevel classroom settings and they suggest that criteria setting be included in the inquiry process. This document states, “as the inquiry proceeds, the teacher’s and students’ ongoing assessments determine opportunities for systematic instruction. Also, from the onset of the inquiry, the teacher and students begin to identify the characteristics of quality work (processes and products). As these characteristics become more sophisticated, the evolving criteria are applied to the processes used along the way and ultimately to the final process, performance, demonstration, or product. Thus, the teacher and students may discuss, for example, what a quality KWL chart, inquiry plan, or design project looks like.” (p. 6.5)

Cameron et al, in the book Knowing What Counts: Setting and Using Criteria, lay out a simple 4 step strategy to co-construct criteria with students:

Step 1: Brainstorm
Ask students, “What counts in an inquiry project?” or “What counts in the retrieving phase?
Teacher can have some input here as well.

Step 2: Sort and categorize.
Teachers ask students to help sort the list they generated together into relevant categories related to the Inquiry process.

Step 3: Make and post a T-chart
The t-chart should include criteria on one side and details about that criterion on the other side.
Teachers ensure all students understand criteria and add details to those that need clarification.

Step 4: Add, Revise, refine.
It is important that the criteria be visible and organic. Students must be able to see, use and suggest revisions at all times.

Another good step by step guide on how to co-construct criteria with students can be found here, see BLM#2.

Cameron et al also included 10 ways to assess without putting a mark on the paper in their book Setting and Using Criteria. Here are only a few of their ideas which involve ways to use the co-constructed criteria:

1. Students compare their work to the criteria and decide MET or NOT YET MET. They then revise as needed.

2. Teachers or peers compare student work to the criteria and decide MET or NOT YET MET, but add a descriptive feedback under the category I NOTICED.

3. Students use the criteria and samples from various stages of the process to assess their own work and then they fill out a SAMPLE MATCH form describing which sample their work best matches and why and how they can improve it if necessary.

For more ideas I strongly recommend the books Knowing What Counts: Setting and Using Criteria, Knowing What Counts: Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting, as well as the third book Knowing What Counts: Conferencing and Reporting. These books are very quick and easy reads for busy teachers and teacher-librarians, but they are full of excellent applicable information.

Other good books on assessment are Making Classroom Assessment Work by Anne Davies and How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students by Susan M. Brookhart.

Post#4: Conclusion, Essential Questions and Reference List

2009-11-11T11:53:00.003-06:00

Setting goals with our students prior to starting an inquiry project gives them the tools they need in order to engage in the evaluating phase of inquiry. Students are better able to assess their progress, motivate themselves and reflect on their achievements, when they set goals.

Teaching students to set criteria and to use that criteria to self-evaluate their progress gives them the tools they need to provide themselves with descriptive feedback, provide their peers with descriptive respectful and applicable feedback, and allows them to see what it is they need to do next in their inquiry project to achieve success.

Talking openly and honestly about goals and criteria, demystifies the learning process for students making it more accessible to both struggling and reluctant learners. Engaging in the inquiry process along with students, setting your own goals as they set theirs, comparing your inquiry to the pre-established and co-created criteria as they do and revising your goals based on that comparison as you encourage the students to, can provide a very powerful example of inquiry learning for your students.

Essential Question #1:

How many of you have received a self-assessment form back from a student and you could tell they had not really taken it seriously: all the middle boxes were checked, the student handed it back to you 30 seconds after receiving it and there were no additional comments written on the page. How would you or could you deal with student apathy regarding self-reflection and self-evaluation? Do you think the suggestions in this presentation would motivate that reluctant self-assessor?

Essential Question #2:

Skim through this PowerPoint by Anne Davies. Note in particular the Wrong Turns and Course Corrections. Have you made any of these wrong turns in your past teaching practices? If so, how did you or will you change your practice to better meet the needs of your learners?

References:

Alberta Learning. (2003). Classroom assessment toolkit for the information and communication technology (ICT) program of studies. Alberta, Canada: Author. Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/media/453470/div1to4.pdf

Alberta Learning. (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher`s guide to implementing inquiry based learning.
Alberta, Canada: Author.

Brookhart, S. M. (2008). How to give effective feedback to your students. Alexandria, Virginia:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Davies, A. (2000). Making classroom assessment work. Courtenay, British Columbia: Connections
Publishing.

Davies, A. (2003). Involving students in communicating about their learning. Online Journal: Research in
Action. Retrieved from http://annedavies.com/images/PDFs/involving_students.pdf.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C., & Davies, A. (1997). Knowing what counts: Setting and using criteria.
Courtenay, British Columbia: Connections Publishing.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C., & Davies, A. (2000). Knowing what counts: Self-assessment and goal- setting.
Courtenay, British Columbia: Connections Publishing.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C., & Davies, A. (2001). Knowing what counts: Conferencing and reporting.
Courtenay, British Columbia: Connections Publishing.

Harada, V. H. & Yoshina, J. (2005). Assessing learning: Librarians and teachers as partners. Westport,
Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.

Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth. (2006). Literacy with ICT across the curriculum: A resource
for developing computer literacy. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Author.

Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth. (2003). Independent together: Supporting the multilevel
learning community. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Author. Retrieved from: http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/docs/support/multilevel/index.html

Models for Integrating Technology: From a TL Perspective

2009-03-22T12:44:00.008-05:00

I’m going to go off the beaten path with this blog post and I’m going to be really serious about what I learned this week (no really, I am, I swear!). But I have to be honest first. After spending all week cramming to finish my own counterpoint discussion for NEXT WEEK’S TOPIC on whether or not current practices in professional development for technology are effective in encouraging teachers to integrate technology (you can get a sneak peek at Better PD Needed), I have a kind of skewed vision of this week’s topic. I mean I spent all week looking at this topic from the back end! Luckily the two topics are so interrelated that I was able to mesh the readings for this week with my already conceived thoughts about next week’s topic.

Another thing you may need to understand about this week’s change in the way I’m approaching my blog is that my current professional situation is likely to change in the next couple months and that has suddenly led me to think in a whole different way about what we have been learning. I know I have often talked about the when (or if?) of me becoming a real teacher-librarian (a la Pinocchio), instead of a classroom teacher who is a teacher-librarian wannabe. This situation has led me to frame most of my blog thoughts from the perspective of a classroom teacher, whether I realized it or not. But . . . I have been given some news recently that leads me to believe I just might, possibly, perhaps be given a teacher-librarian position next year. Not really sure about the details, or if it will even really happen, but the possibility has cause my brain to switch gears. I am now looking at all these things from the perspective of “How would/could I use this information to help teachers and students on a larger school wide scale?” and “How would a veteran Teacher-Librarian integrate this information into what they already do everyday,” and “How would I present this information to teachers who were reluctant collaborators and reluctant tech users?” All this, and the fact that I am drawn to visuals like a moth to a flame, has caused me to focus on the Instructional models for integrating technology that this week’s readings presented. So, although I have much to say about whether teachers are really integrating technology effectively, and on Chris and Kathy’s wonderfully well presented point/counterpoint I have limited time and space (which I’ve probably already gone over!! I do tend to be verbose :)

I was immediately drawn to the TPACK model as the visual that was presented made it all seem so clear and so obvious (to me at least, I am very mathematical and quite visual, so . . .).

Image retrieved from http://tpack.org/tpck/images/tpck/a/a1/Tpack-contexts.jpg%20on%20March%2022 on March 22, 2009.

I did a quick search and found this definition of the model:

“Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK). . . . The TPACK approach goes beyond seeing these three knowledge bases in isoloation. On the other hand, it emphasizes the new kinds of knowledge that lie at the intersections between them.” Retreived from http://www.tpck.org/tpck/index.php?title=Main_Page on March 22, 2009.

What I like about this model is that is recognizes that the process of integrating technology is much more complex than just simply using a computer to type up an essay, and it recognizes that this process requires teachers to partake in a new kind of learning of new knowledge. I think this would be a fantastic model to show to teachers. Once it is really understood by all parties it could be a valuable tool for both self assessment and goal setting for teachers AND school wide needs assessment and goal setting by administartors and of course the teacher-librarian. Having teachers point out which areas they themselves feel they are in need of new learning can also help them set goals for their personal professional growth plan and help them to determine in which areas they need professional development for. This could then drive a school wide professional development plan as well as encourage technology integration (see how I’m unable to separate the two topics!!).

The Kemp Design Model of Instructional Design (seen below) could be a very useful tool for teacher-librarians to use (either formally or informally) with teachers who are interested in collaboration with regards to ICT skills.

Image retreived from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Kemp_design_model on March 22. 2009.

The nine key elements of this model are(Retrieved from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Kemp_design_model on March 22. 2009):

1. Identify instructional problems, and specify goals for designing an instructional program.
2. Examine learner characteristics that should receive attention during planning.
3. Identify subject content, and analyze task components related to stated goals and purposes.
4. State instructional objectives for the learner.
5. Sequence content within each instructional unit for logical learning.
6. Design instructional strategies so that each learner can master the objectives.
7. Plan the instructional message and delivery.
8. Develop evaluation instruments to assess objectives.
9. Select resources to support instruction and learning activities.

Those key elements could be worked into a graphic organizer and then used during a meeting between a teacher and the teacher-librarian. The information collected can then aid in the creation of collaborative lessons and/or units. But even better, if this model is paired with a working knowledge on the teachers behalf of the TPACK model, it could not only provide a good staring point for collaboration, but also allow the teacher to be very specific in defining their own needs and in their request for help from the teacher-librarian. For example after gioing through Kemp’s model, teachers then refer to the TPACK areas which they have already determined they need assistance with and those are the areas where the teacher-librarian focusses her expertise. In this way the collaboration becomes much more effective and the teacher also learns and grows in the areas they have defined as their areas of need.

This process could easily be recreated using the Summerville Integrated Model instead of the Kemp model, depending upon the preferences of the teacher and teacher-librarian in question. The Summerville model is more cyclical and better addresses “how knowledge is transferred among the teirs.” according to Technology Integration and Instructional Design (J. Summerville and A. Reid-Griffin,TechTrends, Sept/Oct 2008, p. 48.).

This topic has really made me think about the role of the teacher-librarian in effectively helping teachers integrate technology and ICT skills on an individual level, but the role that the TL plays on a school wide level as well. And this quote from Technology Integration and Instructional Design really hit home:

“Everything that we do . . . everything that we select . . . every standard to which we adhere . . . all the content that we design . . . every time we assess, evaluate and revise, we are working toward a common goal” (Summerville, 2006). That goal is the transfer of knowledge to other subjects.” (J. Summerville and A. Reid-Griffin,TechTrends, Sept/Oct 2008, p. 50.).

But the interesting thing for me is that I am suddenly not only able to see how this applies to classroom teachers, but also how it applies to teacher-librarians. And this is an eye-opening experience for me, one I will continue to be in awe of.

Suddenly becoming a teacher-librarian,
Christine :)

Privacy: The Marketer’s Nemesis!

2009-03-15T14:35:00.004-05:00

This week’s topic of privacy was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I never really think about privacy issues with regards to the school library, but I learned an awful lot about how information collected from me online is used. I found the following video very enlightening (so much so that I feel the need to include the actual video, even though most of my classmates have seen it!):

The best things (in my opinion) about this video are that it’s Canadian and that it’s easy enough to understand that I could use it with my Grade 8 students. This video really shows how a well educated and responsible individual who knows there own privacy rights and practices them, can be a marketer’s worst enemy! Yet another resource I will be storing away to use when I become a teacher-librarian. Well . . . . I’ll probably use it with my students at the beginning of next school year when I talk about online safety in Social Studies.

Another resource from the Office of the Commissioner that was a part of our reading for this week also inspired pride and taught me a lot. Children’s Online Privacy is a fantastic resolution that makes clear concise statements about the rights of children with regards to privacy, but also calls for action from website operators to make their privacy and terms of use agreements easy to understand for children and youth. What an amazing concept! I’m a well educated adult and even I have trouble understanding many of the terms of use agreements out there. And to be honest I often just scroll through and then hit ACCEPT, so I can get to work with the tool I’m signing up for (what do you want to bet that’s what our students are doing too!) But NO MORE! From now on I will be reading those terms of use agreements quite carefully. I also think a great lesson for media literacy would be to have students analyze (as a class) a well used website’s terms of use agreement, just so they really understand what they are getting into.

We also watched a number of Google videos on privacy, which after one of my classmates pointed it out, struck me as a bit strange. She said it was almost like
“a marketing scheme which was [meant] to reassure me and not make me question whether or not my privacy was being threatened by Google and other companies.” I’m sure they were just trying to reassure their customers that even thought they had to fork over tons of information to the US federal government that what they collect doesn’t really tell the feds anything, so not to worry. Hmmmmm. It definitely does make you wonder. I think the videos were also a marketing scheme to convince their more paranoid customers to use Chrome, as it has an “incognito” setting which doesn’t store and record any information while in use.

The most blatant thing this week’s readings made me ponder was the whole issue of privacy in the school library. What books are students signing out, and who has a right to know what they are reading? Do their teachers? Do their parents? Do I? (Well that would be hard, but you get the picture, it’s a big issue that I hadn’t even thought of before!) When I was a teenager, my parents would never have had an issue with anything I read, even if it was controversial. But thinking back, even though I knew they respected my intellectual freedom, there were still things I wouldn’t have wanted them to know I was reading about. It made me think about how I would approach the idea of late returns or trying to get books back at the end of the year. Once again I must thank my classmates for providing great comments in the discussions surrounding how they handle these issues. I wouldn’t have even known where to start! I really liked the idea of having students call their own home to leave a message for themselves.

As always this week’s readings gave me lots to ponder upon and many ideas to add to my arsenal of resources. But it also made me a better more informed Digital Citizen, and for that I am thankful.

Unfiltered as always,
Christine :)

Readin’ Writin’ Rithmatic and Responsible use of Technology

2009-02-21T15:04:00.002-06:00

This week’s topic frightened the hell out of me! Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights. Whew, scaaary stuff. Especially when you read an article like this one by Doug Johnston that petrified me!! What CAN I use? What ARE the rules for teachers? Who IS in charge of enforcing the CanCopy license? What does the CanCopy license mean? CanCopy is not that helpful either, it’s not any clearer than copyright legislation!!

There’s copyright and copyleft (AKA Creative Commons) and CanCopy and citation rules and trademarks and the list goes on and on and on . . .

How can we expect students to “respect intellectual property rights” (as this week’s discussion revolved around) and the laws surrounding it, if they have never learned about it, don’t understand it and it’s so complex that even their teachers are fuzzy on the subject? In order to respect you must first understand (“Seek first to understand” was what on of my university professors always taught us).

I believe students do understand intellectual property rights, they just don’t know that it’s called “intellectual property rights.” Just this week there was an incident in one of my classes that exemplifies this. A group of students were arguing vehemently in the corner of my classroom. When I approached the group, one student “Max” explained to me that his group had kicked him out of their group project in English that morning but refuse to give him the poster he had worked so hard on. The other group members believed it should stay in the group because although they agreed he created the poster, they said he did so with the work they did prior to its creation, essentially he amalgamated their work onto the poster. So who does the poster belong to? All the students involved have a clear idea of what their own intellectual property is and have a definite sense of their rights with regards to their work. “Max” feels that his creative efforts in putting the poster together merit some authorship rights. After a calm discussion about the amount of work the group had already done, they agreed to let “max” back into their group and thus the issue was resolved. But had I been teaching a course on ICT I definitely could have used this example (and probably will in the future) to teach a lesson on intellectual property rights and copyright.

I did try to fit this topic in to my course this year by creating a Trailfire for my students to follow on Digital Law and Responsibility. The students had to read this article and then watch this video and then we had a discussion about file sharing.

Copyright becomes a great big gray area when discussing it with students; they have a sense of justice that can only be described as follows: many felt copyright only protects big businesses making more and more money. However, they also admit, when questioned further, that they DO recognize that copyright also protects the struggling artists. Most said that when it comes to downloading music, they’ll buy music from their favourite smaller Indie bands via the bands’ websites or iTunes, but download music from well established big wig bands.

So where do we teachers go to find out about this stuff? How do we go about learning ourselves and then teaching our colleagues and students? Now that I know about it, am I obligated to share my knowledge and become the copyright police?

The following quote from Mike Ribble’s Passport to Digital Citizenship sums it up nicely for me: “We Need not only to educate our children on the issues that are occurring with technology, but provide resources for our teachers and parents as well” (p. 16). Hurrah! So True! The four stages he refers to are a great model for developing an ICT class curriculum/implementation strategy. If I were a teacher librarian (ahh, dreams . . .) I would insist on seeing students at least once a cycle for some ICT training. I would use Mike Ribble’s book Digital Citizenship in Schools (here’s a nice excerpt) and Digiteen as well as Manitoba’s own Literacy with ICT document (and maybe these lessons created by Doug Johnston) as the foundation of the course, and Ribble’s Four-Stage Technology Learning Framework for Teaching Digital Citizenship as the model for implementing the course. I would also share with the school staff the curriculum topics for the course so that they knew what to expect from their students after they received the course and so that they could ask questions if they were unclear on any of the issues or topics.

I loved both the “Kids Know Your Rights!” article and the “Intellectual Freedom for Youth article, as they are great documents that could be used with my students. It’s too bad that there are not Canadian versions of these documents as those would be much more useful and appropriate. Hmmm . . . maybe I could have a final project in my course that had students creating a document that looks similar to those two articles, as both a way to show their learning, and help other students understand the issues. Of course I’d have to get permission from the authors!

As a professional I appreciated the short article “Intellectual Property Defined” as it helped me understand some of the terminology better. I honestly had not realized that all that fell under the purview of “intellectual property”.

And admittedly, I have not yet had time to read the Library Bill of Rights (and its eighteen interpretations!), Code of Ethics of the American Library Association nor the Freedom to Read documents, but I have them bookmarked and plan to read them at my earliest convenience.

“But when copyright moves from text into the realm of media, the lines of what is and what isn’t acceptable become blurred.” (Joanie Proske, p. 4) This is an excellent point; we need to do a much better job of teaching this to our students and ourselves. After reading all the articles and this week’s discussions I firmly believe we have to bring copyright to the level of the students, we have to provide PD to teachers on copyright and Creative Commons and proper updated citation rules for things found on the net, and we need to either develop sound curriculum foundation documents that incorporate ICT or greatly assist our fellow teachers in the integration of the already existing Literacy with ICT document across all subject areas.

Maybe we as educators also need to put more emphasis on structure, form and process than actual content. Students focus on what is “worth the most marks” so if a bibliography and proper citation are worth 5/10 instead of 1/10, maybe they would see its importance. We need to shift the way we think about what is important, change our priorities on an institutional and curricular level so that time and focus CAN be spent teaching these things, rather than rushing through them and justifying it with the same old, “there’s no time” excuse.

The ethical use of technology should become a staple part of a child’s education; the 3 R’s should become either: “Readin’ Writin’ ‘Rithmatic and Responsible use of Tech” or how about “Respect, Responsibility, and Rights”

Christine :)

United We Stand, Divided We FAIL

2009-02-08T13:59:00.001-06:00

This week I’ve learned that the Digital Divide is a much more complex issue than I had previously thought, and I’m ashamed to admit I have been so naïve. I had assumed the Digital Divide referred to the gap between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants (or Pioneers!) but I soon discovered there are many more facets to the issue of a divide. Wikipedia says the Digital Divide has to do with, “unequal access by some members of society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills” (Retrieved Feb 8, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Divide).

Studies (Study: 'Digital divide' affects school success, The digital divide in Canadian schools, The Digital Divide in Canada) have shown there is a Digital Divide with respect to:

~ Age (Natives vs. Immigrants)
~ Level of education (uneducated vs. highly educated)
~ Race (Caucasian vs. Minorities)
~ Gender (males vs. females)
~ Socio-Economic status (rich vs. poor)
~ Location (rural vs. urban)
~ Globally (developed nations vs. underdeveloped or developing nations)

With regard to race, most studies focussed on the US and refer to a gap between the Caucasian populations and the Hispanic and Black populations of that country. But I wonder what the situation in Canada is with regard to our Aboriginal peoples who live on reserves. They often lack even the basics of adequate housing and it seems to me that they fall into the categories of race, level of education, socio-economic and location divides (as most reserves are quite isolated, at least here in Manitoba they are). So I have to assume a digital divide in access to technology and the internet probably exists in these populations as well.

The statistics discussed sound eerily familiar. Are they not virtually identical to illiteracy statistics for the poor and underprivileged, minority groups, the elderly and underdeveloped nations? (See the following articles: Canada's shame, Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, specifically the section “Literacy gap between technology users and non-users,” Literacy and Poverty, Study: The link between information and communication technology use and literacy skills, or the full report on the previous article here, there are so many more, but I don’t have the room to list them all!)

What is so scary about this is that not only do our poorest students have to cope with the issues that come with their poverty, but it seems they also have to contend with illiteracy and a digital divide in their access to technology, the Internet and related skills. It is a vicious circle. This is probably why Hugh W. Glenn concluded that “closing the purported digital dived will not necessarily decrease the achievement gap between racial and ethnic groups.” (Retrieved on Feb 8, 2009 from http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=36693&CFID=19083695&CFTOKEN=32266091) They have so many more issues to deal with than just the digital divide. They have lower literacy rates and less access to technology so obviously they are also losing out on learning the “new literacies” (connective writing, communication skills, editing skills, information evaluation skills, critical reading skills, and information management skills) that Will Richardson speaks of in his book “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (2006). These are obviously the “related skills” referred to in the Wikipedia definition of the Digital Divide. So in today’s world being illiterate takes on a whole new meaning. You not only have to be able to read and write, but you have to have the related technology skills.

Do I think the gap will close? I don’t know. But I can do everything in MY power to close it for those students I influence yearly. So how do I effect change?

Easy:

~ I continue to integrate technology and teach all my students the related skills they need to
use that technology. (Skills level)
~ I continue to improve my own technology skills and be a role model for my students. (Skills
level)
~ I continue to quietly scream about the importance of technology related literacies to fellow
teachers, other educational staff, parents, and even my students. (Access and Skills level)
~ I continue to encourage my fellow teachers to integrate technology and teach the related
skills to use that technology, and to increase their own skill level. (Access and Skills level)
~ I encourage parents who do not have internet access at home to get it. (Access level)
~ I do my utmost to engage EVERY student in school, and recognize that may mean using
technology in new and unique ways. (Motivation level)
~ I become an advocate for increased access, bandwidth, and more computer labs in our
schools. (Access and Policy level)
~ I become vocal about policies that inhibit access and encourage policies that open up that
access. (Access and Policy level)

The issue of a Digital Divide is so complex, but I believe it is important for all educators to understand. After all, if there’s a divide then we’re failing our students. I think Manuel Castells said it best when he said:

“The fundamental digital divide is not measured by the number of connections to the Internet, but by the consequences of both connection and lack of connection.” (Manuel Castells The Internet Galaxy, 2001, p. 269)

Christine :)

Knowledge is Power, Educate to Protect

2009-02-01T13:32:00.000-06:00

Alright, my last couple blog entries have been entirely too serious, too long and too dry!! I promise to make a concerted effort to lighten up! This weeks issue was that of filters used by school divisions/districts that “protect our students” (note the quotation marks; I’ll come back to that ludicrous idea in a moment). Hmmm how to lighten the mood on this topic? Let’s start by suggesting that all school divisions banish their filter for one week (as an experiment, say) and wait for the response. Wait, wait, can you hear them? All those conservatives who “run” the school boards? All those non-educators who make important decisions affecting teachers and students? Wait, wait, they’re all laughing! They think I just made a funny joke. How will we ever be able to control (Uh . . . I mean protect) our children if there are no filters? I know, I’m so silly!

If you haven’t already figured out what my stance is on this topic, let me just lay it all out for you: filters do not protect students, they protect administrators and divisions from appearing lax, from liability, from angry parents and from reality (as evidenced in the article “Web 2.0 The Virtual Wild Wild West” where Don Hail recommends “Ensure your teachers understand that Web resources used inside the district are filtered, and alert them to use caution when recommending them for student use outside the classroom” as a way to avoid educators receiving “calls from some irate parents who are unaware of the need for filtering systems.” This is scary for two reasons 1) why are the sites different at school and at home, what is the use of using them then and is this not an argument for removing filters and 2) he is making a judgement assuming that all parents should use filters, but don’t know any better. I find this highly condescending!)

Filters only teach children that 1) we don’t trust their judgement 2) they are incapable of being responsible 3) if you want something and you can’t get it, cheat (re: finding proxy servers to get the blocked info they seek) oh and 4) that someone or something will always be there the “protect” them (when they should be learning the world can be a scary place and they need to be careful, illusions of safety are more dangerous than an accidental viewing of a sexually explicit site in my opinion).

In “I’m Mad and I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore!” Mary Ann Bell cites the Pew Study form 2002 called , “The Digital Disconnect: the widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools” where it shows that students are “frustrated and disgusted by the lack of internet access and consciousness on the part of their teachers.” I believe this frustration comes from the fact that they feel they can handle what’s out their but we (as in school divisions) don’t give them the chance. Just this past week at my school, I overheard a student call our school a “welfare school” when he was frustrated by Bess (our filter) and later that week a colleague lamented in the staff room about how a student researching Canada couldn’t search for the words “topography” or “photography” because the filter said they were words associated with “pornography”! So are all words ending in “-graphy” considered pornographic? How ridiculous is that! No wonder that student called our school a “welfare school.” (I did pull the student aside and explain to him that we were one of the schools in the division that had more technology, and that his frustrations were in fact due to the filter, at which point he said “oh, that means I can get to what I need, I’ll just use a proxy!” Yes we are now at the point where students are
blatant and obvious about their use of proxies, because even the teachers cannot access what they need and have on occasion asked a student to show them how to get to it, mostly because their entire lesson hinged on what they thought was a relatively innocent site. But I digress . . . .)

I have taught middle years students for 8 years and I have found that people underestimate adolescents. They are capable of much more than many people give them credit for. They can be articulate, responsible, trustworthy, and quite knowledgeable about what’s already out their on the “evil” net. They are also not crazed sex fiends searching out bomb making sites and trying to corrupt their peers through inappropriate sites. Most of the kids I’ve taught are normal decent kids who would benefit from some actual instruction in internet safety and Cyberbullying, evaluating websites, deciphering fact from opinion from lies, intellectual property rights (copyright and copy left), and citation rules and reasons.

Of all the articles I read this week, one line from “What Are We Protecting Them From?” by Matt Villano, struck me “Schools are spending millions and millions of dollars for technical solutions to comply with CIPA [in the US] . . . but our students can easily get around just about everything we throw at them.” He then goes on to say that “many K-12 expert say the best solution long-term is shifting the emphasis from policing . . . to educating . . .” HERE HERE!! That shift is hard for administrators to make though, especially with articles like “Patrolling Web 2.0” by Robert Losinsky where social networking sites are vilified and the fear mongering is perpetuated. Losinsky then proceeds to advocate for better “more improved” filters that filter out proxy servers as well as all the other “evil” social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (GASP!). He only discusses education in a small paragraph at the very end. One has to wonder which of these types of articles the school board members read more of.

Even more pertinent than money being wasted, is the fact that filters interfere with delivery of curriculum (as seen above with the “topography” example). Oh, let’s talk about curriculum for a minute. In Manitoba we have a Literacy with ICT document, which is mandatory to implement and assessment of these outcomes is being included in the development of my school division’s “new” middle years reporting system. But there have been NO changes to staff, NO changes to programming and NO changes to time allotments to accommodate these mandatory outcomes and the fact that we must now assess them. So no one is specifically teaching and targeting these outcomes, there has been no real effort to create “classes” or programming to facilitate the teaching of these outcomes and so the classroom teachers are left to be the ones to implement and assess these outcomes. They are trying to cram an already heavy workload with just more stuff. But which “subject” does it fall under? Which teachers are actually covering the outcomes? Do they even know how to do some of the things required by the outcomes? Why isn’t there an accompanying document with suggestions for instruction like all the rest of our curricula?

After all the discussion this week and my thoughts on the issue laid out above, I’m left thinking about Joanne’s comments about intellectual freedom and who is going to ensure students and teachers have these rights. What is the role of the teacher-librarian in all this? And Rhonda’s question “If teacher-librarians are responsible for advocating for the higher ideal of intellectual freedom, are they also responsible for teaching the safe and responsible use of online resources?"

To these I say yes, Yes, YES, it should fall to the Teacher-Librarian! If I were a Teacher-Librarian in my school division, I would strongly advocate for the development of a program that provided students with the necessary know how to use the internet safely, without the use of a filter, included all the applicable Literacy with ICT outcomes and lessened the load on the teachers by providing time to work with the Teacher-Librarian to plan the program’s implementation across ALL subject areas. I would also work hard to create a comprehensive AUP for students, parents and teachers that was more in line with the recommendations from the Media Awareness Network.

I’m also left thinking about my own children. As they grow up, I would much rather they have the knowledge and confidence to deal with what’s out there, the ethical base to know what’s right and what’s wrong and the right to access it if they so chose, than shelter them and “protect” them by giving them a false sense of safety, and a limited view of the world. My basic instinct IS to protect, and I feel the best way to do this is to EDUCATE. After all Knowledge is Power.

Christine :)

Digital Natives and the Greek Philosophers

2009-01-25T16:29:00.000-06:00

In my first year of university I learned that our educational system is based on a system designed by Isocrates (no NOT Socrates, ISOCRATES). At the time Isocrates lived (436–338 BC; he was a contemporary of Plato and Socrates, see more at Cambridge Histories Online) there were two competing ideas about the purpose of education. Socrates and Plato believed that if you educated the people in a liberal arts education that focussed on learning, creativity, enlightenment, arts and fitness that a perfect citizenry would emerge and would thus raise the empire to the height of civilization. By contrast, Isocrates believed that you should first determine what the ideal citizen should be for the kind of civilization you want and then design an education system that fulfilled these requirements in its citizenry, thus producing perfect citizens and raising the empire to the height of civilization.

Why is this relevant to this week’s discussions on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants? Great question. I promise to come back to that, for now I just want to you to mull the purpose of our current educational system over in your head. Which of these do you think is important?

This week’s readings were varied and interesting, ranging from a series of technology outcomes for both teachers and students (which I think is fantastic by the way, teachers should have standards they have to live up to, see Is It Ok To Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?) to one that discusses the importance of preparing new teachers for “Digital Age” learners (which again I think is fantastic because when I was in university there was ONE Tech in Ed course and I couldn’t take it because they only offered it at the same time as another of my required courses!) to some that discuss the ramifications of these “New Learners” or as Prensky (2001) calls them “Digital Natives.” There was a flurry of posts in our discussion about the need for balance and the idea that we should “unpack the good stuff [we] carried from [our] 20th century trunk” (Valenza, 2007).

When it comes to the argument of using “new and innovative” strategies with the “new learners” I have to ask what do we mean by “new” and “innovative” because Prensky spends much of his article criticizing teachers who, in his words “assume that learners are the same as they have always been, and that the same methods that worked for teachers when they were students will work for their students” (2001). This statement and many others he writes don’t give teachers much credit for their intellectual ability to first see that what they are doing may not be working and secondly for their ability to adapt based on those observations. This article was published in 2001 and was more than likely written even earlier, and to be honest, in the ever-changing fast-paced world we live in, I believe it is quite outdated in its criticisms. For example, he cites an example about the use of calculators and computers which hasn’t been an issue since before I was in university. Many teachers are much more adaptable and have been using great strategies that engage their students than Prensky’s article give credit for. I can only assume this is because in the intervening years we have adapted as a profession and we realize what’s best for our students.

I believe what’s best is engaging them using great strategies (like those listed in Manitoba’s Success for All Learners support document, it was written in 1996 though, so maybe it needs an update?) and either pairing those strategies with new technology tools or adapting them for use with new Web 2.0 tools. There is merit in strategies that teachers have used in the past and those same strategies can be built upon to enhance learning in the future. Technology also is not the end all and be all of getting our students engaged in their learning. Good educators know it is a combination of many strategies that works best to engage our students. It’s about “best practices,” “real world applications,” and “students centered/led inquiry” that show students that their education is in fact applicable to their current and future lives and its not just an outdated exercise in gathering and memorizing arbitrary information they can easily find in seconds using their iPhones. It’s about USING technology and web 2.0 tools to ENHANCE teaching and learning strategies that are based in sound experience and professional judgements and are effective in achieving the goals of our education system.

We spent all this time talking about the “new learners” and forgot to address the “new environment.” We live in a changing world and I’m not convinced we can assume our students are more prepared for it than we are. In “Who Are Today’s Learners?” Christine Greenhow suggests we should figure out where our students are before we make these assumptions, and I completely agree. However, I suggest we stop focussing so much on where they come from, (ex. stereotypes about middle school students being more tech-savvy that their teachers, which after a quick survey of my own 73 students I can tell you is not the case at all. The majority had never even heard of a wiki before I introduced it to them) and we start to acknowledge and agree on where they are going (i.e. what the future may hold for them) and what they need in order to get there. This change in perspective can be a powerful tool for use with reluctant-to-adapt teachers, because all teachers want what’s best for their students and want to play a part in helping them achieve success. At least I like to think so.

This perspective can also be a fantastic way to introduce the ISTE standards to a staff: as a conversation starter about the following questions “If these standards are what we value to teach, then where are our students going with it? What more do they need? How do we achieve these outcomes in the confines of our current system?”

Here’s where we wade into the muddy waters of philosophy and ask: what is the goal of our current education system then? Is it to create productive workers with applicable skills to the current and future workforce? Or is it to create enlightened, knowledge-savvy citizens who value creativity and education for the sake of learning? Well, I was delighted to read the standards set out by ISTE because they give rise to the idea that, in fact our goals encompass both statements (see ISTE’s NETS for Teachers number 1 “Facilitate and inspires student learning and creativity” and ISTE’s Nets for Students #1 “Creativity and Innovation” as examples of our educational system valuing creativity and innovation). These standards are not those of an outdated hierarchical government-run educational system, but the dawning of a new understanding that in order to perpetuate our civilization we must begin to value Socrates’ ideas about education, as well as prepare students for the workforce as Isocrates suggested (sorry, I’m a History major and tend to see changes in the world as far reaching and fundamental to our future!). This may be the first time in history when the two are not only desirable but are actually achievable by our current system. In the future, productive workers with applicable skills WILL BE those who are innovative, creative, knowledge-savvy, continue to learn and have the skills to do so. And I like to think they will also be enlightened about their own learning.

I also believe that teachers will adapt and learn and grow right along with these “New Learners”, these “Digital Natives”, and will always be striving to do what’s in the best interest of their students. And who knows maybe along the way they’ll obtain Dual Citizenship (Thanks Carol Nahachewsky and Leanna for the term) and by the time the next generation of teachers graduates this discussion will be as outdated as Prensky’s article!

A Shining Ray of Hope

2009-01-18T16:23:00.002-06:00

I have to admit I don’t even know where to begin for this week’s synthesis. There’s just *so much* to talk about (uhh? I mean blog about. Sorry I’m rusty!). Actually, I think I could blog about this week’s readings for months! This week’s themes included what a 21st century school library (and by extension school, teachers and curriculum) should look like. We also learned how our students have evolved as learners and the new literacies they need to know to be successful. We briefly discussed the many issues relating to this new 21st century mentality that we need to adopt. To be honest, it was a lot of information to read in a short amount of time! But I don’t feel overwhelmed, no exactly the opposite in fact. I want to meet with the “powers that be” in my division and show them all these articles and then challenge them to change their backwards ways! Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I feel confined: confined by slow to adopt upper administrators, confined by small bandwidth, confined by old outdated and biased (ageist?) attitudes by colleagues, confined by the hierarchical structure of my division’s separate library and technology departments and confined by arbitrary policies and filters. But these articles did provide me with a shining ray of hope.

The article Towards a Transformative Pedagogy for School Libraries 2.0 (Asselin & Doiron, 2008) described a situation that I’ve been thinking about for some time: the fact that my students are “different” and learn differently. What I had been doing in the classroom (actually what I had been *taught* to do in the classroom) just wasn’t giving them the skills I believed they would need in the great big world outside of school. It came as an epiphany one day as I was struggling to figure out how on earth I would fit the rest of the curriculum into the rest of the school year. I was actually counting days and eliminating “extraneous” outcomes to “get it all in” and in fact was not planning to cover anything in any great depth! It was then that I said to myself, does it really matter that my students learn *all* this stuff? What’s really important is the skills they need to find answers when they need them. Huh! That simple revelation caused me to change not only *how I teach*, but *how I assess* as well, and it eventually led me down the path to this course and my pursuit of the elusive teacher-librarian position.

I actually laughed out loud when the article referred to students using Google as their one-stop shop for searching and researching. I recently told my students that if their idea of researching is going to Google and choosing the site that pops up at the top of the search, then they don’t really know how to research and they need to learn some better strategies. *ALL* my students (even the high achievers) were confused by this statement, as it was the way they had been researching in school until this point in their lives! From that one paragraph I gleaned 10 separate items I could cover in a unit on research skills at the beginning of the year, not to mention some great questions to use in a lesson on evaluating websites. Shaping Global Criticality with School Libraries by Keith McPherson (2008) provided me with even more fantastic resources to add to my repertoire of digital literacy/media literacy lessons. This article also boosted that ray of hope I felt by arguing that the new learners and new literacies make for a generation who have the potential to transform the world in a social, economic and political way. Asselin and Doiron describe the new learners as “passionately tolerant” and “a force for social transformation” which adds credence to McPherson’s argument.

When one looks at the new literacies that Asselin and Doiron refer to and then at the section “How Do We Teach the New Learners??” again that ray of hope gets brighter, as I see my colleagues doing many of these things already. Now we just need to embrace the idea that the New Learner needs to be engaged in their learning through new strategies and technologies that they use on a regular basis. Towards School Library 2.0: An Introduction to Social Software for Teacher Librarians by Naslund and Giustini (2008) mentions that “compared to their technology infused lives at home . . . middle- and high-school students state that activities at school are ‘boring’ between 50-70% of the time.” Yet most teachers (and administrators and school boards) are still reluctant to integrate the use of Web 2.0 social software into their classrooms! This article basically reviewed what we learned in EDES 501 and so I will not dwell on it long, but I believe it is a great article for all teachers (not just teacher-librarians) to read because it provides a quick introduction to most of the Web 2.0 tools currently available. (Although the author does refer to blogging as a form of journaling which I strongly contest, as we learned last term from Will Richardson that journaling is only low level blogging and that blogging is so much more and involves connective writing . . . but I digress!)

Of all the readings, I enjoyed Joyce Valenza’s Manifesto for the 21st Century Librarian the most. I found it quite life affirming (ok maybe that’s over the top, but I really did find it affirming read on . . .). Like many of my classmates I used the manifesto as a checklist for myself to see if I was in fact a 21st century teacher-librarian. (Technically I fail in that regard as I’m just a lowly classroom teacher, but . . .) I decided to put check marks beside both the items I was doing already as a classroom teacher and the items I agreed with and therefore would like to think that if I was a teacher-librarian I would be doing. I’m proud to say that I put a check beside almost all of the items. I am not yet using RSS feeds with my students (I honestly don’t think they’re ready for that yet) or Skype to bring in experts (but now I’m thinking about it) or Social networking (or bookmarking, but I have ideas, so maybe next year). So all in all I feel that I AM a 21st century educator. (Whew! That’s good, wouldn’t want to be stuck in the 20th century!)

After reading all these articles (including some I didn’t actually reference here like Videogames in the Library? What is the World Coming to? By Kathy Sanford which gives me approximately 30 reasons to say “I told you those games were educational” to my mother, and Immersive Learning Environments in Parallel Universes: Learning in Second Life by Ken Haycock and Jeremy W. Kemp which reveals the interesting and innovative world of virtual reality educational environments. Here are some videos that also explore the idea of using Second Life as an educational tool just in case you're interested: Educational Uses of Second Life, Science Learning Opportunities in Second Life, and Education in Second Life: Explore the Possibilities) I had one question that was still nagging at me though: are students really as tech savvy as we think they are? After doing a survey of my 75 students, I learned that they are not. Many of them had not heard of a wiki and most of them had never blogged before. None of them knew what Web 2.0 meant. They are, however, heavily invested in Facebook, file sharing, and online gaming. McPherson mentions this “stereotype” of students “being more “tech savvy” than most educators and parents” (2008) in his article while referring to a survey conducted by Media Awareness Network in which “70% of the students surveyed still desired assistance from others in determining the authenticity of online information” (2008). I think this gives us all the more reason to become better 21st century educators. Students are either using these technologies already or will be using them soon, and I for one would rather them learn good strategies and approaches to problem solving in a safe and nurturing environment (i.e. at school) than have them learn on their own, but not fully understand what it is they are doing and thus leaving themselves open to victimization or misuse and abuse of a technology.

Our students are changing (or already have changed?) whether we like it or not. They are becoming disengaged in a time when learning is the “it” thing to do in our knowledge-based society. The only way to re-engage them is to embrace the 21st century and move forward. Soon the students and their parents will start demanding that we accommodate their new learning modalities, and where will we be left if we don’t already have a strategy as to how we’re going to do that? By the roadside of the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries, trying to convince ourselves that we are the professionals and we know what’s best. That’s only true if we continue to learn and grow as educators, and if we shake off the inhibitions and bureaucracy that has been confining us and follow that ray of hope.

Christine :)

2008-12-21T16:28:00.003-06:00

Hi all you followers (Do I have followers? If you're readingthis then I guess so!) I just wanted to quickly update you on what I've been doing. I have spent the last three weeks working tirelessly to complete my final project in EDES 540: Intorduction to Teacher-Librarianship. Of course I went way overboard and created a wiki with two thousand pages (ok maybe not TWO thousand, but alot!). I am happy to report that I am finally finished and would like to post the link here for all you fellow teacher-librarian wannabees (and alreadybees!) to puruse at your leisure. I created an Advocay Plan of Action for Increased Collaboration between the teacher-librarian and the teachers at her high school. Here is the link, feel free to take a look and leave comments if you like.

I also wanted to mention that after all that talk about getting the teachers at my own school on board with using wikis, I found out that at least one of the teachers is already using a wiki with her students and I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. So here it is, take a look and see what you think: www.learninginitiative.wetpaint.com

Have a happy holiday and a great New Year!

Great Video on Connectivism

2008-12-08T11:37:00.001-06:00

Hi all I recieved this video from a colleague in my other class, Valerie Martineau. It really sums up everything we've (I've) learned in this course. It's all about the ideal 21st century classroom experience and the networked student. Watch it NOW!

Final Reflection? I think NOT!

2008-12-06T19:17:00.000-06:00

So I’m supposed to reflect on the past three and a half months and discuss my key learning for this last (?!) blog post. That’s easy, I learned everything that was covered in this course! (I know that sounds so much like a middle years kid response, but I’m serious, let me explain . . .) My vast lack of knowledge on the topic of Web 2.0 tools only paled in comparison to how much I learned about them in this course. When I first started I didn’t even know what “Web 2.0” meant, let alone what tools were available online and at my disposal. So what did I learn? I learned what Web 2.0 means, that these tools exist and not only are they relevant to teaching and learning, but they will probably become essential! I still shocks me how in the dark I was before this course!

Definitely one of the lowlights of this course is that I feel like I have not left the computer for 3 months (you know like Rip Van Winkle, only instead of sleeping I’ve been blogging!) I was so totally immersed in the world of Web 2.0, and now I understand how learning a language through immersion works, you really have no choice but to learn it! But even though I feel like I haven’t left to computer for eons, the structure of this course did allow me to learn an immense amount in a very short period of time and now I feel totally comfortable going out into the “unknown” to learn tools we didn’t cover (like Trailfire, Glogster, webquests, pathfinders . . .).

Oh, there were definitely times when I felt I was going to overload my brain circuits and my husband would find me stuttering in front of the screen saver at 3 am. But once I learned to manage my time and the information coming at me, I became adept at learning the tool, researching their use by others and blogging about it all.

What do I plan for the future? Well I’ve already created the class wiki which I hope to use as an easily updateable site for handouts, info on assignments, to show case student work and as a starting point for most of my projects. (I plan to do a lot more project type learning and a lot less worksheet type learning too.) I also set up a “class update blog” and my plan is to assign one student per week to write short (paragraph long-ish) daily updates on what was covered in class and then provide one “good” link to further information on that topic. Of course, I need to discuss evaluating websites with the students (our province has a good link to a sample lesson plan when the students have to look at some fake websites and determine if they are real or not!) as well as some (a lot?) digital citizenship stuff (such as appropriate language, cyber bullying, online safety measures, respect for others work, plagiarism etc. All these links are sample lesson plans from the Manitoba Government). I also have two bigger projects in mind, one involving the class wiki as an online science text and the other involving students teaching other students using Trailfire, sort of like an online virtual jigsaw. But I haven’t fully formalized those ideas yet! I also hope to use Voicethread and have been searching for curricularly (is that a word?) applicable podcasts to use with students. I also have some ideas about booking our computer lab for Student led conferences and having the students show their parents everything they can do (hopefully!) for their conference. I know it’s a lot, but if I don’t get it all in this year, then there’s always the next year and the next and the next and . . . .

Will I keep blogging? YES! I plan to keep trying new things and telling whoever’s out there what I learned and thought. I also plan to do some reflecting on what I’m doing with my students, you know what’s working and what’s bot! I also hope to eventually use this blog as a “show and tell” for my colleagues in a PD aimed at convincing them of the benefits of Web 2.0 tools!

Oh, and speaking of colleagues, how can I even begin to explain the amazing experience of learning from, with and through peers who have such a vast amount of knowledge and insight to share!!? I made some friends along the way, people I feel I will be able to call upon when (or if?) I get a TL position for advice and guidance and I also learned quite a bit about Web 2.0 from their blog posts and discussions. Three of my favourite blog posts by colleagues are Heather’s ABC’s of Blogging, April’s KWL on RSS, and Selena’s The Strange World of Social Networking Sites. What's more, is through the discussion site and my fellow classmates’ blogs I was able to learn about how my own fellow teachers may react to the world of Web 2.0. How did conversing with virtual strangers (now friends!) help me learn about the friends with whom I work at my school? That’s easy, the insights, experiences, feelings and thoughts of my classmates (and myself!) ran the gamut from fearful and nervous to wary and careful to skeptical and doubtful to excited and eager. This is the same journey I expect that most of my colleagues at school will go through too. But in the end we all (I think) came to the conclusion that Web 2.0 tools are incredibly important and have great impacts on our teaching and the learning of our students. Knowing that we made it through gives me hope that my colleagues at school will too!

Saying bye for now (and see you in January)
Happy Holidays
Christine :)

What’s Next? Wikis for all of course!

2008-11-30T13:23:00.005-06:00

So I’m having trouble focussing this week. My brain is full with thoughts of returning to work (planning lessons and units, I can never do the same thing twice, that’s just too easy!) thoughts about my “big project” in EDES 540 (not to mention the 4 remaining smaller assignments!) and of course thoughts about this blog post (and about Christmas, shopping, cleaning, swimming lessons . . .). To add to my brain overload, I met with a friend and mentor (a great TL) for breakfast yesterday and got energized to fight for a Teacher Librarian (TL for short) position in our division for September. (Actually, I think my exact words were, “I plan to take over our division and if that doesn’t work, I’ll take over the province.” I was obviously talking from the perspective of improving the TL situation in my division, and province. What did you think I was talking about?) I also attended our Province’s annual SAG conference on Thurs and Fri. I went to a great certificate session put on by the Council of School Leaders called Building 21st Century Schools which also filled my head with great ideas (because apart from taking masters courses, being a mother to a 2-½ yr old and a 9 month old, and having to plan for my return to work, I’m also working towards my Level 1 Admin certificate! CRAZY!) So . . . I have all sorts of great ideas floating around in my brain and I feel like it’s going to explode and I might lose the ideas! AHHHHH! Its ok . . . I’ll be alright. I just need to FOCUS!

This week our fantastic instructor gave us the following task: “Which of the tools we have learned about would you choose to introduce to your staff?” This was easy for me because as the course progressed, in the back of my (already full) brain I have been building a PD plan to share all my Web 2.0 learning with my fellow teachers when I return to work. My first inclination was to discuss Voicethread. It’s easy to use, and our staff is currently hooked on PhotoStory, which is similar but not collaborative, as there is no comment aspect. But then I thought (stupidly) that was too easy, and if I really wanted to show my staff the power of the “Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web” (Richardson, p. 133) Wikis were the way to go. If I really wanted to “get them on board” I figured I should demonstrate the immense collaborative clout of this tool. So I stole (borrowed!) an idea that I found while writing a previous post (From this article about a poetry professor’s use of a wiki) and created a page on my class wiki that I will use to illustrate how wikis can be used.

But I’m getting ahead of my self! Firstly I need to help my staff understand the collaborative nature of wikis and how using wikis can really enhance their students’ learning. I figured, why not use other Web 2.0 tools to show this?! I found this great video from pb-wiki about collaboration:

And there is also this video (also from pb-wiki) called Helping Educators Educate. I also found a sort of testimonial (called Wiki Supporter) from teacher Ken Kellner about his experiences using a wiki with students. Then there is this podcast from Mobile technology in TAFE where Adam Frey (the co-founder of Wikispaces) talks about using wikis in education. I think I might even show them the trail fire that Joanne created for the class on wikis, as it has some great info in it. Now those things should convince my staff that wikis are at least something worth trying. The next step would be to show them some fantastic examples, so I would go to Vicki Davis’ many wiki’s as listed in my previous blog post on the subject for those examples, and of course show them my own experiences with wikis (here and here). But I also found Educational Wikis, and would show them it as well. Basically, it’s a wiki that provides resources for how to use wikis in education!

If all that fails to convince them of the greatnes of wikis, I also found this article from Newsweek International Edition called “Power in Numbers: How wiki software is reforming bloated bureaucracies and changing the face of communication.” Here’s the first paragraph:

“The United Nations, notorious for endless deliberations, is trying a technological quick fix. Its Global Compact Office, which promotes corporate responsibility, has embraced a once fringe social technology—the wiki—in hopes that it will help staff in 80 countries share information and reach consensus with less deliberation and more speed.”

The article goes on to say:

“Now the technology is increasingly spreading outside the world of tech geeks and into the mainstream, being adopted by workplaces, corporations and even governments. In what's been dubbed the "wiki workplace," a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software—a basket of technologies that include wikis, blogs and other tools—to foster innovation across organizational and geographic boundaries. Executives say the new tools make it easier for teams to collaborate and share information, and to get projects up and running on the fly. "Collaborative software has become a very important part of how businesses will invent and innovate," says Ken Bisconti, IBM's vice president of messaging and collaboration software.”

There, that is some powerful information for teachers to take in. The UN is using wikis, and so are big businesses, to help their “people” collaborate. So WHY AREN'T WE USING IT!!??!?

That’s when I would do the activity I created on my wiki see the link referenced above), to show them just ONE possible way they could incorporate the tool into their teaching.

Ofcourse I know that one day of PD does not a trend make, so how would I continue the momentum? Well I personally will dedicate myself to using the wiki on a regular basis and I will make sure that all my students are experts when they leave my classroom at the end of the year (thus giving them the skills to use wikis for other assignments, whether it's required or not!) . I would be willing to work with colleagues and students to help them create wikis. I would even be willing to do a follow up, after school PD session on “How To Wiki” for those afraid to explore on their own, and to take a handful of kids (myabe 1 from each class?) and show them the ins and outs of wikis so they become experts in their classes.

I would also set up a staff professional development wiki for our teachers to add info, links and reflections to on the subjects they feel are important to their personal PD, and are relevant to our school’s situation (i.e. not just wikis, but have pages for all kinds of best practices and educational issues).

I would also like to revamp the school’s horrible school web page into a school wiki, where all parties collaborate in its growth, but where informational pages are locked (as I’m not totally delusional and niave to believe that some student or other party won’t try to vandalize it!)

I’d eventually like to get the teachers on board with blogging, Voicethread, social bookmarking for research projects, and using podcasts (i.e. moving towards more Web 2.0 tools and moving away from looking for specific sofware applications). BUT . . . as I said I’m not delusional. I understand that there will be stuggles, and some will flat out refuse to adapt, and others will be enthusiastic but then fizzle out and still others will be angry at me for making them have “more work” to do, or for giving their students ideas they themselves have chosen not to understand. But my personality is one of perseverance and so I figure that in the coming years, if I continue to advocate for the use of Web 2.0 tools with students (and staff) and continue to model their use and continue to badger the school tech coordinator to put links to my sites on the school homepage and contiue to offer PD workshops to my staff, that I will eventually succeed!

Here are some articles that I may also occasionally photocopy (or email) for the staff and anonymously put in their mailboxes, you know, just little reminders:

A Wiki for Classroom Writing

The "starving time" wikinquiry: using a wiki to foster historical inquiry.

Wiki man

Wikis are for You

Wikis and student writing

Wikis and literacy development

Wild about Wikis: Tools for taking student and teacher collaboration to the next level.

7 things you should know about…wikis

Educators Experiment With Student-Written 'Wikis'

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-11-30T02:30:00.001-06:00

power
a support website for TLs imcreasing student achievement
tags: no_tag
I Want My Mummy!
tags: mummy, egypt, webquest
WebQuest
Might be good for Joleen
tags: webquest
Trailfire
Trailfire homepage
tags: trailfire
Trailfire: Web 2.0 Information by joannedegroot
Joanne's trailfire for general Web 2.0 tools
tags: joannedegroot, trailfire
Trailfire: Wikis by joannedegroot
Joanne's Trail fire on wikis
tags: wikis
Weblogg-ed » Media for Knowledge vs. Media for Action
read this! and comments too!
tags: weblogg
Teach42
tags: education, blog, web2.0, technology
YouTube - A Vision of Students Today
A vision of students today, great video
tags: technology, web2.0
TeacherTube - Pay Attention
Great Video called pay attention
tags: education, web2.0, teaching, technology, teachertube

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-11-23T02:30:00.001-06:00

AASLBlog » 2008 » October » 30
read for blog post
tags: blog, web2.0
Weblogg-ed » New MacArthur Study: Must Read for Educators
read for blog post
tags: weblogg, macarthur
» And the 2007 winners are… The Edublog Awards
read for blog post
tags: edublogs, blogging, web2.0
The Fischbowl: Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? - Annotated
read for blog post
tags: blogging
DW -- Blogmeister
read for blod post
tags: blogging
Action Research: Blogging in Education
read for blog post
tags: blogging
Typealyzer
tags: typealyzer
TheLisa: Bringing Your Voice To Your Blog | Search Engine People | Toronto
tags: voice
Author Marketing Experts, Inc. » Blog tip of the day: Please don’t let dead people write your blog
tags: voice
Blogging: Finding Your Voice (or I Am A Fraud) | (Anti) Social Development
tags: voice
Finding Your Blogging Voice (and more)
tags: blogging, voice
Stickyblog » Human, warm, professional blah blah blah…
tags: voice
Stickyblog » Can web writing be creative?
read
tags: voice
A Technology Toolkit That Is Really an Educational Toolkit - National Writing Project
tags: voice
Heart and Voice: A Digital Storytelling Journey - National Writing Project
read for voice post
tags: digital_storytelling, voice
Finding a Conversational Voice in Video Tutorials | I'd Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson
read for voice
tags: voice
Teaching with Web 2.0: Benefits Interactive Web Technology Brings to Education
read for voice post
tags: teaching, web2.0
Teaching with Wikis: Activities for Integrating Technology into the Classroom
read this for voice post
tags: wikis
Teaching with Blogs: Ideas for Integrating Technology into Established Curriculum
read this for voice post
tags: curriculum, blogging
6-Traits Resources: Writing Process / 6-Traits / Web 2.0
tags: voice, 6traits
Index of /superconference2005/sat/docs/916
tags: advocacy
Index of /superconference2005/sat/docs/1001
Volunteer code of ethics
tags: library volunteer
Index of /superconference2005/fri/docs/518
tags: graphic novels
Index of /superconference2005/thurs/docs/222
tags: advocacy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Boy, do I have a PD opportunity for you!

2008-11-22T15:03:00.001-06:00

A blog (letter, email, call, plea, shout, scream?!) to my fellow teachers: If you want some truly valuable Professional Development keep reading!

We are always striving to find valuable PD opportunities (uh, if you’re not, then you definitely need to keep reading!), that both meet our needs as teachers and don’t bore us to pieces by repeating old, outdated, or irrelevant advice. If the last PD session you went to made you think, even for a second, “this better not waste my precious time,” then do I have a PD opportunity for you! (Keep reading. I promise, I won’t waste your time!) Just so we’re clear, to me the term “Professional Development” implies just that: developing as a professional: growing, learning and reflecting on experiences as both an educator and as a professional. I see 3 ways that blogging can accomplish this goal for you:

As a reader of educational blogs (or Blogging as a form of professional learning)

Reading blogs of noted edubloggers (see the edublog awards for some good ones, or see the side bar of my blog --->) is a way to learn from prominent people in the field of education, even when they are half way around the world! Through these blogs you can learn new ideas, get links to current research (as in this post from Will Richardson, kindly flagged by my marvelous instructor, or this post about the Digital Divide, kindly forwarded by Jennifer Branch, or this post I found about Blogging in Education), and stay on top of the latest best practices in almost every field within education (like this post which discusses one of the worst barriers to implementing the use of educational technology across the school: teacher tech illiteracy. It’s called, “Oh, Sir, You Are too Kind” and don’t forget to read the comments too!). It is especially helpful to read about how a noted edublogger has tried similar things that you have tried and is reflecting and learning the same way you are (just like this series of posts from Cool Cat Teacher Blogger Vicki Davis about the uses of wikis in teaching, called “Where do I start with A Wiki” Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, also thoughtfully provided by my tremendous instructor Joanne for a previous assignment).

As a writer of an educational blog (or Blogging as a form of refection)

Frank and earnest (no, not my cousins from the farm!) reflection through blog writing on what you’re trying, what has worked for you, what you need to try, or even posing questions to the world (whether you’re looking for the answers or not) can provide a much needed tool for professional growth. Even expressing frustrations at how things are not working the way you had hoped can be helpful (see my own previous posts regarding uploading Word Documents to Blogger, which led me to find other Web 2.O tools that suited my needs, as I report in this post about Wikis). I believe blogging is truly beneficial for educators, allowing you to rethink your beliefs and theories, your roles, your lessons, your strengths and even come up with new ideas. Essentially this all allows you to grow as a teacher.

As a participant in the edu-blogosphere (or Blogging as a form of collaboration between the blogger and their select audience)

When you post your reflections to your blog, you are sharing with the world. To be honest, its hard to believe that some 6 billion people will read your blog (6 billion? The world . . . duh!), but there will be some who read it and many who may begin a dialogue with you about what you have said, expressing their ideas, thoughts and reflections in turn (like this post of mine on Facebook in Education, which resulted in a flurry of responses and even some further reflection from Jose Picardo on his blog. Note too that his posts on this subject are also a perfect example of how thoughtful reflection on your practice as a teacher can lead to growth and learning by you, but also by others who read your reflections and see your growth). This may or may not (but should) provide you with an important collaborative reflection on what you’re doing as a teacher, as long as you continue the dialogue, that is (see this post called “Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?” where Karl Fisch respondes to the article by Terry Freedman and says, “If you're visiting this post for the first time, please read the comments as well - that's where most (all?) of the good stuff is.” Karl won an Edublog Award for the most influential post of 2007 for this post!) These discussions can even lead to online class collaborations (maybe like Vicki Davis’s Horizon Project of 2006 and 2007 or Flat Classroom Project 2008). And the best part? You can collaborate with colleagues from other parts of the world, whom you never would have had occasion to even meet, prior to your blogging experience.

(Just an aside for Joanne: I’ve been thinking about your comment on RSS feeds and when to cover this in the class. My first gut response was that yes, you should cover it earlier, as it would have really helped to learn about it sooner. But then I thought, “If I had learned about it earlier, what would I have done with it,” as I hadn’t gotten “into” the course enough to have anything to subscribe to. So my final conclusion is that maybe it could be done a little earlier, possibly during the same week that our class discussion responses revolve around managing information overload? That way we have some things to subscribe to already and we are staring to get to a point where we need RSS and we can see that RSS is really great and useful to manage info overload. Does that make sense?)

Sorry to the rest of you for the virtual "private" conversation, but I felt the need to continue that line of comments and I thought it might be a good way to show how continued dialogue can enhance both your and your reader’s your professional development!

Just as your teaching (and your learning!) should never remain static, but evolve and grow, so should your blog writing, and maybe even the purpose for your blog writing. Even if you just start out as a novice blog-reflector (or even just an occasional blog reader), as you learn and grow you may just evolve into one of those “noted bloggers” I mentioned. And who knows, maybe one day, novice teacher-bloggers will be turning to you for their professional development reading!

Happy learning, reflecting and collaborating :)

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-11-16T02:30:00.001-06:00

TopForex.info » Banks and Financial Institutions are Embracing RSS Feeds
read for post
tags: rss
iPods in Education Part 9: RSS Feeds « The Mobile Learner
read for post
tags: rss
BYU Center for Teaching and Learning » Blog Archive » RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
read for post
tags: rss
100 Cool Things You Can Do With RSS » Accredited Degrees
read for post
tags: web2.0, rss
Educate Yourself Using RSS - Chatterbox
read for post
tags: rss
Free Technology for Teachers: 34 Ways to Use RSS
use for blog post
tags: rss

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Aggregator Alligators and Vanity Feeds

2008-11-14T15:53:00.005-06:00

I have been using RSS’s since we began this class, mostly because when I first set up my blog we were told by our brilliant instructor that we should “Sign up to a blog aggregator (RSS feed service such as Google Reader or Bloglines) and subscribe to a minimum of 5 blogs (for your own personal professional development) that you will follow throughout the course and reflect on in a later blog post.”

So I did as I was told (strangely, as I’m not usually one to do that sort of thing!) and signed up for a Bloglines account, and went through the process of figuring out how to add “feeds” to my “aggregator.” To be honest I was totally lost, and it took me some time before I figured out how to find the right URLs to paste into the feed box! But I persevered, and accomplished my task. Then I set about trying to post these feeds to my blog and realized I had to go through the whole process all over again with blogger’s “Blogs I’m Following” on my dashboard, because Bloglines and Blogger wouldn’t allow me to just copy them over! But still I persisted and finally figured out how to get those blog feeds from my dashboard, to my blog (I didn’t actually have to put them on my dashboard, but I guess some element in the universe decided I needed the practice and enticed me to do it!).

To be honest I had not returned to my Bloglines account until this week’s assignment, because I had the feeds that I wanted on my blog and I accessed them through it whenever I needed or wanted. So I really didn’t see the point of an aggregator, (I may have also been avoiding the object of my frustration and pointless repetitive work!). Then I read Chapter 5 of Richardson’s book and got the lowdown on what RSS’s are actually good for. “Hrmph!” I thought, “Wish I would’ve read that chapter earlier.” (Actually, I had thought about reading it waaaayyy back, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for this week’s assignment. Yes surprise. Don’t YOU think of new readings as little educational surprises all wrapped up in pretty covers? Weird . . .)

So I knew I could get feeds from blogs, and from news sites, but what I didn’t know is that you could get feeds of searches. (Again I thought, “Hrmph, this would have come in very handy as I was doing the research for my other class, and greatly reduced not only my reading, but also my stress level!”) Well this I had to try, and I did (see, its over there --->, a Google Blogs search on using RSS in Education. Yes I know, clever. It came up with some interesting stuff too!) I also realized that I did not have a subscribe button on my blog, so I added one of those as well. (Totally off topic but. . . I think I’ll go back when time permits and add tags to all my blog posts to make them easier to search, something I am realizing just now that I failed to do!) Then I realized that I could get an updated feed of the searches I was doing on the U of A’s Library databases (like ProQuest and Eric) so I tried that as well, but I couldn’t get it onto my blog for some reason (I’ll keep working on that one, don’t you worry).

I hadn’t fully thought out how RSS could help me do all my research for my classes until I read the following quote from Brigham Young University’s website. (they narrow down RSS feeds to being useful for time, convenience, research, currency, sharing, podcasts, and blogs)
“An RSS reader can be a powerful research tool. As you discover information on the Internet that supports your research interests, you can place those sites into your RSS reader and organize them according to topics. As you write and publish, your RSS reader will help you quickly reference critical information.” And further along in the same article a professor says, “To me, RSS feeds are website abstracts and have by far been the best way for me to keep up-to-date with the latest journal articles. Because most articles are published online before they are printed, I am actually able to know the second an interesting article comes out — and I’m much more likely to read the abstract from my RSS feed . . .”

Apparently you can also get RSS feeds for podcasts (ok I knew this, I have 3 on my blog, I just wanted it to sound like something amazing), photo sharing sites, videos, social bookmarking sites, and a whole host of other things (see this site for a list of 100 Cool Things You Can Do With RSS or this site for 30 Different Uses for RSS and this site that expands the list from 30 to 34 by including 4 more ways that apply specifically to education)

So far my favourite way to use RSS is this idea from NCTE Inbox by Traci Gardner “If students have computers and Internet access, set up a homework blog with RSS feeds. Show students how to set up readers and subscribe to your fee. No more "I didn’t get the assignment!” Now their excuse will be, “My aggregator ate my homework!” (HA! Aggregator sounds like alligator, you know like “my dog ate my homework”, only its an aggregator-alligator. . .never mind)

I also especially like the idea of a “vanity feed” just so I can see if anyone out there is actually reading and referencing my blog, so I did one and included it on my blog as well! (Really I just want to be popular and have 10 million friends on Facebook, oh wait, wrong blog post, that was last week’s . . . sorry . . .) Unfortunately, the only hits I got so far were my own blog posts! Oh well . . .

Here’s another great idea: using RSS with your iPod (or rather students using RSS with their iPods, ‘cause I don’t have one, but its on my Christmas list!) This article by Rob De Lorenzo is all about using RSS with iPods. The author says “ . . . RSS on an iPod? You bet. If you happen to have an iPod Touch with WiFi capabilities, you can essentially subscribe to RSS feeds using an online RSS feed reader as you would using a computer.” And “The educational applications of using RSS in a mobile way are huge. Students can use a device they already own to subscribe to newspaper feeds, or feeds from educational content providers and keep up with curriculum relevant information from wherever they are. Uploading content to their devices is as simple as syncing their devices as they would using iTunes. At its most simplist, RSS allows students to spend more time with content and less time searching for it. Since the information is online, much of that content is relevant and up-to-date as well.” Sounds too good to be true, like an educational utopia! I’m skeptical my middle years students would attain that level of involvement with their curriculum, but its still a great idea, and worht a try. In this article I also found a link to a document by Quentin D’Souza which provides “RSS Ideas for Educators.”

I also found this article by Sharon Housley that says even “Financial institutions are reaching out to clients using RSS feeds. While banks and financial institutions are usually slow to adopt new technology, that is not the case with RSS adoption. More and more professionals are using RSS in innovative ways, to stay ahead of their competition.” Then the article goes on to list 20 ways that financial institutions and business people are using RSS feeds to get ahead.

In my never-ending search for RSS info, I also came across this site that provided some good answers too: RSS Guide by Robin Good.

Finally, why should we bother using RSS with students or teaching them how to use it, other than because it makes our lives easier? Again I think it comes back to the “new literacies” that our students will need to master in order to be successful in the future. In this post from Stephen Downes’ Blog, there is a quote attributed to Teemu Arina that speaks to this:

“This is exactly why people who use RSS readers to scan through thousands of feeds, read blog posts from various decentrally connected sources and who engage themselves into assembling multiple unrelated sources of information into one (probing connections between them) have much greater ability to sense and respond to changing conditions in increasingly complex environments than those who read only the major newspapers, watch only the major news networks . . .” (bold emphasis is mine)

There you have it. If we want our students to be able to have this skill, then they should start learning to use RSS right NOW! (I mean it: RIGHT NOW, plan a lesson that shows your students the potential of this tool and teach them TODAY, if you haven’t already)

Correction Notice

2008-11-11T11:09:00.003-06:00

Hi all, Steve Hargadon was kind enough to point out to me that he actually did not create the Study Groups Application that I referenced in the article below (Facebook, posted Nov 10, 2008) It was, in fact, a man named David Whitmore. I apologize for my mistake.

Facebook: Taking Over the World One "Friend" at a Time!

2008-11-10T14:33:00.001-06:00

I first joined Facebook when I was on maternity leave with my first daughter. I was mainly interested in finding a way to share pictures of her new granddaughter with my mom who lives in Ottawa. But then I found that it was interesting to find and reconnect with people I’d lost touch with, like friends from junior high. I was a little bored and really had nothing other than breast-feeding and diapers to fill my days (for the first few months anyways), so it was an amusing way to pass the time. I invited my mother (my sister and brother were already on Facebook) and I began posting “albums” of my family for my other family members to see. Then I found and reconnected with those “old” friends and it was neat to see what they were doing with their lives and what their children looked like. Then I realized I could find my other family members who were spread out all over Canada and the US and keep in touch with them and see their lives unfold and have them see what I was up to also. Then I found my current friends on Facebook and it became a way to send messages to each other.

So, for a while I thought Facebook was great. I was keeping in touch with cousins and aunts and my mom and old friends and current friends and everything seemed awesome. Then I began getting invites to silly things like “Who’s your Celebrity Match” or “Zombie Wars” and people began sending me all sorts of “drinks” and “poking” me and I was inundated with Facebook email updates and requests and invites and AHHHHHH! Then my “old” friends starting posting old pictures from junior high for all the world to see and they kept tagging me in these horrible awful pictures where I looked like a cross between Molly Ringwald and a poodle that had a horrible accident with a back-combing maniac. And then the last straw: a horrible ex-boyfriend whom I hoped I would NEVER run into EVER again, sent me a friend request. Turns out he had been looking at my Profile Page through a common friend and wanted me to add him to my friends list. I have to admit I FREAKED OUT! It turns out that I had not set the privacy settings to a level that was comfortable for me. And then I started learning more about Facebook’s security and privacy and became very nervous that all those stupid viral videos which were amusing for us adults, would somehow come back to bite me if a student ever found my Profile. I had this realization that this could potentially be quite an inappropriate thing for me to be participating in. Ever since then I have increased my security and been hyper vigilant to remove and delete any offending items or photos or tags that may be inappropriate. I also made lists of people who are allowed access to my photos so that crazy exes can’t just stumble onto my profile and see my whole life on display. The whole experience made me realize that I am a lot more private than I thought I was (hence all the weird ramblings in previous posts about keeping pictures of my kids off the net).

So when the idea of using Facebook with students in an educational setting came up for this class, I was extremely skeptical. I NEVER would have thought for one minute about using Facebook with students for anything. But then Jes invited me to join Classroom 2.0 (Thanks Jes!) and I finally saw what a social networking site could be. Not some inane site where people spy on those they haven’t seen in years and then Spam them with absurd applications, but a place where like-minded people can gather, share ideas and experiences and learn from others.

I was amazed! I immediately began searching this network for other educators who may be using Facebook and I found this document: Drive Belonging and Engagement in the Classroom: Using Facebook, which basically outlines how one could go about using Facebook with students. Then I found a link to the Study Groups application on Facebook. Steve Hargadon, the same guy who set up Classroom 2.0, designed this application and it is mainly geared towards student use. It’s a pretty great thing that allows students in the same class to discuss topics, use a white board, upload and store documents, schedule events (like meeting times or study dates) and keep track of tasks in the class.

In response to a comment about this application being similar to Blackboard he says: “While our application is somewhat similar to Blackboard, we're not trying to be a heavy-weight content- or learning-management system. Instead, we're trying to bring simple, easy-to-use e-learning activities onto a website/platform that students are already using - Facebook. We've found that many students have found it useful to start up a Study Group quickly and easily and have been able to actually get their peers to log in and use the application.”

This alone could make me rethink the idea of using Facebook with students. Imagine telling students their homework is to go home after the first day of school and add this application to their current Facebook account and then join or create a study group for each of their classes. I’m still not sure how the teacher would play a role or how privacy and security would be monitored, but it’s worth further investigation.

Most of the testimonials that I read in the above document by Michael Staton (Drive Belonging . . .) are from post-secondary instructors, and for that age and maturity level I can definitely concede that Facebook could be a wonderful tool, but I needed to find examples of it being used by Middle years students and teachers and maybe even (gasp!) Elementary, to convince myself that it was feasible in my own classroom or school. Of course the first article I stumbled across was this seethingly negative article about the evils of Facebook, called “With Friends Like These . . .” by Tom Hodgkinson, and so I was a tad bit dejected. But it was an interesting read, even though it was a bit over the top pessimistic. Here are some of the things that Hodgkinson hates about Facebook (and boy does he hate it!) :

Facebook “encourages a disturbing competitivness around friendship: it seems that with friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king. The more friends you have, the better you are. You are "popular", in the sense much loved in American high schools.” (This I agree with, I hate the “I have 10 million friends on Facebook” mentality as well)
“Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? . . . Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.”
The author also states that Peter Thiel, one of the founders of facebook, believes that “people are essentially sheep-like and will copy one another without much reflection,” and that “Facebook is a deliberate experiment in global manipulation.”

“Futhermore, (says Hodgkinson) have you Facebook users ever actually read the privacy policy? It tells you that you don't have much privacy. Facebook pretends to be about freedom, but isn't it really more like an ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime”

Yikes! Like I said, this guys HATES Facebook. He does make some points that I had never even cosidered though. I used to only find facebook annoying, now I’m worried about it taking over the world! I better look at something a little more positive before I barracde myself outside for fear of a rising tide of Facebookers coming to my online profile to advertise me to death!

Interestingly, I found this blog post by Jose Picardo who writes on Box of Tricks, which was written in response to Hodgkinson’s article. Picardo states that just because the founders and creators of Facebook may be evil, doesn’t mean Facebook itself is evil. He says:

“Just imagine what would happen if everyone suddenly stopped using products on the grounds that the personalities of the people who made them are questionable . . . We could go to our libraries and burn all the books ever published by those who were vile, wicked and loathsome in character. But we are not going to, because we can see how their work has a good use or can be put to a good use”. (Ok, this is a good point, I’m no longer worried about a Facebook invasion)

Picardo also points out that “there are a growing number of people . . . that can see how social networking sites, such as Facebook and other social media available online, can be used to improve communication and collaboration within an educational setting in a number of different ways.” But he doesn’t list or name any of these people or ways!! Hmmmm, discouraged, let’s try looking at the old standard: Will Richardson, he always has good ideas.

Oh lucky day, I found this article by Richardson: Footprints in the Digital Age from the November 2008 edition of Educational Leadership. In it he describes Networking as the “new literacy” that teachers and parents should be teaching their kids to use appropriately. He says:

“Whether we like it or not, social Web technologies are having a huge influence on students who are lucky enough to be connected . . . A recent National School Boards Association survey (2007) announced that upward of 80 percent of young people who are online are networking and that 70 percent of them are regularly discussing education-related topics. “ (Really, my students are discussing education-related topics, now I’m impressed!)

Richardson goes on to say that “one of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely. The new literacy means being able to function in and leverage the potential of easy-to-create, collaborative, transparent online groups and networks, which represent a "tectonic shift" in the way we need to think about the world and our place in it (Shirky, 2008). This shift requires us to create engaged learners, not simply knowers, and to reconsider the roles of schools and educators.”

This is something I can buy into. Although I may not like Facebook, or find it all that educationally engaging, as an educator I have an obligation to realize that my students are using it. If I want them to be safe, and use this network in an effective and ethical way, then I need to teach them how to do that. To do THAT I probably need to use the actual tool myself. This argument makes sense to me. Richardson also states that:

“Our students must be nomadic, flexible, mobile learners who depend not so much on what they can recall as on their ability to connect with people and resources and edit content on their desktops . . . Our teachers have to be colearners in this process, modeling their own use of connections and networks and understanding the practical pedagogical implications of these technologies and online social learning spaces. . . . These new realities demand that we prepare students to be educated, sophisticated owners of online spaces . . . More than ever before, students have the potential to own their own learning—and we have to help them seize that potential. We must help them learn how to identify their passions; build connections to others who share those passions; and communicate, collaborate, and work collectively with these networks. And we must do this not simply as a unit built around "Information and Web Literacy." Instead, we must make these new ways of collaborating and connecting a transparent part of the way we deliver curriculum from kindergarten to graduation.”

Amazing! Richardson can always be counted on to put things into educational perspective for me. Now I feel I have an responsibility to find a way to show my students that Facebook (or any other social networking site) can be a tool for education and not just a way to share photos and lame applications with their friends. Social networking can be like Classroom 2.0: like-minded people gathering to share ideas and experiences and learning from each other.

I wasn’t able to find any examples of Facebook being used by educators (I’m sure they’re out there, I just couldn’t find them!), but that’s not going to discourage me from trying to incorporate social networking when I return to work. I may start simple though, and maybe create a Ning for “All Those Who Are Sure Mrs. Robinson is the Greatest Teacher Ever!” I’m certain to have a large membership!

In the end I think it’s all about giving our kids ALL the tools they’ll need to succeed in the future. Who knows, maybe Facebook will grow into something completely different; maybe its users will forsake the advertisements and help it evolve. Or maybe, one of my students will create a new form of social networking that has a much nobler goal than advertising to the masses. Maybe, because I tried incorporating a social network into my teaching, one of my students will see a hidden potential and change the world. (I know I have high hopes for my students, but in this day and age, anything’s possible!)

In the end, I’m a little less skeptical about using Facebook with students and isn’t that what this class is really about? Opening our minds and eyes to the potential that exists with online tools? Mine have been opened, if only slightly!

Happy networking :)

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-11-09T02:30:00.001-06:00

Amazon.com: Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn To Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly: Nancy E. Willard: Books
tags: internet_safety
Amazon.com: MySpace Unraveled: A Parent's Guide to Teen Social Networking: Larry Magid, Anne Collier: Books
tags: internet_safety
ConnectSafely - Home
tags: internet_safety, cyberbullying
Support Forums: Predators & cyberbullies: Reality ...
tags: internet_safety, safety, cyberbullies, cyberbullying
7 Things You Should Know About Facebook II | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
tags: facebook
NCTE Inbox Blog: Social Networking: The Ning’s the Thing
tags: ning
TeacherLibrarianNetwork - A community for teacher-librarians and other educators
tags: ning, socialnetworking, web2.0, library, library2.0
With friends like these ... Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook | Technology | The Guardian - Annotated
Read for facebook post
tags: facebook, privacy, technology, web2.0
Facebook: the root of all evil?
read for post on Facebook
tags: facebook
Teachers and social networks: should you be friends with your pupils?
read for post on social networking
tags: facebook
Is a Facebook Page a Complete Social Media Strategy?
Read for my post
tags: facebook
Educational Leadership:Giving Students Ownership of Learning:Footprints in the Digital Age
Another thing to use for my blog
tags: Will Richardson, social bookmarking
"Footprints in the Digital Age" by Will Richardson - Classroom 2.0
Use this post for my blod post
tags: social networking
Classroom 2.0
tags: web2.0, collaboration, education, technology, classroom
VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, docs, and videos
tags: voicethread, web2.0, education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

An Unexpected Political Comment!

2008-11-05T10:42:00.003-06:00

Hi all, I know that this blog is actually not a political one and most (all?) of my posts have been related to education and the learning I'm doing in my master's course, but one important thing I've learned about blogging is that it is a very powerful tool that enables me, an insignificant Canadian, to add my voice to the many around the world who are commenting about yesterday's US Presidential election.

I'm a Canadian, so I really have no say and what I think probably doesn't matter all that much, especially to those in power. But I feel this overwhelming need to sincerely congratulate Barack Obama on his win, and strangely (because I disagree with Republican politics at the very core of my being) to commend Senator McCain for an amazingly honest and gracious speech after concedeing his loss. I was even impressed (maybe too strong?) with President Bush's speech. It was also quite gracious and for the first time in his presidency he seemed (to me anyway) to speak with heartfelt intelligence and sincerity.

I also want to congratulate the American citizens who are celebrating a great moment in History. For a country that prides itself on being "the most powerful country in the world" its been a long time coming and this election has certainly made an impression on the world.

To President-Elect Barack Obama: May you continue to make positive impacts in the world and maybe help usher in a new era of peace and understanding that will change our world for the better.

Also to the American people, from one insignificant Canadian: I thank you for voting, its truly the only way to excersice your democratic rights. Your vote did count.

Christine :)

The Super-Terrific Awesome-licious Educationally Stupendous Tool: VoiceThread

2008-11-02T15:34:00.001-06:00

To be honest, I’m not really “into” writing my blog this week. I’d rather be playing with my wiki or planning lessons that incorporate podcasts or following up on trying to figure out how to create my own pathfinders and webquests or browsing Voicethreads for interesting examples to show my colleagues. What’s that you ask? Voicethread? What, huh? That’s what today’s blog is about: Voicethread, which is actually a great multimedia-sharing tool. When I say great I mean AWESOME! Plus its super easy to use! I can embed it on my class wiki or my blog, its easier to record ideas and thoughts than podcasting, it allows for uploading many file formats directly from your computer (pdf, word, PowerPoint, video, pictures, etc) and it’s totally interactive! Interested? Here’s an example of a Voicethread I found by Michelle Pacansky-Brock on how it’s the best tool ever:

See! The potential for implementation in a classroom or even collaboration with colleagues are endless. And remember I said it was easy! Just go to the Voicethread home page and everything you need to know is right there on that page. They even have a “tutorial” for each topic.

But what IS a Voicethread? Well it’s like a slide show of items you upload, for example, pictures or documents or video. But you have the option to interact with each slide of the slide show, using 5 different tools. You can narrate each picture using a simple microphone (no having to fiddle with audacity or the Levelator of iTunes!), or using a webcam you can comment through video, you can type text in to say something about each slide, you can doodle on the slides (I’ll come back to this one later) or you can call in a comment via the telephone (but only form the US currently!).

That’s not the best part though, NO SIREE! The best part is that once you put your Voicethread “out there”, others can also comment using the same 5 tools, so your slide show becomes the centerpiece of a collaborative discussion. Just think of the possibilities!
Ok, let’s talk logistics. It is very easy to upload all kinds of file types, as I’ve already said, and it’s also easy to create the slideshow part of the Voicethread. But it’s also quite easy to add comments and control who is seeing and commenting on your Voicethread. You have the option to make your Voicethread private, so only those you invite can see it and comment. You also have the option to moderate (or preview) comments before they are available for the world to see. So that covers pretty much all of my worries about student use. The teacher can screen who is seeing and who is commenting, as well as the comments themselves. Also the students cannot see each others comments until the moderator allows them to be seen, which allows the teacher to ensure all comments are both applicable and appropriate. Voicethreads can even be exported to an MP3 player (for a cost). I was able to upload a bunch of pictures, reorder them, comment on each one using my microphone and post it to my blog in about 10 minutes! I said it was easy.

Just for a second, let’s talk about the doodle feature. This feature essentially allows you to draw on the file you uploaded (in any colour you choose), while you are commenting. For an example of this (and Voicethread in general) see my Voicethread My Wedding Day, which is posted below this post. I am able to point out people as I talk about them, I’m able to point out items, draw diagrams, and even make silly faces if I want, all while I am commenting. This is a great feature to use science or even math (or any subject for that matter!)

I was going to talk about all the possibilities of this tool (there are soooooo many), but I thought I’d show you instead. Here is a Voicethread where a poem is analyzed:

Here is an example of using a document in Voicethread. This is an awesome idea because I often hand out assignments and explain them to my students by adding information or anecdotes to help them understand what I’m asking for. This tool would allow me to do this and record it and then embed it on my class wiki for all my students to see and listen to whenever they needed. They could also leave questions using the comment feature.

http://voicethread.com/share/39769/

Here is an example of a math lesson where the students watch the lesson and then try it themselves using the doodle feature:

Here is an example of map use:

Here is an example of a book review by students:

And here is an example of a possible Lab Report assignment:

See, isn’t this tool awesome! And the possibilities are so immense! Not only could I use this tool in a multitude of ways, but it’s so easy to use that my students could use it to create just as easily, and then they can embed their assignments on the class wiki. But again I also see the possibility for Professional Development with a collaborative group of teachers. Imagine if a school Teacher-librarian created a monthly or biweekly Voicethread on Library services available for staff and students and then sent it out in an email. What a great advocacy tool!

(I’m starting to see a trend in all the tools we’ve learned to use. Not only are all these tools great for teaching and learning, but they’re also great tools for teacher-librarians to use to promote the collaborative nature of their jobs. Plus, having a teacher-librarian in a school that knows all these tools would be such a powerful thing that teachers may be enticed to use the teacher-librarian more.)

In my “search for what the pro’s think” I found that The Women of Web 2.0 (WOW2) used a Voicethread last year to create a tribute to Vicki Davis who was a co-founder of WOW2, but who decided to “retire” from the WOW2 podcasts. They then embedded this Voicethread in a whole wiki and had educators from all over add to the wiki and the Voicethread to say thanks to Vicki for all her work! What a great way to showcase the collaborative nature of both wikis and Voicethreads.

I also found this example of a teacher (Mr. Warner) blogging about his experience using Voicethread with his class: Using Voicethread to Develop Empathy Skills, as well as this Wiki dedicated to Voicethreads in education: Voicethread for Education Wiki and this ning (also dedicated to Voicethreads in Education) Voicethread for Educators. In this blog post by will Richardson, he shows an example of how a teacher used Voicethread to showcase her learning from a conference and then share it with her colleagues. The really cool thing is that the teacher invited actual presenters from the conference to comment on her Voicethread!

So even though I wasn’t REALLY in the mood for blogging today, I just had to tell you all about the super-terrific awesome-licious educationally stupendous tool Voicethread. (I guess I’m a little excited about it!)

Happy Voicethreading (is that even a word? Such bad grammar on this blog, who writes this thing anyway . . .)

Benny the Ferocious

2008-11-02T15:06:00.001-06:00

My Wedding Day

2008-10-30T15:22:00.001-05:00

Serious Talk About Wikis

2008-10-26T14:47:00.003-05:00

Ok, I’m getting serious for this post. No goofy anecdotes about my dog (who just ate my daughter’s food wrapper in what I can only assume is a collaborative effort between my husband, my dog and my kids, to get my attention and make me clean up the basement that has completely gone to heck since I discovered wikis). No silly amusing side conversations with myself (Umm, I don’t think that’s going to go over very well, Christine). No funny business, just serious academic discussion about how TOTALLY AWESOME WIKIS ARE!

Oops, got a little excited there, sorry, back to being serious . . .

This week I did everything in the “correct” order (I know, totally out of character for me!). I read Chapter 4 of Will Richardson’s book, and then I followed the trailfire left by our illustrious instructor, Joanne. I could barely contain my excitement. It was like discovering the Lost City of Gold for me. Since the beginning of this class, no . . . since before the class even began. Since I knew I was enrolled in a technology related course, I have been trying to find something that I could use as a classroom “website”. I put quotations around the word website mostly because at the time I began my search, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and so that’s what I thought I was looking for. Boy was I wrong.

Let’s back up a bit. I’m a share-er (I know this isn’t a word, just bare with me. Boy, I’m not good at curbing the crazy self-talk am I?). I share everything with colleagues (well no one knows my pin number or what size pants I wear, but I do share most of my professional self . . . yes I know: curb the crazy). I am constantly offering up ideas and resources to colleagues, parents, students, admin, friends and just about anyone I think can use it or benefit from it. Its not that I think all these people can’t live without my help. I just know that when I first started out, I was so thankful for all the help I got from my teaching partner. I figure, if I’ve already done it, why not pass it along so someone else can make use of it too? I mean we’re busy enough without having to always reinvent the modem. So naturally I also love to collaborate with fellow teachers on everything from single lessons to whole integrated units to running in-services or to facilitating committee meetings.

But when it came to my quest for the perfect Web 2.0 tool for me to use with my class, I just kept coming up disappointed. I thought maybe this blog would be a great thing to use, then I discovered that I can’t upload and post word documents (see my previous posts on this topic!) among other obstacles. Why oh why couldn’t I find a great web resource that would allow me to continue my sharing and collaborating ways? Then I discovered wikis. Yep wikis! Now that’s what I’m talking about!

In fact, I got so excited about the collaboration possibilities, I actually created two separate wikis (using two different wiki providers! I’ll get to that later, I promise. . . ) With maybe a third wiki a possibility (and maybe a fourth for a staff professional development I would love to do for my school on all this awesome tech stuff I’m learning!) Maybe a little over the top, you might say. But WAIT! Let me explain. Each of my wikis has a distinct purpose and use and very different audiences.

Firstly I decided to use PBWiki, because everything I looked at or read said it was super easy and I liked the idea of being able to control the privacy and security of each page. That way I could create non-editable pages to provide information and still have editable pages that my students could use. (At least that was originally my thinking. But as usual, the tool did not live up to my expectations, but I’m getting ahead of myself . . .)

Because of the collaborative nature of the tool and also because of the video Joanne provided in her trailfire (Wiki’s in Plain English) I was immediately inspired to use a wiki to help we with my “Big Project” in my other course (EDES 540). The project involves me working in collaboration with the Teacher-Librarian of a high school to create an advocacy plan of action, in which we aim to increase collaboration between the TL and the teachers of the school. There’s more to it, but that’s that course and this is this course, so let’s just stay on topic!

So here is my first wiki: http://advocacyplan.pbwiki.com/. All was going according to plan, until I began creating a page that I wanted to limit security on (specifically the “Services for Teachers” and “Services for Students” pages because I wanted those to be editable by me and the TL, but no one else, whereas, I wanted full access for two other pages). What I discovered is that the awesome feature that PBWiki advertised as being so great for educators is actually a feature that you have to pay for (if you’ve been reading my posts you know how much I hate the idea of paying for a tool that I can get for free from somewhere else, especially when its touted as “free” for educators). Unless you sign up for a “contest” to “win” a free upgrade (for only a year) by sucking other unsuspecting educators and friends into signing up for a PBWiki account. I just think that’s a little despicable. But I had done all that work, so I figured that wiki would be fine for the purpose of collaborating with my colleague on the action plan, and if she wanted me to set up the Library wiki (see my wiki if you’re confused), I could copy those pages into a new wiki somewhere else at a later date. Still, it’s quite frustrating (ARGGG!)

So then I went back to Wikispaces, where I had originally thought about going, but was enticed by the FALSE ADVERTISING of PBWiki to abandon. This is where I created my classroom wiki that I hope to use on a regular basis upon my return to work in January. Here it is: https://mrsrobinsonswiki.wikispaces.com/.
This wiki will be a place for me to keep administrative type stuff (in pages only editable by me) like class policies and course outlines and class notes and assignments. The reason for using a wiki for this is simple, its simple. No really, its so easy to update my policies from year to year, change a due date if my class has successfully lobbied for a postponement, and upload class notes on a daily basis in literally seconds. It’s also a way for parents (and students) to stay in touch and find out more about me and my beliefs about teaching and learning. But . . . (here’s the BEST PART!) it will also be a place where my students can collaborate on all sorts of online projects (which I haven’t fully developed yet, but I have so many ideas . . .), link up to pathfinders and webquests I will create for them (which I would really like to learn how to do in the 2nd half of this course Joanne: HINT HINT), store links to their online projects for their parents to visit at student-led conference time, and even maybe help me in the creation of a respectable virtual library for our school! (After last week’s assignment I’m still reeling at how bad our school’s site is!)

The great thing about having set up two wikis, is that now I can compare them. For anyone wondering about the differences: they are virtually identical in their ease of use and interface. Both have limited options to customize the look of the page, but with the ability to change colour and theme, Wikispaces wins on this one. Both have great security features, and if PBWiki just gave these features to teachers without the games, they would definitely win out on the security issue. But again Wikispaces wins because they GIVE AWAY free educator accounts with no strings attached, and no having to suck friends in to get it either. They also offer a function that allows you to “lock” a page so no one but the organizer can change it (which is virtually the same as PBWiki’s security for each page feature). The editing on both is easy, but I’d say that PBWiki has a better format for editing (PBWiki has an undo button, which would definitely be an asset for Wikispaces to add). Both providers make it easy to upload all file types (even word doc, pdf, jpeg, just about anything you can think of), directly from your desktop. That’s right, no having to upload to the net first! (I knew it didn’t have to be that hard!) So you see, there really are not that many differences and if I wasn’t jaded by the false advertising, I’d say it really didn’t matter which site you used!

The best uses of wikis I’ve seen so far are all of Vicki Davis’. She has a class wiki (which is a great example for me follow), and special wikis for special projects (like Digiteen which I will use as a resource with my students, Horizon Project and Flat Classroom, which I will follow this year and may think about trying next year, maybe. Or maybe I’ll find my own great book for inspiration and start my own worldwide project!) There are obviously many many wikis on the web and I have only seen a few, but I am still really impressed by Ms. Davis and her use of online tools. Another example of wiki use is Joyce Valenza’s Links for Teachers which can be accessed off of her virtual library. This wiki is simply a list of good links under various topics. This is quite a useful site, even though its really rather simple. Another wiki I came across was teacher librarian wiki which is also run by Joyce Valenza and also has some very good links, but unfortunately it is unfinished (as most wikis usually are I suppose, but this one has pages that haven’t been updated for years!). I also came across these interesting wikis: Alice Yucht Wiki, Teach Library, Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, and for something a little wierder: Obsolete Skills Wiki.

In my search for some “research” on the subject of wikis. I cam e across this article in The Cronicle from July 15, 2005. In it a Professor’s foray into wiki use is described. I mention this because one of the ideas presented was very interesting:

“On the wiki that Mr. Phillipson set up for the course, John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" appears not as an old war horse, but as a hot topic of conversation. By clicking on an assortment of key phrases sprinkled throughout the poem's text, visitors can link to students' ruminations on the language's imagery and its import.”

I had never thought about posting a story or poem and having students respond to it by highlighting specific sections of text and creating a new page where they discuss their thoughts on that specific section. Really cool idea! This article also explains that the professor involved set some important guidelines for his students, mainly that they could not delete another student’s work and they had to post with usernames (no anonymous comments). The professor said that “those restrictions are necessary to keep a wiki focused on scholarship, not name-calling.” I complete agree and will definitely incorporate those rules into my classroom use of the wiki.

The article goes on to say:

“A key language of the wiki is the hyperlink: Sites expand when users select a piece of text from an existing page and create a new page about that term. As a wiki grows, these networks of links become more labyrinthine. And concepts like authorship and organization take a back seat to the exchange of ideas, at least in theory. The ideal wiki is "a group of serious people working out a way of looking at things," says M.C. Morgan”

I knew wikis were serious buisness.
(I think you can be serious and crazy at the same time, though!)

Virtually Virtual in a Virtual World

2008-10-19T20:13:00.001-05:00

Our assignment this week was to explore and report on virtual libraries. No problem, I mean how many virtual libraries could there be? But . . . what the heck is a virtual library? Better figure that out before I go looking for them, otherwise I’ll get lost on the virtual highway, wouldn’t want to make a virtual wrong turn!

As usual I decided to start somewhere other than the obvious. Our wonderful instructor provided us with a multitude of links to virtual libraries, but I wanted to know what I was looking at before I looked at it. So, I went to Wikipedia, because, as one of my colleagues in this class recently pointed out, its becoming increasingly clear that Wikipedia is a great place to BEGIN research. According to Wikipedia “Virtual Library” can also be termed Digital Library. The definition provided comes from The DELOS Digital Library Reference Model, and is reported to be:

“An organisation, which might be virtual, that comprehensively collects, manages and preserves for the long term rich digital content, and offers to its user communities specialised functionality on that content, of measurable quality and according to codified policies.”

WOW that’s a mouthful! Is that really all a virtual library is? An organisation that collects, manages and preserves digitally? I’m pretty sure that virtual libraries are much more dynamic and fluid, or at least that’s what I would expect. I’d better do some more research . . .

I found this article by Audrey Church called “YOUR LIBRARY GOES VIRTUAL: Promoting Reading and Supporting Research.” In this article Church says, “Your school library Web page is your library’s presence outside of the physical library walls. It provides you a space and an opportunity to inform, guide, and instruct. It can be an advocacy tool, a visibility tool, and a public relations tool.” Okay, a virtual library is like a school library web page that is full of virtual life and virtual activity, and interactive (?). Let’s read more . . .

Church lists 10 things a virtual library should have to promote reading and 10 things it should have to promote research, they are as follows:

To Promote Reading: an online catalogue, links to author websites, e-books (and audio books), online games based on books, reading lists, Computerized Reading Program Test Lists (like Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts), book recommendations, book blogs, PR concerning reading events and subscription to What Should I Read Next or NoveList. (I added the underlined one; it seemed applicable as well).

To Promote Research: subscription databases, curriculum-related web sites, Pathfinders (see http://nb.wsd.wednet.edu/lmc/pathfinders/pathfinder.htm for an example), Information Literacy Skills, search tools, critical evaluation of web sites, guidance through the research process, citation guidance, connections to other libraries, and a virtual reference service (instant message or ask a librarian service)

WHEW! That’s a pretty comprehensive list of requirements. But now I have a much better sense of what to look for and how to critique the virtual libraries I visit. (I’m actully scared to look at my own school’s web-site, because I KNOW it does not have many of these items!)

But just before I go looking and get lost in the virtual ocean that is the web, I wanted to ask one more question: Why do we need virtual libraries in the first place? My practical brain says: “DUH, it just seems like the next logical step in the evolution of libraries”, but lets see what the research says . . .

After reading many, many articles (see the list at the bottom of my post) I have discovered that essentially there are 4 reasons to go virtual. The first and most obvious is to improve access to the teacher-librarian’s skills and the libarary itself. According to Virtual School Libraries by Brenda S. Gonzalez,

“your mission as a professional librarian is to provide students and staff with seamless access to information resources and to teach students information access skills needed to become effective users of ideas, information, and technology.”

But as The Virtual Teacher-Librarian: Establishing and Maintaining an Effective Web Presence by Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson points out,

“as a busy media specialist, you're often pulled in many directions as you try to meet the diverse needs of your patrons. While you can't clone yourself, you can create an online environment providing virtual resources and services that are available even when you're busy with other professional activities.”

Another reason to consider improving access as a reason to go virtual is that when you consider who your users are, mainly students, “they prefer the Internet to traditional libraries because they consider the Internet to be easier to use, more convenient, open 24/7, and full of more up-to-date material (Digital Disconnect )” (Church). So it seems only natural to meet their needs with a virtual library. One more aspect of improving access is the fact that “library managers know that they cannot afford to acquire all the information their users need so the managers secure access to the information not available at their library” (A Delphi Study) by utilizing a virtual library with links to outside sources.

The second (and third) reason I found to go virtual is to improve student achievement by improving student engagement. According to Virtual School Libraries, “research on the effectiveness of technology in schools concludes that technology positively affects students' attitudes toward learning and achievement, as well as promotes student-centered and cooperative learning.” So how can virtual libraries engage students more? Well according to Joan K. Lippincott, in the chapter “Net Generation Students and Libraries” teacher-librarians and virtual libraries can do this “by blending the technology skills and mindset that students have developed all their lives with the fruits of the academy, (then) libraries can offer environments that resonate with Net Gen students while enriching their college (or elementary or middle or senior) education and lifelong learning capabilities.” (brackets are my additions!)

The last and maybe most important reason is that virtual libraries can provide a venue and an audience for library advocacy and marketing. Lamb and Johnson suggest that “by using Web-based materials you will be encouraging young people to use the virtual resources as well as the physical library materials.” And Shifra Baruchson-Arbib and Jenny Bronstein in a Delphi Study argue that “library and information professionals also need to believe in their skills and in the services they provide and conduct “outreach” and marketing for their users.” What better place to conduct this advocacy, than the Virtual Library?

So now I know what a virtual library is, and why I should build one, let’s look at some examples, both good and bad (yikes!). Let’s start with the good.

I took a look at all the links provided by my instructor and of all those the one that I gravitated towards the most was Joyce Valenza’s Springfield Township HS Virtual Library. I liked the visual interface and when I compared it to the twenty items Church listed as items that promote reading and research it scored quite high in the research area,, but could have had more to promote reading, like linking to author blogs, or podcasts.

I also found the Calgary board of Education online Library. It has a link to 3 different library pages one for elementary, middle and senior high school students. Each site is visually appealing and has many links that are applicable to students, not to mention they all have many of the items on Church’s checklist.

Other Virtual libraries I liked were Awesome Library, Latimer Road Virtual School Library (which is actually a site developed by a former student in this course I think!) and Greece Athena Media Center all of which had a visually appealing interface and a lot of very good links, reference materials and online resources, all easily accessible by students.

One of the “recommended sites” I looked at, but didn’t like very much was Bessie Chin Library. Although it does have almost everything on the list suggested by Church, I just found the site way too busy with way too much information.

I also decided to check out my own school division’s websites. In my division, all schools have their own school websites and the school library has access to a page (or multiple pages) off that main school homepage. Unfortunately, we have a policy that restricts access for updating and changing the website to one person in each school (who is not the teacher-librarian). I looked at all 11 middle schools and all 6 high schools in my division and of those I found 4 middle schools didn’t even have a link to our divisional online catalogue, 4 only had a link to our online catalogue, two had mediocre supplemental links to other resources and one had a decent library site with much of the information suggested for promoting research and reading. In their defense, many of these schools did have curricular links and other links to online resources, but they were not part of an online school library site, they were just part of the school’s basic site. The high schools fared a bit better with only 1 having no reference to a library at all, and 4 of them having decent sites that are just in need of updating and revamping. Two of our high schools had good sites. Feel free to check them out for yourself. Go to our divisional website and click on the link to each school. See if you can find the library!

One thing I did notice, and was very aware of, was the use of Web 2.0 tools on these various Virtual library sites I was viewing. Not many of the sites took full advantage of the available Web 2.0 tools. Librarians who had blogs themselves, and were actively participating in the Web 2.0 world ran those sites that did include many of these online tools. Joyce Valenza is a perfect example. She has many links to podcasts, voice threads, videos, Wikis, blogs, and many more.

I think this is an important lesson. To achieve the goals of a virtual library i.e. to promote research and reading, improve achievement, engagement and access and to advocate for your services the teacher-librarian should use ALL the tools at her fingertips, especially those that his students are most familiar with. And those are online in the virtual Web 2.0 world.

This post is very long and I apologize for that, but after much work and reading, I now know that when I return to work I will be a strong advocate for updating and revamping my school’s awful excuse for a Virtual Library!

List of Articles:

The Virtual Teacher-Librarian: Establishing and Maintaining an Effective Web Presence. By Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson

Virtual School Libraries – THE TIME IS NOW! By Audrey Church

YOUR LIBRARY GOES VIRTUAL: Promoting reading and Supporting Research By Audrey Church

Virtual School Libraries by Brenda S. Gonzalez

Extending Library Services Through Emerging Interactive Media

A view to the Future of the Library and Information Profession: A Delphi Study

Helping Students Use Virtual Libraries Effectively

Virtual Libraries Supporting Student Learning

Whose knowledge? Whose management? Cognitive considerations for the provision of virtual library services to school communities

Lippincott, Joan K. “Net Generation Students and Libraries.” Educating the Net Generation. Eds. Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger. 2005. 24 March 2005. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB7101M.pdf

The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet Savvy Students And Their Schools

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-10-19T03:30:00.001-05:00

Educating the Net Generation | EDUCAUSE
tags: technology, education, virtual, library, library2.0
LATIMER ROAD VIRTUAL SCHOOL LIBRARY
tags: virtual, library
School Library Media Centers in the ... - Google Book Search
Start on pg 28
tags: virtual, library
The Virtual School Library: Gateway ... - Google Book Search
tags: virtual, library
Calgary Board of Education - Learning Resources
tags: virtual, library
Virtual libraries supporting student learning
tags: virtual, library
- Virtual libraries provide immediate access to a range of resources not available in physical collections.
- While physical libraries operate with designated hours, virtual libraries are available anytime and anywhere there is an Internet connection
- Virtual libraries offer opportunities for learning that are not possible in their physical counterparts.
- Their sources can be searched more efficiently than those in physical libraries, and the information they contain can be updated more frequently (Neuman, 1997). Well-designed virtual library collections are organized and managed to increase productivity and efficiency of the user
- Virtual libraries empower the user and promote informal learning
- the variety of formats and methods of navigation that can be used in virtual libraries to be one of their greatest strengths
- Resources in a virtual library can be organized so that sources for a particular group of users are easily identified. Virtual libraries can be customized for particular schools, grades, and subjects. This variety of formats in presentation and navigation is quite different from that of a physical library.
- Through the use of audio and video, virtual libraries can also make resources available to users that are visually and hearing impaired, and they make these resources available in their homes.
- Virtual libraries of the future may integrate voice, video, and text for users involved in distance education in remote locations
- Virtual libraries have the ability to transform practices and values for those who work in schools and libraries because of the processes that are enabled through virtual resources
- the potential of virtual school libraries for changing learning practices, and called on media specialists in schools to build a different type of library collection in virtual libraries, a new vertical file of student-created art, photography, oral histories, local histories, and local survey data on the school server, which would be used to support the local curriculum and compensate for the inadequacies and inefficiencies of commercial clip art and the lack of local resources on the Internet. These locally-produced materials change the nature of library collections, and can influence the type of learning they support.
- Virtual libraries require connectivity
- Virtual libraries still require skilled professionals to organize, maintain, and help students reap the benefits of this virtual learning environment. "The power of Internet resources remains latent to those without the skills to use them" (
- Ryder and Wilson (1996) recognized that virtual spaces require scaffolding and coaching. “Who are the librarians in this virtual library? Who will provide the scaffolding and coaching for the unskilled researcher? ... Who will classify the knowledge and information? The tasks don't go away in the virtual environment ” (Timeliness of Holdings section, para. 4). The teacher-librarian is needed more than ever in this virtual library guiding students in their selection, evaluation, and use of the many electronic options.
- Virtual libraries have increased the number of resources available to library users, but, often, many of these resources would not be materials that the library would ordinarily add to their collections.
- The mere presence of virtual libraries, however, does not cause learning to occur. It is how these libraries are utilized by students and teachers that will enable learning.
- Virtual libraries present a new paradigm for learning in school libraries. They have the ability to transform the relationship between learners and resources, facilitating both formal and informal learning. With careful design and the support of skilled information professionals, virtual libraries can provide powerful environment for student learning.
Virtual school library
tags: virtual, library
Virtual Learning Resources Center - access to quality Internet Reference and Information Sources
tags: reference, research, library, education, resources, virtual
Greece Athena Media Center - Will Haines & Emily Rounding, Library Media Specialists
tags: virtual, library
Awesome Library
tags: education, library, resources, reference, teaching, english, tools
Birch Lane Virtual Library
tags: virtual, library
Digital library - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia definition of Digital Library
tags: digital library, virtual, library
KidsClick! Web Search
A site specailly made for kids by librarians.
tags: kids, reference, education, kidsclick
The Quality Information Checklist
This Link was found off of John Pritchard's School Library. good resource for students.
tags: reference, evaluation, information_literacy, resources, education, internet_safety
WebQuest.Org: Home
Must get back to his one before returning to work!
tags: webquest, webquests, education, technology, teaching, tech_integration
TumbleBooks - eBooks for eKids!
tags: ebooks, kids, reading, resources
Bessie Chin Library Home Page
tags: library, library2.0, virtual library
McLurg Elementary School Virtual Library | McLURG
tags: virtual library, library, library2.0
schoollibrarywebsites » Some models of effective practice
tags: virtual library
Grandview Elementary School Blog
tags: library, library2.0, virtual library
Springfield Township HS Virtual Library
tags: virtual library, library, valenza, library2.0
Podcast: Challenging IT Leaders to Mashup, Twitter, Tag, and Poke: New IT Strategies for a Digital Society | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
tags: podcast, media, literacy, education, technology, web2.0
JABET » How Podcasts and Other Media Feed Learning Addiction
tags: learning addiction, podcasting, education
Weblogg-ed » Headlines From the Frontlines
tags: no_tag
- Local Schools Battling High Tech Distractions–Seems the beligerent kids in San Diego schools are actually text messaging during class, admitting to cheating with their phones, and listening to iPods during lectures. Why is that? “Social psychologist Jean Twenge believes she knows why personal technology devices are all the rage among teenagers. Her research indicates young people today are [wait for it…] more self-absorbed than ever before, and iPods and cellphones play into that.” Was that absorbed or abs-bored? The administration response? No surprise… “So Vista students now can only use electronic devices at lunch, break, or after school. Students who break the rule more than once could face detention. And the district is even holding teachers more accountable.” But here’s the good news. There is another voice! Jeff Robin of High Tech High says “Kids will always change, it’s up to the teachers to do something more, and it’s a lot of work. I’ve seen so many teachers out there that say, well I’ve been giving these same worksheets out for 30 years and if it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for these kids. It’s not though, times have changed.”
Weblogg-ed
tags: no_tag
2¢ Worth » Multimedia & Literacy
tags: media literacy, web2.0, technology, education
- First, there is the challenge of gaining your audience’s attention.
- This increasingly ubiquitous access to multimedia production technology makes me wonder what affect it has on basic communication skills for the future — literacy.
DivShare - Member Dashboard
tags: no_tag

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Attack of the Pod(casting) People!

2008-10-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

All right, so I’m going to let you know right off the bat that I am not in a good mood! I’m very sick (cough cough hack hack gag gag sniff sniff ache ache) and I’m actually quite frustrated! I thought his whole podcasting thing would be . . . well not easy . . but . . . not harder than anything else I’ve done in this course.

All these other people seem to be podcasting and subscribing to podcasts (even my husband, who is quickly falling behind me in his tech knowledge, subscribes to a couple of podcasts). And admittedly that is quite easy, as simple as a quick visit to my husbands iTunes account and I’ve subscribed to three podcasts (I am becoming one of the pod (casting) people!) I have subscribed to David Warlick’s podcast, to “Women of Web 2.0” and “Why? The Science Show For Kids” as I’m hoping to find some things I can use with my students. So I’m not frustrated about the listening part of podcasting, that’s very easy.

I’m actually very excited about turning my students in to pod people. Almost all my students have iPods, or some other kind of MP3 player. Our division has recently passed a policy stating that no electronic devices are to in the possession of the students during class time (including MP3 players, cell phones and digital cameras etc) UNLESS they are being used for educational purposes. (See this post from Will Richardson that speaks to this issue of dealing with technology and hand held devices in the classroom)

Oh how popular I would be if I had my students download a podcast the night before (something created by someone else, or me, and applicable to the day’s lesson) and then gave them 10 minutes in class to listen to the podcast and then another 10 minutes to discuss it with their friends, then on to the meat of the lesson. I know its not really about being popular, its about engaging students and hooking them by using the things they are most familiar with and use on a regular basis.

And oh how wonderful it would be for those students who hate homework too. Imagine if I were to tell them that their homework was actually to go home and download a podcast episode and listen to it before the next day’s lesson. And what about those kids who can’t access the science text because its actually written at a level that is 3 grades above their real grade and they actually read at a level 2 grades below their real grade! A podcast of me reading the text and stopping to explain items using my funny metaphors, examples and anecdotes could really help those kids and they may actually be willing to listen. Plus listening on a MP3 device is a private thing so if some kids are listening to one version of the podcast and others are listening to an easier version, no one will know or be embarrassed.

I’m also energized (ok strong word since nothing could really energize me right now (hack gag ache sniff) but I’m energized in spirit) about the possible professional development opportunities for myself. I am VERY VERY busy. And to be honest I can’t see myself spending hours online everyday to look at all my bookmarks on Diigo, or to look at all the videos from the professional development channel in TeacherTube. I just don’t have the time. But down load a couple podcasts, while I’m sleeping, pop the ear buds in while I drive to work or clean the house or cook dinner . . . THAT I CAN DO!

So let’s get to the frustrating part . . . I had trouble figuring out how to get my podcast onto my blog. Luckily I had no trouble creating the audio file. I was fortunate to find this link: Podcasting for Teachers & Students while I was doing all my Social Bookmarking stuff last week, and as some of you may know I offered it up to my classmates as a starting point for our podcasting assignment this week. For anyone who is thinking about podcasting with students, this is an excellent resource. I followed the instructions given and downloaded Audacity. Then I started recording and editing. SUPER easy. Then I downloaded The Levelator, as instructed in the Podcasting booklet and optimized the sound on my file. All done. So what’s the problem? First I couldn’t figure out how to get my file on to my blog. I tried divShare but when I tried to link the uploaded file to my blog it didn’t work. So I went back to the Podcasting booklet and read some more. Oh there it was, I had to convert the “wav” file I had to an MP3 file. DUH! So then I exported as an MP3 file and tried again.

While I was waiting for my file to upload, I put the RSS feeds for my podcast subscriptions on my blog (see over there à). Which wasn’t as hard as I first thought it would be. Then I began to check out what the “pro’s” say about podcasting. While searching I found this post from Will Richardson about teachers loving podcasting because it really engages their students (as I thought it would). I also found this post from David Warlick talking about Media Literacy and he asks some important questions:

“This increasingly ubiquitous access to multimedia production technology makes me wonder what affect it has on basic communication skills for the future — literacy.”
And:
“What skills are our students already practicing, and what new avenues of conversation are they defining and bringing with them into their future?”

On the same topic of Media Literacy in a digital age I found this podcast delivered by Susan E. Metros, Deputy CIO & Associate Vice Provost at the University of Southern California. Its called "Challenging IT Leaders to Mashup, Twitter, Tag, and Poke: New IT Strategies for a Digital Society". Here is a description of the podcast:

“Today's youth are digitally titillated, visually stimulated, and socially connected. To educate and engage this new breed of learners, institutions of higher education are revisiting and revising the basic tenants of a general education by asking, What does it means to be literate in today's society? As educators transform the way they teach and conduct research, IT leaders also must alter their institution's IT strategy to best support a mobile, global digital citizenry.”

Again, more talk about what it means to be literate in a digital age (this seems to be an ongoing theme in this course), and again some very interesting points are made. However, this podcast is 57 minutes long, which brings me to an important aspect of podcasting: you do actually need to find the time to listen to them. As I mentioned up there, I would do it while I’m doing other things, but this blog post I found by Eric Woods on JABET (Just Another Blog on Educational Technology) discusses something I had never thought about: learning addiction, which is when a person “continues acquiring vast quantities of knowledge far and beyond any practical ability to apply it”. Mr. Woods goes on to mention some of the problems with podcasts, including the following:
“there is very little navigational control once you are in a ‘chunk’ of audio. Thus it is much harder (than with a newspaper or internet article) to:
· skip to the next topic,
· read a topic heading and decide if it is relevant to you,
· skim through a topic of minimal interest,
· bookmark a topic to look into further later,
· or jump to the references and read about that item in more depth.”
He then says that “the system generally makes us consume more information than we need to - possibly causing, but at the least, supporting ‘learning addiction’.” This is an interesting concept that I can definitely understand. There is a temptation to sit online or listen to podcasts all the daylong and do nothing else. Which is where we must refer back to David Warlick for this little piece of wisdom:
“The best thing we can do is to open up as many avenues of connection and conversation as we can — to give our students opportunity, support, and encouragement to develop their communication skills by communicating richly and authentically.”

Its all about authenticity and applicability. We as teachers should never ask our students to listen to a podcast or create a podcast in a class-type setting unless it is directly applicable to an authentic educational experience. (deep thoughts!)

Ahh finally, my upload is complete.

So here is my podcast of me reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom:

(Oops, it’s actually an alternate podcast, listen and you’ll understand!)

So after all that, podcasting wasn’t actually as frustrating as I thought it was while I was in the throes of it. And I could probably do another podcast episode in about 10 minutes. Lesson learned today: do not attempt new learning when very tired and very sick!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-10-12T03:30:00.001-05:00

Podcasting
tags: podcasting
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Cool site I got from a colleague. Many different graphic representations we can use with our students.Definitely worth checking out. NOT JUST FOR SCIENCE!
tags: graphic organizers, visualization, education, tools
Podcasting - Podcast Blaster, The Easy Way To Podcast!
Use this for podcasting blog.
tags: podcasting, podcast, web2.0
Podcast - The best audio and video podcasts - Podanza.com
Look at for podcasting blog.
tags: podcasts, podcast, web2.0
Odeo: Search, Discover and Share Digital Media from Millions of Audio and Video Clips
Use for podcasting blog
tags: podcast, podcasting, web2.0, podcasts
Podcasting... reach ‘em on their turf!
tags: web2.0, podcasting, teaching, education
ALA | AASL Advocacy Toolkit
A website dedicated to links and resources for advocacy. Great for EDES 540 project. READ THIS!
tags: advocacy, library, teacher-librarian, AASL
Search Results: Toolkit for School Library Program
This may also be good for my big project in EDES 540. READ THIS!
tags: librarian, library, teacher-librarian, advocacy
Library Advocacy NOW! - A Training Program for Public Library Staff and Trustees
A website on Advocacy. Good for my big project in EDES 540? READ THIS!
tags: library, advocacy, teacher-librarian, librarian
Three Uses of Diigo in the History and Language Arts Classroom | Beyond School - Annotated
tags: diigo, education, curriculum:socialstudies, curriculum:languagearts, classroom, english, history, edtech
Weblogg-ed » diigo and del.icio.us - Annotated
tags: web2.0, social bookmarking, diigo, web2.0 tools
- With diigo, you can do most of what you can
  with del.icio.us in terms of
  
  saving
  links with various tags, connecting to other users who have saved the
  
  same post or used the same tag, and tracking
  either users or specific tags (or
  
  specific
  tags of specific users) via RSS. Even more, however, is that like Furl,
  
  diigo captures a copy of the page, so if it
  disappears from the Web at some
  
  point,
  you can access it in your archive.
  
  But what’s really different is the diigo
  allows you to highlight certain
  
  sections
  of any Web page you’re on, and also gives you the ability to attach
  
  sticky notes to the site. Those highlights and
  notes are then visible should you
  
  visit
  that page again. But even better, if you have a diigo account and I have
  
  “forwarded” the page to you, you can see them
  add your own when you visit the
  
  site as
  well. Think digital feedback on student work.
  - Use this for my social bookmarking post - post by crobinson
Diigo Online Software & Service reviews - CNET Reviews
A site that gives a review of diigo.
tags: social bookmarking, diigo
2¢ Worth » In Response — The Need for “Web 2.0″
tags: social bookmarking, web2.0, library
- But del.icio.us is far more than just sharing bookmarks. It’s a growing
  library of web-based resources that are loosely (but effectively) organized
  around tags that are applied by those who contribute. ..And here is one of
  the qualities that I would lump with Web 2.0 applications — that they invite,
  rely on, and respect the cooperation and contributions of the community.
  Not only are social bookmarking systems like libraries in how they are
  collected, but also in that I can check out, so to speak, web resources based on
  topic/tag and even based on the contributor, and I can train those web links to
  appear automatically in my own web sites and online handouts. This is new,
  this ability to organize dynamic documents that reshape themselves based on the
  contributions of others
WebTools4u2use » About This Wiki
A site I came across while doing other research. Must get back to it to "browse".
tags: web2.0 tools, wiki, web2.0, education
Folksonomy: social classification (Atomiq)
This is the original blog post that brought the term "folksonomy" to the world wide web audience. It provides a short list of the benefits and drawbacks of folksonomy at the time of the post (2004).
tags: folksonomy, classification, tagging, folksonomies, tags, social_classification
- - I wonder if these issues have actually been addressed by the social bookmarking sites or not. The idea of a "social thesaurus" is appealing to me :) - post by crobinson
Folksonomy :: vanderwal.net
Thomas Vander Wal's own description of how he coined the term "folksonomy" for user-defined labels or better known as tagging. He provides the definition at the time the term was coined as well.
tags: social bookmarking, web2.0, folksonomy, tagging
- Some of you might have noticed services like Furl,
  Flickr and Del.icio.us
  using user-defined labels or tags to organize and share information.... Is there
  a name for this kind of informal social classification?".
  - Interesting sequence of events ked to term "folsonomy" - post by crobinson
- Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects
  (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social
  environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created from the
  act of tagging by the person consuming the information.
  
  The value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own
  vocabulary and adding explicit meaning, which may come from inferred
  understanding of the information/object. People are not so much categorizing, as
  providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in
  their own understanding.
  - Use this definition in my blog post on social bookmarking. - post by crobinson

I'm not Anti-Social, I Swear!

2008-10-05T18:59:00.002-05:00

I’m not anti-social. I just want to make this fact clear to everyone. I know I haven’t been sharing much with all of you out there in the WWW (just my inner most ramblings), and I apologize for this. But just because I wasn’t sharing my bookmarks with you doesn’t mean I don’t like you. I just never realized that I was being so selfish and inconsiderate. Well, I’ll have you know that I have recently rectified this horrible situation, and you can now all share in the glory that is me (or at the very least see my bookmarks)!

I decided to join Diigo rather than Delicious (note there are no longer any periods in the name as they have revamped their format). I did this for a couple reasons. Well for one reason actually, Diigo allows you to highlight and add sticky notes as well as bookmark, annotate and share just like Delicious. Will Richardson describes it best in this blog post from January 2007 (but many other “pros” have also recommended Diigo over Delicious as well):

“With Diigo, you can do most of what you can with del.icio.us in terms of saving links with various tags, connecting to other users who have saved the same post or used the same tag, and tracking either users or specific tags (or specific tags of specific users) via RSS. Even more, however, is that like Furl, Diigo captures a copy of the page, so if it disappears from the Web at some point, you can access it in your archive.

But what’s really different is that Diigo allows you to highlight certain sections of any Web page you’re on, and also gives you the ability to attach sticky notes to the site. Those highlights and notes are then visible should you visit that page again. But even better, if you have a Diigo account and I have “forwarded” the page to you, you can see them (and) add your own when you visit the site as well. Think digital feedback on student work.”

So with that kind of endorsement I just had to check it out. I signed up, installed the Diigo toolbar, edited my profile sparsely, and began bookmarking, highlighting, annotating and adding “sticky notes.” I then created two lists, one for this class (EDES 501), and one for my other class (EDES 540). I will eventually create others I’m sure. I also watched these two videos and found them both helpful:

Diigo intro video

Diigo Tutorial: Social Bookmarking: Making the Web Work for You

It was at this point that I sat back in my well-worn computer chair and stared blankly at the computer screen. I could see the potential for this tool in the classroom and professionally, which I will get to later. I had found various references from the “pros” as I like to call them, and so felt I had the required readings in the bag (later I promise . . .). What I wasn’t sure was how I was going to “demonstrate my knowledge” of this new tool (one that I was very quickly falling head-over-heels-never-use-another-book-highlighter-or-actual-sticky-note-again in love with). So I did the usual, I clicked away on my Diigo dashboard and found that I could set up my Diigo account to allow me to send a bookmark, annotation, highlighted section or sticky note directly to my blog (very much like the “blog this:” function that Flickr has). Then I discovered that I could also create a tagroll of all my tags from Diigo as well as a linkroll of my 5 most recently bookmarked sites, with annotations. But it took me a bit to figure out that I had to use the “HTML/Javascript” gadget and then paste the script created by Diigo into this gadget. So I did that as well (see over there -->). I also signed up for a weekly blog post of my Diigo bookmarks and annotations, so every Sunday morning Diigo will automatically post my previous weeks bookmarks. Very cool! I then decided to sign up for some Diigo groups (you know that whole sharing thing . . .) and found quite a few worthwhile ones. To “prove” this I also signed up to an RSS feed of the Literacy in ICT group’s bookmarks and included it on my blog as well (see over there again -->). Whew! After doing all these things I realized it’s probably overkill, but I’ll revamp my blog later. For right now, you get to see all the wonderful things you can do with Diigo! (See I’m sharing :) )

Another perk of Diigo is that they have an Educator Upgrade available to Teachers. All you have to do is apply for it (very easy) and it allows you to:
· Create groups for your classes
· Create accounts for your students that are preset to only allow messages from “friends” on Diigo
· Automatically make all students in the same class friends to allow for class exchanges of bookmarks
· Create accounts for all students in a class using a single function and it automatically creates student user names and passwords (this requires students full name, but even they suggest using a code name)
· Manage, moderate, add to and delete the class’ bookmark collection as well as the ability to delete, ban and reinstate anyone in your group.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to keep your own things private from what the students in the class groups see. Diigo suggests having two accounts, a private one with personal book marks using a user name your students wouldn’t know and a professional one where the students can see what you’ve bookmarked for them and for yourself that relates to your curriculum.

Implications for the classroom and teaching are numerous, but I will simply mention a few. The first and most obvious to me is that a class can be set up as a group on Diigo and then the class can collectively search for sites applicable to any number of topics or projects related to their classes and subjects. The teacher can then check the sites for authenticity, validity, accuracy, etc. If the teacher finds a site that is inappropriate for any reason, she can delete it. This allows the students (and teacher) to be sure they are using good references in their research and it cuts down on the time needed for researching. This can be done as a project in and of itself or it can be done in preparation for a big project at the end of a unit. It also allows the students to have a multitude of sites to go back to and look at (including their highlights and/or annotations), for studying for tests. Students can also divide their topic into subtopics and collect sites on their subtopics, essentially contributing to the larger groups research. Students can even search what others have found on the same topic through the tags on Diigo.

Another great thing that can be done with Diigo (or any social bookmarking site) is that it can be set up as a Professional Development opportunity for fellow teachers. For example, a group of teachers at your school has become interested in Literacy and Technology integration. Well, simply set up a group, have all the interested teachers join the group and start collecting, annotating, highlighting and bookmarking sites related to the topic of interest. It’s a great way to share resources with colleagues, but it’s also a great place to discuss those resources as discussion can take place right on the Diigo group site.

Okay, let’s get to what the “pros” say.

One of the little expeditions I went on while researching this blog entry was for the answer to the following question: “What the heck is a folksonomy?” In my quest for knowledge and understanding on this topic I found out that the creator of the term “folksonomy” is one Thomas Vander Wal. He explains how the term was coined in this webpage, and defines it as:

“the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created from the act of tagging by the person consuming the information.”
The value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own vocabulary and adding explicit meaning, which may come from inferred understanding of the information/object. People are not so much categorizing, as providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding.”

Ahh . . . now I see. I also found the original blog post by Gene Smith that brought the term to the attention of the world. In this post the author suggests some pros and cons that he sees with the emerging habit of tagging (or folksonomy). This is worth reading as it was posted in August of 2004 and provides insight into how far (and not so far) the ideas of folksonomy and social bookmarking have come. I particularly like these three points he makes on the “con” side:

· None of the current implementations have synonym control (e.g. "selfportrait" and "me" are distinct Flickr tags, as are "mac" and "macintosh" on Del.icio.us).
· Also, there's a certain lack of precision involved in using simple one-word tags--like which Lance are we talking about? (Though this is great for discovery, e.g. hot or Edmonton)
· And, of course, there's no heirarchy and the content types (bookmarks, photos) are fairly simple.

Smith then suggests, “Maybe one of these services will manage to build a social thesaurus.” Which is an idea I find very intriguing!

On a totally different tangent I also found this reference from July 28 2007, which David Warlick made about social bookmarking sites being like libraries:

“But del.icio.us is far more than just sharing bookmarks. It’s a growing library of web-based resources that are loosely (but effectively) organized around tags that are applied by those who contribute. And here is one of the qualities that I would lump with Web 2.0 applications — that they invite, rely on, and respect the cooperation and contributions of the community. Not only are social bookmarking systems like libraries in how they are collected, but also in that I can check out, so to speak, web resources based on topic/tag and even based on the contributor, and I can train those web links to appear automatically in my own web sites and online handouts. This is new, this ability to organize dynamic documents that reshape themselves based on the contributions of others.”

This makes so much sense to me! It is just like a library, a much more accessible and social library, one that I can see being much more appealing to my students than the actual physical library in their school or community. Not that I would encourage this attitude, but I think this type of thinking can definitely lead to a revolution in how we see libraries and how we use their resources and how we promote them with our students, and even how we structure them and organize them!

On this topic of real library vs. digital I found a great article from the New York Times about the future of books in a digital world. They reference the tagging phenomenon and describe it thus:

“Because tags are user-generated, when they move to the realm of books, they will be assigned faster, range wider and serve better than out-of-date schemes like the Dewey Decimal System, particularly in frontier or fringe areas like nanotechnology or body modification. The link and the tag may be two of the most important inventions of the last 50 years.”

A very interesting comment, but even more interesting is Will Richardson’s response to this article in which he poses the following questions for pondering:

“Should we be thinking about how to prepare our kids for a linked, tagged world? What strategies do we need to develop to read and write in a linked, tagged world? How do we best harness the potential of a world where knowledge is easily connected and, therefore, increasingly overwhelming and, as my wife pointed out, perhaps paralyzing?”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Some very important issue to think about as educators, don’t you think?

Enjoy sharing your knowledge . . .

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

2008-10-05T03:30:00.001-05:00

Social Studies | Manitoba
This is a list of websites that are connected to the current Manitoba Curriculum in Social Studies, but they are useful links for all Social studeis teachers
tags: curriculum links, manitoba, social, studies, history
Social Studies | Manitoba
This is the current Grade 8 Sociual Studies Curriculum in Manitoba. The Blackline Mastsers are good and their use in the lessons is explained in the actual Cluster links. Good resource for those who have an outdated curriculum.
tags: social studies, grade 8, curriculum, manitoba, history
Children's Way - Teaching Kids and Parents Internet Safety
tags: teaching, digital_safety, children, parents
You know you're a 21st century librarian if . . .
Joyce Valenza's wiki about being a librarian in the 21st century.
tags: informationfluency, librarian, education
Chapter 1 of Bit Literacy
Interesting book about staying organized in a digital world
tags: Bit literacy, web2.0, organization, education
- The problem can be solved by learning bit literacy, a new set of skills for
  managing bits. Those who attain these skills will surmount the obstacles of
  overload and rise to the top of their professions, even as they enjoy a life
  with less stress, greater health, and more time for family and friends. Bit
  literacy makes people more effective today, even as it equips them for the
  future.
  - very interseting ideas about how we need new skills to say organized in this new age - post by crobinson
- The world has changed, but most people haven't caught up yet. Millions of
  technology users are trying to survive in the new world of bits with only the
  skills of computer literacy. They know how to send an e-mail and print a
  document, but they're powerless against the avalanche of incoming bits. Without
  managing their bits, users are constantly buried; not because bits are a bad or
  destructive force (far from it), but because users aren't applying the right
  skills or the right mindset.
Weblogg-ed » What Will Happen To Books–NY Times
tags: no_tag
- Should we be thinking about how to prepare our kids for a linked, tagged
  world?
  
  What strategies do we need to develop to read and write in linked, tagged
  world?
  
  How do we best harness the potential of a world where knowledge is easily
  connected and, therefore, increasingly overwhelming and, as my
  wife pointed out, perhaps paralyzing?
  - use this for social book-marking blog - post by crobinson
Scan This Book! - New York Times
tags: no_tag
- Because tags are user-generated, when they move to the realm of books, they will
  be assigned faster, range wider and serve better than out-of-date schemes like
  the Dewey Decimal System, particularly in frontier or fringe areas like
  nanotechnology or body modification
  - thisi s useful for my social bookmarking blog - post by crobinson
- The link and the tag may be two of the most important inventions of the last 50
  years.
  - thisis the quote that richardson used. - post by crobinson
Weblogg-ed - Annotated
Will Richardson's blog
tags: education, blog, web2.0, technology, blogging, edtech, richardson, teaching
Remember The Milk: Online to do list and task management
Another online to do list and tool
tags: todo, web2.0, productivity, tools, organization
Joe's Goals - Free Online Habit Tracker
An online goal setting site
tags: productivity, goals, web2.0, tools, todo
Gootodo - Sign Up
An online to do list
tags: web2.0, tools, todo, organization, list
e2doList - Organize Your Life For Free
A web 2.0 organizing tool
tags: web2.0, organize
The Big Idea - Annotated
A tool I think woill be useful for class
tags: tools, trailfire, education, teaching, web2.0
Saskatchewan School Boards Association
An overview of Technology Change in Education
tags: impact of technology, technology, education, teaching
Welcome to Joyce Valenza's Homepage
tags: library, librarian, valenza, research, reference
CRobi Blog
My blog!
tags: crobi-blog
Edublogs - education blogs
another good blog tool for students and teachers
tags: education, blog, blogging, web2.0, edublogs, tools, teaching
Google Sites - Free websites and wikis
create free sites here
tags: web2.0, websites, google
Scribd
upload documents here
tags: web2.0, documents, sharing, pdf, tools
Landmarks Class Blogmeister
A good place to have students start there own blogs
tags: education, blog, blogging, web2.0

What Web 2.0 tools are available to help me?

2008-09-30T18:52:00.002-05:00

What Web 2.0 tools are available to help me, (a teacher) or my students stay organized online?

The heading for Topic 2 was Getting (and staying) Organized in an Electronic, Web 2.0 Environment. Since we have been feverishly immersing ourselves in the WEB 2.0 environment already, I decide to delve deeper and take a look at “what Web 2.0 tools were available that could help me (a teacher) or my students stay organized online”. I found a number of different categories of organizational tools. The first I am going to call “online note-taking and note-assisting tools”, the second are “online to-do lists”, the third are “online goal-setting tools” and the last is the “social book marking tools” that we are all probably playing with this week. I decided to focus on the first three categories and leave the social book-marking to our blog posts.
When I investigated each of these sites I looked at the following criteria:
· Was the site an online tool or was it promoting a downloadable program
· Was the tool easy to use and understand
· Did the tool have a cost associated with it
· Did it work with my current computer configuration, and what configurations would it work with.
· Did the tool seem to be useful and helpful rather than just more work!

I began my investigation with a simple Google search for “Web 2.0 tools for organizing myself” and that led me to two sites this one called Organize 2.0, and this one called 13 Great Tools For Organizing The Web. From there the possibilities were endless!

I found many “online note-taking and note-assisting tools”, but I will focus on two I thought might be useful. I was excited to find MyStickies as its format fits with the way I tend to organize myself offline (I go through about a thousand post its every time a take a class!). It allows you the ability to place digital “sticky notes” on any web page, annotate them and then it keeps track of them all for you in a central location. This is a downloadable program that is free of charge (although they do ask for donations to help keep the tool free). It seemed like it would be easy to use, so I signed up only to find out that it was only formatted to work with Firefox and not Internet Explorer, which is what I am currently using.

(Maybe those of you that use FireFox can check it out and let me know if you think its any good. It might be worth switching from Internet Explorer.)

The second tool I found was iLighter, which is a similar, free downloadable program that allows you to add a function button to your browser’s tool bar. Whenever you find something useful, you click on the button and highlight it. You can then store these highlights in a central location, which can be accessed from any computer with online access. So in a way it is both a downloadable program and a Web based application. It is formatted to work with both Internet Explorer and Foxfire, so it provides more flexibility in that sense as well. Another thing I liked about iLighter is the ability to blog, tag for delicious or dig, email, or twitter each of the highlights with the click of a button. (Please note I am not that familiar with twitter, delicious or dig, but I hope to be eventually!)

I eagerly downloaded the program and attempted to use it. Unfortunately, something happened during the download, which I must get my husband to help me fix (I definitely know more about Web 2.0 than him now, but I still can’t figure out how to operate the rotten computer! RRR!), and so I am unable to actually highlight anything. Therefore, I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that the tool is easy to use or if is in fact helpful.

There are a plethora of on-line to-do list tools available for use. I looked at Remember the Milk, Gootodo (see more info on Gootodo here), and e2doList. All three are web-based tools, but Gootodo does have a cost associated with it. The site does provide a 30-day free trail though. All three are very easy to use, but Gootodo is not at all visually pleasing and does not offer as many perks as Remember the Milk and e2doList. I liked e2doLists because they allowed you to set up email reminders for each of the tasks on your to do list, reminders that could be sent on a date of your choosing. I was impressed with e2toList, until I discovered Remember the Milk. Remember the Milk allows you to set the priority level for each item and the items on your list can be annotated (this goes for e2doList as well). It allows you to send email reminders, it has an online calendar, and you can monitor your progress as you complete items. You can also set tasks to repeat themselves regularly (i.e. work out every 2 days), set time limits, tag items and add different locations for each item on your list. This particular feature would be handy for people who travel for work or commute long distances. You can even subscribe to an Atom feed of your to do list with Remember the Milk. Over all I believe that Remember to Milk is the superior site for my purposes.

One last thing I found was an online goal -setting tool. It was quite interesting and might be something you could try with that really disorganized student you have. Joe’s Goals is free, available online and very easy to use and understand. It allows you to set a number of goals, both positive and negative, check them off as completed or not completed and it even keeps track and provides a score for your goal achievement. It will also provide you with charts and graphs to keep track of your progress. It even allows you to have a logbook (or a few logbooks) to keep track of any notes or thoughts you might have on your goals. This could potentially be a very useful tool in my opinion.

There you have it. A very short list of what’s available online to help us, and our students, stay organized in this Web 2.0 world. I will personally be using the iLighter (as soon as I can get it to work!) and the Remember the Milk site. I may even use Joe’s Goals to track my work out and weight loss goals! Check them out and let me know what you think.

I forget to mention that I also found this book called Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload by Mark Hurst if anyone is really intent on studying this whole issue further! If you click on the link, you can read a sample chapter online.

A Thought Provoking Look into Video Sharing

2008-09-28T15:44:00.004-05:00

You’ve seen them. You know, those cutsie little videos that your odd aunt sends to you via email, like the laughing babies:

Or what about the just-plain-weird videos you get from that quirky physicist cousin of yours, like this:

Personally I have always liked “The machine is Us/ing Us” the best. (If you have not already seen this one, then you don’t get online much!)

I also recently received this one called “Did you Know?” via email. I don’t know if the stats in it are accurate, but its still quite thought provoking.

In fact, that was my aspiration when I created my video. Something educational, yet entertaining, something thought provoking, yet amusing. I do believe I have achieved this with “Lynon and Agador Discover Diffusion”

Here is my amazing video:

I admit I was stumped at first, like all good artists are at one time or another. How do I create an applicable video that’s amusing but doesn’t require a lot of extra props (I didn’t really have a budget!)? The answer came to me while I stared at the rec-room that once belonged to the adult domain, but has since been taken over by an army of tiny girl toys. “Use the toys, Christine!” I thought. Any of my students who see this video, will no doubt know it as my handy work. My sense of humour is well known throughout our school building!

Once I started, and had decided on a format for the video (i.e. the silent movie) I found it incredibly easy. I searched for Creative Commons music in the silent movie theme and actually found a whole website of royalty-free silent movie sound tracks. I decided on “Old Timey”, mostly because I thought it would be the most ridiculous. I then created my dialogue and “cartoons”. Now that I look back on the video, I would definitely increase the font size if I were to create an entire series of “Lynon and Agador Discover . . .” videos for my science classroom (maybe!). Thanks to my wonderful and patient husband who gave me a very quick tutorial in video editing and showed me the ins and outs of file conversion, I was able to create my masterpiece without much effort!

When it came time to upload my video is when I ran into trouble. I had decided to go with Teacher Tube, as I am a teacher. But I found their site slow and cumbersome and I tried, unsuccessfully, 4 times to upload my video there. I finally abandoned Teacher Tube for You Tube (Canadian version of course!) and was able to upload in one attempt.

Unlike my previous escapades with Flickr, I can see boundless applications for video sharing in the classroom. I have been having my students create videos for assignments and projects since I first began teaching and so taking the next step of sharing those with the world, doesn’t seem so far fetched. What I did find interesting was how video sharing can enhance and enable teacher professional development.

On You Tube alone I found a video about Reading Recovery, Dyslexia, and one on Being Cyber Smart which I found very interesting and applicable to being a Teacher Librarian. This is really where Teacher Tube comes out on top, as teachers can subscribe to an RSS of the Professional Development Channel where I found this moving video:

Most of the pros post videos to their blogs for the purposes of sharing their own views and teachings in a more visual way. The fact that I can make a video on a topic near and dear to my heart, about my own profession, and geared towards my fellow teachers, and post it for all to see and use is profoundly powerful for me. I can participate in the professional development of teachers around the world. I had never even imagined that application until I started this class, and I had only an inkling about the extent of the possibilities before I started this post!

I fear you may all get very sick of seeing my videos taking over the web!

An Educational Artist Transforming Humanity

2008-09-21T14:27:00.004-05:00

I like to pretend I’m an artist. You see there are many very creative people in my family, including my uncle who is a well known muralist here in Winnipeg named Charles Johnston, my mom who is a writer/playwright/aspiring novelist and has had a number of her plays produced and just finished her Masters in English doing a thesis on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, and my cousin Rika Hawes who is becoming quite an established glass artist. So I like to think, since I am surrounded by creative genes, that I too am creative. Then you can imagine how EXCITED I was to even entertain the thought that the world could see my beautiful photography with just the click of the mouse! I was convinced that having the world experience the wonders that are my photographs would transform humanity . . .

(ahem . . . sometimes the little egomaniac in me escapes, I apologize and will hence forth keep her in check)

Seriously, I was eager to try Flickr because I do like to share my pictures with people and after “Taking the Tour” and following the Trailfire links to watch the video suggested by Joanne, I was intrigued by a number of things. Mostly, the fact that I can control the privacy levels and allow limited access to my masterpieces appeals to me. (sorry, egomaniac slipped out again . . .) This still remains one of my biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to sharing photos online, whether through this type of venue or through a social networking site. I would love to use these sites to share photos of my gorgeous children with my family who is spread all over Canada and the US (they really are gorgeous, no ego here, I swear). In fact, I first joined Facebook so I could keep in touch with those far-flung family members. But I am so protective of my girls that I fear none of you will ever lay eyes on their beauty through the magic of Flickr, no matter the privacy restrictions. I do have some photos of them on my Facebook page, which I have set to the very highest security and only select friends can view them.

Once I worked through the paranoia (boy do I have issues!) I began the process of uploading photos. I first went through all my photos and chose only the very best and most dramatic ones to showcase, mostly the ones I thought were pretty! I easily uploaded many brilliant photos and relabeled and tagged them. I was able to create 3 sets and then to my dismay found out that if I wanted to create more I had to “upgrade” to “Pro Flickr” at a cost of $24.95 per year!

It was at this point that I got stuck. I could not figure out what the benefit of this photo sharing site was, except as a place to back up my photos in case of a computer catastrophe at home. So I turned to Chapter 7 of Will Richardson and was enlightened and inspired to try the Annotation tool, the Editing tools in Picnik, to look at the Creative Commons licenses, to try the Flickr mapping function and to search the “pro’s” blogs to see what they have to say about the value of photo sharing.

Of course, I first started out at the site itself, playing with all the above noted features (see my previous blog entry about being a button-clicker!). I was able to annotate my photos with very little effort, and I decided to create a “tour” of the city of Ottawa, where my mom lives. I was able to easily post my pictures to my blog, just by going through a quick process and you can see those efforts below. I also added a slideshow gadget that links right to my Photostream on Flickr and showcases all my magnificent photos à.

I also decided to look at the Creative Common Licenses because as noted above, I am still a bit paranoid. I changed all my photos except my wedding photos to “Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons” and I changed my wedding set to “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons” just because I don’t want people to be able to manipulate my wedding photos, but I don’t mind others using them. I then decide to try the edit feature using Picnik. I took my already awesome photo “Tree in Winter” and “created” a new picture. See my previous post “More Flickr Fun”. I did investigate adding my photos to the map feature, but this is seems much more time consuming and requires more of my time, at a later date! But I did find an interesting article about Geotagging, which I have included here for your enjoyment.

I definitely see the potential of the Flickr site now that I have “played with it”. Richardson talks about a student using Flickr to explain her project with notes, and the idea of using the annotation feature as a form of assessment where students add notes to a diagram or picture of, for example, a fetal pig dissection (Richardson, p. 104). It seems photo sharing in general and Flickr specifically have many varied applications to the classroom. I liked the ideas that Richardson posed where students and teachers can use Flickr as a way to stimulate discussion, share school events with parents (both from p. 102), use it as a way to showcase art or other school work (p. 105), use it as a way to inspire budding photojournalists (p.106) and even go on photo field trips using the map feature (p.107). Flickr also gives teachers the ability to create interesting and applicable learning objects, with the touch of a button.

I think Richardson said it best in this post from October 2004:

“Doh! I get it. Have kids upload pictures they take to flickr, tag them, add titles, descriptions and hot spots with mouseovers, look at other similarly tagged photos from classmates or students far and abroad, comment back to the creators…and then blog about the whole experience. Construct. Collaborate. Communicate.”

Can I possibly be that far behind in my knowledge and use of Web 2.0 tools, that Richardson was blogging about this very dilemma I’m having now, way back in 2004! I need to get it in gear!

This quote about Life Caching I found on Richardson’s blog, but attributed to Jeff Jarvis (dated August 2005), is also very interesting and has many ramifications for the way we incorporate this technology into our everyday classroom use:

“LIFE CACHING is enabling GENERATION C to become a generation of true storytellers, helping them to visually and compellingly share their experiences with friends and family, which makes them stand out and feel special. In fact, sharing an experience may become as valuable if not more valuable than the actual experience itself.” (emphasis mine)

I think the quote speaks to the importance of teachers and other adults embracing these technologies and showing students how they can be safely and appropriately used. If the sharing is becoming more important than the experience, then we need to ensure the experiences are also worthy of sharing! (Remember our discussion about online reputation on the class discussion site?)

This also leads me to believe that our students will really feel the way I jokingly did: that having the world experience the wonders that are their photographs will transform humanity. And maybe it will.

More Flickr Fun

2008-09-21T12:58:00.002-05:00

Tree in Winter B & W,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

This is a photo that I "created" using one of my own and the Picnk feature of Flickr. I both inverted the colour and then made it black and white. I also cropped it to focus on the tree more. I'm thoroughly impressed with the result.

Ottawa Aerial Tour 4

2008-09-21T09:42:00.002-05:00

Ottawa,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

This is the last photo. Hope you all enjoyed the aerial tour of downtown Ottawa.

Ottawa Aerial Tour 3

2008-09-20T16:45:00.002-05:00

Ottawa,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

Here is the third photo. If you get a chance to visit Ottawa, I highly recommend visiting the Library of Parliament.

Ottawa Aerial Tour 2

2008-09-20T16:32:00.002-05:00

Ottawa,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

This is the second photo. Ottawa is a very beautiful and lovely place that all Canadians should visit at least once.

Ottawa Aerial Tour 1

2008-09-20T16:22:00.004-05:00

Ottawa ,
originally uploaded by CRobi-Blog.

This is the beginning of a series of four aerial photos of downtown Ottawa, taken from the top of the Peace Tower. Note the annotations, each of which points out a sight to see. There are matching close up photos of each sight in my Flickr photostream. Enjoy!

Flickr

2008-09-20T15:41:00.001-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

How do I “be myself” online?

2008-09-16T19:39:00.003-05:00

So how do we “create a visual presence in our own little places on the web”?

I have to admit I really had no idea what to say about this! Ask me to comment on assessment practices in Mongolia or pedagogical beliefs of 18th century mathematicians or even create a lesson plan integrating all known knowledge on Earth and I can do it without even thinking (well maybe not without thinking, but at least I’d have an idea how to start: Google!). But for some reason this small task of thinking about my visual presence online stumped me completely. So I did what any good teacher should do, I asked for help. A late night email sent frantically to Joanne asking for “clarification” resulted in a prompt response and set me on my way in search of a related inquiry topic that would entice my psyche to reflect. I decided to start by looking at all those professional blogs I have decided to follow. After much careful reading I found this quote from Stephen Downes in the article Seven Habits of Highly Connected People:

“The idea behind "being yourself" is not that you have some sort of offline life (though you may). Rather, it's a recognition that your online life encompasses the many different facets of your life, and that it is important that these facets are all represented and work together.”

How do I “be myself” online and make my blog represent all the facets of me?

Again, I decided to see how the “pro’s” do it, so I took a closer look at their blogs. First I went to David Warlick’s 2¢ Blog. He has an About This Blog link where he talks about “pimping out his blog” (his word, not mine!) but he does mention that even though he believes “blogs are for communicating, and that the message should be the primary focus of its operation”, he does admit to including some little goodies to personalize his space. One thing he has included is a Tag Cloud, which is quite interesting, and I will be searching for this tool in the future. He also includes a Blogging From link that shows his travels. He has many Flickr photos of his travels as well. One last thing he included was a side bar “add on” that shows the books he’s been reading. As for colour and layout, David Warlick did stay true to his quote above with a very simple layout with lots of white space, and small splashes of colour. This simple layout seems to be what most of the professionals are doing including Darren Kuropatwa, Tim Wilson, Anne Davis and Stephen Downes. Some of the “pro’s” use a Visitor Map to show where people are viewing from, and Tim Wilson has a “What I’m doing Now” feed, much like Facebook’s. Last but not least I looked at Will Richardson’s blog. He has a “My Stuff” tab at the top of his blog, which includes links to You Tube and other videos by him, Flickr photos posted by him, Twitter posts, posts he has made to other blogs, del.icio.us items of his, a calendar, and many other interesting online items by or about him.

So how does my blog reflect me? I did choose a template that is understated, not because its what the “pro’s” are doing, but because I just liked the way it looked. I changed some of the colours to suit me better, and of course I added some “gadgets” to the side bar. I found the sheer number of gadgets to add a tad bit overwhelming and I suspect I will revisit some of my existing elements and either remove or add as time goes on. Currently I have a “This Day in History” gadget that I chose because I love History and believe it is a very important thing to know and learn about. I also added a “Picture of the Day” gadget from National Geographic because I love looking at the beauty of nature, especially in well-done photography that uses unusual perspectives. As soon as I set up my Flickr account, I will include some pictures of my own that I think fit this category. I may also change my Picture of the Day gadget periodically to include other types of art I’m interested in (like Van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Escher, Jackson Pollock, sculpture and others). I also have included a “Useless Knowledge” gadget, mostly because I wanted to see what it would come up with and if any of it would be applicable and/or appropriate in the classroom because I do interesting facts with my students. At the beginning of every class (Science, Social, Math or LA) I try to give them an interesting fact about the topic for the day, just to hook them a bit. In the future I hope to include a Book List of books I want to read, I want to figure out how to do the tags so I can add a Tag Cloud, and I also want to try out the Wordle thing that all of you have been talking about and Heather used to make the header for her blog.

I think the visual appearance of your blog is important, but I believe what you write and how you write it speaks more about who you are. I named my Blog Crobi-blog because it’s a nickname some of my teacher friends gave me after I got married. They couldn’t stop calling me by my maiden name and so started calling me Crobi to remember I was Robinson not Bunce! I thought it would make a great on-line alter ego! I sign each of my posts with a smile, because I want people to feel welcomed and invited to comment. Plus I am a very happy outgoing person. I write in a way that invites laughter, encourages thought, opens dialogue and questions everything. Or at least that is what I strive to do. I’ve never been afraid to “put myself out there” so to speak and so I decided early on that when I wrote on my blog I would put my personality into my writing and so far I’m pretty happy with the result.

I do wonder about the purpose of the blog and how much of yourself you “put out there”. Above Downes says that it’s important that ALL facets are represented. I disagree with that slightly. I think you have to think carefully about the purpose of your blog and then edit your ”facets” accordingly. If I’m writing a professional blog where the intent is to share learning and reflections on teaching, then I don’t feel I need to include information on my kids or my dog or what I wore to the mall this morning. I do need to make sure that I represent all facets of me as an educator however.

I think one of the most important things we do as educators is model what we want our students to do. I know that I will be able to refer to my classmates’ posts as well as my own posts, to show my students what I mean when I say, “put your personality into your writing”. I also think its important for us to experience what our students will experience. Reflecting on how I make my blog represent all the facets of myself has helped me think about how I will encourage my students to do the same when I finally start blogging with them. Do I limit their customization? How can I know that everything they are putting on their blogs is age appropriate and has suitable content? Do I discourage flashy colours and blinking icons or do I let them make the space their own? How do I impress upon them the importance of being careful with their personal photos and information? How do I broach the subject of how much of themselves they should “put out there”? So much more still to learn and reflect on . . .

Connectivism . . Interesting

2008-09-11T19:36:00.005-05:00

I’m a button-clicker, a techno-fiddler, an action taker. Whenever I’m trying to learn new software or technology (or anything for that matter) I just go in and start clicking, tinkering and doing. No fear!

This is what I did when I first set up CRobi-Blog. There are pros and cons with taking this approach. You end up learning quickly and become more confident in your ability to problem solve and learn new skills. But sometimes you end up having to learn the same thing twice, once the action-taker way and once the book-reader way. (I can definitely relate with some of my students for this reason!) I set up the blog, tried a few things and then read up on blogs in my textbooks. Oh I had gleaned the basics from the texts, but I had only skimmed enough to get me started. I admit I did this on purpose, partly so I could experience the typical blogger’s anxiety and partly so I could experience the excitement. Let’s be honest here: most people setting up a blog for the first time don’t have a text book (or multiple texts) sitting on their coffee table waiting to be read when they hit a snag. I know my students certainly won’t and I thought it was only fair to experience just a little bit of what my students may feel when I ask them to start blogging.

Two things interested me in Will Richardson’s text (see his blog for more from Richardson). I guess the biggest thing I got from it is that blogging is connective writing and “truly a constructivist tool for learning” (p. 27, Richardson) which requires students to learn and use a whole new set of critical thinking skills. I find this very exciting. At first glance this seems like alot to take in, but after some reflection I don't think it seems overwhelming in the least. It just seems natural. Like it’s the way teaching and learning should be, and I’m starting to realize that this is the way I’ve always wanted to teach, but I just never knew how. I find I’m always looking for new ways to get my students to express themselves and participate in the class discussions. I’m always encouraging them to just get involved in something important to them, right now at this time in their lives, so they are ready to get involved as they become responsible adults. I’ve long been an advocate for focusing on the skills necessary to learn a content area rather than focusing on the content itself. Especially in an age when content is ever-changing and human kind is adding to their stores of knowledge at an incredible rate. This concept on connective writing may just be the way to achieve all these things. I’ll have to spend some more time reflecting on this and I’ll come back to it, I promise.

But in the mean time, I’ve decided to try writing in a more connective way. So I signed up for some blogs and news feeds on topics I’m interested in. Many were recommended by Richardson, one is by David Warlick the author of one of the books I’m reading, and my personal favourite find so far is Rick Mercer! I set up a Bloglines account and added a blogroll to my blog (as you can see --->).

(Apparently there is something really big going on at the University of Manitoba worth checking out regarding connectivism. Anne Davis writes her first impressions of it here. I have only just skimmed the site, yet another thing to revisit in a later post!))

Another thing that struck me is that Will Richardson suggests being a “public Blogger” (p. 47, Richardson). I had previously not posted my personal data or credentials, as my knee jerk reaction was to be careful about my privacy. He makes a really good argument for being a public Blogger though, when he talks about students learning to be critical readers of other’s blogs and using blogs as resources. He suggests that one of the ways to discern whether a Blogger is reputable & reliable is to check the blogger’s qualifications, profession, authority, etc. (p. 47). This made me think about what I would like others to get from my blog. I’m famous for sharing everything with my fellow teachers, and encouraging even the most self-conscious of my colleagues to do likewise. Of course I do want others to gain from my experiences both in learning about Web 2.0 tools and as a professional educator reflecting on learning and teaching. I realized I needed to let people know that I am actually qualified to be posting on these subjects (most of the time!) So I added my professional credentials and a bit about my professional interests to the “About Me” section.

Happy Connecting . . .

Word files?! Not on Blogger!

2008-09-09T19:32:00.005-05:00

The last post was me trying to figure out how to include a link to a word file or a pdf file into my blog. I posted the question to the Blogger Help Groups and got two kinds of advice. One was to use Scribd to upload my documents to and then link them to my blog from there. I tried this with my recipe, but I'm not sure I like the fact that you actually see my document in a web page for Scribd, rather than just as a web page of its own. The other advice I got was to set up a quick website say with Google Sites, and just use it as a place to store my files and then link them to my blog from that website. Both of these options seem awkward and a lot more work than simply creating a link. I was hoping to try to avoid creating a whole new website just for my class to use, and have them instead refer to my blog. What I can't seem to wrap my head around is why I can create a link to a picture file, or a video file or an audio file (all of which would be considerably larger that my word documents), but not add in word documents or pdf files of my own creation?

I'm keeping an open mind, but I'm starting to think that Blogger is just not going to provide me with the features I need when I incorporate blogging into my teaching.

2008-09-09T19:27:00.001-05:00

I'm just trying something so bare with me! This is my recipe for Banana Cream Pie.

Saga of My First Blog: Part 2

2008-09-08T14:49:00.004-05:00

Hello again. Let us continue the tale of my first blog . . .

From what I read in Web 2.0 by Solomon and Schrum, I was very interested in exploring Class Blogmeister (http://classblogmeister.com/index.php) because according to the authors “Teachers can evaluate, comment on and publish students’ blog entries in a controlled environment.” (p. 219, Solomon & Schrum). I also wanted to check out Edublogs (http://edublogs.org) for similar reasons. I am hoping to incorporate my blog and blogging in general into my classroom teaching when I return to work in January, so these sites seemed ideal.

I first looked at Class Blogmeister and found that in order to sign up for a blog, you first have to register a classroom blog as a teacher. I’m not yet at the point where I’m ready to sign up for a classroom blog (far from it!) so I felt I should look at other options. However, I may think about going back to Blogmeister when I’m ready to share the blogging experience with my students.

I then decided to investigate Blogger. As you can tell, it’s the one I decided to use. I chose it mostly because it was recommended by two books and my instructor as a very easy blog site to use. Being a first timer, this definitely appealed to me. It was certainly as easy as the site said it would be, but not as fast, mostly because I’m picky and I read everything. When reading the Terms of Service I was a bit dismayed to read that you have to be at least 13 years of age to use the service. Obviously I will be looking elsewhere when it comes time to introduce blogging to my students. :(

As soon as I had my blog set up, I immediately set about customizing it (because I have to be different from everyone else, even if only minutely enough so that I know!) I have to admit I didn’t fully understand what a blog was until I actually set it up and looked at my first post! I was surprised to see that it looks just like a website. (Yes everyone, you can laugh. When I said I was a newbie, I wasn’t kidding!) Excited by this revelation I began to try to figure out if I could insert word files or pdf files into my posts so that I could get students to link to their course work through my blog, instead of having to set up a website also. I was again dismayed when all my attempts failed and I could not find any help links to answer my question. I will post the question to one of the help groups as soon as I have a spare moment, but this led me to check with Edublogs to see if they provided that service (seeing as they are specially designed for educators).

I surfed the Edublogs site for some time and was impressed by what I saw. I could have a blog set up for each of my students and the site's software would allow me to monitor each of the blogs. I could set privacy controls and blog parameters for the students’ blogs, monitor blog posts for content plus they have tons of other appealing features including (I think) the ability to upload various file types.

So I was absolutely shocked to find out that YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT! Tell me what cash strapped school in Canada or the US is going to approve a cost of $900 US to have up to 100 blogs (which is what I would need as I usually teach 75-80 students every year, 3 classes). I would have to write up a whole proposal just to even get considered for the money! The good thing is, they do allow you to set up a limited time free blog, but I haven't been able to access this feature of their website for some reason!

So back to Blogger for me! I edited my profile, put up my picture, added some 'gadgets', posted my second post and it all seems VERY easy! Now I’m busy trying to dream up creative ways to integrate blogging into my teaching. Like a RAFT blog where students blog as a character from Ancient Egypt, or Reading Response Journal Blogs (a J-Blog), or Virtual Literature Circles, or how about Discussion Groups set up to enhance Social Studies Debating, or a Current Events J-Blog, or a Science Experiment Learning Blog or what about . . . . . . . .

Saga of My First Blog: Part 1

2008-09-07T19:48:00.001-05:00

I love textbooks. I say this so you understand that I’m not some crazy teacher’s pet type when you read the rest of this post. In fact I’m a self-professed keener, for MY benefit though, not for the sake of praise from others. So when I found out what the text books were going to be for this course (EDES 501 Exploration of Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning at the University of Alberta for those not in the class) I immediately went online to search them out, buy them and greedily examine them trying to glean every ounce of information I could (without actually reading them) before the class started. That would be why I’m a keener J.

Of course when Amazon.ca kindly showed me that I could get Richardson’s book (http://www.amazon.ca/gp/reader/1412927676/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link) as well as Brain Friendly Libraries by Judith Anne Sykes for the low low price of a gazillion dollars I leaped at the chance to have alternate sources of information. And then I also bought Web 2.0: New Tools New Schools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum and Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition by David Warlick. Yes I am a sucker!

I have found Web 2.0 New Tools New Schools quite helpful and I recommend it to those of you in my class. It has a list of Web 2.0 tools in the Appendix (pgs 219-229) and lists where each tool can be found online. It also has a whole chapter of tutorials on some of these tools (Chapter 10, pgs 191-212) including Zoho Writer, Num Sum, Tux Paint, Audacity, del.icio.us bookmarks and others.

Logically then, I turned to the Appendix of Web 2.0 by Solomon and Schrum when I was told I had to set up a blog for this course (something I knew nothing about). There I found Blogger (also recommended by Richardson), Class Blogmeister, and Edublogs, among others. I then proceeded to find the sites, bookmark them and begin to investigate which of them was for me. Of course it was at exactly this point that both my girls awoke and my investigation had to wait. As this blog entry does right now . . . for the very same reasons!

Why Blog?

2008-09-07T19:41:00.004-05:00

This is the blog I've set up as one of my assignments for EDES 501 Exploration of Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning. It is a course that is part of the Master's in Teacher Librarianship by Distance Learning at the University of Alberta. This is my first time blogging, just fyi!

Oh, and I cannot write anything without making it into some sort of amusing story, so be prepared for a tale!