Sunday, 30 November 2008

What’s Next? Wikis for all of course!

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'
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Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sunday, 23 November 2008

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Saturday, 22 November 2008

Boy, do I have a PD opportunity for you!

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 :)
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Sunday, 16 November 2008

Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Friday, 14 November 2008

Aggregator Alligators and Vanity Feeds

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)
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Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Correction Notice

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.
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