So, as technology becomes more and more a part of our personal and professional lives, it's clear that technology, internet, web 2.0, and social networking skills are not something that are a passing fad. They are going to become, if they aren't already, important and, perhaps, even necessary.
Social networking sites like FaceBook are becoming more popular by the day, and children are wanting accounts younger and younger. It's hard to prove someone is not 13 years old when they check that box saying they are. But, what are they posting on these sites, and are they being safe?
Well, it appears the current website answer to these questions is the new social networking site for young children, Togetherville. I read about this site in a CNN article the other day, and honestly? My first thought was...why?
Now, the whole point of this site is that it is geared to introduce children to the concept of social networking, but with the safety that their profiles are created by, and managed by, their parents. Verification is done via the parent's email address, to make sure that a profile is tied to an adult. And it is the parents that make and approve friend requests. I also saw that most of the options for comments on other peoples' walls are canned responses, to help prevent students from sharing too much personal information.
So...I think "why" a little bit less, but.....it makes me wonder. While kids need to be familiar with the internet and social networking, at what age does this really need to start? Togetherville is geared towards 6-10 year olds. Personally, I think 6 is too young. At that age, general computer skills seem like they should be more the focus. I mean....6 years olds are in 1st or 2nd grade!!! There is NO reason that they NEED to be on the internet and making social networking connections. That's when it might be best to be focusing on keyboarding and general computer usage skills. I can see getting into more web 2.0 by the time they hit middle school, and other tools controlled by, or shared by, the teacher before that. But, honestly, social networking is something they should probably end up doing, and do need practice with in using properly, but I don't see the need for something like a FaceBook page that early.
Maybe it's just me being "old-fashioned" and being just old enough that I didn't have all these technological and internet-connected possibilities when I was that age, but I still don't see the need for them to be able to do EVERYTHING online that early. Goodness knows, once they pick it up, they'll fly with it. And yes, earlier is better, but.... I don't know. I can't tell you a specific age that makes sense, but perhaps an age with double digits.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
My New Tweeps
Twitter is one of those web 2.0 tools that has become part of everyday conversation, news, and social networking...and it even has its own vocabulary--tweets, tweeps, tweeple, and more. I joined reluctantly with a personal account nearly a year ago, and then got my class account a few weeks ago. I really like some of the funny anecdotes and pictures that my friends post, and I have enjoyed following some celebrities. On my class account, I have found it really helpful to subscribe to educational news sources, as the headlines come to me, instead of me having to remember to go to all the different sites and look them up. However, I'm still not entirely sure if Twitter is for me, or not.
One thing that I have noticed in my classmates' blogs is that everyone seems to equate Twitter with using your cellphone. Honestly? This is not something I want to do. 1. I have to pay for a data/internet plan, above and beyond my calling and texting. 2. I don't have a touchscreen phone or one that does lots of apps (or...does it? I don't use the web on it, so who knows, aside from not having a touch screen). I truly do not want all those messages coming to me via text messaging, and reading through all those tiny messages on an even tinier screen just isn't appealing. I DO like Twitter, and I DO see why it's fun on a personal level, and can be a great way to communicate, share, have conversations, and ask for help on a professional level. Yet, aside from setting up my personal account to accepts text message as tweets from me, and getting direct messages to my phone, I do not want the rest of it. So, it will have to wait for when I can come home, or access it at school, with enough time to scroll through. And, this in itself can pose a problem. The longer you are away, the more tweets you have to get through. And sometimes, that can be a daunting task. Never mind the abbreviated messages or text speak that you sometimes get, so that people can stay under 140 characters, or the piles of messages in a row from the same person, because they were nowhere near staying in those 140 characters.
But, anyway, I digress....
What type of information did I get from following Twitter the last few weeks. Well, first and foremost, I followed the US Dept of Education, and a number of education news sites like Education Week and US News Education. Last semester, we were following the news in education and blogging about it, and I meant to keep up with it. Yet, that rather fell by the wayside as I had to go to extra sites all the time. Having headlines come right to my Twitter client, Echofon, embedded in my Firefox browser has enabled me to read articles about changing laws with testing, see stories about teachers boycotting standardized testing in the UK, see links to blogs about the Race to the Top, and even see a few videos or comments on web 2.0 tools with regard to education. While 140 characters is not enough to give you the full idea of the article, you do get the headline and the link. And really, when you visit the main page of a new site, what is the majority of what you see? Headlines. This is what you end up basing your decision on whether or not to read the article on, and Twitter provides you with just that. Subscribing to these sites makes Twitter kind of a mini RSS feed.
In terms of who has been the most helpful in particular for me to follow, I think the two I would currently point to are Teaching Ideas which gives ideas on a range of things, from news to lesson ideas to links with tips on classroom management to suggestions for teaching FaceBook groups. It's a bit of a melting pot of teaching advice, and while some things are not of interest, the mix of information that is thrown out seems like it is bound to come in handy to nearly every level and content area at some point. Reading it can give me ideas, or may provide me with sites to suggest to colleagues.
More in line with my particular content area is Alice Ayel. She lives in Germany, and teaches French, Spanish and German, while being very interested in web 2.0. Some of her posts are in the foreign languages she teaches, and she shares ideas, blog posts (her twitter links to her blogs), lessons, links, and even teacher retail resources. In addition, she seems interested in connecting with her followers, by responding, retweeting, and asking for suggestions. I like that she uses the two-way functions of Twitter, and is open to dialogue and discussion, instead of being 100% an outward stream of information.
And also, just as a side note, I decided to follow Hugo Chavez on Twitter. He joined right around the time that we signed up for Twitter, and I thought that this would be an interesting feed to follow. Who knows? It may provide something to discuss in class, or an interesting take on a news story. Either way, it's not every day the leader of a country is posting on Twitter, so I figured, why not?
One thing that I have noticed in my classmates' blogs is that everyone seems to equate Twitter with using your cellphone. Honestly? This is not something I want to do. 1. I have to pay for a data/internet plan, above and beyond my calling and texting. 2. I don't have a touchscreen phone or one that does lots of apps (or...does it? I don't use the web on it, so who knows, aside from not having a touch screen). I truly do not want all those messages coming to me via text messaging, and reading through all those tiny messages on an even tinier screen just isn't appealing. I DO like Twitter, and I DO see why it's fun on a personal level, and can be a great way to communicate, share, have conversations, and ask for help on a professional level. Yet, aside from setting up my personal account to accepts text message as tweets from me, and getting direct messages to my phone, I do not want the rest of it. So, it will have to wait for when I can come home, or access it at school, with enough time to scroll through. And, this in itself can pose a problem. The longer you are away, the more tweets you have to get through. And sometimes, that can be a daunting task. Never mind the abbreviated messages or text speak that you sometimes get, so that people can stay under 140 characters, or the piles of messages in a row from the same person, because they were nowhere near staying in those 140 characters.
But, anyway, I digress....
What type of information did I get from following Twitter the last few weeks. Well, first and foremost, I followed the US Dept of Education, and a number of education news sites like Education Week and US News Education. Last semester, we were following the news in education and blogging about it, and I meant to keep up with it. Yet, that rather fell by the wayside as I had to go to extra sites all the time. Having headlines come right to my Twitter client, Echofon, embedded in my Firefox browser has enabled me to read articles about changing laws with testing, see stories about teachers boycotting standardized testing in the UK, see links to blogs about the Race to the Top, and even see a few videos or comments on web 2.0 tools with regard to education. While 140 characters is not enough to give you the full idea of the article, you do get the headline and the link. And really, when you visit the main page of a new site, what is the majority of what you see? Headlines. This is what you end up basing your decision on whether or not to read the article on, and Twitter provides you with just that. Subscribing to these sites makes Twitter kind of a mini RSS feed.
In terms of who has been the most helpful in particular for me to follow, I think the two I would currently point to are Teaching Ideas which gives ideas on a range of things, from news to lesson ideas to links with tips on classroom management to suggestions for teaching FaceBook groups. It's a bit of a melting pot of teaching advice, and while some things are not of interest, the mix of information that is thrown out seems like it is bound to come in handy to nearly every level and content area at some point. Reading it can give me ideas, or may provide me with sites to suggest to colleagues.
More in line with my particular content area is Alice Ayel. She lives in Germany, and teaches French, Spanish and German, while being very interested in web 2.0. Some of her posts are in the foreign languages she teaches, and she shares ideas, blog posts (her twitter links to her blogs), lessons, links, and even teacher retail resources. In addition, she seems interested in connecting with her followers, by responding, retweeting, and asking for suggestions. I like that she uses the two-way functions of Twitter, and is open to dialogue and discussion, instead of being 100% an outward stream of information.
And also, just as a side note, I decided to follow Hugo Chavez on Twitter. He joined right around the time that we signed up for Twitter, and I thought that this would be an interesting feed to follow. Who knows? It may provide something to discuss in class, or an interesting take on a news story. Either way, it's not every day the leader of a country is posting on Twitter, so I figured, why not?
My Personal Learning Network (PLN)-Past, Present, and Future
So, if I am being honest, at the beginning of this class, I would not have known what PLN stood for. However, the concept of a Personal Learning Network made immediate sense to me, and seems like something that most teachers naturally have through their university classmates, advisors, mentoring teachers, coworkers, administration, and others that they meet, whether it be online, or in person. Taking that network, and expanding the same idea via web 2.0 tools seems like a natural progression in this age of technology. As it becomes harder and harder to function in a work or personal environment without internet access and technological know-how, it seems only logical that we should put the World Wide Web to use, and bring resources, tools, connections, ideas, colleagues, and experts that we never could have reached before into our Personal Learning Network.
Also at the very beginning of class, I was rather dreading the fact that we were going to have to sign up for many new accounts on many different web 2.0 tools. I was not looking forward to all the different places that I was going to have to check in with, so that I could find out the latest updates. However, with the ability to follow others on Blogger, subscribe via RSS feed, and get Tweets right in my browser using a client for Twitter, it is possible to condense some of these web 2.0 tools into fewer central locations to make it easier. And there are many tools that allow for email notifications, so that you only have to go check them out when you are told of a change, instead of taking the effort to login and look, when nothing has happened.
As I stated in my last post, one thing that I noticed about my PLN was that as I expanded it outward by exploring different web 2.0 tools, the more I found it folding back in on itself. Blogs can link to wikis and Twitter feeds. Twitter accounts can link to blogs and wikis and other resources. Delicious is centered on sharing links, and can help you connect with people of similar interests. Once you decide what you want to focus on, the way that the web 2.0 tools interconnect becomes an extremely beneficial portion of the development of a PLN. The bigger it gets, the more resources you find, and the easier it is to narrow it down to the ones that are truly useful, making your PLN meaningful to you, and inclusive of links, networks, resources, connections, and tools that you will really use. My own students work on a graduation portfolio, and for the last few years, I have been telling them to add as much as they can, as often as they can. In the end, it will be so much easier as a senior to narrow down what they include in the final product if they have a lot to choose from, instead of having to go hunting for good examples. I think that they same is true of a PLN. Adding new things often and as they strike my interest is the first step. Checking and following them for a while to determine if they are useful, and then making the decision to keep them or delete them is the second step.
Another thing I was unsure about as I began to form my PLN was what the focus would be. So often in college, I remember out texts, professors and TAs giving examples for all the core classes, and not really being sure how to include the foreign language group. I was a little apprehensive that we would be focusing entirely on the generic and core aspects of a PLN, and content specific areas might be left to the side. However, we really did get to work on our PERSONAL learning networks. The whole point and aim was for us to find things that interested us, and that we felt would benefit us in our professional growth. While core subject areas do seem to have more emphasis that "electives," even online, I have been finding more and more blogs, wikis, links, and twitter feeds to follow that I find helpful. I am the only foreign language teacher in my district at the high school level, and being able to find and connect with other language teachers is a great benefit to me. Having people that I can bounce ideas off of, ask for resources, share and get lesson plans from, and network with is something that I am looking forward to.
At this moment, I feel that I am still very much in the exploring, developing, and organizing stages of my PLN. I have a lot of new tools and accounts that I can utilize as I continue to develop this set of resources. The major benefit of the PLN is that it can take any direction and any focus that I want, and it can change over time. I still feel like I am early in my teaching career, and finding resources, colleagues, links, ideas, and lessons to supplement and spark ideas in my teaching may be my focus. However, as soon as I can, I would also like to be able to contribute ideas and share links and lessons, etc. A PLN using web 2.0 tools is invaluable because, just by its very nature, it will constantly be evolving, both in content and in the tools themselves. We want to teach our students how to stay current, and doing so ourselves is one of the best ways to ensure that we can help them do so.
I am on a communications committee at school, and I think that the idea of a PLN may be something that we should discuss and try to work on at school. That, or, we have a committee of teachers called the DISC committee, with representatives from each building level in the district. These teachers are part of the decision-making group for our early release professional development topics. Bringing the idea of web 2.0 and PLNs up to them might help to get some early release sessions on these ideas for teachers in the district. On a smaller level, I can see mentioning some of these tools to teachers that I talk with frequently, or referencing a particular tool that seems useful in a situation when a teacher asks for help or ideas. It may be easiest to start slowly, and once someone gains familiarity with one tool, interest in others will follow.
Web 2.0 tools that I found of particular interest and can see being included in my classroom are GoogleDocs, blogs, wikis, Delicious, and Voice Thread. I was very impressed with GoogleDocs during our first activity with it, and have since used it to post a link to a document on my school website, collaboratively edit a document with a colleague, and work on my Unit Plan project form home and school, and share it with Dr. Schroeder during our Elluminate session. I often do a review activity at the end of the semester where students work together to create review sheets and handouts, and this would be an excellent way for them to continue working after class time has run out, and to have it available to everyone, no matter where they are. The wiki and blogs are tools that I outlined a specific use for in my Unit Plan, and can also see playing roles in activities such as that end of term review--wiki pages created on each topic by each group--and journaling/written dialogue activities--blogs. Delicious is a great way to share resources, whether it be for a research project, or just to compile a list of links that students can visit for extra practice in the foreign language. And Voice Thread is something that I really want to look at for next year. I often think of having students do pronunciation practice by reading aloud or responding to visual prompts. The downside to this is that it takes class time for me to listen to them, or is difficult to schedule times for them to come in outside of class. Voice Thread would be a way around this. they could use a computer at school or at home, and record when they had time.
For my own personal use, blogs provide a great way to network and follow specific people that I find of interest, and share my own thoughts. Wikis are a great way to collaborate, find, and share information with others in a community with similar interests. While I am interested in finding more wikis, I have thus far not been very successful finding wikis that are CURRENTLY active....so that is my goal over the summer. I also hope to continue looking for links, and refining my tags and included bundles, networking, and links on Delicious. I know how to use it now, I just have to get better at using it efficiently.
Twitter is a tool that the jury is still out on for me. In my personal life, I like it, yet, with both my personal and professional accounts, I find that if you don't check in often, it can sometimes be hard to scroll back through countless tweets to find the ones that really interest you. Also, so often what is shared is a link, and then you have to go to that site to find out if you really want that information. I have subscribed to a lot of news sites, and there is good information coming through, and I don't have to go look for it separately. But, 140 words can be restrictive. Also, I am unsure how supportive my school would be of this technology. But, again, I am on a communications committee, and Twitter is an excellent for of fast, concise communicating. I may just have to bring it up, and see if my fellow committee members think it might be worth suggesting a school twitter feed to the district.
Finally, in terms of tools that I do not really expect myself to use, I think that Elluminate, YouTube, Flickr, and social networking sites like FaceBook are pretty much out. Elluminate was very interesting and easy to use, and seemed like it had a lot of great features. I just do not feel like our school is currently equipped with the space, time, hardware, and bandwith to deal with it. Streaming video is not currently allowed, which puts Elluminate and YouTube out of the running as options for frequent inclusion in class. Flickr seems like it would be best utilized if students could use it from school, and if I had a regular and easily accessible way of projecting images and accessing them in group settings at school. However, having to check out the InFocus projector to use a larger screen than my computer monitor, and the school frowning upon uploading large files, much of the use of Flickr would have to be out of class. I have no problem encouraging or allowing students to use Flickr, but I want to try and focus on things we can do at school and get everyone access to, even if they happen to not have internet or a computer at home. Similarly, there would be security issues with what students might access on Flickr, and that would cause a problem for school access. And finally, social networking sites like Facebook.....well, to be honest, they make me extremely nervous when talking about dealing with students on them. I have a FaceBook account, which I very much enjoy. But, to be honest, I use a fake name, just to avoid students finding me. And no matter how professional the use is, the public never seems to be fond of teachers have FaceBook accounts at all, let alone being friends with students...even if it is just a "asking questions and posting homework notices" kind of page. I think that that is one I will just stay away from. That being said, while I still have my limited time, free account with Elluminate, I am going to see about "attending" a webinar to get the full experience, and I would like to continue looking for pictures and video that I can share in class. Just because I do not build units around these tools, or use them multiple times a week, does not mean I can't look for other users to connect with, and information to share with and suggest to my class.
My PLN is still young and small...I look forward to helping it grow and take shape. Hopefully, I can work on that this summer,and go into next year with some new ideas and resources.R
Also at the very beginning of class, I was rather dreading the fact that we were going to have to sign up for many new accounts on many different web 2.0 tools. I was not looking forward to all the different places that I was going to have to check in with, so that I could find out the latest updates. However, with the ability to follow others on Blogger, subscribe via RSS feed, and get Tweets right in my browser using a client for Twitter, it is possible to condense some of these web 2.0 tools into fewer central locations to make it easier. And there are many tools that allow for email notifications, so that you only have to go check them out when you are told of a change, instead of taking the effort to login and look, when nothing has happened.
As I stated in my last post, one thing that I noticed about my PLN was that as I expanded it outward by exploring different web 2.0 tools, the more I found it folding back in on itself. Blogs can link to wikis and Twitter feeds. Twitter accounts can link to blogs and wikis and other resources. Delicious is centered on sharing links, and can help you connect with people of similar interests. Once you decide what you want to focus on, the way that the web 2.0 tools interconnect becomes an extremely beneficial portion of the development of a PLN. The bigger it gets, the more resources you find, and the easier it is to narrow it down to the ones that are truly useful, making your PLN meaningful to you, and inclusive of links, networks, resources, connections, and tools that you will really use. My own students work on a graduation portfolio, and for the last few years, I have been telling them to add as much as they can, as often as they can. In the end, it will be so much easier as a senior to narrow down what they include in the final product if they have a lot to choose from, instead of having to go hunting for good examples. I think that they same is true of a PLN. Adding new things often and as they strike my interest is the first step. Checking and following them for a while to determine if they are useful, and then making the decision to keep them or delete them is the second step.
Another thing I was unsure about as I began to form my PLN was what the focus would be. So often in college, I remember out texts, professors and TAs giving examples for all the core classes, and not really being sure how to include the foreign language group. I was a little apprehensive that we would be focusing entirely on the generic and core aspects of a PLN, and content specific areas might be left to the side. However, we really did get to work on our PERSONAL learning networks. The whole point and aim was for us to find things that interested us, and that we felt would benefit us in our professional growth. While core subject areas do seem to have more emphasis that "electives," even online, I have been finding more and more blogs, wikis, links, and twitter feeds to follow that I find helpful. I am the only foreign language teacher in my district at the high school level, and being able to find and connect with other language teachers is a great benefit to me. Having people that I can bounce ideas off of, ask for resources, share and get lesson plans from, and network with is something that I am looking forward to.
At this moment, I feel that I am still very much in the exploring, developing, and organizing stages of my PLN. I have a lot of new tools and accounts that I can utilize as I continue to develop this set of resources. The major benefit of the PLN is that it can take any direction and any focus that I want, and it can change over time. I still feel like I am early in my teaching career, and finding resources, colleagues, links, ideas, and lessons to supplement and spark ideas in my teaching may be my focus. However, as soon as I can, I would also like to be able to contribute ideas and share links and lessons, etc. A PLN using web 2.0 tools is invaluable because, just by its very nature, it will constantly be evolving, both in content and in the tools themselves. We want to teach our students how to stay current, and doing so ourselves is one of the best ways to ensure that we can help them do so.
I am on a communications committee at school, and I think that the idea of a PLN may be something that we should discuss and try to work on at school. That, or, we have a committee of teachers called the DISC committee, with representatives from each building level in the district. These teachers are part of the decision-making group for our early release professional development topics. Bringing the idea of web 2.0 and PLNs up to them might help to get some early release sessions on these ideas for teachers in the district. On a smaller level, I can see mentioning some of these tools to teachers that I talk with frequently, or referencing a particular tool that seems useful in a situation when a teacher asks for help or ideas. It may be easiest to start slowly, and once someone gains familiarity with one tool, interest in others will follow.
Web 2.0 tools that I found of particular interest and can see being included in my classroom are GoogleDocs, blogs, wikis, Delicious, and Voice Thread. I was very impressed with GoogleDocs during our first activity with it, and have since used it to post a link to a document on my school website, collaboratively edit a document with a colleague, and work on my Unit Plan project form home and school, and share it with Dr. Schroeder during our Elluminate session. I often do a review activity at the end of the semester where students work together to create review sheets and handouts, and this would be an excellent way for them to continue working after class time has run out, and to have it available to everyone, no matter where they are. The wiki and blogs are tools that I outlined a specific use for in my Unit Plan, and can also see playing roles in activities such as that end of term review--wiki pages created on each topic by each group--and journaling/written dialogue activities--blogs. Delicious is a great way to share resources, whether it be for a research project, or just to compile a list of links that students can visit for extra practice in the foreign language. And Voice Thread is something that I really want to look at for next year. I often think of having students do pronunciation practice by reading aloud or responding to visual prompts. The downside to this is that it takes class time for me to listen to them, or is difficult to schedule times for them to come in outside of class. Voice Thread would be a way around this. they could use a computer at school or at home, and record when they had time.
For my own personal use, blogs provide a great way to network and follow specific people that I find of interest, and share my own thoughts. Wikis are a great way to collaborate, find, and share information with others in a community with similar interests. While I am interested in finding more wikis, I have thus far not been very successful finding wikis that are CURRENTLY active....so that is my goal over the summer. I also hope to continue looking for links, and refining my tags and included bundles, networking, and links on Delicious. I know how to use it now, I just have to get better at using it efficiently.
Twitter is a tool that the jury is still out on for me. In my personal life, I like it, yet, with both my personal and professional accounts, I find that if you don't check in often, it can sometimes be hard to scroll back through countless tweets to find the ones that really interest you. Also, so often what is shared is a link, and then you have to go to that site to find out if you really want that information. I have subscribed to a lot of news sites, and there is good information coming through, and I don't have to go look for it separately. But, 140 words can be restrictive. Also, I am unsure how supportive my school would be of this technology. But, again, I am on a communications committee, and Twitter is an excellent for of fast, concise communicating. I may just have to bring it up, and see if my fellow committee members think it might be worth suggesting a school twitter feed to the district.
Finally, in terms of tools that I do not really expect myself to use, I think that Elluminate, YouTube, Flickr, and social networking sites like FaceBook are pretty much out. Elluminate was very interesting and easy to use, and seemed like it had a lot of great features. I just do not feel like our school is currently equipped with the space, time, hardware, and bandwith to deal with it. Streaming video is not currently allowed, which puts Elluminate and YouTube out of the running as options for frequent inclusion in class. Flickr seems like it would be best utilized if students could use it from school, and if I had a regular and easily accessible way of projecting images and accessing them in group settings at school. However, having to check out the InFocus projector to use a larger screen than my computer monitor, and the school frowning upon uploading large files, much of the use of Flickr would have to be out of class. I have no problem encouraging or allowing students to use Flickr, but I want to try and focus on things we can do at school and get everyone access to, even if they happen to not have internet or a computer at home. Similarly, there would be security issues with what students might access on Flickr, and that would cause a problem for school access. And finally, social networking sites like Facebook.....well, to be honest, they make me extremely nervous when talking about dealing with students on them. I have a FaceBook account, which I very much enjoy. But, to be honest, I use a fake name, just to avoid students finding me. And no matter how professional the use is, the public never seems to be fond of teachers have FaceBook accounts at all, let alone being friends with students...even if it is just a "asking questions and posting homework notices" kind of page. I think that that is one I will just stay away from. That being said, while I still have my limited time, free account with Elluminate, I am going to see about "attending" a webinar to get the full experience, and I would like to continue looking for pictures and video that I can share in class. Just because I do not build units around these tools, or use them multiple times a week, does not mean I can't look for other users to connect with, and information to share with and suggest to my class.
My PLN is still young and small...I look forward to helping it grow and take shape. Hopefully, I can work on that this summer,and go into next year with some new ideas and resources.R
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Tree Becomes a Bush
You know what I have noticed as we go through this class, and work on expanding our PLNs? The more we expand out, by learning new tools, and gaining new accounts, and following new people to branch out and form the tree of our PLN.....the more it curves back in on itself and folds back into a bush. We created blogs, and fed them into an RSS aggregator. But, lots of blogs have links to Twitter accounts and Wikis on them. We went looking for Wikis to join, and some linked to Twitter accounts, and Blogs, and Delicious bookmark lists. I joined Delicious, and found users that I had already found on Wikis and Blogs. And then we joined Twitter, and there are links to Wikis, Blogs, and other sites. This is all a good thing, as all these links and references help us find more sources, and build our PLN. But it does make me laugh a bit that the more you branch out and the more you join, the more you are led back to resources in areas that you've already been.
The bigger the internet gets, the smaller the world gets, don't you think?
The bigger the internet gets, the smaller the world gets, don't you think?
Web 2.0 at school....Can we? Please?
As we go through this class, and the safety discussion from this week, it really does make me want to revisit some of these topics, and what we have accessible and available for use at my school. So often, the response we get when we want to use something that is blocked is that "we can't monitor that, they might abuse it." Well....shouldn't we show them the good ways in which they can use it, and supervise them? I know this has been brought up many times, by many of us, during this class.
I feel that we are starting to make some progress at my school. Some things that didn't use to be allowed are now unblocked. Wikipedia has been unblocked for teachers, and Blogger has been unblocked for teachers, and YouTube is starting to be accepted....for teachers. I think that if we give a reason why WE want to use it, we are being listened to. Now, we need to look at supporting an argument for why the students can use it as well.
Blogs and Wikis seem really useful to me, as they can be used in so very many ways, and in any content area. They can be used to address pretty much all of the 21st century skills, and students can create, respond, discuss, collaborate, and share. At school, we now have access to Moodle, and Moodle has its own Wikis and Blogs built in. I think over the summer I want to explore these tools, and see how they compare to sites such as PBWorks and Blogger. Perhaps we can start in the structured, tightly-modereated areas that the school currently has access to, and use products and successes there to expand outwards.
In addition, I think that Twitter would be a great tool for communication with students, parents, and community. It could be used for prompts, assignments, reminders, announcements, and links. There are schools that already have school accounts, such as the one I mentioned a few posts ago in my Twitter blog. I am part of a communication committee at school, and we are trying to come up with new ways to make communication effective and successful. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if a Twitter account might be one small way to do that. Putting it on the internet would be an easy way to reach a lot of people, and for those that already have Twitter, they could just add it in to the accounts that they follow. I'm sure kids would love to get up early on a snowy day and log in to Twitter to see if school was canceled!
I know full well that the best solution is not to unlock everything at once and just go crazy. So, maybe we need to pick a few tools here and there, or more moderated/educational versions of things, to see how they go. Here's hoping!
I feel that we are starting to make some progress at my school. Some things that didn't use to be allowed are now unblocked. Wikipedia has been unblocked for teachers, and Blogger has been unblocked for teachers, and YouTube is starting to be accepted....for teachers. I think that if we give a reason why WE want to use it, we are being listened to. Now, we need to look at supporting an argument for why the students can use it as well.
Blogs and Wikis seem really useful to me, as they can be used in so very many ways, and in any content area. They can be used to address pretty much all of the 21st century skills, and students can create, respond, discuss, collaborate, and share. At school, we now have access to Moodle, and Moodle has its own Wikis and Blogs built in. I think over the summer I want to explore these tools, and see how they compare to sites such as PBWorks and Blogger. Perhaps we can start in the structured, tightly-modereated areas that the school currently has access to, and use products and successes there to expand outwards.
In addition, I think that Twitter would be a great tool for communication with students, parents, and community. It could be used for prompts, assignments, reminders, announcements, and links. There are schools that already have school accounts, such as the one I mentioned a few posts ago in my Twitter blog. I am part of a communication committee at school, and we are trying to come up with new ways to make communication effective and successful. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if a Twitter account might be one small way to do that. Putting it on the internet would be an easy way to reach a lot of people, and for those that already have Twitter, they could just add it in to the accounts that they follow. I'm sure kids would love to get up early on a snowy day and log in to Twitter to see if school was canceled!
I know full well that the best solution is not to unlock everything at once and just go crazy. So, maybe we need to pick a few tools here and there, or more moderated/educational versions of things, to see how they go. Here's hoping!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Reflecting on Delicious
One of the many web 2.0 tools that I have acquired a (professional) account for this semester is the social bookmarking site, Delicious. It is a site that many of my friends have been using for a while, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to check out. It didn't seem all that worth it to have another place with all my bookmarks stored, when I use my own computer most of the time, and already had them listed here. However, I think that this may be a tool I will continue to use, and work on developing a better system for using. Already I can see the benefit in not having to email myself links back and forth between school and work, as I have been known to do!
In going back over the set of links accumulated by myself and my classmates, I see many links that I will be adding to my own set of bookmarks. Specifically, I am interested in many of the "how to" links for our web 2.0 tools and the sites that are titled along the lines of "X number of ways to engage students with 'this' web 2.0" tool. So often, it's a great stepping stone to start using something new, with suggestions from others as a basis. Then, once you and the students develop some familiarity with the tool, creativity and innovation come next. And, of course, given that I have a fellow Foreign Language teacher in the class, I am interested in a lot of Trish's links. Being the only Foreign Language teacher at the high school level in my district, with a part-time colleague at the middle school that I do not see as often as I would like, any resources that I can get from, and share with, others are great!
Tags are something that I think I am still developing as we near the end of this course. I know what they are, and how to create them, and I see them as invaluable in finding sources, searching my own blog entries and links, and developing connections throughout the whole of my PLN, but I think I often tend to be either too specific, or too wordy with my tags. I have entries and links with one word on them, and others with six or seven. I'm still working on figuring out the main concepts that I will want to look for later (which seems like it should be easy, doesn't it?). I have definitely tried to be consistent with my tags, and the fact that most data entry boxes for tags have a memory for what you have previously typed is exceptionally helpful. I find myself trying to tag the big concept of the blog or link, often with something from the title, as well as using tags that are required for class, and common amongst other people tagging similar items. (The suggestions on Delicious have come in handy more than once, and have helped increase my "tag vocabulary".) I have changed my mind about the tags I'm using, either to simplify or be more specific for myself, or because I saw what others were using, and it seemed more logical. Being consistent seems the best idea to me, as does finding the main idea of what you are tagging. While more tags help something to be found in more ways, a few accurate tags seem like a better idea than multiple vague tags. This would be something that I would try and impart to students. The two important ideas in tagging are consistency and accuracy.
Tag bundles are something that I did not use very much, but I did set up a bundle titled "class" where I combined everything that I tagged with both "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" into one group. This helped me to organize the links that I had bookmarked for class. That way I knew how many links I had shared, and which categories I had bookmarked most for my web 2.0 wiki page. I see tag bundles being useful in education for projects. Not all websites related to one research project will carry the same tags, as they might be for different areas of the project. Or, perhaps, a teacher/student will realize that links they had previously marked for something else are now relevant for a new set of research. By making a new bundle, they can combine the sets of links that they think they will work with, and they can click on that bundle to get the list up, instead of having to search for each tag separately. A few minutes to set up a bundle will save time when sharing links, and when returning to the list to find additional links.
My tag cloud at this point is not very large. The class tags of "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" are the dominant tags, but after that I have "technology," "flickr," "video," and "youtube." It gives a visual representation that my Delicious use has thus far been dominated by work for this current class. I would like to broaden that, and start to get some content area tags showing more prominently. I'm just starting with Delicious, and it may be interesting to see where my tags, clouds, bundles, lists, subscriptions, and networks grow from here.
Annotations are a great feature on Delicious! When you get the link for a page and the title shows up in your bookmark, it only gives you a basic understanding of what is on the web page. So often, we bookmark sites because there is a specific example, link, video, or other small piece of information on the page, that we may forget about that when we go back days, weeks, or months later. Even if it was very generic, I found myself jotting a note down every time I made a link. That way, I can get into the habit, and when there is something small and hidden on a page that I want to revisit, I will remember to write about it.
Using Delicious to connect with others that have similar interests is actually quite easy. The most basic way to go about this is to do a search for links of interest and find users who have made those links, or to click on your more frequent tags and see who else is using them. One of the people that I found when searching for Foreign Language tags ended up being the person who runs the Wiki that I had joined a few weeks ago. She uses the same username on both sites, and I followed her on Delicious. She is constantly adding activities relating to both Spanish and Foreign Language teaching, and even following someone who teaches a different language can yield activities and ideas that can easily be transferred. Once I found this person, I added her to my network. I like that your network list shows up on the side of the Delicious page, so that you can see who you are following, as well as who is following you (indicated by flags next to usernames). This allows you the chance to go right to a person's feed, by clicking on their username. In addition, you can use the messenger to share links personally with another user that you think will find them of particular interest. (I also really like that the tagging/bookmarking data entry box has a box to "share" with others right away. It's easy to see a site and thing "Oh! She'll love this." And you can enter that in, and send it to them right away. It makes the site that much more social, that you can share links within it, instead of having to bookmark them and then email the person to go look.)
I think that Delicious affords a great opportunity for sharing lists of links with others, whether it be students, colleagues, or friends. Common tags will allow groups to subscribe to certain sets of links, and tag bundles can put related groups of links together. Creating these common tags and subscriptions would be an excellent way for students to collaboratively build up a set of resources for a project, and for a teacher to give the students a base set of sites to begin with. Teachers could make a subscription/tag that would allow them to share resources amongst each other in a department, building, or district. And friends can easily share links on common interests. And, as I mentioned before, using the message feature on Delicious allows you to send a link to an individual--whether it be a link to a certain content-area specific page for a colleague, or a site that pertains to a particular student's project, or a link that a friend would find really entertaining. The collaborative nature of Delicious allows people to connect, share, and work in groups, and any time that you can do one step and have multiple people see it, it helps everyone out.
(As a sidenote, I happened to be trying to use Delicious at school today (I must admit, for the first time) and I realized that I am unable to access it. When I signed up, it sent me to sign in via Yahoo, which I never thought about as I was doing it. However, being predominantly thought of for games and email, Yahoo is blocked at school. So, because I have to use that briefly to get into Delicious, I am unable to use Delicious at the moment at work. I think I will have to ask our tech guy about that, and see if he can unblock Yahoo on my computer, as I do have a specific, academic reason for the request.)
In going back over the set of links accumulated by myself and my classmates, I see many links that I will be adding to my own set of bookmarks. Specifically, I am interested in many of the "how to" links for our web 2.0 tools and the sites that are titled along the lines of "X number of ways to engage students with 'this' web 2.0" tool. So often, it's a great stepping stone to start using something new, with suggestions from others as a basis. Then, once you and the students develop some familiarity with the tool, creativity and innovation come next. And, of course, given that I have a fellow Foreign Language teacher in the class, I am interested in a lot of Trish's links. Being the only Foreign Language teacher at the high school level in my district, with a part-time colleague at the middle school that I do not see as often as I would like, any resources that I can get from, and share with, others are great!
Tags are something that I think I am still developing as we near the end of this course. I know what they are, and how to create them, and I see them as invaluable in finding sources, searching my own blog entries and links, and developing connections throughout the whole of my PLN, but I think I often tend to be either too specific, or too wordy with my tags. I have entries and links with one word on them, and others with six or seven. I'm still working on figuring out the main concepts that I will want to look for later (which seems like it should be easy, doesn't it?). I have definitely tried to be consistent with my tags, and the fact that most data entry boxes for tags have a memory for what you have previously typed is exceptionally helpful. I find myself trying to tag the big concept of the blog or link, often with something from the title, as well as using tags that are required for class, and common amongst other people tagging similar items. (The suggestions on Delicious have come in handy more than once, and have helped increase my "tag vocabulary".) I have changed my mind about the tags I'm using, either to simplify or be more specific for myself, or because I saw what others were using, and it seemed more logical. Being consistent seems the best idea to me, as does finding the main idea of what you are tagging. While more tags help something to be found in more ways, a few accurate tags seem like a better idea than multiple vague tags. This would be something that I would try and impart to students. The two important ideas in tagging are consistency and accuracy.
Tag bundles are something that I did not use very much, but I did set up a bundle titled "class" where I combined everything that I tagged with both "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" into one group. This helped me to organize the links that I had bookmarked for class. That way I knew how many links I had shared, and which categories I had bookmarked most for my web 2.0 wiki page. I see tag bundles being useful in education for projects. Not all websites related to one research project will carry the same tags, as they might be for different areas of the project. Or, perhaps, a teacher/student will realize that links they had previously marked for something else are now relevant for a new set of research. By making a new bundle, they can combine the sets of links that they think they will work with, and they can click on that bundle to get the list up, instead of having to search for each tag separately. A few minutes to set up a bundle will save time when sharing links, and when returning to the list to find additional links.
My tag cloud at this point is not very large. The class tags of "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" are the dominant tags, but after that I have "technology," "flickr," "video," and "youtube." It gives a visual representation that my Delicious use has thus far been dominated by work for this current class. I would like to broaden that, and start to get some content area tags showing more prominently. I'm just starting with Delicious, and it may be interesting to see where my tags, clouds, bundles, lists, subscriptions, and networks grow from here.
Annotations are a great feature on Delicious! When you get the link for a page and the title shows up in your bookmark, it only gives you a basic understanding of what is on the web page. So often, we bookmark sites because there is a specific example, link, video, or other small piece of information on the page, that we may forget about that when we go back days, weeks, or months later. Even if it was very generic, I found myself jotting a note down every time I made a link. That way, I can get into the habit, and when there is something small and hidden on a page that I want to revisit, I will remember to write about it.
Using Delicious to connect with others that have similar interests is actually quite easy. The most basic way to go about this is to do a search for links of interest and find users who have made those links, or to click on your more frequent tags and see who else is using them. One of the people that I found when searching for Foreign Language tags ended up being the person who runs the Wiki that I had joined a few weeks ago. She uses the same username on both sites, and I followed her on Delicious. She is constantly adding activities relating to both Spanish and Foreign Language teaching, and even following someone who teaches a different language can yield activities and ideas that can easily be transferred. Once I found this person, I added her to my network. I like that your network list shows up on the side of the Delicious page, so that you can see who you are following, as well as who is following you (indicated by flags next to usernames). This allows you the chance to go right to a person's feed, by clicking on their username. In addition, you can use the messenger to share links personally with another user that you think will find them of particular interest. (I also really like that the tagging/bookmarking data entry box has a box to "share" with others right away. It's easy to see a site and thing "Oh! She'll love this." And you can enter that in, and send it to them right away. It makes the site that much more social, that you can share links within it, instead of having to bookmark them and then email the person to go look.)
I think that Delicious affords a great opportunity for sharing lists of links with others, whether it be students, colleagues, or friends. Common tags will allow groups to subscribe to certain sets of links, and tag bundles can put related groups of links together. Creating these common tags and subscriptions would be an excellent way for students to collaboratively build up a set of resources for a project, and for a teacher to give the students a base set of sites to begin with. Teachers could make a subscription/tag that would allow them to share resources amongst each other in a department, building, or district. And friends can easily share links on common interests. And, as I mentioned before, using the message feature on Delicious allows you to send a link to an individual--whether it be a link to a certain content-area specific page for a colleague, or a site that pertains to a particular student's project, or a link that a friend would find really entertaining. The collaborative nature of Delicious allows people to connect, share, and work in groups, and any time that you can do one step and have multiple people see it, it helps everyone out.
(As a sidenote, I happened to be trying to use Delicious at school today (I must admit, for the first time) and I realized that I am unable to access it. When I signed up, it sent me to sign in via Yahoo, which I never thought about as I was doing it. However, being predominantly thought of for games and email, Yahoo is blocked at school. So, because I have to use that briefly to get into Delicious, I am unable to use Delicious at the moment at work. I think I will have to ask our tech guy about that, and see if he can unblock Yahoo on my computer, as I do have a specific, academic reason for the request.)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Trying things out--GoogleEarth, Surveys, and Podcasting
GoogleEarth
I checked out GoogleEarth because I thought that this would be an interesting tool to use for a foreign language class. Being able to zoom in on cities in areas that speak the language, and "visit" cities, monuments, and places of interest that would normally take a hugely expensive field trip is a great feature of this tool. I was looking at both GoogleEarth and the Earth view recently added to Google Maps. I like that students could view both the actual road maps, and the 3D images associated with the area. Right now, one of my classes is learning about places downtown and giving directions. They could use this tool to plot out a path for a vacation day, describe where they are going, and give directions. Using real streets and places, and being able to SEE the places they are going would make the activity something authentic, that they could actually use, and show them a different culture and atmosphere, which you can often see just by looking at a different city.
Surveys
While I have taken a few surveys online before, I have never created one. I used Survey Monkey from the links provided and I found it to be extremely easy to create a survey with. They gave a lot of options on types of questions and how many answers were possible, or how they were organized. My first thought for class was to create a survey for students as a method for feedback after units. I was easily able to create questions asking how comfortable students fell with the material, from "I could teach this to someone else" to "I'm confused and need help." And then, I could make a multiple choice question asking which of the topics in a given chapter students would like to review the most. These would be easily collected and graphed pieces of data that would give me concrete information and feedback from the students. I could also see doing an end-of-term evaluation this way.
Podcasts
I wanted to check this one out, as I actually have audacity on my computer. But, up until now, I have really only used it to record audio that was already playing on my computer. I have never used it to record anything that I have created myself. Having the headset that I use for Skype, the microphone picked up my voice well (after I found the setting to get it to take the proper input). I like the fact that, being digital, you can make multiple attempts without wasting any resources, or having to rewind and tape over things. Trying to put background music into the podcast takes a little bit of tinkering, as you have to make sure you have the two volumes--voice and music--done correctly so the voice is the dominant part. Or, really, depending upon what you are doing, the music may not be necessary. I like that the wiki page creators mentioned things like preparing a script and pacing. Knowing what you are going to say ahead of time helps a lot, and pacing is important for everyone listening. Trish's example of vocabulary podcasting is great. I have had a few students this year say that hearing the vocabulary words would help them a lot and this would be something I could do to provide that for them. Also, I can see doing audio skits with the students, or having them create radio broadcasts in podcast format. I think they would really get into it. So, this tool could be a student activity, or something that I use as a student resource. Maybe, I could even post quick explanations/review of things, so that students who need to go back over something, or were gone that day, could listen.
I checked out GoogleEarth because I thought that this would be an interesting tool to use for a foreign language class. Being able to zoom in on cities in areas that speak the language, and "visit" cities, monuments, and places of interest that would normally take a hugely expensive field trip is a great feature of this tool. I was looking at both GoogleEarth and the Earth view recently added to Google Maps. I like that students could view both the actual road maps, and the 3D images associated with the area. Right now, one of my classes is learning about places downtown and giving directions. They could use this tool to plot out a path for a vacation day, describe where they are going, and give directions. Using real streets and places, and being able to SEE the places they are going would make the activity something authentic, that they could actually use, and show them a different culture and atmosphere, which you can often see just by looking at a different city.
Surveys
While I have taken a few surveys online before, I have never created one. I used Survey Monkey from the links provided and I found it to be extremely easy to create a survey with. They gave a lot of options on types of questions and how many answers were possible, or how they were organized. My first thought for class was to create a survey for students as a method for feedback after units. I was easily able to create questions asking how comfortable students fell with the material, from "I could teach this to someone else" to "I'm confused and need help." And then, I could make a multiple choice question asking which of the topics in a given chapter students would like to review the most. These would be easily collected and graphed pieces of data that would give me concrete information and feedback from the students. I could also see doing an end-of-term evaluation this way.
Podcasts
I wanted to check this one out, as I actually have audacity on my computer. But, up until now, I have really only used it to record audio that was already playing on my computer. I have never used it to record anything that I have created myself. Having the headset that I use for Skype, the microphone picked up my voice well (after I found the setting to get it to take the proper input). I like the fact that, being digital, you can make multiple attempts without wasting any resources, or having to rewind and tape over things. Trying to put background music into the podcast takes a little bit of tinkering, as you have to make sure you have the two volumes--voice and music--done correctly so the voice is the dominant part. Or, really, depending upon what you are doing, the music may not be necessary. I like that the wiki page creators mentioned things like preparing a script and pacing. Knowing what you are going to say ahead of time helps a lot, and pacing is important for everyone listening. Trish's example of vocabulary podcasting is great. I have had a few students this year say that hearing the vocabulary words would help them a lot and this would be something I could do to provide that for them. Also, I can see doing audio skits with the students, or having them create radio broadcasts in podcast format. I think they would really get into it. So, this tool could be a student activity, or something that I use as a student resource. Maybe, I could even post quick explanations/review of things, so that students who need to go back over something, or were gone that day, could listen.
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