The Teacher's Learning

Guided Inquiry 1: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Introduction

2009-10-10T16:04:00.004-07:00

Intimidating, isn't it, when you delve into the great unknown. Information retrieval can seem like a huge, mysterious monolith when you don't feel skilled in that area. Like the far-from-welcoming industry that Sam (the character in the film clip above) enters, the world of information may appear to be unfriendly, imposing, and bewildering. As Sam ends up taking an elevator that doesn't quite stop on the right floor, learners may feel that they are taking (or being led down) the wrong path. Information retrieval might look like a place without clear directional signs where at first you wander seemingly aimlessly, searching for something that makes sense and will help you in your quest. Suddenly something catches your eye, maybe a flash of colour, motion and sound like the flurry of businessmen Sam spies and then is swept up in. You ride along with the whirlwind, then suddenly find you have arrived, as Sam does; unfortunately, you're not quite sure where you are. Was this where you needed to go? Did Sam want to arrive at a closet-sized office that looks like a dead end?

Hopefully that is not the impression you have about Guided Inquiry or information retrieval. Remember, Guided Inquiry is a process, not an end. Therefore, the retrieval stage of the inquiry is also a process that does not end with a pre-determined answer, but a search that may result in differing consequences for each student. Although it may have seemed in the past that in the retrieval phase of inquiry students simply located information, research shows that learners are often constructing meaning during their search. Kuhlthau has asserted that information retrieval is a “process in which a person is actively constructing a new understanding from the information encountered”. The concept of haphazardly amassing a large body of information and then sifting through it and trying to make sense afterwards is not a useful plan. The personalized nature of a guided inquiry also means that each student will have their own feelings, ways of thinking about retrieving information, their own information retrieval plan, and their own reflection on the process.

Essential question:

What are some of the ways the role of a teacher-librarian or teacher change or grow within the context of the information retrieval stage of guided inquiry learning?

References:

Kuhlthau, Carol C. (1999) "Accommodating the User's Information Search Process: challenges for Information retrieval System Designers." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 25, no 3, 1999. Available from: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/kuhlthau.html

Guided Inquiry 2: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Prep For Retrieving

2009-10-10T16:04:00.003-07:00

photo by D'arcy Norman

One of the main concepts of Guided Inquiry is that learning should be authentic and not isolated pieces devoid of student relevancy. Kuhlthau et al have stressed that in Guided Inquiry, students "locate, evaluate and use information while learning the content of the subject area" (94). That learning in context will likely include building information technology skills in the search stage, but that does not mean that students should not be prepared to make the most of their information retrieval time. Focus on Inquiry suggests that:

Students will be more successful in inquiry when teachers provide, in the context of classroom activities, opportunities for students to:
- refine and develop a list of search terms, keywords and subject headings prior to searching
- use online library catalogues to locate materials in school and public libraries
- use the Online Reference Centre (www.LearnAlberta.ca)to locate information
- use full-text databases (e.g., SIRS, eLibrary)
- use indexes to locate print, nonprint and electronic information
-learn how to efficiently use the Internet to locate information
develop and practise interview questions and techniques (FOI)

In my practice I have found that introducing all of these skills at once is counter-productive. For example, I once worked with a teacher-librarian who had created a little booklet in order for students to be introduced to/review the kinds of skills listed above. Although this was a grade 10 course, many students struggled with numerous aspects of the booklet. The teacher-librarian and I should have planned better. Kuhlthau has addressed the shift in teachers and librarians:

"They are especially careful not to give too much too soon and to assist in pacing the use of resources by suggesting strategies for exploring information to form a focus for research. Librarians planning instructional sessions describe being more cautious about offering one-shot sessions where students are expected to learn everything at once. Instead they are accommodating the user's constructive process by giving a series of instructional sessions spread over a period of time aimed at different tasks in the stages of the ISP. Once aware of the ISP, teachers also change the way they design assignments to give more time for exploring and formulating. They are acknowledging the learning process and finding new ways to access and evaluate the construction process of students."

Focus on Inquiry states that students will learn to: "understand that successful retrieving depends on preplanning" (57), but I do not think that we gave learners enough direction in that area. The skills were being taught for a specific purpose, so we tried to make the learning relevant to the subject at hand. We also tried to increase engagement by allowing students to choose their topics, but many of them they did not have enough prior knowledge to make their search fruitful. Students also did not have enough time to explore and to reflect upon their learning. We were rushing students through each lesson/skill without sufficent time and guidance.

In short, it was a learning experience for me. I wish I could have referred to Cecile McVittie's Planning: the foundation of Guided Inquiry beforehand. The next time I teach these skills, I will not devote one week of classes to important researching strategies and skills. If possible, I will devote proper time to each aspect prior to beginning guided inquiry, so that we can do a review before a more encompassing bout of information retrieval is begun. If we cannot do that before beginning guided inquiry, I will ensure that students are given sufficient time in the information retrieval stage of the inquiry.

References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Kuhlthau, Carol C. (1999) "Accommodating the User's Information Search Process: challenges for Information retrieval System Designers." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 25, no 3, 1999. Available from: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/kuhlthau.html

Guided Inquiry 3: Teaching Retrieving

2009-10-10T16:04:00.001-07:00

photo by JP Puerta

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're a teacher-librarian and are an expert on information retrieval. If we look at a short list of what educators need to facilititate for students in the information search phase of guided inquiry, you can see that the job may look intense. Focus on Inquiry tells us that during and in the context of an inquiry-based learning activity, the teacher provides students with opportunities to:

• understand that the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking
•create a search strategy (e.g., information pathfinder)
• explore a variety of print, nonprint and electronic sources
• access resources within the school and beyond
• communicate with experts, both locally and beyond
• record bibliographic information for print sources, including title, author, date, page numbers, publisher and place of publication
• record bibliographic information for nonprint (multimedia) sources, including title, author, date, running time and/or number of images, producer and/or distributor, location of producer/production company
• record bibliographic information for electronic sources, including title, author, date, URL and date retrieved
• use a variety of grade-appropriate strategies for recording and organizing bibliographic information, such as index cards, recording templates, word processing programs or software tools.

Whew! Quite a big list to begin with, isn't it? I'll discuss some resources for these essential tasks further down in this post. First I want to address the essential question, "How does the role of the teacher-librarian change or grow in the context of guided inquiry learning?"

Information retrieval in and of itself is teacher-librarian's stock-in-trade, but Kuhlthau has argued that in guided learning, a constructivist point of view and a belief in zones of intervention lead to a substantial expansion of educational duties.

T]here is a need for redefining the roles associated with information provision in the workplace. These participants call for a more interactive, collaborative role for the library information professional. The collaborative role may require the librarian to enter into a partnership with the user to accomplish the information seeking task. In this partnership the librarian may advise on resources and process whereas the user brings knowledge of content and context. The aspects of information seeking and use that these users seems to need help with were in the ongoing thinking process related to interpreting and connecting the disparate pieces of information gathered in order to provide value-added information. This is new territory for the librarian whose traditional role of providing access to references and sources relevant to a general topic has stopped short of the process of making meaning.

The key points from above for myself are that teacher-librarians are assisting in the "ongoing thinking process", not simply finding resources. From a constructivist perspective, if learners are constructing meaning as they retrieve information, then teacher-librarians are a part of that process. In fact, as we are helping students in their information search, the organization and structure we utilize will have an affect on individual meaning - much more so that if one was to dump some encyclopedias in front of a learner and then walk away. Also, as stated above, Focus on Inquiry states that students need to understand "the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking", and here is where teachers and teacher-librarians obviously need to be more than gatekeepers of media and information.

Focus on Inquiry directly advises educators to structure information searches. For example, at the beginning of the search one suggestion is to use a stations approach and help students to create an information search plan or pathfinder (55). Alice in Infoland has some great information on the use of pathfinders, and Annette Lamb's Eduscapes is a really comprehensive look at pathfinders, subject guides, and thematic resources.

If you need to address basic search skills such as Boolean Operators, here's a quick easy lesson (a 3-minute tutorial is avaliable on YouTube here, and another good one for youngsters is from the Boolify Project):

Boolify Lesson: And, Or, Not

Skimming and scanning is one skill that I have seen a big need for in my practice. Many students simply don't know that they don't need to read whole articles, though they should start learning about it at an early age. Ontario Time Machine has a nice simple page explaining skimming and scanning, and it looks like it would be good for grades 6 or 7 and up.

There are many sites offering quick guides for evaluating both print sources and online sources. Thomson Rivers University offers one for Evaluating Print Sources and another for Evaluating Web Sources that are fairly simple. Although they seem to be aimed at post-secondary students, I think they would be good for grade 8 and up (see below for more web evaluation sources).

But what about Internet searching skills in general? Are educators in general able to guide students in efficient online searching? Lavery has commented on the fact that in his study, teacher candidates frequently missed high quality information that was available on their topics, though they found enough "large amounts of somewhat related information to encourage them in the belief that they are skilled at web searching". In other words, teacher candidates thought that they were much more skilled in this area than they really were. Lavery also goes on to state that "teachers do not need to approach web searching with the expertise of a librarian". Clearly, teacher-librarians need to be leaders in this area.

In my experience, it is best to assume that there are many little details that could benefit students - or almost anyone who is not an research expert or professional. For example, I've watched many students start searching and simply save possible sites/pages under Favorites, which soon becomes a huge, unwieldy list of sites that may be directly, indirectly, or remotely related to their topic or question. Even in secondary school, many learners utilize little organization in their information retrieval process - no slotting information into easy-to-access folders, no bibliography started until the very end of the process, and usually no backing-up of important work. Some students have flash drives, but do not really know how to use them. In short, it may be necesssary for teachers and teacher-librarians to do a great amount of formative assessment, pre-teaching, or reviewing of general searching or computer usage skills before a lengthy guided inquiry is undertaken.

As far as online information retrieval goes, Kuiper, Volman and Terwel have stated that "the task for education may not lie primarily in teaching students Web searching skills, but in showing students the need for learning and practicing specific Web reading skills and Web evaluating skills, as well as a reflective use of these skills". This statement makes perfect sense in light of a constructivist point of view, with learners expected to learn by doing, including thinking critically and reflectively within the process of guided inquiry. But I'm jumping ahead, I'll look at reflection and Web skills in post 5, Thinking About and Reflecting on Retrieving.

Further resources for web evaluation:

http://library.queensu.ca/inforef/tutorials/qcat/evalint.htm

http://21cif.com/tools/evaluate/

http://www.lesliepreddy.com/Inquiry/internet.htm

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html

http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html

References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (1996). The Concept of a Zone of Intervention for Identifying the Role of Intermediaries in the Information Search Process. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, 367-376. Retrieved from http://www.asis.org/annual-96/ElectronicProceedings/kuhlthau.html October 13, 2009.

Kuiper, E., Volman, M., & Terwel, J. (2008). Students' use of Web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating Web information. In Information Research, Vol. 13, No.3. Retrieved from http://informationr.net/ir/13-3/paper351.html on October 12, 2009

Laverty, C. (2008). The “I’m Feeling Lucky Syndrome”: Teacher-Candidates’ Knowledge of Web Searching Strategies. In Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, Vol.3, No.1. Retrieved from http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/329/892 Oct.13, 2009.

Guided Inquiry 4: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Assessing

2009-10-10T16:03:00.002-07:00

photo by Jeremiah Owyang

There are many sources for summative assessment at the end of the guided inquiry process, as well as some formative assessment. Focus on Inquiry states:

In the context of classroom activities or an inquiry activity, the
teacher provides opportunities for students to:
• create an information pathfinder (step-by-step plan for
gathering resources); see the sample activity on page 57
• complete a list of sources consulted
• hand in notes, webs, note cards or other note-taking
formats
• write/talk about their retrieval strategy and what worked
and did not work
• write/talk about the sources they found most useful and
why.

Notice that the first three tips do not include final product or presentation and the last two tips are aimed at reflective and metacognitive coals for students (and lead into the next post on Thinking and Reflecting on Retrieving Information); bear in mind that we are addressing assesment for the information retrieval process only at this point.

In Manitoba, the Department of Education, Citizenship and Youth included a chapter on Integrated Learning through Inquiry: A Guided Inquiry Planning Model in Independent Together: Supporting the Multilevel Learning Community. Blackline Masters and Sample Masters have also been provided, which is useful for seeing how some educators work on assessment for integrated inquiries, both formative and summative. See Sample 1 here and Sample 2 here.

Guided Inquiry 5: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Thinking About and Reflecting on Retrieving

2009-10-10T16:03:00.001-07:00

photo by karpov the wrecked train

In guided inquiry, it is expected that students will reflect on their learning as they construct meaning. Focus on Inquiry tells readers during the retrieving phase we should teach students to ask questions such as:

• Which resources are most useful?
• Where did I find the most useful resources?
• Will my topic focus still work?

These may seem like simple questions, but they require critical thinking, evaluation, judgment, comparisons, and so on - and they may also lead to a major shift in student process if, for example, an individual determines that the answer to the last question is a resounding "No".

In my practice I have seen a shift for some educators to infuse student reflection into learning processes (moreso in early years, middle years and secondary ELA courses). Greatly open-ended reflection questions often do not elicit useful answers for students or teachers, so how do you narrow down reflective pieces to make them more helpful? Ignacio looked this issue in relation to the information search process:

Instructors must make adjustments as the term progresses and continually be attuned to the learner's development. Teaching requires improvisation and flexibility (Schon, 1983). Strategies also need to be differentiated and tailored to each student's particular needs. Yet the help they received was also personalized through feedback on assignments, in-class coaching, and out-of-class conferencing. User-friendly digital library interfaces are not enough; skilled mediation and intervention will always be necessary.

Conferencing is one way that I have found to be particularly helpful; oral reports about successes, frustrations, and how-I-found-this-information are sometimes more illuminating than written forms can provide. Feedback on assingments and in-class coaching seem like obvious tips, but the point I take from Ignacio is that for reflection to be efficient during the retrieval process, teachers and teacher-librarians must provide the guidance necessary to help them find the right track.

In my province, Manitoba, Integrated Learning through Inquiry: A Guided Planning Model suggests these Considerations for Reflection:

• Debrief the process students used in inquiry, and ask students how they
would do things differently next time.
• List the questions students now have about the topic and discuss how
they differ from the questions that prompted the inquiry.
• Identify questions that students would like to pursue in a new inquiry.
• Discuss the importance of this learning to students’ understanding of the
world.

Blackline Masters associated with the same document also
contains tips on both shared/negotiated reflection as well as student-led reflection (in the Applying Inquiry Stage) as well as directing educators in "facilitating students' reflections on their learning to focus their inquiry plans". A template for Group Inquiry reflections is available from CORE Education, but it could easily be adapted for individual use.

One good source for a daily reflection is Laslie Preddy's site, which contains a useful Daily Reflection template from Big 6.

References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Ignacio, E. (1997). Teaching reflection: information seeking and evaluation in a digital library environment. In Library Trends, Mar 22. Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Teaching+reflection:+information+seeking+and+evaluation+in+a+digital...-a019720301 on October 13, 2009

Guided Inquiry 6: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Gauge Feelings

2009-10-10T16:02:00.002-07:00

photo by Casey Serin

Remember the video clip of Sam entering a cold, daunting new environment in the first of these posts? Have you ever displayed the same confused look as Sam as he steps out of the elevator when you were in the midst of research or information retrieval?

Students often feel overwhelmed by what they see as a huge volume of work involved in finding, anlayzing, and synthesizing information. Though Guided Inquiry is intended to be a process which includes educator assistance and intervention during those problematic times, students need to learn that the discomfort connected to working with new information is normal and natural. Kuhlthau has argued that an individual can have a "profound experience of uncertainty in the early stages of the information search process", and that it is necessary to consider "uncertainty as a natural, essential characteristic of information seeking rather than regarding the reduction of uncertainty as the primary objective of information seeking" .

Focus on Inquiry discusses the fact that students "often experience information overload during the Retrieving phase". Why? "[S]tudents’ 'need to know' is often not easily translated into the terminology and structure of the information system, and the information systems—such as the Dewey decimal system,online library catalogues, magazine and newspaper (periodical)indexes, and the World Wide Web—often are not particularly intuitive or user-friendly". We are also told that educators need to:

be alert to the feelings and physical outlets that may characterize information overload — anger, frustration, fatigue, irritability, leg jiggling, lack of focus — and help students to recognize these signs of overload. In addition to helping students understand that it is normal to experience such feelings during the inquiry process, teach students useful coping strategies, such as omission or filtering (ignoring or selecting certain categories of information), generalizing or twigging (broadening or narrowing the topic), or asking for help. Getting a large picture of the topic and its subcategories, by using whole-class or small-group activities, such as concept mapping or deciding what kinds of information might be appropriate for the topic, are helpful strategies for this phase, especially when information overload is, or may be, a problem.

To look at the problem of information a little more deeply and areas where educators can help (zones of intervention), Ignacio has nicely summed up Kuhlthau's 5 C's:

1. Collaborating -- the librarian or peer acts as a collaborator, which also situates the search process in a nonisolating context more typical of real world information seeking tasks.

2. Continuing -- Intervention is a continuous process because information problems are not static.

3. Conversing -- Conversation not only elicits more informed help from the librarian/counselor and feedback from peers but also helps students articulate and understand their information problem and, ultimately, to develop a metacognitive sense of where they are in a process.

4. Charting -- Charting is a system of using visual representations such as conceptual maps to manage and organize large or seemingly vague ideas, to recognize patterns and relationships, and to stimulate a cohesive sense of direction.

5. Composing -- Kuhlthau uses the example of journal writing which, she says, promotes reflection, formulation, and the development of constructs.

So where do teachers and teacher-librarians need to expand their roles in the area of student feelings and the zones of intervention as proposed by Kuhlthau and reiterated by Ignacio? Collaborating with other educators is de rigeur, but collaborating with students may be new to some. Continuing simply means that information problems are ongoing and issues may have to revisited regularly, but that isn't necessarily a big change for educators in the classroom or the library. Conversing in a specific sense to elicit feedback about feelings and reflective meaning may also be new for some. Charting is something I have normally only done in early stages of work, so I myself may have to revisit this "C". Composing, such as journal writing, is again a tool I have used in other manners, not for reflection in information retrieval processes, so again this would be a new use for me (and possibly for some others). How about you?

Guided Inquiry 7: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Conclusion

2009-10-10T16:02:00.001-07:00

photo by frerieke

My essential question in my first blog post was:

What are some of the ways the role of a teacher-librarian or teacher change or grow within the context of the information retrieval process of guided inquiry learning?

In the process of creating this presentation, I have found that educators need to:
*become collaborators, not only with other educators, but with students as they use creativity and imagination to construct meaning
*allow sufficient time for exploration, prepare and plan for students to do so much more than a quick search; think of little details in order to sequence teaching searching strategies as well as organizational skills pertaining to searches
*prepare for reflecting pieces along the search process, guide students in metacognitive strategies

My questions for you: what are some of the other key role changes you see for educators embarking on guided inquiry information retrieval processes with students?

What elements of/skills and strategies for retrieving information are are not taught explicitly enough by teachers (or even teacher-librarians!)? Why do you think that is the case?

Winds of Change: Learning for the 21st Century

2009-04-06T15:44:00.001-07:00

How will learning for the 21st century look? Here’s a brief introduction/anticipation guide:

To recap, the main elements of my vision are:

Online or distance education will be huge (like the keyboard seen above).

Professional development will be much more individualized and collaborative.

Internet filtering in schools will go the way of the floppy disk.

Libraries and teacher-librarians will lead to major changes in education and technology.

Distance education will take on a great role, with more and more learners using online tools to educate themselves. Universities have been using distance learning for quite some time, many high schools have been offering online learning opportunities, next middle years institutions will begin to see the possibilities for younger learners to work more independently. An educational technology expert in my school division recently indicated he foresees more online and blended learning because it “addresses both the need to differentiate instruction and learning and the cost effectiveness of delivery” (blended learning includes both online and face-to-face instruction).

There is some evidence to support the idea of online learning increasing in our schools. A recent study by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) called K-12 Online Learning indicated that “the total number of K-12 students taking online or blended courses in 2007-08 in the U.S. was estimated at 1,030,000--up from 700,000 in the earlier study--and two-thirds of respondents said they expect their online enrollments will continue to grow.” The report also says that advanced students are benefiting, but so are those who seek extra help or credit recovery, as well as rural students. Perhaps online or blended learning will help close the rural/urban digital divide.

Although the Sloan Consortium study makes note of the fact that reportedly only 21 percent of those enrolled in fully online courses are kindergarten through fifth-grade students, that seems like a big number to me: were you aware that many young students were learning online? A report released by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) last year suggests that a “blended approach combines the best elements of online and face-to-face learning. It is likely to emerge as the predominant model of the future--and to become far more common than either one alone."

Online and/or distance learning for and by educators will also be a major force in 21st century learning. One result of this shift is that professional development for educators will become both more individualized and collaborative. As more digital natives join the educational workforce, teaching communities will be swayed to offer more learning options to teachers who are not only web-savvy but also almost instinctively take to web 2.0 applications. When web 3.0 magically appears, educators will be riding the wave, not paddling madly after it or waving from the cold shore.

Jim Vanides reports “interest in online learning has been growing at a rapid pace, especially for professionals who find it inconvenient to attend face-to-face workshops or courses. This is particularly true for educators pursuing in-service professional development, as there is precious little time to be away from their classrooms.” Although those who haven’t taken online courses might not see them as collaborative as learning in bricks-and-mortar spaces, many of us who have done so see the shared opportunities as great.

Vanides writes that “the facilitation of rich and thoughtful discourse between participants becomes my principal endeavor…the freedom to focus on the students, encouraging conversations and questions that lead to better understanding, is in the end what makes teaching so rewarding”.

Other educational technology experts have weighed in on the subject of the collaborative nature of recent technologies, as well as possibilities for individualistic learning. In an article entitled Envisioning thE Future, Mark van ‘tHooft reports that “learning is becoming more personal yet collaborative and networked, portable and situated, ubiquitous and durable”.

Still doubtful of the power of online learning for educators? Vanides concludes that “Online professional development does work….[t]eachers participating in NTEN [National Teacher Enhancement Network]courses give high scores to the value of the experience, and in many cases report that they would not have been able to take such a class if it were face to face. Even teachers who have never participated in a course online before report a high level of satisfaction.”

Although many educators are seeing/will soon see the value of online learning, a bee in the bonnet is the problem of not being able to access many valuable resources at school due to divisional or district filtering policies. I feel strongly that Internet filtering will be all but eliminated in the 21st century. This big move won’t happen all at once. Teachers, teacher-librarians, and administrators will receive unlimited access first. Soon to fall away will be barriers to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and then blocks to sites that include current key filtering words or phrases such as “games”. In the near future, only those sites containing “adult” scenes will be blocked in Canada – those are going to be blocked for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, some students have been blocked from accessing information about breast cancer because of the disallowed word “breast”, according to Matt Villano, so even those blacklisted keywords need to be reviewed. Villano says Julie Walker reported that in Finland, filtering is almost nonexistent - most students and teachers can access the Internet without valuable resources being blocked will-nilly.

Jerry Swiatek has written a thought-provoking blog post on this issue, giving the example of Google Life images being blocked in some parts of North America. How long until we start giving learners freedom to information?

If anyone is to help lead the foray into new technologies for education in the 21st century, teacher-librarians and educational media specialists if all stripes should be at the forefront. Months ago, I blogged about Joyce Valenza’s “Modest Manifesto” for teacher-librarians, and I think that many of the points she made are even more meaningful to me today. Her manifesto includes numerous statements that I want to direct your attention to, and (surprise!) some of them are directly related to my points above:

“Think outside the box about the concept of “collection.” That collection might include: ebooks, audiobooks, open source software, streaming media, flash sticks, digital video cameras, and much more! You lend this stuff.”

“Model respect for intellectual property in a world of shift and change. You encourage and guide documentation for media in all formats and recognize and lead students and teachers to the growing number of copyright-friendly or copy left portals. You understand Creative Commons licensing and you are spreading this gospel. Example of tool: Copyright Friendly Resources Pathfinder:”

“Organize the Web for learners. You have the skills to create a blog or website or wiki to pull together resources to meet the information needs of your learning community. That presence reflects your personal voice. It includes your advice as well as your links. You make learning an engaging and colorful hybrid experience. You intervene in the research process online while respecting young people’s need for independence.”

“Know this is only the beginning of social networking. Students will get to their MySpace accounts through proxy servers despite any efforts to block them. You plan educationally meaningful ways to incorporate student excitement (and your own) for social networking.”

“Seek out a professional learning network using social networking tools.”

“Continue to consider and revise your own 20/20 vision. Do you look ahead for what is coming down the road? Are you scanning the landscape? As the information and communication landscapes continue to shift, do you know where you are going? Do you plan for change? Not for yourself, not just for the library, but for the building, for your learners. Are you really leading? What does the information professional look like today? Ten years from today? If you do not develop strong vision, your vision will be usurped by the visions of others. You will not be able to lead from the center.”

What’s in the future for 21st century learning? As Valenza says, we need to plan for change and develop our vision. What’s your vision?

Professional Development, Educational Technology and Getting to the Deep End

2009-03-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Photo by Curtis Palmer

Have you ever heard a fellow teacher groan at the mention of an upcoming professional development seminar? I have - many, many times. I think for many teachers, a different approach to professional development is needed. When it comes to educational technology and PD, wouldn’t it make sense to try to get ahead of the curve, so that we are not reacting or responding way after the fact? There is already a sense, for some, that as digital immigrants we are like a huge flock of educators sitting on the edge of the water whole our digital native students are splashing happily away.

So what are we doing? Looking for waterwings? Still trying to find the most flattering swimwear? Or are we almost ready to start leading more swim classes?

Professional development for integrating technology is an absolute necessity if we believe that education can be improved greatly by embracing the positive learning aspects of web 2.0. In my last blog, I wrote about how many teachers have not been able to get out of the shallow end for numerous reasons. Christine R has also written some thought-provoking words about problematic PD, identifying 4 different areas of concern:

-Out of Date Professional Development
-Lack of time to play and plan
-Lack of collaboration
-Lack of differentiated PD

What are some of the roads to improving ed tech PD?

Last year I blogged about how using blogs for/as PD may be one way to individualize and move toward more relevant educator learning. But in a wider sense, what kind of general changes in approach could lead to more constructive PD?

I’ve been thinking about various professional development opportunities I have been involved in over the years. From cavernous rooms with one speaker to smaller spaces with many presenters, most of us have had experiences with occasionally informative gatherings, and downright irrelevant moments. But what about those PD opportunities where you heard some good ideas and suggestions, but weren’t able to continue one-on-one discussions about making the ideas reality in your school? Without time to revisit the PD concepts and create workable versions that fit the situation for you and your colleagues, you may have moved on and put it on the backburner. The problem of “Lack of collaboration” as defined by Christine R above is one I’ve seen many times. How can we fix it?

Camilla Gagliolo wrote a brief-but-good article entitled Help Teachers Mentor One Another, in which she states:

“Powerful learning takes place when teachers teach other teachers in a peer-to-peer network. The creation of a cadre of teacher leaders serving as peer coaches will help power up the professional learning community and provide differentiated professional development offerings.”

I know when I think about PD that I found helpful and continued to use, the times when I learned it on a one-on-one basis come to mind immediately. I felt much more comfortable learning from a colleague that I was friendly with, or even one I was slightly acquainted with, and it makes sense – just as my teaching is more helpful when I know my students, my mentor can skip what he knows I can already do and go right to the essential learning – no need for unnecessary repetition, going off on irrelevant tangents to my learning goals, and so on. Gagliolo goes on to give few suggestions, and here’s one I really like:

“[C]onsider creating a set of laminated “keys” on a key ring containing information on expert mentors/coaches in the learning community. Each key lists the name of an integration tool and the name of the teacher/mentor who is the local expert.”

Cool idea!!!!!! As a teacher who has worked in different schools on terms as short as two weeks to a year for the past three years, I am constantly asking, “Who the local tech guy/gal?”

The idea of creating PD that works for the learner needs to be much more in the forefront of those creating PD opportunities – that’s why I see collaboration and mentorship as offering many more chances for individualization and success. Judi Harris has created a series of articles outlining the need for learner-driven PD under the banner of “One Size Doesn’t Fit All”. In the first article, Harris notes that PD creators need to “know your teacher-students' professional learning needs and preferences”, as well as stating that educators need:

-continued on-site support as they experiment with new tools and techniques in their classrooms to ensure continued and productive use of new tools and ideas.

-30 hours of focused professional development on average to change teachers' professional practice.

In the second article, Harris echoes Gaglio’s suggestion for teacher technology mentoring:

Collaborative learning ETPD also can take the form of mentoring, in which someone knowledgeable in a particular content area or instructional approach works with individuals or small groups of teachers wishing to learn more in the mentor’s area of expertise. Peer coaching, also with either individuals or groups, can similarly occur either face-to-face or online.

And finally, Harris asserts that teacher professional development needs to be teacher-oriented:

“One of the keys to effective ETPD design is to match models to goals and both to participating teachers’ needs, preferences, and characteristics.”

I believe that collaborative learning, especially mentoring, is a great way to help teachers move towards more productive educational technology professional development. I’ll leave the last word to a report from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory:

“A professional development curriculum that helps teachers use technology for discovery learning, developing students' higher-order thinking skills, and communicating ideas is new and demanding and thus cannot be implemented in isolation (Guhlin, 1996). In addition to working in pairs or teams, teachers need access to follow-up discussion and collegial activities, as required of professionals in other fields (Lockwood, 1999). Teachers also need time to discuss technology use with other teachers, whether face to face, through e-mail, or by videoconferencing (David, 1996). A networked computer on every teacher's desk can allow for greater interaction between educators. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) suggests that school districts find creative ways to build teacher networks so that teachers have additional opportunities to discuss the new instructional methods that technology promotes.”

More technology, less support: teaching and learning are not benefitting from the great techno-push

2009-03-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

photo by Katie Lips

Educational technology has not improved teaching or learning in general because teachers are not able to explore, experience, and be trained in relevant uses. A great amount of teachers want to help students become technologically literate, but finding the time to work with new technology and incorporate it into meaningful lessons is a huge challenge - and it’s not getting any easier. As Oppenheimer (2003) has noted, “…teacher training takes serious doses of time, money and effort” (p. 306). He has also suggested that “as far as technology is concerned…the panopoly of demands on America’s teaching force is substantial, and rising.” (p.311). I think we can apply that last quote to Canada’s educators as well. In my division, teachers coach and head other school clubs, plan educational trips, work on numerous school committees, incessantly work on keeping up-to-date on resources and teaching methods, and in the last few years have continuously been working on changing assessment practices.

Other educators such as Larry Cuban (2001)have echoed these issues, citing a “lack of time available for teachers to find relevant software, judge its worth, and try out the products in classrooms” and saying that “training in relevant software and applications was seldom offered at the times that they needed them” (p. 97)

Kalkowski has attempted to figure out why teachers have not been able to integrate technology to the desired levels. One of the important findings was that teacher training needs to be more extensive and start earlier – in fact, when teachers are learning their profession.

“It has been shown that teachers teach how they were taught. (Norton & Gonzales, 1998). So, for beginning teachers, the teacher education faculty members must model effective use of technologies in their own classrooms (Cooper & Bull, 1997). Ropp (1999) conducted a longitudinal study during a preservice teacher education course that included hands-on technology training and classroom discussion of technology and found that students made significant improvements in technology proficiency, computer self-efficacy and computer coping strategies from the beginning to the end of the course. When Topp (1996) studied recent teacher graduates, he found that a computer-specific course was essential, especially one on computer integration, but that the technology education pre-service teachers felt they received was inadequate.”

Think about how you were taught to use technology in when you were attaining your education degree. Do you believe it was substantive and focused on integration in the classroom, or was it superficial and ineffective? My Teacher and Technology course involved creating a website, a PowerPoint presentation, and learning about computers themselves. In one of my courses students had the opportunity to create a short film. In essence, teacher candidates received a brief introduction to educational technology. Is that good enough?

One force in education that may have been able to assist teachers in technology integration is teacher-librarians. Unfortunately, education budgets across many parts of North America have not allowed for extensive teacher-librarian or library budgets. Froese-Germain (2001) suggests that the whole system is backward: “Paradoxically, while schools go about acquiring more information and communications technology, teacher librarian positions are being eliminated as a result of funding cutbacks” (p.3).

But is Froese-Germain’s position supported by evidence? Here’s a few more voices on the issue:

“The government, teachers, and the public agree that literacy is essential. Research
evidence supports the value of libraries to improving literacy. However, the drastic
cuts in resources are hitting school libraries particularly hard. Teacher-librarian time
is reduced or eliminated in many schools making library services less available to
students.” British Columbia Teachers’ Federation

“In 2005 Statistics Canada released a study documenting the dramatic decline of school libraries over the years. It found the median expenditure on the physical collection of libraries (including books and magazines) was a mere $2,000. Even more revealing was the finding that few schools had a full-time
teacher-librarian. Those most affected by this sad state of affairs are families unable to supplement their child’s learning with books and other resources in the home.” - Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives

From 2001–02 to 2007–08, the number of library specialist teachers in B.C. schools declined by 21 percent. – Pieta Wooley

So even though there has been a strong, clear push for overworked teachers to use more technology, the support has not been equally strong. There should be more and more teacher-librarians in schools – why isn’t that occurring?

Works Cited

Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.

photo by Kevin Dooley

The great techno-push in our schools is killing people skills

2009-03-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

photo by Drew Herron

Instead of improving teaching and learning, greater emphasis on computer technology and Internet use often has the result of weakening students’ social skills and eroding opportunities for the elements of learning some have called the “hidden curriculum”. Yes, it’s true – kids will spend hours upon hours sitting in front of computers without any expressed desire to hear a human voice or have any physical contact. And of course, young people have been spending hours watching television or playing videogames as well, but at least they may be doing so with other people. Computers have the potential to become the most isolating, harmfully addictive devices ever unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

Bernie Froese-Germain (2001) has related some worrying facts about computer-users’ well-being:

“A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that ‘greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants’ communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness” (p.4) Froese-Germain has also noted that Ursula Franklin has recognized “the potential for computers to isolate students and to make learning more individualistic implies that ‘these implicit learning opportunities can no longer be taken for granted.” (p. 4).

A great deal has been written and said about integrated technology’s ability to help students become more independent learners. But it may be that we are forgetting how increasing technology use alters the classroom in more ways than one, as Heather-jane Robertson (2001) relates:

“Stanford educator Larry Cuban emphasizes what every teacher knows: classrooms are built around relationships, and they aren’t important only to students. ‘The touches, smiles, warmth, and even the frowns, annoyance and anger that pass between teacher and student cement ties that deepen learning and give gratification to teachers.’ Cuban warns that the computer-dominated classrooms dry up this emotional life by unraveling the bonds between teachers and students, and creating false liaisons between students and machine” (p. 35).

As an educator, I feel I must acknowledge that relationships are what students take away from school as much as curricular outcomes. How is integration of technology improving human contact? Why would a student feel that communicating with a person in front of them is important if they can chat online and never have to bother with full sentences, the subtleties of body language, or face-to-face disagreements?

Kevin Whitmore is one educator who has noted that children’s social development had led to the formation of organizations like the Alliance for Childhood, which contends that:

“Those who place their faith in technology to solve the problems of education should look more deeply into the needs of children. The renewal of education requires personal attention to students from good teachers and active p a rents, strongly supported by their communities. It requires commitment to developmentally appropriate education and attention to the full range of children’s real low-tech needs—physical, emotional, and social, as well as cognitive.”

Whitmore goes on to inform that former Education professor Chet Bowers has argued that greater use of computers is leading to “the decline of valuable face-to-face interaction; especially mentoring relationships”.

The central question here is, if students are learning more about computers and computer skills, are they learning less about people and social skills? You may choose to believe that students’ social learning is on the right track today. Some organizations, of course, are working towards more technology skills, without necesarily directly addressing the social needs of learners. One of those groups, 21st Century Skills, or P21, is pushing for more technological know-how, as well as promoting the idea that students can at the same time learn to critically and creatively and work well with others. Sounds good, doesn't it? But a non-profit group of educators has started a group called Common Core that disagrees with the rush for 21st Century Skills, asserting that the direction taken by groups like P21 is squeezing out crucial content, never mind the implicit social learning discussed earlier. It's possible that the great techno-push may have a shoving match on its hands. However, the board of directors for P21 includes members from Intel, Apple, Dell, Adobe, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Is this where we should be getting our direction for education? Is it any wonder that people skills are falling by the wayside in our computer-dominated, corporation-backed educational lobbying system?

Works Cited

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Educational technology has not had a major impact on teaching and learning

2009-03-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

Photo by Sarah G

Educational technology should have had a major impact on teaching and learning by now – it has not.

Many educational technology factions have been predicting that computers would transform and revitalize a staid and sedentary form of learning, but unfortunately the great wave of forward movement hasn’t materialized. Sure, kids have learned how to use Google, Wikipedia, and PowerPoint, and they’ve learned what games and instant messaging applications are accessible in their school. But in general, students and teachers still operate in the same manner, and the integration of educational technology has not advanced education to a substantial degree.

Stanford Professor of Education Larry Cuban (2001) studied how schools used technology and reported in Oversold and Underused that:

· “In the schools we studied, we found no clear and substantial evidence of students increasing their academic achievement as a result of using information technologies (p. 133).

· “…the overwhelming majority of teachers employed the technology to sustain existing patterns of teaching, rather than to innovate…Only a tiny percentage of high school and university teachers used the new technologies to accelerate student-centered and project-based teaching practices.” (p. 134).

· “If anything, what we observed and were told by students suggested strongly that occasional to serious use of computers in their classes had marginal or no impact on routine teaching” (p. 97).

· “…teachers lecture, and students listen, read textbooks and complete individual exercises presented in workbooks or photocopies” (p. 96).

Oppenheimer (2003) has argued that when Cuban “studied how schools have been using technology since the 1980’s, that there was no great accompanying improvement in teaching practices” (p. 313). Since computers have been widely introduced in the 1980s and educational technology has steadily increased, we should expect to see an increase in pedagogical advances as well as an increase in student achievement, but these developments are not readily apparent.

What if researchers observed a number of schools and their computer usage in the classroom for a couple of years, gave teachers every available support and supplied lots of training? Well, that was done at least once with the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project, but evidence of improvement was still lacking, according to Heather-jane Robertson (2001):

“After two years of total and unlimited access to technology by carefully selected students, whose parents had chosen the program and whose teachers had unlimited amounts of technical and instructional support, the best that Apple could say about the achievement of ACOT students was that they hadn’t declined”(p. 133).

Baker has also echoed Robertson’s assertion, saying that “data collected provide no clear idea of ACOT success or failure, although data on achievement, writing, and attitude suggest that ACOT participation is not depriving students in any way.”

Therefore, according to data from a highly subsidized pilot on educational technology, no great gains were quantified, although students learning was not lessened. However, other studies have shown us a different picture. According to Kevin Whitmore, a study by Thomas Fuchs & Ludger Woessmann entitled “Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School” tells us:

“For schools and parents who have together invested billions of dollars to give children a learning edge through the latest computer technology, this study brought some sobering news: Too much exposure to computers might spell trouble for the developing mind.
From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, the researchers at the University of Munich announced that performance in maths and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well.”

Uh oh. Perhaps our push for greater use of educational technology has not improved learning after all.

Works Cited:
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.

Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Privacy in our public online spaces

2009-03-11T16:40:00.001-07:00

photo by Rob Pongsajapan

Is anything private in our online world? Many of us may think that if we don’t physically type in personal information on a website or respond to unsolicited email, we’re safe. But almost everything you do on the Internet is tracked in some way. For example, just by accessing this blog, a little widget on the right side of the page has determined what city you are in. Hello, Bristol! G’day, Sydney! Hey, Vancouver!

Seems harmless? Well, maybe it is. But it’s possible that by hitting my blog, you’ve created one more piece of information about your surfing habits that is added to your digital dossier. In their book Born Digital, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser (2008) suggest that “all the digital information held, in many different hands, about a given person makes up his or her digital dossier” (p. 39). If your digital dossier only contained data about what blogs about educational technology you’ve stumbled upon, maybe you might feel okay about that. But Palfrey and Gasser contend that at “no time in human history has information about a young person – or anyone, for that matter – been more freely and publicly accessible to so many others” (p. 54).

You might answer, but surely there are laws against anyone using my personal information unless I have given my express permission. Unfortunately, we increasingly find ourselves in positions that make it seem like the law hasn’t kept up with our lives, as we saw in my last blog about copyright, intellectual property and freedom. Palfrey and Gasser noted the similarities between privacy and copyright in respect to law:

“...traditional legal mechanisms will not work as well as they have previously. A similar shift has occurred in the copyright environment: It’s become so easy to easy to make a copy of a creative work, and social norms are so strong that a chasm has grown between what the law says and what digital natives do” (p. 82).

Clearly there is a massive challenge ahead of us to determine as educators and teacher-librarians how we will assist digital natives to protect their privacy. When students are online in our schools and libraries, is their privacy guaranteed? Not necessarily. Helen Adams has asserted that recent or proposed changes in legislation for four U.S. state legislatures concerning library records show “the majority lack understanding of or support for privacy rights for minors using library media centers”.
Although many computer users know that there are those out there who will try to steal your identity, go phishing, hack into another’s data, or launch harmful viruses, how many people realize that, for example, in Pennsylvania anyone under 18 may have their library use records released to a parent or guardian (if new legislation is passed)? In other words, not only are students in libraries potentially allowing private information to be divulged in their online activities such as using Facebook or mySpace, state or provincial laws may also allow student privacy to be invaded by a family member.

Then again, should libraries and librarians be responsible for how privacy is maintained by computer users who are using Web 2.0 applications, especially social networking applications such as Facebook or MySpace? Isn’t that akin to librarians getting involved with what media people are signing out – in essence, no one’s business? In a blog post entitled “The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Privacy”, Rory Litwin eloquently stated what he sees as the main dilemma:

· The difficulty that I think we have to grapple with in considering the Library 2.0 idea is that libraries and Web 2.0 services are based on serving two very different essential activities, and those activities have an opposite relationship to privacy.
· Web 2.0 websites are, with some exceptions, based primarily on sharing information, but sharing information in a particular way: essentially, they are about seeing and being seen.
· Freedom Foundation and others have raised awareness of privacy issues with respect to a host of internet technologies and practices. Many internet users share these concerns about their privacy in theory, but think little of sharing highly personal information on blogs and social networking sites.

At the moment, social networking sites are blocked in my school division. I have no first-hand knowledge of how the students I work with are controlling (or not controlling) their privacy online as regards these kinds of applications, because they are not allowed to use them in schools. However, if my students are typical Internet surfers, it is likely that they are sharing private information willy-nilly.

As web 2.0 application users, bloggers like you and me have our own privacy issues to contend with. As Doug Johnson has kindly reminded readers, ecommunications are not private and are also not necessarily protected by free speech laws. Johnson quotes thePennsylvania State Education Association Legal Division:

“As a school employee, you must exercise extreme caution when you engage in blogging or other forms of Internet communication. Keep in mind that your First Amendment rights can be limited by virtue of your position as a school employee.”
As students should understand their online behaviour can have consequences, so should we; anything we write can be read not only by friends but also by employers, potential employers, enemies (!), acquaintances, friends of friends, complete strangers…you get the picture. Johnson tells bloggers that we should:

· Write assuming your boss is reading.
· Gripe globally; praise locally.
· Write for edited publications.
· Write out of goodness.

Generally, I would say that these are good ideas for everyone. Maybe students can’t necessarily write for edited publications, but that may be the case for many other bloggers as well.

So what can we do to move towards guarding our own privacy as well as that of our students? A good start is simply becoming more informed. Privacytown is a site created administered by Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs, and I must say it is one of the more informative, well-written sites I have ever seen associated with a government agency. It’s not patronizing or condescending, and it actually contains some humour! (check out this example – “Privacy isn't exactly a recent concept. In fact, you might argue that it is the world's oldest obsession -- well, maybe the second oldest.”)

I don’t think it hurts any of us to learn or be reminded about data mining, the use of cookies, data shadows, and e-mail privacy. Right now, I don’t know the level of understanding my students have concerning these issues; my immediate goal is to become a lot more informed and be prepared to address them when I can in the school setting.

Works Cited:

Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Privacy. In Born Digital (pp. 53-82). New York: Basic Books.

photo by Andrew Magill

2009-02-22T19:11:00.001-08:00

© © © © ©

Copyright. Intellectual Property. Intellectual freedom. How many of us think about these issues on a regular basis, or even rarely?

I know some people do. A few years ago I ran across an article I had written which had been copied and posted, unattributed to me, on someone else’s site. I sent an email that said something simple like, “Hey, I noticed you have an article I wrote on your site.” The webmaster wrote back, apologizing, asking which article it was and assuring me that I would be credited properly. In fact, I wasn’t worried about getting credit at all, I was only interested in making a connection with a person who thought enough of my work to post it online. I understand that some people in my shoes may have been hankering for attribution or credit or payment, but I wasn’t. The article was originally published in a magazine that had a limited readership, so I was just stoked that someone had the gumption and ingenuity to prolong the piece’s viewing lifespan and widen readership. It had been published a few years earlier and I had already been paid and received my byline, so if someone could learn or be entertained by it in a new format, more power to the webmaster.

What this incident illustrated to me is that some people placed more importance on crediting others’ work (at least the early years of the World Wide Web) than I did, even when it was my work being copied and pasted. My original article and the magazine it was published in contained little or no opportunity for someone to contact me and request permission for republishing. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward to today, when sharing information, collaborating, and learning in an online setting all offer a myriad of opportunities to steal, plagiarize, copy and paste and generally act irresponsibly (or illegally). Simple guidelines for what constitutes fair use and what is copyright infringement are either not easily accessible or at least not-so-simple for most students or educators.

I have touched in a previous blog on the attitudes and learning habits of digital natives. But today’s computer users and their attitude to copyright and intellectual property deserve a closer examination. David Pogue has related with dismay that according to his very informal research, many digital natives have no compunctions when it comes to downloading music or movies without paying for them. Should it be a surprise that many people today don’t find it necessary to pay for what they find online or worry about attribution or giving credit to others? In fact, the vehemence with which downloaders justify their actions is evident in our wired world, and there are many examples to be found on YouTube. Here’s a short one:

Yet music companies are suing downloaders (and winning!), and anti-piracy ads from the film industry have become ubiquitous. It seems that these real-life instances aren’t affecting peoples’ attitudes about copyright and intellectual property, so the need for direction from educators is clear. Although it may seem that it’s tough to figure out where to begin, Mike Ribble’s Passport to Digital Citizenship could be one place to look at first. The article offers readers a definition of digital citizenship, 9 elements of digital citizenship, and a 4-stage Technology Learning Framework for Teaching Digital Citizenship. One important component of Ribble’s article is that he stresses that because of the disconnect in what is being done in schools and what is done by students in their free time, parents need to be aware of issues within digital citizenship if there is to be some success in helping foster good choices.

And of course aside from downloading music and movies, what are many of those students doing in their free time? Checking out Facebook and MySpace, of course. Annette Lamb’s article Intellectual Freedom for Youth: Social Technology and Social Networks includes some very eloquently stated points. For example, Lamb asserts that social technologies “test the boundaries of intellectual freedom precisely because they provide an open forum for ideas”. It seems like a simple point, but I hadn’t thought of it in that way previously. If we are filtering or blocking social networks in our schools and libraries, are we hindering intellectual freedom? I touched on filtering a few weeks ago on this blog, but Lamb points out that students need to be aware of digital citizenship and copyright as well:

“While social technologies can support the creation of original poetry, music, and scientific data, it also can be a source of negative content, including gossip, violent images, and misinformation. Teens may use adult mediasharing Web sites such as Flickr for photos or YouTube for video. If so, it is essential to help them act responsibly in a social environment not intended for children. Students need to understand how to evaluate Web content, follow copyright laws, and develop effective methods of communication to make optimal use of this environment.” Therefore, if we ignore social networking sites, we may not only be impeding intellectual freedom, but we may be putting student digital citizenship on the backburner.

Also, Helen R. Adams has written about goals for school library media specialists, such as: “Guard against barriers to intellectual freedom, such as age or grade-level restrictions, limitations on access to electronic information, requirements for special permission to use materials and resources, and restricted collections.” If intellectual freedom means that young people should be allowed to access social networks such as Lamb suggests above, then Adams is arguing against filtering. It seems to me we have a long way to go before filtering ends in North American schools.

So what kinds of things can we do to help students learn more about their intellectual freedom and copyright? I think we need to create more resource lists like this one – it helps students find images and sounds that aren’t illegal or morally suspect.
I’m also really excited about the possibilities of Creative Commons, which is described as “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” I’ve been using images from Creative Commons for a while now, and the possibilities for students to find pictures, music, written works, and so on and use them responsibly are great. Now, it’s also time for educators to take the idea even farther and help their students to be a part of that community that shares, guiding learners to upload and make the resource banks even larger and richer.

I, and I suspect many others, also need to learn more about what constitutes fair use. Alisa Burch cites North Carolina State University’s copyright tutorial as telling readers that fair use allows the limited use of copyrighted material without prior permission of the copyright holder if the use is a fair one based on these four factors:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In his article Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad ©?, Doug Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote that few subjects “spark more disagreement and confusion than copyright. As an information professional, I’m often not certain that I have a firm grasp of it.” I’m not an information professional and am only starting to wrap my head around copyright and the issues surrounding it such as fair use and intellectual freedom. In fact, once you start thinking about copyright and the number of mistakes you or your students may have made, inadvertently or otherwise, it’s easy to go too far the other way and handcuff yourself into not taking advantage of the wide world of resources at your fingertips. Johnson gives an intersting anecdote about looking for permission or assuming permission is not given:

“A Singapore educator once told me that in his country, people tend to suffer from NUTS—the No U-Turn Syndrome—and Americans don’t. When no signs are posted at an intersection, Singapore drivers assume U-turns are illegal; United States drivers assume the opposite. He felt that our “assume it’s OK” attitude gives our country a competitive edge.”

Johnson’s anecdote relates to a fear of what’s “not allowed” and connects to the first of four points:
Change the focus of copyright instruction from what’s forbidden to what’s permitted. When there’s doubt, err on the side of the user. Be prepared to answer questions when a law makes little sense, seems inconsequential, is widely ignored, or when breaking it may serve a higher moral purpose. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer.
To me, Johnson’s greatest point is that as educators, we can help change the focus from what’s “forbidden” to what’s “permitted”; we can be positive about what is legally and morally stable, create lists and links to sites that offer attributed use such as Creative Commons, steer learners to free easy-to-use online citation guides like Noodlebib, and encourage dialogue between students on all of the topics above. The Digiteen Global Project looks like a pretty good start for focused authentic learning. The creators say that Digiteen is a “digital citizenship global project…where schools and classrooms from around the world will discuss issues, research and take action to do with being online in the 21st century. The project also has an Digiteen Ning where students and teachers connect, interact, share multimedia and reflect on their experiences throughout the project”. Wow! Sounds like some educators and students are already tackling most of the tough issues surrounding copyright and digital citizenship.

While we’re feeling pretty positive about the possiblities of using Web 2.0 tools such as Digiteen does become more informed better digital citizens, I’ll leave you with a short video clip that made me stop and think. Although the video is funny (and also unfortunately contains some inappropriate language), it is also poking fun at attempts to curb online movie or music piracy. Aside from pointing out the absurdity of how the word “piracy” is used in this context, the video also mirrors how seriously many people feel about the issue. Don’t you think?

Digital Divide(s)

2009-02-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

Ever wake up in the morning and think, “Wow! My digital divide really hurts!?!”? Neither have I. Nevertheless, the digital divide may be hurting all of us as an educational community, even though we don’t feel it in an immediate way.

Let’s backtrack a bit: what is the digital divide? The Wikipedia entry on this topic reads thusly:

“The term digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it is the unequal access by some members of society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The digital divide may be classified based on gender, income, and race groups, and by locations.”

Clearly not everyone has access to the same technology. Occasionally, I am still surprised when a young adult tells me that he or she either has no Internet access at home or is still using dial-up. Except for the very young or very old, I think that many of us expect that we are consistently wired (unless we are very young or very old), when the truth is we aren’t all hooked up. My kids have been computer users from a very young age; heck, when they are at their grandfather’s, they’re surfing and playing and learning non-stop. My nine-year-old schools me every once in a while on some computer issue. But he’s also got a grandfather who has inexplicably taught himself at an elderly age to build computers, as well as a father who uses a computer daily for work, entertainment, and professional development. At any rate, my parents have never used computers, and I didn’t get Internet access until I was in my twenties; the generational divide is quite pronounced when comparing my Ma and Pa and my digitally-bedeviled offspring.

But what about others? George Sciadas’s research paper “The Digital Divide in Canada” discusses some of the complex issues surrounding this topic. Sciadas has used statistical analysis to break down some of these issues. However, nothing is as simple as we might want:

“From one year to the next, as more people use the Internet, there are more ‘haves’ and fewer ‘have-nots’. When groups of people are delineated by income (or any other variable), though, each one has its own penetration rate. The divide then becomes a relative concept whose measurement involves comparisons of the ‘haves’ between ‘have-more’ and ‘have-less’ groups.”

At first glance, a reader might think that the digital divide is not a big issue. But when Sciadas looks at income and age in regards to computer usage, we can see that there are actually some pretty big discrepancies. For example, it might not be a surprise that many of those with lower incomes in Canada appear to use computers less, and 15-17 year-olds use the Internet way more than even those aged 30-34. Overall, Sciadas concludes that the “divide is generally closing, but the gap between the highest and the lowest incomes persists.” If that is the case, the digital divide may continue in some form or another for a long time. The Wikipedia entry on digital divide does not dispel this outlook:

“In small towns and rural areas, only 65% of residences accessed the Internet, compared to 76% in urban areas. The digital divide still exists between the rich and the poor; 91% of people making more than $91,000/year regularly used the Internet, compared to 47% of people making less than $24,000. This gap has lowered slightly since 2005.”

However, the points above mainly focus on one element of the digital divide, which is different forms of access to technology – mainly computers and the Internet. An article entitled Web 2.0 in Schools: Our Digital Divides Are showing! points out that the digital divide could be looked at on four different levels:

“The first level of digital divide is access. Access to adequate amounts and types of hardware is an ongoing issue, but we’re now seeing access play out in schools in terms of bandwidth available for applications like streaming video and audio.
The second level of digital divide is skill and Web 2.0 tools present a new professional development and personal mastery imperative for many schools.
The third, and emerging, level of digital divide is policy. All too often in schools, we’re seeing technology policies that enforce slow hardware replacement cycles or restrictive use and filtering policies that block Web 2.0 applications.
The fourth digital divide, motivation, cannot be overlooked. That is, we’re seeing children, teachers, media specialists, and administrators all having different motivations to either adopt, ignore, or actively thwart learning innovation with Web 2.0 tools.”

Personally, I think access and policy are two elements that are often closely linked. Is YouTube blocked because of bandwidth or content issues? A text expert in a school I was in recently responded to class problems accessing Web 2.0 by saying “we’re all trying to squeeze everything through one little pipe” - meaning there’s only so much the divisional and school system can handle. The teacher-librarian working with the students at the time could not take solace in the fact there was nothing to be done on a classroom facilitator level, but I could only applaud her perseverance. On some levels, I would say that skill and motivation can be pretty closely linked as well. I believe that if many teachers and students could see how easy and engaging many Web 2.0 tools can be, they would be motivated to adopt some of them. But change is never going to be easy, and although I have not witnessed personally anyone “actively” thwarting learning innovation with Web 2.0 tools, I also have not seen a lot of time or incentives given for educators to do so.

An article written by Sherril Steele-Carlin entitled “Caught in the Digital Divide” tells readers that not only might there be a digital divide along economic, societal, racial, and geographical lines, but gender as well. “According to Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age (2000), a recent study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education, a majority of high school girls are totally disinterested in technology education, and fewer women than ever before are entering technology fields.” The article also touches on the idea that a lot of “people, however, question whether a digital divide fueled by ethnic, geographic, societal, or economic factors exists.” From the plethora of evidence I’ve seen now, I’m beginning to think that there is not one digital divide, but many.

So what does all of this mean to educators and students? What can we do to work towards bridging the divide(s)? First of all, educators need to recognize, if not a tangible divide, then at least the reasons why many think there is a divide. In other words, be aware of all of the reasons why students may not be as comfortable or familiar with technology. Are students not completing assignments utilizing tech tools because they are lethargic or because they are frustrated with working on the computer? If we’re diving into Web 2.0 tools and becoming surprised when students are stumbling when using MySpace or FaceBook, maybe some students aren’t as wired as we think. At the same time, Web 2.0 tools may be part of the solution, as Ilan Tsekhman suggests:

The most obvious potential for Web 2.0 applications is that they provide free tools to the user which would otherwise require expensive software packages, one example of this is using the free Google Docs service to replace Microsoft Office. The concept of providing applications as internet services is known as "cloud computing". Parallel to this is a movement towards what is called "thin computing" where the majority of the computing processes of a task are handled by a central server as opposed to on the users local machine. Thin computing promises to lower the system requirements of common online tasks and therefore lower the costs of computing itself.

In fact, others have proposed that free online tools could benefit those with lower incomes in any part of the world. Also, using Web 2.0 tools may be advantageous for adult learners as well. An amazing project in Uganda saw a group of farmers exploring websites, SMS, blogs, RSS feeds, Google Maps, Flickr, Picasa and Skype, and it has been suggested that their experiments helped them to strengthen organisation, planning and information sharing within the community which improved their livelihoods considerably.

But closer to home, the digital divide is a gigantic problem that isn’t going away, and it needs much more than individual teachers, teacher-librarians, or administrators to create a solution. I’ll leave it to Will Richardson to have the last word on starting to decrease the divide:

One idea that I see starting to take root is getting old computers, stripping out all of the old drives, running a Linux thin client and just a Web browser. Right now, you can do 75% of what you do on a store bought computer out on the Web (see thinkfree.com, for instance, or writely.com). And those computers cost next to nothing. So if we could put together a program for that to happen, it might make a difference. But the reality of it is that we are living in a world where one out of every three people in Philadelphia have NEVER BEEN ON THE INTERNET much less have access. For that to change in all parts of this country, it's going to take vision and leadership that just isn't there right now.

Filters, Fans, and who watches the Watchmen?

2009-02-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

“Who watches the Watchmen?” Alan Moore. The Watchmen

No, this is not going to be one more fanboy drooling about the new Watchmen movie; I’m referring to the slogan/question recurring in the original graphic novel because it seems relevant to this week’s topic. The question of the week is, Should provincial Ministries of Education create web filtering standards for schools? In a way, the Watchmen catchphrase means, “Who is in charge of keeping an eye on those who protect us?” On a personal level, I don’t know if many of us educators have given a great deal of thought to this question. But the topic of web filters in schools begs a few more questions:

Do we need filters in schools? Unfortunately, I don’t believe that some students will not deliberately access inappropriate sites or material at this point. And a horror story (from a peer in my Information Technology for Learning course) about viruses taking down entire networks in Vancouver makes me think that the need for high security is evident.

Nevertheless, there are clearly problems with web filtering. Alvin Schrader has argued that:

Internet filtering and rating technologies are theoretically unworkable. It is not that they are technologically unworkable or technologically limited. It is that the essential ambiguities of language, text, reader, rating and blocking methods ensure the failure of automated filtering. The problems of identifying and describing Internet content for purposes of control and prohibition are intractable: new sites, new terms, new issues, the world cacophony of languages, variable interpretations of meaning, variable perceptions of offensiveness, variable perceptions of age appropriateness and variable cultural norms.

At the same time, Jenny Ryan has pointed out that there can be a positive role for filters in collection management and responsible service. To date, I have not seen many alternative solutions to getting rid of filters other than educating students about responsible internet use, ensuring educators are vigilant, and creating good Acceptable Use Policies.

A technology specialist in my school division informed me that many feel filtering is required to limit liability, while a small contingent appreciate that filtering is a band-aid at best and would rather approach the issue of how to deal with inappropriate content through education. I think that is a good way to look at web filters, as band-aids that are going to stay on longer than we wish. Make no mistake, if we really want to help students become safer when using the Internet, we would teach them how to do so – after all, they are accessing the web outside of the classroom all of the time on their phones, laptops, home computers, and so on. But the information I gathered from my local tech specialist indicates that some discussion has already taken place as to the place of filtering, at least in my division. Since Learning with Information and Communication Technology is a big push in my province and school division, it makes sense that web filtering should be a part of how technology is used in schools. Many schools and divisions in Manitoba have in the past few years started utilizing MERLIN (Manitoba Education and Research Learning Information Network) as a provider of several IT services including the filtering of web content. MERLIN employs a hardware-based technology called 8e6 R3000 Enterprise. I have been told that although we still have the ability to selectively block or unblock sites via the tech consultant, a fair degree of control has been relinquished subject to our deal with MERLIN. A look at MERLIN’s website shows that the system:
· Allows administrators to create their own categories of blocked sites (“black list”)
· Allows administrators to create their own lists of acceptable sites (“white list”)
· Allows differentiated Internet access criteria for groups of users
Nonetheless, I don’t know that schools or school divisions are taking enough responsibility. For example, if our filter allows differentiated access for groups or users, shouldn’t teachers, librarians, and administrators all have unfettered access? Should high school students have more access than elementary school learners? I think as a start for a provincially mandated web filter standard, all educators should have no restrictions except for security reasons (viruses and so on). Optimally, educators should have free access to whatever they need to perform their job, and limiting that access while pushing information technology literacy makes no sense.

Who should decide what is filtered? – Peers in my Information Technology for Learning course have informed me that some schools do not filter out YouTube and Facebook – so why do so many other divisions exclude them? Clearly a divide has been created that allows greater access in some divisions. Wouldn’t a common web filtering standard help level the playing field for all students in a province? A decision to unblock a particular site or web 2.0 tool could mean a victory for all, not just one division, if a standard was created that allowed for regular (daily?) updating. It would seem to me that this issue may be too big to leave to individual divisions, and the same goes for individual schools – how could one tech specialist, or even a small team, have the time and expertise necessary to make the big decisions about what is accessible for all students?

Why should Ministries of Education create web filtering standards? – Isn’t the purpose of a Ministry of Education to oversee educational matters? In addition to idea of leveling the playing field, the provincial arm of the government has the capability and power to ensure that all school divisions follow the standards. In the spirit of the collaborative nature of Web 2.0, I would like to see provinces bring together teachers, librarians, administrators, and tech specialists work together to create the standards that would benefit all. In Manitoba, a former teacher (who won numerous awards for his work in schools) is the Minister of Education, Citizenship and Youth – I say we take advantage of his being in office to create a policy of web filtering standards sooner, rather than later. Why? Because who watches the Watchmen? Why, we do, of course.

21st Century Digital Boy

2009-01-25T17:45:00.001-08:00

http://www.jimcarroll.com/weblog/archives/pictures/baby.jpg

“I’m a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don’t know how to live, but I’ve got a lot of toys” – Brett Gurewitz

The above song lyrics were written circa 1988, but some might say they seem even more phrophetic now. You would be forgiven for thinking that the words were written by a Luddite, but in actuality they were written by a punk rock guitarist/record label head and sung by a vocalist who has Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and teaches life sciences at UCLA.

Many learners today are digital boys and girls, and they have a lot of “toys” – cell phones/Blackberrys, laptops, desktops, Wiis/Playstations/X-Boxes, iPhones, iPods, televisions, and dvd players, not to mention accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Hotmail, gmail, instant messaging and chat sites, and so on. Prensky calls those students who have grown up with digital technology Digital Natives. Prensky goes on to relate a number of issues arising from Digital Natives’ perspectives:

“Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. (Does any of this sound familiar?)”

Yes, it does sound familiar, and the first points he mentions are important to consider. The last two are problematic for me, though. It’s good to recognize that digital natives “thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards”, but it’s also unrealistic to hope that as educators we can offer those things on a daily basis. I’m not sure anyone gets instant gratification all the time, I know I don’t. Do you? And the point about liking games more than serious work – is this something new? Doesn’t everyone?

Prensky continues to inform that his “own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.” That is an interesting idea, and one which he seems very confident about – he explains that he can create a game to learn just about anything. But, like instant gratification, I cannot offer that option to my students. I can certainly work towards engaging them in ways that games do, but I can’t develop games in order for my students to hit all of the outcomes in my curriculum. In fact, I don’t want to, either; I don’t think playing games is the only way to develop lifelong learners, and I’m not sure that learning through games will help most students learn about “how to live”, to go back to the quote from Gurewitz. It's not that I don't appreciate positive elements found in gaming (please see my last post about that), I just don't see educators making everything into a game.

At any rate, Prensky has certainly given educators a lot to consider as far as pondering the needs of digital natives. The risk of not properly utilizing technology in schools is that we may widen the chasm between tech use in private time and educational non-tech time. If students are developing skills and interests that educators ignore, it’s possible that some learners won’t “know how to live” – or won’t know how to use some of those skills for purposes other than entertainment or personal/social reasons. Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan argue here that their brain research shows that "new technology can have both positive and negative effects on our brains. Digital natives tend to have greater multi-tasking skills, improved peripheral vision and higher efficiency using technology. However, Digital Immigrants appear to have more advanced people skills - better face to face contact, more ability to solve problems, work in groups, and express empathy". Maybe we need to recognize and remember the positive elements that digital immigrants are bringing to the equation.

Small and Vorgan also have suggested that multitasking may not be such a positive development either.
In their article entitled Is Multitasking Really More Efficient?, the authors suggest that “though multitasking often makes us feel like we are getting more done when we divide our attention, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between – a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It’s not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another – it takes a few moments.”

The authors also cite neuroscientists and psychologists while stating that "the bottom line is that the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task than when multitasking, despite most people’s perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask." The authors do go on to say that listening to music (if it is music you enjoy) can be helpful to thought processes.

Educators should recognize that digital learners are used to multitasking without expecting that all students will perform better doing more than one thing at a time. Perhaps there are times when listening to music unobtrusively works in the classroom or the library, but there are still times when teacher need to help students to focus on one task. If we all help drive students further towards always doing two or three things at once, I think we would be a doing a number of them a grave disservice. I would say the same about students’ preference for playing games, not to mention all of the other “toys” learners access today: what can educators do to appeal to those who are used to fast-paced environments, quick decision-making and problem-solving opportunities, collaborating with others, learning at individual rates, and so on? First, recognize that we may not be able to change students’ proclivities in these areas (as Prensky suggests). Second, I would hope that educators are already planning with these developments in mind, as well as looking toward what technology can assist these learners.For those of us who can’t create games to teach everything, one good checklist for engaging digital learners can be found at The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers.

Furthermore, on an individual and personal level, what games, applications and tools can we easily become a little more familiar with? For example, how many of us have watched or played the most popular games? Don’t many of us make time to read novels that popular with our students? If we really value games as important to our learners and recognize that there may be positive elements in many of these games, shouldn’t we learn a little bit about them? Who’s up for some research?

A Manifesto and What Comes Next

2009-01-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

http://graham.thewebtailor.co.uk/archives/welsh%20communist%20manifesto.jpg

Pictured above: a different kind of manifesto altogether (NEITHER one is Joyce Valenza!)

Well, ladies and gents, the first post for the new year sees us diving into some deep waters. It’s time to look at - wait for it – a MANIFESTO! No, not the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf, but Joyce Valenza’s Manifesto for the 21st Century Librarian. I haven’t even read Marx and Engel’s manifesto, and that was made more than a century and a half ago! Well comrades, Marx was certainly a leading thinker, and Valenza appears to be one as well. My first response was Holy Cats! What a comprehensive and overwhelming piece of writing! My second response was that the level of educational leadership presumed/proposed by Valenza was a great motivator, akin to Robin Williams as Prof. Keating in Dead Poets Society telling his students to make their lives “extraordinary” and “seize the day!” Like Marx inspiring a revolution, Valenza’s manifesto sounds like/reads like a rallying point. Even her introduction to one version of the manifesto sounds like a call to arms:

“Teacher-librarians cannot expect to assume a leadership role in information technology and instruction, and we cannot claim any credibility with
students, faculty, or administrators, if we do not recognize and
thoughtfully exploit the paradigm shift of the past two years.” (Valenza, preamble to Manifesto 2006 - http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200610TagTeamTech.pdf)

I confess that the assumption of leadership in schools was not a given in my mind. However, if teacher-librarians can embody all of the elements listed in the manifesto, it’s clear that is exactly what they should be doing. Another version of the manifesto is available online in wiki form, and you can find it here. This manifesto is one that I think should be made widely available and promoted, because I’m not sure that most people realize where teacher-librarians are now, are going to be and where they want to be. At the same time, we’ve got to be prepared for a critical backlash; check out this vitriolic rant against another librarian manifesto.

My third response to the manifesto is, “My gosh, I’ve got a lot to learn!” At this juncture I am a classroom teacher and not a librarian, so there are a number of ideas that don’t currently apply to my position. But overall, the “paradigm shift” Valenza mentions is one that all educators need to know. In the end, it is as simple (or complicated) as recognizing that what Thomas Frey identifies as “rapidly changing technologies and equally fast-changing mindset of library patrons” (http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120) are equally important to all learners and educators. In Darren Wershler-Henry and Mark Surman’s Commonspace: Beyond Virtual Community, the authors suggest that these changes demand new ways of thinking:

“The Internet is a much more complex beast than it was even a couple of years ago. Its increasing intricacy demands more sophisticated models than the received ideas about virtual community. Without some new theories, we’re like the proverbial blind men disagreeing about what each is experiencing” (Wershler-Henry and Surman, 2001). They go on to “attempt to take a step backwards and get a look at the larger picture (without stepping in a big heap of elephant [doodie]”. I believe that in some ways that getting a new perspective to look at the bigger panoramic view is what can be accomplished from our reflection on Valenza’s manifesto. And who wants to step in elephant excrement, anyway?

Aside from the manifestos, other readings for this post were taken from School Libraries Worldwide Volume 14, Number 2. One that caught my attention right away because of its relevance to a definite paradigm shift was Videogames in the Library? What is the World Coming To?

As opposed to a quiet game of chess, library users may soon find themselves immersed in online games. Author Kathy Sandford has identified a number of positive aspects of online gaming, and here are a few that hit home from my personal experience:

“Players are required to constantly make decisions, problem-solve, and respond to the computer; what they do makes a difference to he outcome of the game. They are motivated to practice, develop skills, and seek out alternative ways to complete a game. In order to successfully complete a game, players must have a broad, overall understanding of the goals as well as a grasp of specific knowledge and skills”.

I’ve been watching my kids at home and I am somewhat amazed to admit that Sandford is right. A big challenge is ahead if we are to embrace widely diverse games as part of learning experiences, as well as ensuring our physical spaces are conducive to learning through gaming.

On the other hand, in Keith McPherson’s article Shaping Global Criticality with School Libraries the author references a Canadian study done by the Media Awareness Network which tells us that 75% of the 9-17 year-old respondents were not aware of advertising incorporated into the online product-centred games they were playing. This is one example which McPherson points towards while arguing that “school librarians must heighten their leadership role in teaching students the multiliteracy and critically literacy skills necessary to participate effectively in today's multilinguistic, multicultural and multimodal communication environments, and to avoid falling victim to the risks associated with unvetted information.” We’ve almost come full circle back to the idea of librarians or teacher-librarians taking leadership roles, which is, for me, perhaps my most recent revelation. McPherson’s entire article is entirely thought-provoking and logical, and he even includes lesson plans (which I have not had time to digest yet). Yet I kept finding my thoughts return to the leadership issue – it is clear that many have come to the conclusion that it is not enough to make resources, technology, experience, and so on available – teacher-librarians need to do much more to keep moving forward.

Where do we go from here?

2008-12-07T13:59:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2008-11-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would direct those unfamiliar with blogs and blogging to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://jacquiesgreatdigitaladventure.blogspot.com/

http://alangelaar.blogspot.com/

http://jansjourneysinweb20.blogspot.com/

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

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

Refreshing Professional Development: Blogging in/as/for PD

2008-11-23T15:10:00.001-08:00

Dear Valued Educator,

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

Yours Sincerely,
A Questioning Fellow Teacher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doug Johnson

Langwitches

Weblogg-ed

Web 2 Tools for the Read/Write/ Web

Classroom 2.0

RSS Feeds - All You Can Eat (and More)

2008-11-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2008-11-13T18:15:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blog 7 - VoiceThread and where it could take us

2008-11-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wiki, Let's Go.

2008-10-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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