Seven Summits Librarian

Fast Forward

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:38:00 +0000

by Michael | Ruiz

A few months into the new blended learning model at Rossland Secondary School and we are able to take some time to reflect on the successes, as well as discuss the adjustments we need to make. We know it takes time to implement change and for the students and teachers to adjust to the new system and realize that the program is still in its infancy. So this past Friday, a group of teachers from RSS, accompanied by principal Karen Lavender, were able to catapult into the future: the future of blended learning. Our visit to Thomas Haney Secondary in Maple Ridge, BC provided us with a glimpse into what blended learning looks like after twenty years.

What we discovered is a student focused learning environment built on personalized learning, flexibility and trust. At THSS it is all about the students. Principal Sean Nosek provided us with a student led guided tour of the facilities. The two grade 12 students who spent the morning walking us through the beautiful building, designed specifically for a blended learning environment, were able to provide us with an honest look at self-directed learning. Both girls have been at THSS since grade 8 and share a common language; they spoke of strong student teacher bonds, mutual trust, self-directed learning, learning outcomes, flexible learning, negotiating and responsibility.

This is the language that blended learning promotes. With more student teacher contact time, relationships are built on more than just curricular outcomes. In the past three months alone I have come to know more about my students than in last three years. Thinking back to your high school days, it is the teacher you remember not necessarily the course content. Our student tour guide echoed this sentiment when asked what she thought of self-directed learning, “I know my teachers care about me.” Teachers inspire, guide, facilitate and support students. Both the RSS and THSS learning models provide students with an increase of one on one time with teachers to personalize their learning and discuss ways of meeting learning outcomes in diverse ways, as well as explaining outcomes and getting assistance when needed.

Walking through the Great Halls at THSS, provided us with a clear vision of where RSS is headed in the future. The similarities between the two schools are remarkable in terms of Teacher Advisory, scheduled seminar times and flexible learning blocks. It was also reassuring, as well as quite humorous, to realize that no matter the school, teenagers will be teenagers. The group of students surrounded with laptops, texting on smartphones and chatting happens at all schools but when we talked to them about their learning they were able to share the blog they created about their pet lizards and demonstrate it was meeting the learning outcomes for part of their biology class. Similar to RSS, the students are responsible for planning their day, outlining their short and long term goals and meeting with their advisor each morning to make sure they are on track.

Staying on pace has been a challenge for some of our students who are use to having to meet deadlines. Although our courses have suggested timelines we can learn from THSS as they found that implementing more specific deadlines benefitted all students. Sean was clear in making the distinction between self-directed and self-paced learning. Students are still able to work at their own pace and move ahead in their learning but should be able to complete a course within the allotted time. Our students are beginning to see the benefits of creating daily and weekly goals in order to complete courses by semester’s end. They are learning valuable skills in time management and goal setting.

Our visit to THSS provided us with a boost of confidence knowing that we are on the right track, understanding that we can learn from the experiences of others, and leaving us with proof that blended learning provides an environment for student centered learning. Our entire visit was focused on the students; the administration and teachers took a backseat in order to showcase powerful learning. From our private concert with a young woman who writes and sings her own songs, to our gourmet lunch prepared by grade 9 students in the Chef’s cooking course, and our student tour guides, as well as the students we spoke with around the school, there was no doubt that if you give blended learning a chance students will flourish.

Learning to unlearn: taking a new perspective on education

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 06:15:00 +0000

This is the second post in a series on implementing blended learning. The first post, When A Vision Becomes A Reality is available here.

Today was serendipitous. I learned of Nikhil Goyal. At 17 years old, Goyal is the author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School. Fed up with an education system that felt like a waste of time, unrelated to anything in the real world, Goyal took control of his own learning to pursue his interests in politics, current affairs and math through books, lectures and online courses. “Millions of young people are being told to shut up, sit down, and listen each and every day,” writes the young senior at Syosset High School, in New York. Goyal stresses the education system needs to foster creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills to prepare students for an economic reality based on innovation and entrepreneurship. Schools should be focusing on “creativity, imagination, discovery, and project-based learning.” And he is right.

Although Goyal’s ideas are reflected in the BC Education Plan, professional journals and blog posts, what is unique is that Goyal is a student. Reading about this young man came at a perfect time. We have lost a handful of students since we implemented blended learning at Rossland Secondary School. No more than last year, or most other years but for different reasons. It is not because they couldn’t get the classes they needed, such as a senior science where only a handful students may want the course, or even a scheduling conflict. Blended learning has eliminated issues such as the inability to offer courses with low enrollment. In fact, it has enabled us to offer courses for just a few students who are interested in less popular courses, as well as provide students with several new courses offerings, such as Social Justice 12. No, the students we lost said, “I just want a teacher to tell me what to do.”

Fair enough really. We have taught them that school works best when you sit quietly, listen to your teachers, study what you are told and get high marks on the test. For many this system is comfortable, predictable and satisfying. It is a lot of work to ask our students to be responsible for their time, their learning paths, their progress and their goals. These are skills that many of us are still struggling with as adults but imagine if you were taught these competencies from an early age? We need to foster independent thinkers while helping them collaborate towards meaningful, real world endeavors. As I talk to our students I see the ones who are eager to embrace this challenge and view it as life long learning. I also know that we can’t expect all students to adopt these changes immediately. It is going to be hard work teaching them how to unlearn years of schooling and it won’t happen overnight.

In the coming weeks, we will be offering students a chance to learn how to unlearn by attending seminar sessions dedicated to creating inquiry based and personalized learning. These sessions will lead students through the process of connecting their interests, passions and important questions to learning outcomes across the curriculum. Students will then be guided through the inquiry process in order to formulate their focus, learn effective research skills, connect with experts in the community and globally, and analyze and synthesize information in order to create new understandings that they will be able to share and communicate to others.

We aren’t where we want to be yet, but it is only the third week of September. This learning journey has just begun. In the video clip below, Valerie Hannon, Board Director of the Innovation Unit, London UK, which works internationally to promote innovation in public services, talks about the future role of schools as a ‘base camp’, where students come together to discuss their learning beyond the school walls. Personalized learning will be much more common.

When A Vision Becomes Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:14:00 +0000

Personally, I believe this system is a good thing, especially for grade 12's. In a year we will be adults and will be forced to take our lives into our own hands and motivate ourselves, because nobody else will care. With the old system, we would be completely unprepared for life outside of high school, relying on teachers and parents to tell us what to do and when to do it. My dad, as a college instructor, experiences this all the time. However, the new system will force us to take responsibility for our actions, something that I find quite liberating. Whether we fail or succeed is completely up to us. Welcome to real life kids. Grade 12 student at Rossland Secondary School commenting on the new Blended Learning model at RSS

The vision of implementing a blended learning model at RSS has been in the works for several years, as it takes time to research, discuss and produce a clear understanding of what this educational model will look like in reality. The last week has been one of intense learning by everyone: teachers, administration, students, administrative and educational assistants and parents. The learning curve has been steep but by Friday everyone seemed to be getting into the swing of things.

There was information overload on the first day when we presented the new model to the students. We started off the day with grades 10 to 12 in the gym and showed them an introductory video (http://rssblendedlearning.wordpress.com/) I worked on during the summer as part of a master’s course in the Teacher-Librarian Distance Learning program at U of A. We then provided three different seminar sessions to give students a chance to get detailed information and ask questions. Many left excited and immediately saw the possibilities, while others were hesitant to change a system that had been working fine for them.

To ensure student success in this new model, my colleague Bernie Hofmann and I spent a few weeks developing the ‘Navigator’ course housed on Moodle. As students will be navigating their way through learning, both online and face to face, we needed to be sure they were prepared with tools and information necessary to plan their learning paths. The Navigator course provides an introduction to Moodle; a technology tool box covering Google Docs and Google Calendar, social bookmarking, Easybib and social networking. Students are also required to do a personal inventory of their learning styles. The course includes video tutorials on how to use the student Progress Checker: a tool to help students, teachers, teacher advisors, and parents keep track of a student’s progress as well as create short and long term goals. Finally, students have to set up their Digital Portfolio using Blogger or Wordpress.

I was surprised at students’ resistance to using Twitter for school. As a teacher-librarian, Twitter is my number one source for professional development. I quickly realized the need for a future seminar session on how to use Twitter to create personal learning networks. (See Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli’s new book Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education).

Many students breezed through the technology tool box but others felt overwhelmed by the new tools without any immediate application; they often questioned the need to use them. I know we learn best when we apply our learning to real life situations, and having students sign up for these web 2.0 tools before they have a need goes against this but having the accounts will save time. I will be providing seminar sessions for inquiry based projects and will go into more detail about the various tools when they have a context to learn them.

By the end of the week, students had signed up for the courses they wished to take first semester and linearly. Each student has a teacher advisor who makes sure students set short and long term goals and keep up to date with their progress checker. The progress checker also allows parents to see their child's progress in all of their courses. It is a key piece to making sure students don't fall through the cracks. The teacher advisory session runs every morning to check in with students, take attendance and provide guidance and support.

Throughout the week I have witnessed true learning. A group of students gathered in the library lab listening to one of their contemporaries teach a lesson in Social Studies. They told me they have divided up the reading and each is responsible for teaching the others the material. Without realizing it, these students are practicing effective communication and collaboration skills in an authentic situation. Other students took the initiative to rearrange the tables in the science/math resource area so they could collaborate more easily. With the removal of rigid timetables, bell schedules and traditional classes students are choosing to learn in ways that best suit them.

Our students are still young and although change is sometimes difficult to accept they adapt quickly. The real challenge has been for teachers. Some have worked at this school for their entire careers and to ask them to rethink not only what they teach, but how they teach is no small task. Blended learning pushes teachers to examine their practice, collaborate with other educators, create personal learning networks and most of all let go of some control. Students have the opportunity to examine learning outcomes and design inquiry projects to meet outcomes across several disciplines. As one student commented on the school wide Moodle forum, “ I feel that the fact that we can incorporate some of our own interests in our projects and school work will make the learning more interesting for the students”. We are giving students much more independence and control of their own learning paths.

It also means that teachers are no longer the ‘expert in the room’. For many, the technology necessary to run a blended learning program is difficult to learn. We are asking a lot: create courses in Moodle, use Google Docs and Calendar and incorporate web 2.0 tools. The beauty is that teachers are learning these new skills alongside students and sharing in the metacognitive side of learning: excitement, frustration and satisfaction. It has been the students who have taught us how to sync the tools to iphones and ipads, showing us short cuts and problem solving technical issues. They feel empowered teaching teachers.

Here is a comment posted on the student forum that sums up how many are feeling about blended learning at RSS.

I, myself, am very excited to see where this goes. I think great things can come of this program, however risky. I think it will test even the brightest students and prepare us further for post-secondary education. I can see this flourishing. It really is quite interesting to see how it will turn out. I think it will throw a reality check into the faces of RSS's senior students. Can we handle our own education as well as we think we can? Are we truly ready to figure things out on our own in the future? This program is teaching much more than just technology and academics. There is certainly more than meets the eye here. I am truly curious as to how the small school that is Rossland Secondary will handle such a gutsy leap.

Yes, we are taking risks and we will make mistakes. Showing students that learning can be messy is a valuable lesson.

Photo by Ali Edwards

Pushing change through collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:59:00 +0000

We are pushing forward at an incredible pace. The train is out of the station. We were given the word 'go' and we took off. This past week has been one of ideas, fermenting for the past eight months, and the elements are moving into place. I have spent the last three days head to head with my colleagues: working in teams to get serious about education. What is it we are teaching our students? Why? How do we provide flexibility, choice and options? The answer is through hard work. Questioning practice. Talking teaching. Most importantly it comes from sharing ideas.

Collaboration is something I have been pushing. The force that moves our work forward, and in turn our students. As a teacher-librarian, this concept is not foreign. My work is collaboration. But what I've witnessed this week goes beyond the relationships I build working with one teacher and their students. The students have left the building and it is that last week. The one where we tidy up, rearrange, and plan for September, usually alone in our classroom. The library has been a meeting space: tutorials for Moodle, providing one on one assistance with technology and ideas, and a venue to sit with a small group and toss ideas around, quickly sparking an 'ah, ha' moment and the vision is clear.
I have never thought so deeply about practice and I know the same is true for my colleagues.
Enjoy the summer and let those ideas brew and become a reality in September.

Forging ahead with confidence in a digital world

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:46:00 +0000

I write this only hours after two separate presentations this afternoon. The first was to my colleagues and administration at a staff meeting. The second was to the school board, district staff, which included the superintendent, director of education and the director of technology and human resources, as well as a gym full of teachers, union representatives and parents. I spoke with confidence, conviction and passion relaying the importance of using the technology and web 2.0 tools to move districts, schools and students forward in a digital age. Reflecting on the day, I can not help be amazed at how easily the right words came and how I was able to convey all the knowledge I had acquired over the past few months. Looking into the eyes of those in the audience I could see they were engaged and listening. They were learning.

It isn't about the technology.
It is about what the technology enables us to do. Learning the tools themselves is only a small part of the equation. I enjoy learning and playing with Web 2.0 tools. As Steve Hargadon notes in "Educational Networking: The important role Web 2.0 will play in education", Web 2.0 "plays to the strengths of educators - curiosity and love of learning". These tools provide low barrier entry points as they are easily accessible to everyone, free and user friendly. Exploring these online tools with a cohort provided insight into the differentiated learning we all experienced. Reading my colleagues blogs provided valuable information into the metacognitive aspect of teaching oneself a new tool and exploring its capabilities and implications on a personal and professional level. Some of us were more comfortable with technology and we pushed ourselves to explore further whether through voice, new and creative ways to use a tool or taking that tool directly into the classroom or workplace. For others, simply starting a blog and signing up for Facebook were firsts. Watching, for example, Lois' own journey into social networks and blogging has been a great learning experience for me. Her excitement, joy, amazement, frustrations and reflections enabled me to witness the learning from a new perspective that will help me when I introduce new tools to my own colleagues who have little hands on experience with Web 2.0.
Regardless of our starting points, we have all found our voices and shared our learning through our use of Web 2.0 and educational networking. Unlike many other online courses that utilize Blackboard for discussion, we have been able to use blogs to further share our individual interpretations of the tools, our feelings during the initial learning stages and the new knowledge we have acquired. Rather than simply having online discussions limited to text, our blogs have become an extension of our individual selves letting our personalities shine through with our developing use of voice, pictures, videos, podcasts and widgets. Brandi's blog was an excellent example of how humour and light heartedness can enliven any topic making it an entertaining, yet educational read. Rob's CNRG radio blog provided me with a fresh perspective on how many of these tools can be used with elementary students. Being immersed in a high school environment means most of our students are already comfortable using technology and learn these tools quickly. I was inspired by many of Rob's innovative ideas and demystifying using Gameboys and other technology with his students. Having an individual from outside the public school system in our class was an added bonus. Tom's blog posts illuminated me on the use of many of these tools in the medical imaging field as well as in his role as a teacher. He had some great ideas for how social network sites could help the government share important information and make their policies more transparent.
Regardless of our initial starting points, we were able to immerse ourselves in inquiry based learning. This experience will in itself benefit our own students when we take risks in our teaching and move away from delivering content to becoming a guide, mentor and facilitator in project based learning. John Dewey was a proponent of this type of learning as is evident in the following, "Education is not an affair of telling and being told but an active and constructive process" (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007). Our foray into Web 2.0 allowed us to investigate, explore, search, quest, research, pursue and study the various tools as well as connect these to our personal and professional lives (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007). As students, we were engaged in our learning because we were actively involved, not simply passive learners. This is important to note when introducing these tools to colleagues, students and even friends. They can not simply watch as you show them how the tools work and move the mouse around at alarmingly fast speeds. They must have the time and freedom to play with these tools, make mistakes without fear of repercussions and connect them with their own lives. During yesterday's presentation to staff I focused on wikis. A few of the teachers are ready to retire and feel there is little need to learn new tools at this stage of the game, and I quote, "If I was ten years younger, I would learn more about technology but I am at the end of my career." In order to engage those individuals I provided them with a reason to use a wiki in their personal lives that would allow them to connect the tool with their interests. They are passionate about hockey and spend a lot of time, energy and paper running a staff hockey pool. I explained how they could eliminate the paper and photocopying while making the information easier to access for everyone involved by using a wiki. Providing a connection between their outside experiences and their professional lives may encourage them to begin their own journeys in a digital environment. The same holds true for the students in our schools; providing them with learning opportunities that bridge their personal experiences and background knowledge with the task at hand sends a message that their lives are important and relevant. As students in EDES 501 we too had to connect our learning to previous knowledge and our personal lives by examining how these tools could be used in a variety of ways outside of our work, solidifying our learning.
As Carol Kuhlthau et al discuss in "Guided Inuiry, Learning in the 21st Century", guided inquiry has a solid foundation in the constructivist approach to learning where students learn through interaction with others, creating a dynamic social environment for learning. Web 2.0 is providing learners with the tools to facilitate guided inquiry and enhance social construction. By examining the inquiry process using the Focus on Inquiry document as a template it becomes apparent that Web 2.0 can be used to facilitate all stages in the inquiry model (p.20). Whether it be a brainstorming tool such as Mind Meister to identify or outline a plan for inquiry in the planning stage or using a social bookmarking tool such as Diigo to retrieve and process information, Web 2.0 can help to further engage students as well as increase their interaction with others helping them to reflect on the process. “What these tools can do is such a transformative complement to the research process that it’s irresponsible not to use them with students” (Foote, 2010). Using a blog or wiki to record the inquiry process provides an opportunity for the learner to have a central hub for resources, feedback, reflections as well as a real audience with which to share his/her work. Final projects and presentation can be created using virtual posters such as Glogster, or mashups utilizing social photo sharing and video sites. The range of tools available to create media rich products are unlimited and have low barriers allowing students to demonstrate their learning using a variety of literacies. These projects can be embedded into a school’s blog or website or even to a local online newspaper so students can make their learning meaningful and applicable to the real world.
It is an exciting time to be a student as educators begin to move from being the purveyors of content to mentors facilitating inquiry based learning. “Technology has initiated an overall shift in pedagogical emphasis from teaching to learning” (Hazari, North, Moreland, 2009). We are beginning to focus on helping our students create essential questions that examine real world problems. Just as problem solving in the real world involves multiple perspectives, we can not expect our students to work in isolation. Web 2.0 provides us with the ability to connect and collaborate with others and it is this social interaction that will increase student empowerment, relevancy and learning. Using the tools of social networking and content creation that our students are so familiar with outside of the classroom will not only teach them how to harness the power of Web 2.o for knowledge acquisition and sharing, it will show them that we value their experiences and recognize their value in education.
It is also an exciting time to be an educator. These tools are creating radical change in all aspects of our lives, and although the field of education is slower to adopt these new developments, we are beginning to witness educational institutions adopt technology, not simply for technology’s sake but for the deep learning opportunities it provides. “This new web is going to dramatically alter the 21st century landscape in education, shaping how students approach learning, how educators approach teaching, and, increasingly, how educators are interacting with, and learning, from each other” (Hargadon). It is the last part of this statement that holds a real connection for me in terms of what I will take away from this learning experience. Over the course of the term I have developed a personal learning network (PLN) that provides me with invaluable professional development that I can access 24/7. I have established a social network of teacher-librarians, administrators, educational lecturers, scholars, and teachers who are passionate about education and eager to push the current boundaries of traditional education settings to encourage others to see the necessity of technology in teaching practices and allowing students to build upon their outside knowledge. My PLN will allow me to continue the learning I started in this course and enable me to connect and collaborate with others in order to continue my journey of sharing my knowledge with my colleagues, administrators, district staff and students.
Although I am proud my learning from this course has transferred over to some of my colleagues, who have taken risks by setting up wikis and delving into inquiry based projects, there is much work to be done. I must bear in mind that not everyone is as ready to adopt change as I am. Buffy Hamilton, in her presentation ‘Pivot points for change: connecting the dots of information literacy with social media’, says it best, “Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find pivot points for change.” Teachers can still use their traditional tools and methods but begin to include new tools such as blogs to help students reflect. Maybe it is because libraries are in the business of change, reflecting the dynamic nature of our world, that I have eagerly embraced Web 2.o and see the ability for technology to invite, encourage participation, spark meaningful conversations and help construct and create knowledge. Marc Prensky recently wrote an article, “H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom” (2010), in which he explains that due to our digital environment we must teach and learn digital wisdom. We are increasingly using technology to store information, access more information, while contributing and collaborating in order to analyze and synthesize knowledge. Prensky argues that the divide between digital immigrants and digital natives will become less relevant, as the need to gain digital wisdom increases. In other words, we must learn how to use technology to enhance our learning and communication. “Digital wisdom means not just manipulating technology easily, or even creatively; it means making wiser decisions because one is enhanced by technology”(Prensky, 2010). This is why it is so important we begin to use these tools with our students now. We need to provide them with the ability to become digitally wise.
My presentations yesterday were the beginning of my journey to facilitate learning of Web 2.o amongst my colleagues, in my own school and across the district. Having just had a conversation with the Director of Human Resources and Technology, it is apparent we are on the same page. With the district’s approval I am planning to facilitate several Web 2.0 workshops, the first on setting up a PLN using RSS aggregators and Twitter. In addition, I have submitted a proposal to create a Web 2.0 course for students to take online in our district. It will have a similar structure as EDES 501, based on inquiry learning, but geared towards younger students. These are steps that will help move us towards the big shift in education that Will Richardson addresses at the end of his book, “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other powerful web tools for the classroom”. With open content, 24/7 learning, access to experts in many fields, and an overwhelming amount of information it is imperative we provide students with ability to know where to find information, how to contribute meaningfully to the repository of knowledge, as well as be critical consumers of information. Who knows what our traditional education system will look like five or ten years down the road. Preparing for and accepting change will provide educators and students with the ability to adapt and thrive in future environments.

Foote, C.. (2010, March). Empowering Students for Life. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(2), 29-31. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1981674901).

Hazari, S., North, A., & Moreland, D.. (2009). Investigating Pedagogical Value of Wiki Technology. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 187-198. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1755224781).

Kuhlthau, C, Maniotes, L, & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided inquiry: learning in the 21st century. Westport, CONN: Libraries Unlimited.

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis,podcasts, and other powerful web tools for the classrom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Teach. Learn. Play. Creating community through blogging.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:46:00 +0000

Communities grow strong as we teach each other, learn together and engage in play. Sharing passions, ideas and questioning assumptions creates a rich environment that fosters continued engagement and curiosity. As an inhabitant of a small mountain town I see proof of this daily. Rosslanders rally around important issues, educate one another about pros and cons, debate, seek solutions to problems and most importantly value the importance of play. When it dumps snow, everyone heads for the hills. The need for a balance between work and play dates back to the founding fathers of Rossland who came together for their first race down Red Mountain back in 1896. We continue to teach, learn and play always remaining a tight knit community with open arms.

So how do we foster this concept of creating strong communities in our personal lives, professional realms and our digital environments? Blogging seems to be the answer. Weblogs, or blogs as they are more commonly known, are collections of reflections and conversations with links and questions that ask readers to respond (Richardson). Moreover, blogs create a strong sense of community as readers/writers 'form rich connections with one another and the content and - because of the reflection and sharing - find great relevance in the material' (EDUCAUSE). The sense of play in blogs emerges when the blogger finds his/her voice, creating the confidence to engage with thoughts of others and entertain new ideas.

1. Reflections on learning the tool
In October 2008, I attended my first British Columbia Teacher Librarian Association (BCTLA) conference in Victoria, BC. Not only was I a conference newbie but I had only been in the position of TL for two months, previously having been a classroom teacher of most subjects under the sun. With the signed promise I would start a Master's program in Teacher Librarianship I was bestowed the honour of TL. I was hoping the conference would provide me with a better idea of what a TL did and a starting point for my own learning. Looking through the conference brochure I was attracted to a workshop on blogging, another discussing technology in the classroom given by Jennifer Branch and finally one on graphic novels. I hadn't met Jennifer but had only recently submitted my application to U of A for the DLTL program and thought I might get the chance to introduce myself. The blogging workshop was my first introduction to the tool and I was immediately hooked. The presenters were two young teachers who had been using blogs in Social Studies and Communications, as well as the library. I saw evidence of continued dialogue between students outside of the classroom, videos they created and uploaded, as well as posts by students focusing on their particular interests in current events. The presenters discussed privacy issues and settings on blogs to only allow students to comment and how a teacher could monitor comments prior to posting them. They even provided an assessment rubric for blogs. I left the session feeling prepared to start my own journey with blogs. But I can still hear Jennifer's voice from the back of the room, she was a participant in the session, saying "Blogging is dead". Oh no, here's this exciting tool that is completely new to me and it's already dead?
I have my doubts that Jennifer would still argue blogging is dead considering the proliferation of high quality educational blogs. Walt Crawford, a director and managing editor at LYRASIS leadership network conducted his own study on blogs that found 'in 2009, the silly claim that "blogging is dead" seemed to have increased'. His findings reveal that although there are less blogs the possible reason for this was the growing use of Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed for communication that had previously been short blog posts. For me, these tools are simply leads to the bigger conversations and ideas that center around blogs.
I was not to be the death of blogging and immediately returned to work and set up my first blog with blogger. I choose blogger as it had been recommended in the workshop as one of the easiest to navigate and it was simple to get started. My first blog was Rossland Secondary Library and my initial post was Michael Wesch's video "A Vision of Students Today" which upon reflection was quite appropriate. I don't know what I thought would happen: students would watch it in awe and the comments and discussion would grow like wild fire; they would be so engaged as to show it to their parents; links and other resources would pour in and the blog would take off. Well none of that happened and it could be due to the fact that I hadn't realized the filters, at the time, blocked Youtube so nobody saw more than a black screen. The blog grew as a place to upload covers of new books and reviews, post student work, link to interesting articles, profile student fundraisers and awareness campaigns. It became a library website and I continue to update it regularly and once in awhile there is a comment or two but not to the extent Will Richardson describes as real or complex blogging.
Learning to post pictures and videos, add links and create a personalized blog was all very simple. I navigated the settings so that I can moderate comments before they are posted and quickly found that I could add 'gadgets' to my page. Only recently did I learn that you can use a trackback function in the settings to be notified if one of your posts has been referenced by another blog, which can allow you to monitor the popluarity of a post. Recently blogger notified me that they had created new templates as part of their new draft.blogger and so I changed the look and feel of the blog. The one downfall to changing the template is that the particular one I choose takes quite awhile to load. Although I like the look I may need to use a simpler templated to improve the loading time. Over the past few months I have added other widgets that I have learned about from this course, all making it a more personalized space that allows students, educators and parents to access resources. The blog contains links to many other sites, additional blogs I follow, polls, videos, links to classroom wikis and student work. In addition, I will create posts on collaborative units in which I am involved so students can access trailfire links or a pathfinder I have created through pageflakes. It has become an indispensable tool for me to link the library with the school and the community.
The real learning that has occured for me since the beginning of this course is the use of a feed reader. Using the RSS aggregator Google Reader has truly revolutionized the manner in which I use blogs for professional development as well as helping me manage online reading. I knew what RSS was but had never before set up a feed reader, nor subscribed to any blogs. I had a few favorites bookmarked but wouldn't read them on a regular basis. The logistics of establishing a Google Reader were simple as I already have a Goolge account and used blogger. The benefit of being provided with a good list of educational blogs to follow was key in the overall success of learning about the tool. The 'blogosphere' functions on linking, commenting and feedback so ideas spread quickly. "Being referenced by a popular blogger brings instant attention and often credibility, and repeated linking enhances the reputation and authority of a blogger. Through this system of recommendations and referrals, a collaborative filtering capacity has emerged in the blogosphere" (EDUCAUSE). I quickly added other blogs to follow that had been referenced in the blogs I was subscribing to. I currently subscribe to 54 blogs, the majority for professional purposes but do have a few skiing related ones along with the Canadian Avalanche Society bulletins. As Google Reader provides the latest posts from each blog it is easy to scan the titles and the first few lines to see if you are interested in further reading. Starring and sharing articles has been useful as I will often want to go back to particular posts when I have more time or share them with colleagues and administration. "With feed reader, learning from edubloggers goes from a frustrating search through thousands of links to quickly browsing the thoughts and ideas of trusted writers" (Ferriter). RSS feed readers and a list of professional educational blogs will be part of the session I run for district staff on creating a professional learning network. My colleagues, for the most part, are as unaware as I was a few months back about the opportunities provided by technology for continued professional development through engaging with others online through web 2.0 tools.

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of personal learning
I began this post with the idea that blogs can foster community growth by teaching, learning and playing together. Like most school districts in British Columbia, SD 20 is facing cuts, school closures and layoffs. With declining enrollment and an already small community, discussions have been centered around either closing the elementary school (K-5) and amalgamating with the high school or closing the high school (6 - 12) and busing our students to the next town. In a tight knit community such as Rossland, with a distinct history and population, it is very important to keep our kids here where they can walk to school, go home for lunch and see their teachers out in the community. As a parent to two young children this is a very important issue and I want to know what is going on and how to become part of the solution. The Visions for Small Schools Committee has recently established a blog in order to keep everyone informed and as a forum for debate, discussion and questions. I have subscribed to the blog and will help move the discussions forward by commenting and linking to research I have done as well as to other blogs. "The greatest merit of blogs is that the members of a community can exchange thoughts on a public channel" (Wang, Hsua). Face to face meetings have been held but blogs enable people to reflect and think about what they want to say rather than letting emotions take over as so often happens in public forums when discussing issues close to the heart.
Blogs can also be a perfect medium for sharing your thoughts and experiences. As friends excitedly plan their year abroad with their two children discussion has come up as to the best way to document and allow others to partake virtually in their journey. Having spent the better part of the last three months discovering web 2.0 tools I suggested blogger as the answer. It doesn't have to be hosted on a separate server with fees; it can be easily accessed everywhere (maybe not China anymore); videos and photos can be added in no time; and it is a chronological record of their year that can be added to by their children, commented on by friends and family and shared with colleagues. I too will use this tool when we decide the time is right to pack all our things into storage, take a year's leave of absence and travel the world. Until then, I will continue blogging for professional reasons through this blog. I do not have the time to have a personal blog at the moment as blogs must be updated on a regular basis to encourage responses and readership. I have come to enjoy the process of writing in a public forum and hope to find a personal reason to write in a less academic way when I have the time. I thoroughly enjoy following the recreational blogs of friends who continue to post about their adventures in the mountains, on land and at sea. I can live vicariously through their playfulness.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of professional learning.
When I read Will Richardson's book, 'Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms' I became aware of the true power of blogging. What I had been doing with the library blog was not actually blogging but simply creating a website in the form of a blog. Nothing wrong with that but it wasn't tapping in to the powerful learning and thinking that blogging can foster. According to Richardson, "links with anaylysis and synthesis that articulate a deeper understanding or relationship of the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind" is real blogging. This type of blogging promotes critical and analytical thinking skills as the blogger is reflecting on what he/she has read from a variety of sources, synthesized these ideas and come to new conlcusions, all with the audience in mind to encourage a discussion to be started. Furthermore, complex blogging, according to Richardson involves extending the analysis and synthesis over a long period of time to build upon posts, links and comments. Inherent in this type of blogging are critical reading skills, as the individual looks for important ideas to write about. Having to write blog posts on each of the web 2.o tools for this class has led me to this type of real blogging. My personal experiences are included, letting my audience get to know me and what I think about professional topics providing the blog with a more distinctive voice and feel.
This process did not happen overnight. My first posts discussed my own learning and how I could transfer that learning to my personal and professional realms. As I began to read articles and books on the tools and their uses in education, my own ideas were reinforced and were expanded upon. This read/write/think/link that Richardson discusses creates that community of learners or an affinity space. Not only am I linking back to blog posts I have read through Google Reader, I am part of a forum for social constructivist learning. "According to social constructivism theory, knowledge is generated through social intercourse, and through this interaction, we gradually accumulate advances in our levels of knowing" (Kanjika & Anderson, 1998). Although, the discussion around my own blog is relatively minimal, consisting of my professor and classmates, I am actively commenting, questionning, and seeking dialogue through many of the blogs I read. I have connected with individuals and shared ideas and documents to further discussion. One blog in particular, written by Brian Kuhn a technology director for the Maple Ridge school district, has led me into worthwhile discussion around creating flexible schedules in the highschool and examining blended learning environments. Not only is it somewhat humourous we share the same last name, but it is serendipitous that we share similar ideas about the role technology plays in creating a new model for education. My learning becomes more meaningful when I am "able to exchange ideas and to negotiate meanings with ... peers in a social learning environment" (Jonasssen & Reeves).In addition, I contribute to the discussions on the BCTLA Forum, which is a type of blog focusing on more of a discussion framework. Through these interactions I have been introduced to new ideas, pushed my own thinking and revisited previously held assumptions, all the while being connected to a community of engaged educators.

My RSS feed reader and the blogs I subscribe to are part of my personal learning network that provides me with professional development on a continuous basis. Richard Elmolre, professor of educational leadership at Harvard notes, "there are few portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter" (Ferriter). Blogs have created this portal and there has been a new interest in communities of professional collaborative knowledge. This forum pushes educators in their own thinking through the comments and questions of others, as well as links, bringing a transparency to the practice of teaching. Never would I have been engaged on such a level with educators from around the world in such interesting conversations. In addition, blogging has made it possible for me to express my own ideas as a teacher and leader within my community and abroad. It has allowed me to find my voice and share my ideas with others. Not only have I published my blog link in school newsletters and on the library blog, but have included it on various social network sites for professional use and sent the link to the superintendent, director of education, and the technology team in the district. I want to engage in dialogue with these individuals while providing them with links and research to further their understanding of the role of technology in education.

All of these skills - critical and analytical thinking, finding your voice, and synthesizing knowledge to produce new ideas - are essential for students to succeed in the world today and the workplaces of tomorrow. Lisa Zawilinski proposes that "blogging is an easy way to begin preparing elementary students for the new literacies of the internet". Blogs broaden the audience for student writing and thinking, while providing a collaborative atmosphere for discussion that does not always occur with all students in a classroom. Blogging "can serve as a strong equalizer that enables participants to raise their comfort levels regarding expressions of different perspectives" (Wang & Hsua). As students seek answers to their question, as well as solutions, they read different types of text, evaluate the information, synthesize their findings and communicate them to a broader audience. These skills emphasis 'higher order thinking' skills, that Zawilinski cleverly terms HOT blogging. HOT blogging requires "students to negotiate among multiple perspectives" and it is this teamwork that is necessary in our digital environment and global economy.

Blogging in the classroom can take a variety of forms from literature blogs based on a novel or a work of non-fiction to math and science blogs that introduce new topics and background information. Will Richardson does an excellent job of showcasing various blogs used in the classroom across the curriculum. What is important to keep in mind when introducing blogs to students is creating a comfort level with the technology through introductory hands on workshops; discussing netiquette and privacy online; and providing examples of good blogs and appropriate comments and feedback to the writers. Students need to be encouraged to read and respond to what others have written creating a community of learners who teach, learn and play together.

Non-linked sources
Crawford, W.. (2010, March). But Still They Blog. Online, 34(2), 58-60. Retrieved April 6, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1980426861).

Wang, S., & Hsua, H.. (2008). Reflections on Using Blogs to Expand In-class Discussion. TechTrends, 52(3), 81-85. Retrieved April 6, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1607549361).

Jonassen, D. H. & Reeves, T. C. (1996). Learning with technology: Using computers as cognitive tools. In Jonassen, D. H. (Ed.) Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 693-720). New York: Macmillan Press.

Kanuka, H. & Anderson, T. (1998). Online social interchange, discord, and knowledge construction. Journal of Distance Education, 13(1).

Bringing it all home with Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:33:00 +0000

Your personal and professional online profile is growing out of control: Facebook status updates, new posts to your various blogs, uploads to your YouTube account, photos on Flickr, screencasts for students, additional bookmarks on diigo and you're loosing control of how to disseminate all that information so everyone is aware of what's going on in your web 2.0 world. The 140 word microblogging tool, Twitter, could be the answer. Twitter's humble roots as a simple udate tool answering the question 'What are you doing?' have morphed into a sophisticated marketing tool, communication platform, resource base and personal learning network (PLN).

1. Reflections on learning about the tool
"What's Twitter?" asked a colleague who was viewing a power point by Ross Todd on Web 2.0 tools.
"Oh, it's a web 2.0 tool that limits you to 140 characters with each Tweet. I don't use it. I don't have time for yet another thing," I replied.
I can't actually believe I said that. Not having even tried Twitter, I had dismissed it as something that would take up more time and provide no return. I have since learned you can't write something off until you've tried it. My original perception was that Twitter was used similarly to social network sites and used to continuously inform other tweeters what you were doing. Facebook was already a guilty pleasure I was using to keep posted on friends and family. Still, I started by searching other people on Twitter to see what was going on. A big name in mountain biking is Steve Peat, a British rider who finally won the World Cup after eleven years of being at the top but never taking the gold at that specific event. His tweets focused on training rides, dirt biking, back and forth tweets with other famous riders and updates on going to the pub to drink his favorite beer, Stella. I felt like I was spying and privy to conversations that were none of my business. Like many who have only heard of Twitter the negative comments focus on three things:
"Twitter takes too much time, the content is of questionable value and it promotes social (or, anti-social) myopic-ness" (Dunlap and Lowenthal). Web 2.0 is shrinking the world but can often contribute to a self-centered focus that looses touch with the important issues in our communities and around the globe. Twitter would only emphasize individuals' obsession with themselves. No thanks.
A few months later, I signed up for a Twitter account (@nicolakuhn) to experience microblogging first hand, use it on a regular basis for three months and make an informed decision - to Twitter or not to Twitter? The initial sign up was easy but I quickly discovered I didn't know how Twitter worked. What did @userid mean? Was that a reply to the original tweet or was that an answer to another tweet? Was the tweet directed to someone else but came from the @userid person? Ok, so I realized if a post had @userid it was a reply to someone. What about the tiny.url or bit.ly? And then there's the #(hashtags)? Could I figure out this cryptic code to make sense of any tweets? Finding people to follow on Twitter was made easy with recommendations by Joanne to create a PLN focusing on educators using technology in education. Joanne Dunlap and Patrick Lowenthal in Horton Hears a Tweet suggest that if educators use Twitter in the classroom it is important to provide students "with a list of professionals who are active, relevant contributors" in order to share and model professional ways to communicate and engage with the Twitter community. These contacts were a great start and from my initial list I was able to find others I wanted to follow and add to my PLN. Unlike other SNS, Twitter allows for 'asymmetric relationships' where I can follow someone without them approving me as a 'follower' or having them follow me. A positive to this type of relationship is that if we are to use it with students we are not intruding on their personal networking space.
With a 140 character limit you might think tweets would be complete with their own short hand codes that could take years to learn. At least in my PLN that isn't the case and the English language hasn't been corrupted too much. I discovered why all the links started with tiny.url or bit.ly and now use them myself to shorten url addresses to embed on my blog, wikis and in my tweets. In addition, I read up on hashtags and followed a few. The hashtag #teachertuesday is great as educators use it to recommend interesting applications, resources, schools, teachers or anything of interest to other educators on Twitter. Although many of the best posts are retweeting ad nauseum. I was starting to feel more comfortable with Twitter and tweeted a few times with some rather paltry updates. Then I began to check my Twitter account regularly and saw the light, so to speak. The people in my PLN weren't, for the most part (@sabram), providing updates to what they were eating, what airport they were sitting in (Gowalla) or where they were going but linking to excellent resources in terms of journal articles, blogs, news or websites that would allow me to further develop my professional practice. An inital check to my Twitter account and a few hours later I would emerge from the computer having read some very useful articles and blogs regarding education and the role of technology.
Further reading led me to the APIs developed to accompany Twitter and increase its functionality. In essence, you can link your Twitter account to inform everyone of new posts to your blog, updates on Facebook, videos on Youtube, recent uploads to flickr, create polls and screencasts. I managed to get a feed for my blogs and new posts automatically get posted on Twitter. Not only that but you can use an app like Hootesuit to post tweets while you are away on vacation or busy at work. The screen cast below highlights a few of the apps you can use with your Twitter account. This took mere minutes to create and was uploaded to my Twitter account instantly.
http://screenr.com/YTM

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of personal learning

So it might be obvious by now that I don't have much interest in using Twitter to keep constant tabs on friends and family. I don't want to spend all my time on a computer and my FB account provides me with enough information that I don't forsee using Twitter for personal reasons as much as for professional purposes. In his discussion of Twitter as a personal learning tool Steve at Anecdote notes,
"It's a mistake to think Twitter is only for reporting the minute detail of one's life, which by the way is an important activity because it helps up create stronger social bonds. Twitter is also effective for asking questions and getting answers, sharing useful links on the web and getting those frustrations out when things are driving you nuts."
I do enjoy following some of my favorite athletes on Twitter and viewing their photos, training schedules and highlights of races. It is inspiring and motivates me to train and participate in races as well. I have created my twitter mountain bike list consisting of Steve Peat, Rachel Atherton and Brian Lopes. In addition, I get daily tweets from the Dalai Lamai (ok, not really him but from his books) and have found some great author sites for children's literature as well as an author podcast (@AuthorPodcasts) tweet with links to author's reading their works. Twitter also serves another very useful purpose as a marketing tool as can be attested to by its adoption in the corporate world. If you want to promote your product or answer customer inquiries Twitter comes in handy. Helping my husband promote his newest 'off-the-side-of-his-desk' venture, PerformX mountain biking, a rider develoment training team, Twitter will be our amalgamating tool. The FB page is up and running, newest race and rider videos are being created, as well as photos and press releases all of which can be connected to a Twitter account. One of the team riders has his own blog which can also be linked. In conjunction with using Twitter as a marketing tool, making your clients feel part of a community, you can use apps such as Favstar to bit.ly to shorten and track hits on particular links that have been favorited. Twitoaster produces charts and stats showing what tweets got replies and how many have been retweeted. Twitter can also help with market research by polling clients and perspective customers. What about tracking others in a similar niche areas? As you watch your following grow you'll soon be connecting to others in the industry and keep abreast of what they are doing. Twitter can also be a tool to help with branding, creating awareness, trust and loyalty. If your tweets are informative and engaging, rather than shameless promotion, your following will grow. What PerformX needs to be a successful company is riders willing to invest in this development program to become competitors on the world mountain biking circuit. With the promotion of the current riders on the team through blogs, videos, photos all linked throughTwitter updates, PerformX will prove itself as a successful company whose riders reach the podium.

Twitter also has its place to quickly update friends and family to your where abouts and making times to meet, for example '7pm tonight at our house for a potluck' saves time phoning everyone. In addition, you could use it to ask for advice, 'My son won't stop wetting the bed. What tricks do you have?" or provide an opinion on the newest restaurant in town. How about an alert for the latest traffic snarl on your city's streets? There are also groups on Twitter to help you stop smoking or find the best recipe for tonight's dinner. You can simply use it to get the latest updates on your favorite celebs and save thousands not buying 'People' magazine. For now, I will continue to use it for professional purposes but will admit that now I am following people I admire I may be checking it more often.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of professional learning

Twitter has become an indespensible tool for my own professional development. Links to journals, blogs, papers and hashtags for #edchat and #teachertuesday have connected me with engaged educators around North America to establish my own personal learning network. As educators we are aware that learning takes place in a social context. "Conversation, collaboration, and establishing a community of learners is critical to the teaching and learning process" (Dunlap and Lowenthal). Social networking tools like Twitter are an easy way to question, answer, and connect with other like minded individuals. Based on the tweets from those in my PLN there is a focus on library advocacy, inquiry based learning, teaching to the individual student's learning needs, and conversations centering around the shift in education and the integration of technology. As I became more comfortable tweeting I linked editorials on the need for librarians, the shift in education as well as answering questions others asked about using technology in my own practice. Like SNSs for educators, Classroom 2.0 and LearnCentral, Twitter provides continued professional development. "Digital media have accelerated the pace of scholarly communication" (Jennifer Howard). No longer are educators relying on a monthly or yearly professional journal or the annual conference to connect, collaborate and discuss important issues in education. Due to its 140 character limit Twitter isn't the venue for indepth and meaningful dialogue but works as a notification tool providing direction to those conversations. It allows us to create universally accessible knowledge.

Using Twitter in the classroom can be a valuable tool in "promoting those metacognitive skills that enable us to monitor our own learning" (Cookson Jr., PeterW.,). When we learn through asking essential questions and debating possible solutions to problems we are engaging our higher order cognitive skills. Technology is allowing us to create teams working collaboratively to solve problems and find solutions. "Twitter may have utility in helping students communicate, stay organized, and learn research and analytical skills" (Manzo, Kennedy). Imagine assigning a TweepML, a third party site allowing students to automatically follow each other, to groups of students working on collaborative assignments. They could ask questions, solve problems and share useful links with one another in a fast and transparent forum. In addition, they may be able to contact experts in the field of study on Twitter and ask them questions directly. NASA astornauts have their own Twitter feed with updates on missions and their work. Just reading a few of their tweets is a fascinating glimpse into the reality of being an astronaut.

There are numerous ways to use Twitter in the classroom and the power point '29 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom' by Tom Barrett (@tombarrrett) has some fantastic ideas. Twitter can be used for creating collaborative short stories; creating historical character tweets; twittering as the protagonist of a novel; connecting with experts; tweets about finding math in your surroundings; and tweeting current events. I began following a professor (http://twitter.com/rels1101) who posts tweets to news stories centering on religions around the world and I've been led to some fascinating articles. Limiting students to 140 characters really forces them to think critically about how they want to express themselves. One of the most compelling reasons to try using web 2.0 tools like Twitter is to engage students, especially in online courses. I teach English 11 and 12 online and am responsible for course development for Socials 10 and 11 for over 65 school districts in British Columbia. Currently, many of the courses are text based, relying heavily on a question and answer format. They are not engaging and I will be the first to admit it. The potential for online learning is great but a lot of work still needs to be done. Reading about how technology can increase student engagement and help create social presence in online courses is of great interest to me as a teacher. "Encouraging student-faculty contact and interaction thus gets at the heart of student engagement in online education settings" (Dunlap and Lowenthal). Twitter allows for immediate, free -flowing communication between students, and students and teachers. Working in Moodle, there is a time delay by posting through the discussion forums or email. The immediate questions and feedback provided by Twitter supports efforts to engage students in online educational settings. In addition, we are helping our students connect to experts in fields of study and establish themselves as contributors not simply consumers of information and resources. We are teaching them relevant ways to communicate to establish an appropriate digital footprint they won't want to hide in the future.

During our district professional development day in April, I will be presenting on Web 2.0 tools and their role in education. I have been thinking about which tools most benefit educators in their professional development and which ones most benefit students when used in the classroom. I believe that introducing the little known, and often negatively viewed, Twitter to educators for their own professional development will be most beneficial. When educators begin to see the value in connecting with other like minded educators they will then realize the benefit to their students. But as I mentioned at the beginning of this post you can't really get a true idea of what Twitter is all about unless you sign up and take part. Patrick Larkin, a principal in Burlington, MA used Twitter to run a monthly professional development meeting. All staff signed up for a Twitter account, used Twtpoll to choose a discussion question for the day and TweepML as their discussion forum. He found that staff were more willing to offer up questions, discussion topics and opinions then they would have been in a regular staff meeting (Demski, 2010). Larkin says, "I was hoping that teachers would see this as relevant to the classroom; by using Twitter they might get great feedback from a student who would never say anything." When setting up colleagues with Twitter accounts I will be sure to establish relevance for them, recommend people to follow, model effective use of the tool and encourage them to participate and contribute for a month to see the benefits.

If you haven't been to a conference lately you may not be familiar with backchannel communication but you can be sure it will be present at the next national or international gathering of educators. Essentially, backchannel conversation takes place at the same time as a conference session or key note speaker. You'll be hard pressed not to notice attendees texting on their cell phones or Blackberries, maybe pulling up their twitter page on a laptop to participate in the backchannel. For the most part, the audience is posting questions about the session, looking for clarification or further information all using a hashtag. The benefits are several: the speaker can often be guided by questions, usually up on a huge screen for everyone to see; those not in attendance can participate; those to shy to ask questions in front of a large audience will get their voice heard; and it provides a real time parellel conversation during the presentation. "Background discussions have always been a component of classes, conferences, and presentations" (Educause) and the technology is simply bringing it to the fore front and can be included in the learning process. Backchanneling has become increasingly popular in university and college lecture halls allowing students to have their voices heard in a less intimidating manner. Students can even review group tweet sessions after the class is over. The downside to backchanneling is the 'tweckle' - abuse the speaker only to Twitter followers in the audience while he/she is speaking. Some conferences provide a Twitter etiquette lesson before sessions as there have been occasions where the backchannel has quickly taken over as the front channel. Twitter does have the potential "foster engagement and participation, especially in large classes" or conferences (EDUCAUSE). Teachers will have to give up some control if they wish to try and use backchanneling to engage students and assess student understanding but it may allow learners to participate in true discourse and reflect on their own learning.

As with all Web 2.0 tools, "if Twitter participation is initiated by a learning need and subsequently driven by learning goals and objectives, then the activity is relevant and purposeful, and Twitter time is time well spent" (Dunlap and Lowenthal). Twitter can open the lines of communication to connect, share, contribute and participate in learning for all students. We need to remember that as important as it is to teach students 21st century skills, the medium of Web 2.0 is not enough. We must focus on teaching them how to create knowledge worth tweeting about.

Non-linked sources

Jennifer Howard. (2010, January). The MLA Convention Meets Twitter: Twitter moves scholarly communication beyond annual meeting's sessions and papers. The Chronicle of Higher Education,***[insert pages]***. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1953748551).

Cookson Jr., Peter W. (2009, Sept.). Educational Leadership, Vol. 67 Issue 1, p8-14

Demski, Jennifer (2010, February). T H E Jounal, Vol.37 Issue 2, p16-18

Manzo, Kathleen Kennedy (2009, October). Education Week, Vol. 29 Issue8, p1-14.

Rethlefsen, Melissa L. (2009, October). Library Journal, Vol. 134 Issue 17, p18-20

No need to knock, my door's wide open: Facebook and social networks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:23:00 +0000

It's not unusual to have friends drop by unannounced and poke their heads in the front door to see if we're home. Living in a small community with virtually no crime it shouldn't be too shocking to know we don't always lock our door -the real fear is a bear getting in. Move to the big city and this situation looks much different. Unfamiliar neighbours, strangers and the odd vagrant looking for shelter and the trust factor diminishes. Doors get locked even when you are in the house. You wouldn't risk leaving your home wide open to strangers so why do it in a virtual world? With the continued popularity of social network sites (SNSs) an increasing number of individuals are displaying their most personal information for all the world to see, whether they realize it or not. SNSs like Facebook are useful and engaging Web 2.0 tools and with some education, users will be able to better protect their privacy, online reputations and harness the power of social networks for personal and professional purposes.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

Just searching Facebook (FB) to see if they had a 'member since' tab - no luck. If memory serves me right it was sometime in 2007 when I first heard a friend talk about how she recently managed to find out through FB what all her old high school counterparts were up to. Made her feel better about herself. I was curious and signed up. My profile was slim and I didn't spend a lot of time uploading photos or searching out 'offline' acquaintances. Never mind even briefly contemplating privacy settings; it didn't occur to me. At the time I couldn't see how it would be of any use, save for a bit of catching up with people I hadn't taken the time to stay in touch with. High school was fun but I had moved on. Then people started to find me. It was quite amazing: friends from when I lived in Bella Coola, college roomates, cousins and yes, old high school acquaintences. And then came the former students. I admit I 'friended' a few who had graduated five years ago and I didn't have anything on my profile I wasn't willing to share with the masses. Since then, many have been deleted from my profile as my network grew to reflect friends and family. Overtime, my friends on FB have grown but have remained those individuals who really are friends and not students, nor for the most part anyone I associate with professionally. FB remains a part of my personal life: I can share family photos; status updates that have nothing to do with work and can verge on the mundane; see and hear what my friends are doing even though we live in the same community; and not worry about maintaining a 'professional' prescence on my FB site. This is not to say I post anything I would be concerned about parents, administrators or students viewing but I like to keep my personal life removed by certain degrees.

SNSs have also been established for professional purposes and many educators have joined Nings such as The Global Education Collaborative, Classroom 2.0 and LearnCentral. Joining nings and SNSs for professional purposes is similar to FB but it is important to complete your profile in detail to increase relevant groups, members, discussions and resources. I have accounts with all the above mentioned SNSs but find the most dynamic to be Classroom 2.0, started by Steve Hargadon who is also responsible for LearnCentral, part of Elluminate. Classroom 2.0 sends frequent emails detailing online PD sessions, guest speakers and group meetings all facilitated on Elluminate. The home page provides snapshots of the latest user comments and discussion threads so it is easy to see the latest activity, much like FB. Sidebars highlight upcoming events, recorded sessions, links, forums and groups. Classroom 2.0 is a ning dedicated to those interested in Web 2.0 and social media in education. Users of this network site are frequently adding comments, pushing the dialogue forward, creating links, suggesting online meetings and working groups. Hargadon (2010) states that "the creativity, the willingness to reach out for help, the deisre to share...are awe-insipiring, and they are in large part the basis for my belief that educational networking is the face of the future."

LearnCentral is similar to Classroom 2.0 but it has the additional feature of your own vroom, a three person virtual meeting room through Elluminate, and a portfolio where you can upload documents such as lesson plans or PDFs to be saved where they can be accessed from anywhere, essentially a content filing system for educators to share with others if so desired. In the LearnCentral discussion forum on social networking a post had been started concerning the lack of activity on the site despite the numbers of users who had signed up with the SNS. Facilitator Steve Hargadon suggested more 'tools' were needed to enable users to see new discussion posts, comments, and email alerts with updates. dana boyd (2009)also notes that SNSs are beginning to iterate with users, evolving through their needs. An individual adding to the discussion suggested that professionals sign up for multiple professional SNS but don't have time to contribute. I agree that focusing on one or two SNSs within my professional realm will enable me to contribute, collaborate and create.

2. Discussion of the tools in terms of personal learning.

I've moved. I've moved a lot. This is community #8 and although we are certain we don't want to leave our hamlet on the hill life happens. Good friends and connections have been made but locations have changed for many of us. There is nothing better than finding a lost friend or being found on FB. The years of absence melt away and you're amazed by the photographs of husbands/wives and kids. dayna boyd affirms that "adults, far more than teens, are using Facebook for its intended purpose as a social utility. For example, it is a tool for communicating with the past." Although, once found, the direct communication ceases to be as frequent as that between those who live in my community and with whom I socialize offline, which is inline with research suggesting FB is used to maintain or solidify already existing offline relationships (Ellison, Steinfiled, and Lampe 2007. By analyzing my own social network behaviour I agree with boyd and Ellison (2007) that SNSs will provide important research context for scholars "investigating processes of impression management, self-presentation, and friendship performance." I tend to update my status with something that portrays me in a positive light and highlights one of my interests. I will admit to wanting to create a particular impression; one that may not include the mundane chores of daily domesticity. My particiaption in FB is limited to uploading photos, sharing a few links sent to me by others, commenting on friends' status and irregular status updates. Occasionally, I will use the Event function to create an invitation to a party as it saves a lot of time, (i.e. our annual Ullr party where all our friends are encouraged to come with poem in hand. Maybe next year I will upload the podcast of this year's poem.) My FB habits are more as a viewer than a contributor. I have never used any apps nor participated in Mafiawars or Farmville and to be honest I figure those who do have a lot of free time on their hands. I have never taken a '25 Things' quiz and as boyd points out 'adults are crafting them (quizzes) to show-off to people from the past and connect the dots between different audiences as a way of coping with the awkwardness of collapsed contexts" (2009). That being said, I check my FB account several times a day to 'catch up'. There have been times I contemplated deleting FB, especially when friends would use it to air their personal problems but that isn't too frequent an occurance.

My husband has a personal account and has recently set up a FB page for PerformX racing, a rider development mountain bike team. He uses it to post videos of riders, race results and anything mountain bike related. It is a great way to get sponsors interested as well as garner interest in the sport.

3. Discussion of the tools in terms of professional learning.

Go back one year to our monthly staff meeting. Every table has papers with charts and stats: the results of a computer usage analysis. Findings: kids spend more time on FB at school than on any other site. Surprise? No, not really. Reaction: outrage by a few and the decision by even less to block FB, and YouTube while their at it. This was a knee-jerk reaction by a few teachers who were the most vocal and didn't take the time to look at why FB might be so popular, nor how it could benefit students. Tracy Mitrano notes "that Facebook offers a dynamic way for a young adult to play with his or her emerging personality." We know that teenagers are continously looking for acceptance, trying on new identities and negotiating social groups. This is how they have always been; we just may not have been so exposed to it since it happened behind closed bedroom doors on the telephone or in class by passing notes back and forth. Although those in favor of blocks to SNSs may perceive these tools to be wasted time, research has shown that they increase social capital, the resources accumulated through relationships among people, (Coleman, 1988) which in turn " increases commitment to a community and the ability to mobilize collective actions, among other benefits." In general, this social capital increases societal well-being and trust in a community. In addition, SNSs may enable students with low self-esteem to participate in a social situation with more ease.

September 2009 and blocks are lifted with the Superintendant addressing the entire district on the need to take risks and embrace the changes the 21st century is presenting. The message is loud and clear: learn alongside our students and provide them with the necessary skills they will need in this digital age. Sigh of relief. Now we can get on with the learning. The library is always full: students hanging out reading on the bean bags, checking their FB at lunch or 10 min. break. They check continously and sometimes they have two windows open so they can go back and forth between school work and status checks. So we've lifted the blocks but is anyone going to attempt to use FB as an educational tool? T.H.E Journal (Jan. 2010, Vol. 37) published a survey on educators use of SNSs and although 6 out of 10 educators enrolled in a SNSs, mostly FB, very few actually participated. Teacher librarians, or media specialists, do exhibit a much higher use of SNSs like FB to promote reading, their libraries and reading campaigns. Of those interested in social networks, they indicated they would like to join SNSs dedicated to education and the role of technology. Although I have helped my colleagues learn and use blogs and wikis in their classrooms I had another focus for FB.

Without any formal education on SNSs our students are leaving their doors wide open and anyone can walk right in. Would you be happy if a complete stranger walked into your son/daughter's room and went through his/her personal belongings? Didn't think so. In additon, I was hearing teachers complain about cyberbullying happening on their students' FB pages. One teacher insists on being 'friends' with her son on FB and he also happens to be in her class - small town. That is how she became aware of the bullying and spreading of rumours by a few of her students. She said she'd given them the talk about privacy and proper netiquette but they had heard it all before. She needed something new - something that would really hit home. I had attended the Tech It Up! conference in Kamloops this past October and had heard Micheal Carr-Gregg, PhD discuss cybersafety and cyberbullying. A few days later I had an idea. At this same conference we had won a Smart Response 'clicker' system. The clickers are individual hand held devices that look like a remote control. Essentially they record student responses to multiple choice or true-false questions. The results are recorded immediately and can be reviewed through pie graphs that enable students to clearly see results. Since I wanted to ask students personal questions about their online habits, specifically in regards to SNSs I designed a 21 question multiple choice survey. Students would be able to answer using the response system in a completely anonymous manner.

The results weren't surprising for me but as we went through the colourful pie graphs you could see the light bulbs going off in the students' heads. I conducted this cyberbullying and cybersafety workshop with grades 6, 8, 10 and 11 with an average of 25 students per class. Students with a FB account ranged from 98% to 100%, and most had at least one personal handheld device such as a cell phone or iPod with the average number being two. Students are spending between 1 -3 hours per day online. About half had played around with creating identities online that were as boyd terms 'Fakesters'. When asked why they would create an alternate identity, students replied they were on gaming sites predominantly or to entrap an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend. One educational assistant admitted to creating her FB account using a nickname and false age, notifying only her close friends of these changes, so that she couldn't be searched online. The more telling results were from questions centering around rumour spreading and inappropriate use of SNSs. About 30% admitted to spreading rumours online, while approxiametly 65% said they had had rumours spread about them. My two favourite questions were 'Do you think you use the internet responsibly?' to which 78% responded positively, and 'Do you think people your age use the internet responsibly?' with about 78% responding negatively. In terms of privacy, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of students in the younger grades who were aware of privacy settings and had changed theirs accordingly. The older students looked a little more shocked when I informed them that even if you delete a picture within 60 seconds it remains in the FB cache and is retrievable. The conversation led to the discussion of employers who currently use FB profiles to look closely at potential employees and how your online reputation needs to be protected. Few had ever thought about how their behaviour now would effect their futures. I provided them with real life examples of individuals who had had photos on FB come back to haunt them (NDP candidate Ram Lam).

Tony Wilson, a Franchise and Intellectual Property lawyer in Vancouver, recently published an article in the BCTF publication TEACHER (March 2010), "Online Reputation Management", which I share with students and their teachers. He states that, "there has never been a generation so willing to share their innermost feelings, their outrageous opinions and their inappropriate photographs than the under-25 age group who make up the mainstay of Facebook." As he mentions, it might be cool to post pictures of the latest 'parents away on holiday' party when you are 15 years old but it is disengenious to think that parents or friends of friends' parents won't see the photos, especially if you have 750 'friends' online. Facebook has 350,000,000 users, 90% of all middle and high school students have accounts, and many don't understand how their online behaviours can influence how others view them. Canadian courts have ruled that FB pages can be used as evidence, even if the user has made their settings as private as possible. The new Web 2.0 technologies have created a new area of law called Online Managment Law, which "straddles the law of defamation, freedom of speech, privacy law, copyright law, and trademark law." So post only pictures you would be willing to let your mother and grandmother see and watch what you say about others. To echo the deans of Canadian Law Schools, "Clean up your Facebook pages. Your prospective employers are all law firms. They will be looking for you.”

After discussion of the survery results and questions, I show students a few videos outlining the potential dangers of SNSs, how to access their FB privacy settings and 3 websites to use inorder to check their online profiles. I created two pageflakes, one for grade 6-9 and the other for grades 10 - 12, borrowing videos and resources centering around cyberbulling and cybersafety that students can access anytime. When the session is over students flock to the computers to check their profiles and make sure their privacy settings are engaged. Not surprisingly, so did I. My pictures, and ones I was tagged in, were available to anyone so I changed that to friends only. I don't have control over what my friends post and I point this out to students. You might think your online behaviour is safe but what about your friends? The good news that emerged from these workshops is that lessons students learned about not talking to strangers and appropriate behaviours offline transferred to their online worlds. Most students did not talk to invidividuals they had not met in person, or at least knew through a friend. Those approached to meet strangers in person declined and reported any inappropriate or uncomfortable online situations to others. Survey data from Pew found that "teens are aware of potential privacy threats online and that many are proactive about taking steps to minimize certain potential risks."

Although Facebook was originally founded for the community of Harvard University in 2004 it has since boomed to include a population four times that of the United States with youth playing a central role in its popularity. "The single most important factor in determining whether or not a person will adopt one of these sites is whether or not it is the place where their friends hangout"(boyd, 2009). With little adult supervision, our students are navigating the waters of SNSs alone. As educators, it is imperative we guide them in their journey and exploration of new technology as well as inform parents of the potential benefits and drawbacks. Despite fear mongoring in the media, "Facebook is disruptive, popular, and important because it intersects with all that is edgy about innovative networking technologies deployed to full social advantage". (Mitrano, 2006) I have also been witness to students using FB for educational purposes and a reported 50% of users say they use the SNS to work on school related work. Students most often work collaboratively on study notes and share them on FB. A few weeks ago I observed one of our German exchange students chatting online with a friend back in Germany through FB and looking over his shoulder was a one of our students trying to translate. The exchange student has been teaching this boy German over the past few months. It was one of the greatest uses of FB I have ever seen.

These innovative networking technologies are beginning to bring with them significant changes for professional development and educational networking. No longer is professional development relegated to a one time meeting within a school or district listening to a key note speaker for the day. LearnCentral and Classroom 2.0 offer anytime, anywhere educational development. Hargadon aruges that they are "more effective as educational tools than as social ones." Teachers, by nature, are eager to learn and continue their education. Web 2.0 provides the opportunities for real 'networking' with like-minded individuals who share the same love of learning with interests in particular fields of study. When educators join nings or other SNSs focusing on education they learn first hand how engaging and rewarding social networking can be. They provide on-going professional development, peer-support, keep teachers up to date and help create a positive outlook. By actively participating as a learner, contributor, collaborator and creator teachers will realize that these Web 2.0 tools are primarily about communication resulting in a revised view of the role of SNSs in learning. Joyce Valenza points out that our "practice must adapt to complete shifts in the information and communication landscapes. We don't necessarily have to use FB socially with our students, and there are many reasons not to, but we can use the skills they develop online and integrate them in our curriculums.

Non-linked works cited

boyd, danah. 2009. "Social Media is Here to Stay... Now What?" Microsoft Research Tech Fest, Redmond, Washington, February 26.

Foote, C.. (2010, March). Empowering Students for Life. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(2), 29-31. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1981674901).

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Hargadon, S.. (2010, March). Educational Networking. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(2), 10-12,14-16. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1981674861).

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue: mashups and multimedia

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:18:00 +0000

2010 Kunamokst Mural Mosaic

Search it. Save it. Grab it. Copy it. Paste it. Flip it. Mix it. Mash it. Appropriate it. Create it. Share it.
Canadian pianist Glenn Gould noted that "one of the certain effects of the electronic age is that it will forever change the values we attach to art". Our digital environment has opened the doors to multilevel participation in the creative process, providing access to a storehouse of images, audio, video and text to be mixed and mashed showcasing new understandings, connections and ideas that were never imagined by the original creators. The power of mashups in education is that they allow us to reach new conclusions in a multimodal nature using a vast amount of data.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about the tools
Guilt had taken hold of me: the phone calls to my parents were infrequent; I neglected to send birthday cards on time; no trips to the post office to send my children's artwork to them; and visits to Vancouver were impossible. I had neglected my duties as a daughter and had to make up for it. All any grandparent wants is to feel connected to their children's kids when physical locations keep them separated for long stretches of time. Kids grow up so fast and change drastically from one visit to the next. How to keep everyone connected to witness the everyday happenings and remain a presence in each others' lives? There's Skype but my kids can't sit long enough to have a good conversation or are simply to shy. Sharing photos through Flickr is good but I had to do something more to make up for my delinquency as a daughter. I wanted to make a movie by putting photos, music and text together but the MovieMaker program on our PC wasn't working so I had to find another way. A quick Google search rendered a list of free video creation tools. The first one was animoto. It is easy to upload photos or video (your own or choose from animoto's stock), add a few text boxes and choose music from animoto's own selection or your iTunes. Since animoto uses the tempo of the music to determine the speed and arrangements of the photos the creations are more like an MTV video. If you aren't thrilled with the first version produced you can simply have the program remix the photos to create a new video. The short video created using my husband's motorcycle and mountain bike photos was quick and easy to make. At the time, animoto did not offer an educator's version so I was limited to the 30 seconds allocated to those using a free account. I have recently signed up for the educator's account which allows users to create full-length videos. The addition of an educators version is testament to its application in education.

After using animoto I was curious to try out other tools. Next, I found masher.com and away I went. Talk about simple. Masher allows you to upload photos, video and audio in addition to adding text. You can also choose to create certain effects on photos to make them appear vintage or as if you took them underwater. One of the great features of masher.com is that users have access to hundreds of BBC photos and videos to use. I added in a video of a snowboarder hucking a cliff right after the shot of my four year old son skiing with a caption, "He's getting good". Unlike animoto where pictures are layered on themselves or with other photos, masher uses your pictures in a linear form and is more like a movie than music video. It took me awhile to download the videos to masher but that was due to my computer and not the program. So within an hour I had created a video showcasing 'the Kuhn lifestyle' that I sent to all my family. They were thrilled and touched I had spent the time to create the video, which they no doubt figured had been very time consuming and difficult. There has been one catch though and that is that the code to embed the movie only brings up the music and a black screen. The link I sent in an email only worked for some family members and I haven't figured out why. Figuring out the small glitches is important if I want students and teachers to adopt an otherwise very easy to use tool.

Kuhn Lifestyle video

Finally, there's the tried and true voicethread. I've been using this tool for personal and professional purposes for over two years. Similar to the above mentioned tools, voicethread allows users to upload photos, video, and documents along with audio. What distinguishes this tool from the others is the ability for group participation in the form of multiple users being able to record their insights, questions and comments for all to hear. The best voicethreads are those that are interactive and participants are both listening and responding to each other. When I first began using the tool for work students ran into problems with uploading photos. With the removal of blocks and adjustments to the firewall these issues were solved. I have an education account to voicethread as well that enables schools to create an unlimited number of voicethreads.

2. Discussion of the tools in terms of personal learning
As previously mentioned, these tools are great for creating family videos and recording events to share with relatives and friends. But I wanted to move beyond the more common uses and share my learning with others in my family to allow them an opportunity to have their voices heard. As discussed in last week's post, my parents are involved with the Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia. In addition to sharing their photos, the stories and insights they have gained from their many years of work overseas should be heard by others in the medical community as well as with their family and friends. Using voicethread allows for others with similar experiences to comment and ask questions, as well as shed a different perspective on events in the country. The voicethread can be shared with the hospital and doctors, nurses and administrators in Cambodia can include their voices to add authenticity and a global perspective. As an educator, I can also share the creation with students to provide them with real world examples of working overseas and helping the less fortunate. In his article on Voicethreads in School Talk, Urbana: Oct 2009. Vol. 15, Iss. 1; pg. 4, 3 pgs, Bob Sprankle notes, "Voicethreads allow for work and content to be moved into a social and global arena, transforming presentations into conversations that invite deeper reflection and critical thinking".

2. Discussions of the tools in terms of professional learning
It is the conversations that Sprankle refers to that are missing from the voicethread projects I have had students previously create. This is not to negate the great work students have produced: from environmental awareness campaigns, to STD/STI reports for peers and poetry projects. Reading Bill Ferriter's wiki on voicethreads I became aware that I wasn't truly using the tool to its full potential and in turn missing an opportunity to help students develop active thinking and listening skills. Once the student voicethreads were complete I would often upload them to the library blog to share with the school and community but I never encouraged or instructed students to comment on each others. Posting student work in VoiceThread will allow them the opportunity to reflect on their work, have conversations about the work outside of the classroom and inviting dialogue. Ferriter's wiki is a great resource that provides tips and questions to help students keep the digital conversations going in a meaningful way. There are also sentence starters generated by teachers Kelly Gallagher adn Matt Copeland to develop active thinking. With time and practice teachers can allow students to create and moderate their own Voicethread conversations on topics that are important to them. Providing students with more control and responsibility will teach them moderation skills as well as online accountability.

For our students, this type of socialization fits well with connecting the classroom with their outside lives. Facebook and other social networking sites are popular because youth have a need to connect, converse and find their place in society through socialization. Danah Boyd, a PhD student at the University of Califronia-Berkely , wrote in her blog post that kids are "desperately craving an opportunity to connect with their friends; not surprisingly, their use of anything that enables socialization while at school is deeply desired." Interacting online is second nature to our students so combining these skills with required learning of the curriculum and you have higher motivation and engagement. Ironically, "children and teens of this generation have enthusiastically embraced technology for social networking and content creation purposes but have failed or not been allowed to extend their technology expertise over into their academic pursuits". (Marcoux, Loertscher) Introducing tools such as VoiceThread, animoto and masher to our students bridges that gap and taps into multimodal learning, making allowances for all learners while nurturing creativity and innovation.

Currently, I am working with three other colleagues in my school on an inquiry based unit focusing on water. The team is made up of the senior science teacher, the art teacher, the special education teacher and myself, the teacher-librarian. Our district offered schools the opportunity to take part in an Observational Learning Team initiative; the idea being we could observe other teachers to enable us to better meet the needs of all students. Our group decided to take it a step further and see how an inquiry based interdisciplinary unit could improve the learning of all students. We are including a field trip to the water reservoir, guest speakers, and presentations for the introduction. Students will be guided through the process of choosing a focus and developing an essential question, research skills, reflection, creating and publishing their work. With this in mind I put together a short animoto video using creative commons material with the tag search 'water'. I wanted to present a variety of images, audio and text to get students talking about the various ways we use and view water at home and around the world. By simply creating a mashup of the results from my tag search I got a snapshot of the folksonomy of water.

This mashup will also serve another purpose: showing students another way to demonstrate their own learning in a creative user-friendly manner. Taking the real and authentic problem of water as a resource, students can use technology to gain a deeper understanding of the issues, in their own community as well as around the world, and use these tools to engage viewers. In 'Dr. Mashup: or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix' (EDUCAUSE Review), Brian Lamb, writes that mashups are "not just works of art that are appropriated and remixed but the functionalities of online applicaitons as well". Take for instance a mashup using Google Earth, video, images and audio from creative commons and you have students who can take you on a world tour examining the world's water resources. Integrate maps with other Web 2.0 tools such as RSS feeds, websites and you achieve cross-application functionality. Marcoux and Loertscher found that student presentations became more sophisticated using mashups and a variety of technologies. By modelling how these tools can be used in presentations for students we can help inspire and motivate their learning alongside our own.

Some of the same images used in the animoto water video can be uploaded to voicethread and can be used as discussion starters. We can provide students with active thinking sentence starters such as:

This reminds me of...
This makes me think of ...
I wonder ...
I realize...
I noticed....
I'd like to know...
I'm not sure...
If I could ___________ then I would_________

Once students have practice with voicethread and teachers have modelled how to be active listeners and thinkers the conversations will become richer and students will become more engaged. In addition, it will allow for the inclusion of different learners by combining audio, visual and text. It is often the case that we learn of a new Web tool and try to integrate it into the curriculum but we may wish to consider the learners and their specific needs and challenges and find a particular application that would be well suited to helping them learn. Animoto, masher, voicethread and other media tools "enable visual, aural and textual learners to quickly create and communicate complex new and powerful stories and messages of a multimodal nature". (McPherson) These applications are so user-friendly that students can focus on finding and assembling the elements they wish to include in a unique creation showcasing their learning. Students' work will be available to a broader community where they will be able to comment and reflect on each others work. They will feel that teachers are connecting with their own lives through the use of social media in education and we will be surprised by the quality and depth of the conversations.

Non-linked sources

Marcoux, E., & Loertscher, D.. (2009). Achieving Teaching and Learning Excellence With Technology. Teacher Librarian, 37(2), 14-22,88. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1938481241).

Sprankle, B.. (2009, October). VoiceThread. School Talk, 15(1), 4-6. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1884218111).

McPherson, K.. (2008). mashing literacy. Teacher Librarian, 35(5), 73-75. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1502965521).

Move over Sage, make room for wikis

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:27:00 +0000

The curtain has been drawn, the applause have long faded and the theatre is empty. The 'Sage on the Stage' has had its final run, with ticket sales all but dried up. A new dynamic show has hit the streets and everyone is a player. The theatre doors are open and the tickets are free. Join in and become a part of the excitement.

Technology is creating a shift in education, moving towards learning rather than teaching, with a new emphasis on collaboration and creating communities. Web 2.0 is allowing participants to engage with others, near or far, in order to share, discuss, negotiate and collaborate. As Will Richardson points out, wikis are a "poster child for collaborative contstruction". A wiki is a webpage that can easily be edited by other users and includes links to other webpages as well as a multitude of other media that can be embedded into the wiki. Wikis have a low barrier of participation and like most Web 2.0 tools are free to users who join. There has been much controversy since the creation of the first wiki by Ward Cunningham in 1994 since anyone can edit a public wiki page like Wikipedia. How can we be assured the information is correct? What about vandalism and inappropriate information? These issues will be discussed but it will become evident that the use of wikis in education is a powerful tool challenging students to push their thinking, collaborate and negotiate with others, and synthesize what they know, rather than regurgitate the information that has been presented to them.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

My first foray into wikis was a year ago using Google Sites. I had wanted to demonstrate a different way of presenting my new found knowledge for my EDES 542 course, inquiry based learning. One of the stages in the Focus on Inquiry document is the creation phase and I wanted to use a web 2.0 tool that would complement online learning. The project itself reflected inquiry learning as I had to devise an essential question, research, read, think, revise and reflect, think some more, do some more reasearch, organize and plan and share my learning. So add to that trying to learn how to create a wiki for the first time and you've got information overload. It took some fiddling to figure out how to upload a video as Google Sites, at the time only supported videos hosted by Google Video. There wasn't a lot you could do to customize the space and although it served its purpose I wouldn't use it when it came time to create another wiki.

This September I wanted to create another wiki for a digital storytelling unit I was creating for an online English 11 class, hosted on Moodle. With a little searching I came across wikispaces.com. There was an introductory video and once registered a 'getting started' guide came up to lead you through the steps. I usually like to get going right away so skipped the guide and started playing around. Uploading videos was easy, especially since a variety of video sharing sites were supported. What I really like about wikispaces is the ability to use the 'Other HTML' widget that can be used to embed webpages into the wiki, create scrolling or flashing text or add a Glogster poster to a page. I happened apon a great wiki entitled, http://www.gettingtrickywithwikis.com/. Being able to create templates and personalize the wiki space is important in order to creat a positive first impression. I want my wikispaces to look professional and reflect the content and purpose of each individual wiki. To date I have created six different wikis ranging from professional development to a unit on propaganda. Reflecting on my use of wikis, I can see the progression in my own learning. My first wikis are really just easy-to-create webpages, whereas the most recent is a wiki in the real sense of being a collaborative learning space that has an "emphasis on the importance of collaborative learning among members of close-knit teams". (Ferriter)

I feel confident enough in my 'wiki' skills that I have led a wiki workshop for the teacher-librarians in our district and have helped others doing workshops problem solve. The acquisition of these skills has come from the realization that wikis are a powerful tool in the classroom as well as an effecient and convenient portal for information sharing with colleagues. I agree with Bill Ferriter when he says that there is an "even a greater potential in using blogs and wikis to gain influence as a teacher leader." By suggesting a wiki for our district professional development I was able to infuse 21st century skills and collaboration tools to demonstrate their effectiveness to other educators and administrators, in other words 'scaffolding'. However, as comfortable as I feel using most Web 2.0 tools, I have come to realize that learning the tool and overcoming self-doubt about using technology is still a barrier for some. Providing time for teachers, administrators and students to learn and play with these tool in a non-threatening environment is essential in reducing anxiety and enables them to move beyond the technology, focusing on the collaborative nature of a wiki, harnessing its potential for community and knowledge building.

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of personal learning

I throw around a lot of web 2.0 terms without always realizing that others aren't familiar with what exactly a blog or wiki is. There are those who think it all sounds like a fad or the new coolest gadget but when you see the implications of these tools in education for creating a shift from traditional teacher based classrooms to student-centered learning they take on a whole new meaning. I hadn't considered using a wiki for personal reasons until recently. Ryan, my husband, and I started talking about all the photos we had from the day we first met through to the present. That led us to reminising and wondering how we could retain all the stories. Ryan, by training and passion is a writer and poet, so it isn't surprising we came up with the idea of using the photos to generate stories. We brainstormed different ways and of course I was thinking along the lines of web 2.0 and being able to share those stories with others. That was the birth of rapscallioncats, a wiki for posting our pictures and stories. We would take turns writing from a photograph and there would be no rules; it could be a starting point for something else: a poem, another question, whatever came to mind. We are of the stream-of-consciousness school of writing. So far there isn't much but the framework for the wiki but we will start and share with friends and family who can add their own photos,memories and comments. Eventually, it will become a community of intertwined experiences shared through photographs and the written word.

I would also like to teach my parents how to set up a wiki for their work oveseas at the Angkor Wat Children's Hospital in Siem Reap, Cambodia. For the past five years, my father, a neurologist, has travelled with my mother to the hospital to teach young doctors and run clinics for a month. Although my father, at the tender age of seventy-five, should be close to retirement these trips are a source of insipiration for him. The people of Cambodia are most generous and compassionate and he is dedicated to helping them in anyway he can. My parents are continously raising funds for the hospital and work tirelessly to help bring back a medical community, which was decimated by Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. The wiki could contain slideshows and powerpoints my mother created for teaching purposes, pictures of their experiences and write ups. The wiki could then be shared with the doctors in Cambodia, others in the fundraising community and family and friends. Resources could be added by a variety of groups and individuals as well as discussions, creating awareness about the need to help the Cambodian people, specifically their children.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of professional learning

I find it amazing how my opinion of something can change so drastically within a year. Last September, my first as a teacher-librarian, I would warn students about using Wikipedia as a source, telling them they had no idea who had contributed the information or if it was reliable. "Check the facts with other sites. Use databases and online encyclopedias," I would caution. Others had warned me so wasn't it my job as a librarian to alert young researches who relied on Wikipedia for everything? The positive side was that I was teaching them to read critically, which as Davies and Merchant say is one of the benefits to using wikis and other user generated content. Jump ahead a year to the Tech It Up! Conference in Kamloops, BC in October 2009 and one of the key note speakers, a professor from the University of Southern California, is telling us that a study had been conducted on the accuracy of Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica. Results: Wikipedia 97% accurate, Encyclopedia Britannica 98%.

Much of Davies and Merchant's chapter on wikis in 'Web 2.0 for Schools' focuses on the team behind Wikipedia and their insistance on neutrality when adding to the wiki. Of course complete neutrality would be difficult to achieve but similar to other web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Flickr, the content users are also given the responsibility of reporting misinformation or inappropriate materials. Davies and Merchant suggest having students examine the contents of Conservapedia, a site set up in opposition to Wikipedia, to compare the similarities and difference between the two. This seems a timely suggestion as this week I created my newest wiki for a collaborative unit in English 9 that focuses on propaganda and examining bias in the news. Previously, the English teacher and I had collaborated on a unit that started with the novel The Wave by Todd Strasser, based on a true story of replicating the propaganda and racism of Hitler's Germany. This year I suggested a wiki in order for students to access video resources and websites we had chosen as resources on propaganda. The wiki grew to incorporate key passages for discussion, an assignment on detecting bias in the news and a final project whereby students create a propaganda campaign. Serendipity struck and CBC television is hosting a six part series starting this week entitled Love, Hate and Propaganda. I embeded the site into the wiki and students can also enter their contest using their final project, providing an opportunity for students to share their work outside the classroom. This is the first time I am using a wiki for 'collective intelligence'. Sunil Hazari, Alexa North, and Deborah Moreland define collective intelligence as "an idea that individuals can build collectively on each other's knowledge by forming "'participatory communities'". Students began posting discussions the first day the wiki went up and I was eager to join in, not as a teacher but a facilitator. None of the students, nor the teacher, has worked on a wiki and few were familiar with any beyond Wikipedia. The learning curve is high and students were creating their own pages by the second day, uploading news stories to show their bias, commenting on posts and finding videos on YouTube that were one-sided. I witnessed students who were engaged in learning as they showed interest in the assignments and willingly participated in creating content and collaborating with peers.

Using wikis ties in with both the Constructivsit and Engagement Theories as Hazari, North and Moreland found in their study of wikis in the classroom. The Constructivist Theory is defined as "inquiry-based, discovery learning in which learners construct personal interpretation of knowledge based on their previous experience and application of knowledge in relevant context". (Hazari, North, Moreland) By having students create their own propaganda poster or video, they are problem solving together in small groups, using previous knowledge of advertising along with new knowledge on propaganda techniques. In addition, they begin to appreciate multiple perspecitves while emebedding learning in a relevant context. They begin to take ownership of the learning process and are encouraged to use a variety of presentation modes. The Engagement Theory has three components, all met by using wikis in the classroom: relating, creating and donating. Students have a diverse array of experiences outside the classroom and allowing them to construct new knowlege by connecting their previous learning increases engagement. Students are exposed to a multitude of sounds, text and images in their digital environments and can use these experiences in their understanding of propaganda and pesuasion techniques, as well as problem solving and negotiating in an online community. Creating refers to the "application of new ideas where individuals take control over their learning". Already, groups of students are excited about the creation of their own propaganda campaigns and have brainstormed a number of ideas in relation to causes that are important to them. Donating refers to authentic learning to be shared with an external business or organization. Their submissions to the CBC propaganda contest take their learning outside the walls of the school and into the public domain. I overheard a student telling a friend about her excitement at being able to submit her project to the contest.

The propaganda wiki will grow organically: through embedded materials included by the students, their own creations and the discussion posts. It will become an affinity space with different kinds of knowledge, including a range of resources "thereby providing many different options for participation and ways for participants to achieve success, recognition, and status in the space". (Moreillon) As a facilitator of the wiki space it is important to relinquish some control so students can take ownership of the space, allowing collaborative learning to take place. The sage on the stage must move over and be the guide on the side. This is a new form of learning for our students and there will be stumbling blocks along the way. Students who are use to receiving top grades for regurgitating information that was passively learned have difficulties switching to a more 'messy' way of learning. Richardson points out, "that the more autonomy teachers give to student in terms of negotiating the scope and quality of the content they are creating, the better" (p.61). We need to model what constructivist learning looks like and allow them room to make mistakes and grow as independant learners. Dresang so eloquent describes this experience: "In the best digital media experiences, they (students) are challenged to think harder and to weave together what they know rather than to have it presented to them predigested" (Dresang).

As far as vandalism and inappropriate material or comments being posted, wikis enable organizers to track who makes changes and revert to previous drafts if needed. I found this to be a relatively easy process when a foreign exchange student accidently deleted the table of contents of the propaganda wiki. He was having difficulty understanding the instructions due to language differences but it was possible to identify and retrieve the prior version. Students must be given instruction in net etiquette as well as the use of creative commons works. For my students this is a very new method of learning and they must be given the opportunity to ask questions, make mistakes and take risks in their learning. The teachers I collaborate with are also in a similar position so I am aware that I must be available for support and provide them with a positive experience using technology in their classrooms. This year there has been an increase of collaborative units with the teacher-librarian and my colleagues are using Web 2.0 tools more often.

Wikis can be used in a variety of ways: as collaborative study guides for courses across the curriculum (Welker's Wikinomics), for novel studies and to connect students across the globe(Flatclassroom project). In addition, many libraries have set up wikis to link to resources, showcase new acquisitions, host podcasts on book talks, showcase student work and connect with library patrons in a format that mirrors an interface with which they are familiar. Teachers and administrators can use wikis for professional development as "portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools" (Ferriter). Blogs and wikis are enabling teachers to have their voices hear and find communities of professionals willing to engage in meaningful dialogue about the shifts in education.

Finally, as new Web 2.0 tools are being integrated into classrooms, rubrics must be developed to provide guidance to students. Rubrics should set out clear expectations and include both process and product in the final assessment of the assignment. An excellent resource for rubrics is Andrew Churches' wiki educational-origami. Churches hails from Auckland, New Zealand, and has done extensive work with integration of technology in schools. His wiki contains revised Bloom's taxonomy in relation to digital learning, rubrics for blogs and wikis and discussion of 21st Century tools in learning. This is an invaluable resource for anyone using Web 2.0 tools in education.

Non-linked sources

Christopher Harris. (2006, May). SCHOOL LIBRARY 2.0. School Library Journal, 52(5), 50-53,9. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1041606431).

Moreillon, J.. (2009). Learning and Teaching in WANDA Wiki Wonderland: Literature Circles in the Digital Commons. Teacher Librarian, 37(2), 23-28. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1938481291).

Nielsen, L.. (2009, August). Eight Ways To Use SCHOOL WIKIS. Tech & Learning, 30(1), 32-33. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1829905441).

Hazari, S., North, A., & Moreland, D.. (2009). Investigating Pedagogical Value of Wiki

Technology. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 187-198. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1755224781).

Hudson, H.. (2009, September). How to Teach With Wikis. Instructor (1999), 119(2), 66-67. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1873816451).

The voice in my back pocket: learning on the go with podcasts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:50:00 +0000

Tying the laces on my running shoes, digging my toque out of the closet and grabbing the ipod on my way out the door are typical preparations in my pursuit of higher education. As I crest over the hill, my professor's voice shows no signs of physical exersion - no huffing or puffing. Seems I am the only one doing any work here. By the time I walk through the door I have learned all about children's book awards and have formulated some thoughts in regards to the questions posed by the professor, all while getting in a good run. Our digital environment is allowing learning to happen anyhow, anytime and anywhere. The beauty of podcasting is that podcasts can be downloaded to a portable music device such as an iPod or MP3 player, allowing the listener the luxury of multitasking: listen to the newest podcast of your favorite show in the car on the way to work; while sitting on the bus or how about when you're shopping for groceries?

1. Reflections on the process of learning the tool
I produced my first podcast about five months ago to create a booktalk for one of my courses in the DLTL program. I used Audacity to record and LAME to convert the audio file into an mp3 that I could upload into the Blackboard learning system. The process was relatively easy, although it took some reading to understand how to export the file to LAME in order to create a mp3. I recently bought a laptop and downloaded the newest BETA version of Audacity and although it claimed to be a better version with a few kinks worked out I ended up uninstalling it and replacing it with the older version. It didn't have the same File menu and converting to a mp3 wasn't obvious. I went back to what I was familiar with in the interest of time and ease. Audacity is a high powered tool and if you spend time with it you could do some fantastic editing to create a very polished piece of work. I used it simply as a recording device since the assignment was focusing on the content and delivery of the booktalk and not my audacity skills. Podcasts in general are not highly polished and include a few 'ums' here and there. Audacity also allows you to put in music if you want to create a certain mood or introduction. Once finished I simply uploaded it to podbean.com and it provided an embedding code to use on my blog.

In order to push my learning further, I decided to explore the podcast plus video in the form of screencasting. I downloaded Jing, which was a simple process and within seconds I was screencasting. Yes, it is that easy. When you install Jing a little yellow sun appears at the top or side of your screen. Click on it and three rays with visual icons appear: start, options, and end. The interface is one of the most user friendly and simple I have come across in the web 2.0 world. Once you finish recording, with the option of video or still frames, you can preview it and then press the share icon. Jing works with screencast.com and automatically sets up an account when you register for Jing. Your screencast gets uploaded to screencast.com and provides you with a link or the HTML code to embed it into your blog or website.
The difficult part is actually doing the screencast. After a few attempts at creating an iMovie tutorial I realized that preparation was key so that the viewers weren't waiting for me to upload and import pictures making for awkward silent moments. It took about seven tries to get the first tutorial done but during that process I became more proficient. I used the pause button when waiting for the iMovie to respond to commands. It became much more seamless and going so far as creating an outline or storyboard along with a short script creates a more polished screencast which is important when you are creating tutorials for students to watch. Jing has a five minute limit which is good for keeping things short and to the point. The rule here is the shorter the better. I have included the link to the first of three tutorials for iMovie. I could have embedded the flash movie but the format of my blog does not work with a full-screen screencast.

Movie_tutorial_one

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of personal learning
I once found an old cassette tape in a trunk my mother in law stored all her son's keepsakes. When I put it in the tape player I heard the most precious little voice singing A,B,Cs. My husband's grandmother had taken the time to record her grandson at the age of four in order to preserve the memory of childhood. That tape is probably long gone, as is his grandmother and mother. Unfortunately, Ryan has had too much loss in his life with both his parents dying at a young age. Many stories disappeared with them. Being able to record those stories and archiving them on the web would have enabled them to live on in the lives of their grandchildren. Ryan and I wanted to document moments in our lives and our kids lives that we could share with family and friends around the world. When Ryan took our daughter to visit her great grandparents in Washington, D.C. we created a voicethread that she narrated in order to create a living memory. She loved doing it and sharing it with family was easy. Becoming more familiar with audacity, podcasting and uploading to a hosting site made me think of the many ways I could use podcasting.
We started a Rossland tradition last winter when the snow was scarce and Rosslanders were desperate. It was Valentine's Day so we held a party in honour of Ullr, the Norse god of snow and all things winter. The party was held outside around a huge bonfire and all guests had to pen a love poem to Ullr. It was a fantastic night of spoken word, sonnets and ballads with a few haikus and limericks thrown in. It brought out the hidden Bards amongst our friends. The poems were then throw into the fire in hopes of Ullr gracing us with his presence. It snowed a few flakes the next day.... So this weekend the tradition continued and Ullr heard us loud and clear and the next morning the lift lines were long as the snow report recorded 17 new cms! Ryan and I wrote a part Petrarchian sonnet with a mix of Violent Femmes. Here it is for you listening pleasure:

I look forward to creating many more podcasts with my kids to preserve those precious moments of learning, their funny sayings and their playful ideas. There will be many songs and poems recorded as Ryan writes his own lyrics and plays guitar. My own personal contribution may be more spoken word or recording stories for the kids to listen to on our iPod. The possibilities are endless.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of professional learning
"There is magic in the human voice, the magic of shared awareness. Consciousness is most persuasively and intimately communicated via voice. The voice is literally inspired language, language full of breath, breath as language. " Gardner Campbell

The capacity of the human voice to convey emotion, and in turn meaning, is what brings a poem to life, renders a song unforgettable and creates memorable characters. The individual interpretations of words on a page can provide insight into the underlying themes of a work and as Campbell says, "The explaining voice conveys microcues of hesitation, pacing, and inflection that demonstrate both cognition and metacognition." Podcasting allows people to broadcast to the world what it is they are most passionate about; what is in their hearts.

Like many other Web 2.0 tools, the barrier to entry is low and any amateur can create their own 'radio' show. I recall living in Bella Coola and trying to get a radio showing up and running in the highschool. We had to fund raise the money for the equipment, learn how to use it and run the student led show before classes started and during breaks as not to disturb classes. It wasn't easy. Now all the students would have to do would be to download Audacity, record their shows and have friends and faculty subscribe to their podcasts using iTunes or an RSS feed. When their iPod is on the docking station, the podcasts would automatically be updated. Nothing could be easier.

Many of the initial podcasts done for education were based on content delivery. Professors were recording additional materials or their lectures in order to make the content easily accessible and portable (J. Riddle). But this form of podcasting is passive and as John Henderon states in his article "Why podcasts haven't revolutionized education...yet" they lack the interactivity of another human being. The answer here is to turn the podcasting around and have students become involved in the "highest level of the revised Bloom's taxonomy" (Henderon) by becoming their own podcasters. Working together they can create their own shows and collaborate in the learning process. They will be involved in discussion and debate in a genuine manner. If their podcasts are going to be published online they will have a genuine global audience with whom to share their ideas. Many elementary and high schools publish their podcasts ranging on topics from science to literature. There are several great links to podcasts for young children available as well, from story telling to world news. Podcasts can help bridge the gap between school, parents and the community by publishing student music concerts, creating field trip journals or student 'radio' plays. In terms of second language acquisition, students can use podcasting tools to practice their pronunciation or listen to a first language speaker. Some teachers have even gone so far as to create "multidimentsional podcasting" or "blogeasinting" where teachers and students both publish and respond to entries in a wiki-blog-podcast consortium (Riddle). This enables students to practice and converse with one another in their second language in a genuine fashion. An added bonus, is that podcasting helps teach about copyright. Students don't want others using their podcasts without permission and this helps them understand issues behind copyrighted music as well.

Podcasts also target different learning styles. Plug into your iPod and the voices can bring to life the marks on a page. Imagine the visually impaired or students with reading difficulties being able to tap into another of their senses in order to gain understanding. "The theater of the mind can be both compelling and transformative, often far more than anything witnessed visually" (Campbell). The most interesting and engaging podcasts are the ones that focus less on delivery and invite the listener to participate in the dialogue. A group of graduate students created podcasts for a museum tour discussing works of art (Buffington). The most engaging ones included multiple voices and informal language discussing immediate reactions to the art work. "These podcasts capture the spontaneity of a dialogue, but reflect an understanding of art and culture" (Gilbert, 2005). In contrast, many museum audio tours are scripted and fairly formal and students feel a disconnect to the material. This is an interesting and important observation when creating podcasts for your own students.

Using podcasts to provide writing feedback can also be a valuable tool. Students found that when they heard themselves read their own writing they were better able to revise and edit their work. Teachers can provide a writer's workshop like atmosphere by recording their initial impressions of student writing and pose questions to further flesh out ideas. Music teachers can record a piece of music for students to practice or create a screencast of the proper fingering techniques used to play an instrument. As a librarian, podcasting can be a great way to upload booktalks to your library blog or wiki. Even better, students can produce their own and the Seattle Public Library is a great resource to get some ideas for teen podcasts. What is key to remember is that we don't use podcasts simply to technologize our lessons but tap into the potential of podcasting "to imagine, as Lankshear and Knobel (2003) encourage, what the technology affords the work we do. In other words, what sorts of new ways of engaging as literate learners do new technologies offer with regard to connectivity (being able to connect with others locally and globally), access to information, and diverse ways of understanding and participating in the world?" (Vasquez) Podcasting is another tool that allows for reaching out beyond the classroom walls and providing students with an opportunity to have their voices heard.

Non-linked cited sources:

Riddle, J. (2010, January). Podcasting in the Classroom: A Sound Suceess. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 17(1), 23-26. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from PoQuest Education Journals.

Vasquez, V.. (2010, January). iPods, Puppy Dogs, and Podcasts: Imagining Literacy Instruction for the 21st Century. School Talk, 15(2), 1-2. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1938474901).

Davis, A., & McGrail, E.. (2009). "Proof-Revising" With Podcasting: Keeping Readers in Mind as Students Listen To and Rethink Their Writing. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), 522-529. Retrieved March 2, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1667625131).

Finding a needle in a haystack made easy with social bookmarking.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:51:00 +0000

With thousands of new web pages created every minute and a reported trillion pages indexed by Google to date, the chances of finding the same site you were on last week is slim to none. Sure you could easily use the bookmark function on your browser but soon enough the bookmarks are out of control and trying to remember which one was the most useful in your research on the impact of school libraries on student achievement is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Welcome social bookmarking into your life and voilà the needle is right where you left it: tag 'needle' 'haystack'.

1. Reflections on the process of learning the tool
The learning I experienced discovering this tool was more like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow than a needle in a haystack. I keep asking myself why I haven't been using social bookmarking earlier. The answer is probably because it isn't a creative tool in the way Flickr or YouTube are and the visual component is absent. This isn't a fancy flashy tool like many in the web 2.0 family but the quieter understated cousin who, once you get to know, is fascinating and one of your favorites. I originally signed up for a delicious account two years ago through the advice of a colleague who had discovered it. I bookmarked a few things and that was it. I didn't spend time checking out features and had minimal experience with web 2.0 so that features like tagging did not mean much . Quickly I went back to my old ways of bookmarking using my browser's toolbar. After two years as TL and student through U of A's DLTL program my bookmarks were out of control. I had imported my Safari bookmarks into Firefox when I switched browsers so I had two different sets to refer to. I also had bookmarks on my toolbar. Imagine a huge walk in closet stuffed to the brim with everything and anything and no way to even open the door to find what you're looking for. To make it worse, when I worked at home I had no access to all the bookmarks I needed on my work computer.

Within minutes of reactivating my delicious account I realized what I had been missing: the ability to organize the world wide web. It was almos too easy to import all my Safari/Firefox bookmarks into delicious. There they all were, in alphabetical order in the sidebar. I could reaarange them by tags or frequency if I wished. I got the same feeling of control and weightlessness one achieves upon finally cleaning out the basement or garage after years of uncontrolled clutter. As Will Richardson points out, "developing self-organizational skills in an information overload world is key to enhancing personal and professional learning practice." I am now of the opinion that social bookmarking be one of the first tools taught on a literacy skills continuum. The learning curve was high and soon enough I realized that I could see if someone else had bookmarked the same site. I could then access all their bookmarks and tags as well. It was creating a "vertical search" or what Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of WIRED magazine calls a "long tail". My one bookmark on digital storytelling lead me to others' delicious accounts and they may have had another 10 bookmarked sites on the same topic. Rather than having to go out and search myself, the resources came to me. Granted, the hyperlinking can get out of hand but therein lies the beauty of serendipity. During the above search I noticed 'AuntDee' who had educational tags such as assessment, lesson plans, essential questions, moodle so when I explored further I found one of AuntDees' bookmarked pages on assessment. This is a resource I need as well and so have bookmarked it for later when I compile assement materials for a district wide professional development day in April.

Working throug Joanne's Trailfire links on social bookmarking I started reading about Diigo. With a much welcome extension to this assignment I decided to take the plunge. My elation with delicious and its user friendly interface was soon to be a distant memory. But I am getting ahead of myself. I felt comfortable with delicious, like a pair of sensible shoes but I wanted to take the risk and go further into the world of social bookmarking and so I donned a pair of high heels and teetered into Diigo. At first, everything was going smoothly. Imagine how excited I was to realize I didn't have to abandon delicious. Diigo had already thought about my pre-established social bookmarking habits and was steps ahead of me. By going into the settings I could not only import all my delicious bookmarks but sync the two as well. Now everytime I bookmark on Diigo it automatically goes to delicious. You have to give credit to the folks at Diigo because they know their product is more sophisticated and takes a little more time and patience to get comfortable with. Knowing you don't have to give up delicious made me keep at it despite mounting frustrations and uncertainty I would really understand how to get the most out of it.

I am still not where I would like to be with Diigo but have been able to find groups to follow, highlight websites, post sticky notes, archive pages, make tag rolls, take screenshots and link my annotated pages to my blog. The introductory videos on the Diigo site provide easy to follow instructions and highlight the many advanced features like being able to set up a working group to share sites, annotations and notes as well as start a discussion thread. I am almost embarrassed to admit that for the life of me I can't get my Diigo sidebar to list all my bookmarks alphabetically which is why I sometimes still fall back on delicious. Despite this small blip, now that I have spent time with both social bookmarking sites Diigo comes out on top. For librarians, Diigo is an advanced organizational and researching tool that is worth the extra effort to get to know.

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning
Despite the fact my husband uses a Blackberry for work and personal use, has a laptop, works and publishes on several online publications and in general spends a great deal of time online he hates anything you have to download to your computer. I got the gears when I downloaded Audacity to record a podcast for my last U of A course. I had to explain that it wasn't the cause of the virus that later attacked our computer (a nightmare - the virus, not my husband). So when I installed the Diigo toolbar I had to explain to him what it was and how it worked. You could see the lights going off. He is planning to write a living history of the Columbia River and sees the potential of Diigo as you can organize sites, highlight, annotate and post sticky notes. By tagging those sites he may then link to others' bookmarks on the Columbia River. I could have also used a diigolet which is similar to the diigo toolbar, with less functionality, but you don't actually have to install it which is great if you are using an internet cafe or a friend's computer temporarily.
Speaking of internet cafes reminds me of travelling and searching out the local shops and restaurants with internet access so you can check your email and let people back home know you are alive and well. Travelling is what led to my teaching career (a story for another time) and I plan to take a planned (paid) year's leave of absence so that my family and I can travel around the world. It takes a lot of planning, research and organization. Two of my colleagues are currently in the process of getting ready for their year's leave beginning in September. They've been using Excel to cut and paste websites that they found for later use. When I started using delicious I immediately saw what a great tool it could be for trip planning. The beauty of social bookmarking is that you can share your bookmarks and find others with similar interests. Travelling with two young children also possesses some challenges so I did a delicious search using a few tags like travel, kids, family, year abroad and found tons of useful links. I also discovered the tag 'gap_year' which is the term used by those in the UK. Those with similar tags also have bookmarked sites with cheap airfares and around the world tickets. By sharing bookmarks I realized there were many avenues to persue. With my new found knowledge and confidence with delicious I quickly went to tell my colleague I had found the perfect tool to plan her trip. She was as excited as I was and frustrated to no end with her current system of cutting and pasting with no direct links. I told her we would be up and running in a matter of minutes. LESSON LEARNED: not all computers work the same. From the initial set up of a Yahoo account to log in on delicious things were not working. When we finally got the account ready I promised her that transferring her browser's bookmarks would take seconds. LESSON LEARNED: never promise anything when it comes to technology. There were files to download, bookmarks to convert and save and then upload. She quickly lost enthusiasm while I tried desperately to make it a quick easy experience. Despite the fact we were both using Macs and Firefox, the steps to import bookmarks were very different. All I had to do upon set up was click the button that said upload bookmarks.
I still think it is a fantastic tool but next time I will make sure I have time to show someone how the tool works and why it will be a benefit to their personal and professional lives. That way, if things don't work immediately they'll pursue it because they'll see the relevance.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

Librarians, as information specialists and teachers of information literacy, are given the task of finding, organizing and sharing information in a variety of formats: print, non-pint, online, databases, podcasts, photos,blogs, websites, etc... As the world wide web continues to explode, these tasks have changed in nature and the previous systems of card catalogues, filing cabinets and microfiches seem archaic. As the Educause article on social bookmarking points out, "as the landscape of online resources changes and new sytems of classifying those resources emerge and mature, the design and function of databases themselves may change to accomodate this new management system". With web 2.0 came tagging and folksonomies and the ensuing debate over the pros and cons of using such a classification system. No longer are cataloguing specialists dictating the hierarchical systems of organization and the "everyman is in charge of metadata" (http://www.diigo.com/09bi8) Although it can be argued that tagging can be imprecise, ambiguous and overly personal it allows users to save information using a variety of tags in order to access information in multiple ways. Users of web 2.0 are becoming the architects of information categorization by using tags that reflect new trends, popular topics and current events. The question being asked is will these tags still hold significance in another two years? As the very nature of web 2.0 is continous growth and a reflection of the society of users, tags too will change as will methods of categorization. Walt Crawford notes (http://www.diigo.com/09bi8) it isn't an either or system. The future of classification systems may be a mashing up of "our foundational skills with collective mind" (http://www.diigo.com/09bik). As Richardson points out, together we can do a better job of building comprehensive resource lists.
The implications of social bookmarking tools for librarians are far reaching. They can bridge the gap between the public or school library and their patrons who are familiar with the Google interface and use simple searching methods. Now a public library, such as the Nashville Public Library, can set up a Teen Web page with a delicious cloud tag allowing easy searches for teens through a familiar interface. They simply click on a tag such as Manga, Careers, Books, Sex, Scholarships and they'll be led to bookmarked sites. This is something I plan to integrate into my own school library blog to link students to bookmarked sites on internet safety, reader advisories as well as specific curricular links. As librarians, we need to integrate the tools our patrons are using outside of the library in order to stay current and accessible. With low barriers for participation, social bookmarking tools will be the link between more formal databases and our students' online experiences.
In terms of a research tool, Diigo is excellent. It allows you to highlight and annotate bookmarked articles, as well as capture a screenshot that acts as a cache. This is important if you want to share articles from ProQuest or another password protected site. For this blog assignment I collected all the ProQuest articles, created snapshots, highlighted and annotated them, and created a 'task tag' EDES501
so that if you searched my library on Diigo you would be able to read the articles and see my annotations without needing a CCID or password. Diigo also allows you to get an annotated link to your bookmarks. Now that I am familiar with Diigo, I will be providing an inservice to district teacher librarians as this is by far the one web 2.0 tool every librarian needs to organize and find information. The benefit of sharing bookmarks is that it leads you to a community of similar users. Diigo provides links to others who have the same bookmark, allows you to see their profile and their additonal bookmarks. Reading through the profiles of the individuals who bookmarked Using Technology as a Learning Tool, Not Just the Cool New Thing it was obvious I had found an affinity space: university professors, a director of multimedia center at the University of Conneticut and a graduate of a Masters program in Education and Online Training and Learning. You can bet I explored their bookmarks.
We will be providing students with a real advantage if we can teach them how to organize their research, annotate it and share with others. Delicious is a great introduction for those who are just getting their feet wet in the web 2.0 world, as well as for younger students. Diigo's capabilities are well suited for senior students and those individuals more comfortable with web 2.0. As a graduate student I couldn't have found a better tool to help me find that needle.

Using Technology as a Learning Tool, Not Just the Cool New Thing | EDUCAUSE

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:07:00 +0000

Using Technology as a Learning Tool, Not Just the Cool New Thing | EDUCAUSE

Using Diigo.com I highlighted passages and added comments on sticky notes. Trying out the more advanced features of Diigo as a social bookmarking tool, as well as its research and collaboration features.

YouTube is the key.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:25:00 +0000

+The gates have been opened. The barriers have been dismantled. The gatekeepers have been dismissed. You are free to create, teach, dialogue, document, entertain, comment, collaborate and share using digital media. It won't take expensive recording equipment or editing software, high payed actors or a difficult director. Your movie won't end up on the editing floor never to be showcased on the silver screen. Your time has come and your medium is here: video publishing.

We are experiencing a profound moment in history due to the digital environment in which we live. We have gone from paper and pens, to typewriters and the first word processors, to computers and global networks accessible through cell phones like the iPhone. Web 2.0 tools and programs like iMovie, along with digital cameras provide free or inexpensive means to create movies. Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Director, National Programs and Site Development, National Writing Project, terms this "low barrier of entry and world wide reach", during the webcast produced by the MacArthur Foundation on The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media. We have become media creators who publish globally and this gives incredible power to our students to become agents of change and civic advocates. They are also entering a complex world and we need to teach them the power of media and the ethical and social responsibility they have as authors and creators. The webcast mentioned above is available on YouTube and although it is an hour in length I highly recommend you spend the time to listen.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about the tool
I clearly remember when I first saw a YouTube video. A friend, who is an avid athlete and in extremely good physical shape, was over and was telling my husband and I that he had once been very overweight. I had a hard time believing him until he said, "Wait, I'll show you." Over to our computer he ran and in seconds his former 'larger' self was on the screen waving his arms up and down really fast. No matter that he looked like he was trying to imitate some sort of tropical bird during mating season, he really was much larger than I could have imagined. That was about 3 years ago and my first introduction to YouTube. I soon learned that anyone could upload a video and that if you wanted to view funny scenes from old sitcoms, they were there too.  I didn't spend much time surfing YouTube, nor did I make any movies.
When I started teaching again and became a teacher-librarian, YouTube was a new resource that would become invaluable. The majority of the time I would do simple searches to find what I needed. Later on I signed up for an account as I was trying to upload a movie I had created for EDES 501 Resources for Children and Young Adults. I realized that YouTube had a 10 minute maximum for videos and so in the end I could not use it as a sharing medium and turned to Vimeo for video sharing. I did subscribe to a former student's channel as she is a talented singer and showcases her voice alongside photocollages she creates to accompany her songs.
As I began exploring the features of YouTube as outlined by Will Richardson and Davies and Merchant, I realized I could create playlists. Formerly I had been bookmarking videos to use during units I was collaborating on with teachers. The playlist feature helps me keep bookmarking down as well as organize types of videos according to units of study or my own personal interests. You can check out my account to see playlists and subscriptions. I also played around with customization of the template and uploading a profile picture but those were only to make the space more individual. I linked my account to my blog as well but declined to have my acitivities tracked through FB or twitter for now. I may vary well link my twitter account in the future when I spend more time creating playlists for professional purposes.
I also spent some time exploring the YouTube blog and the phenomenon of meme (Dawkins). I checked out charlieissocoollike and Danny Macaskill, the young mountain biker who became an overnight superstar from his YouTube video.  Watching the top video for 2009 I learned who Susan Boyle is. I must have been living under a rock until now (or maybe just busy working on my Master's).
I also found YouTubeEDU, which hosts over 100 universities aggregating thousands of free lectures from such institutions as MIT, Harvard, Yale and Stanford. Many of these universities offer full online courses free of charge. MIT has great links to resources that any educator can use for their own purposes with students or simply for furthering their own education.

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning
Having my seven year old daughter beside me as I browsed YouTube created an interesting dialogue. She questioned my excuse of having to do homework for this course when she saw me surfing videos. I explained the purpose of the assignment and asked if there was anything she would like to see. Being a buding singer she requested none other than Hannah Montana aka Miley Cyrus. Remember she is seven, going on thirteen! She immediately started singing along and asking to see more music videos. My son meanwhile is only 4 and has no interest in such things but often sits on my husband's lap at breakfast watching mountain bike videos or motorcyle racing on YouTube. As a FB user, YouTube videos circulate quickly amongst friends involved in the same outdoor pursuits as myself. Some are simply entertaining, like the cross country snowboarders, or educational, like the avalanche in Alaska that buried the man wearing the helmet camera. The viewer lives through the eternal minutes buried under the snow hearing only the shallow breathing of the victim. He survived.
Unbenounced to me a video that I actually filmed was on YouTube. When I was checking my account there was a recommendation to subscribe to an individual's channel. Surprisingly that individual was my husband. I am not sure how they linked the accounts as they have different emails, maybe through last names and location? Anyhow there is one video of very poor quality on the account but it does showcase his skills on two wheels:

As my knowledge of iMovie is quite good and continues to grow with my digital booktalk unit (more to come on that), I will begin to use YouTube as a videosharing site for my personal creations whether they be family, outdoor pursuits or more creative collages. I too want to participate socially through digital means. I believe adults must also take part fully in digital media so that they can provide guidance for youth and not feel disempowered as parents, while their kids participate in these new norms.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

YouTube, and other video sharing sites, can act as bridges to allow students to connect their lives outside of school with school, what Carol Kuhlthau calls the third space.  As educators, we must provide the means for students to bring their experiences, culture, community and individual experiences into their work. An excellent example of this can be seen in The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media. Students from a Chicago high school were asked to read The House on Mango Street and then remix the book to relate to their own realities. A student created video was filmed on her street and focused on the choices she had to make in her daily life but reflected the themes and struggles of the novel.   Students can also use digital media to create powerful narratives about their experiences or of the members within their community such as those done by the Scribe Video Center and their Documentary History Project for Youth. The Temple Youth Voices Project is another example of a bridge between youth, their community and school. This project seeks to build civic advocacy among young people through digital media. One group of four senior students produced a documentary about hip hop and its effect on youth and bullying.
The most crucial aspect of digital media and uploading videos to YouTube is taking responsibility for authorship. As mentioned earlier, we are experiencing major shifts in education. We must shift from education to learning; we must shift how students participate and what they produce; we must shift from one singular space (classroom) to link with more public spaces (public libraries); we must shift our definition of teacher to include others from outside the school (media specialists). These shifts will enable use to build those bridges and open the gates. Our students have access to real audiences and are shifting from teacher as viewer/reviewer/assessor to global networks of viewers/reviewers/assessors.
Some of the concerns and issues raised by the panel of researchers on the MacArthur Foundation webcast are worth highlighting here. The first being the relationship between author and audiences. The author or creator must be aware of the ethical and social responsibilites involved with digital media and globilization. As educators we must enter into discussions of copyrights and fair use, as well as boundaries concerning appropriateness of images and ideas. When we allow students to draw on past experiences and their out of school lives we must be sensitive and  clear as to the expectations of the project. How students use digital media all depends on how it is taught. What is your purpose as an educator? Civic advocacy, social responsibility, rhetoric, communicaiton skills, visual literacy? Ask yourself what the larger social purpose is for using these tools. The final product is not the creation of the media, a step in the process, but how we are using it. The power of YouTube and digital media is the dialogue that is generated, the conversations that are started that make a difference. The technology is enabling our students to share their learning and bridge different spaces together.

Digital media is simply a tool and the question is not 'to use it' or 'not to use it' but how we choose to use it. The use of YouTube and other video sharing sites for educational purposes are vast and varied. Webb, in his article Music analysis down the (You) tube? Exploring the potential of cross-meida listening for the clasroom mentions that merging images with music opens up new possibilities of meaning and invites alternative musical interpretations. Allowing students to create their own music videos for a variety of music genres would direct audiences to certain meanings and not others. Using a site like Flickr.com and iMovie would allow students a simple means to demonstrate visual literacy and musical insight. I have used YouTube for language classes where students will watch and listen to a French singer. The visuals aid in the understanding of the French song lyrics. Students use iMovie to create digital booktalks and digital narratives that can be showcased on YouTube. I have embedded student YouTube videos on the library blog to show case their work. Here is our British exchange student's sonnet:

In addition, here is a digital booktalk on John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men created by an English 11 student in our digital media unit:

As mentioned in Web 2.0 for schools, access to sensitive material can be dealt with in the classroom and used for discussion. When collaborating with an English teacher on the novel The Wave we uploaded the movie The Eternal Jew. This movie is not available in any video store due to its exteremly racist content. It was a propoganda movie created by Hitler to convince the German public that Jews were a pestulance worse than rats. By showing this video in conjunction with a novel study about racism and the Holocaust it was put into context for the students. We discussed the movie in detail and it generated many questions from the students. As teachers, we could monitor their thought processes and help them digest the material. Had they stumbled across something like this on their own they may not have had the additonal insight and understanding.
We know from research that 10 hours of video is being uploaded every minute to YouTube.  We see students on YouTube all the time. Blocking it at school won't teach them how to deal with inappropriate content. I am pleased to say our Superintendent 'gave us the key' this September.

Work cited
Webb, M.. (2007). Music analysis down the (You) tube? Exploring the potential of cross-media
      listening for the music classroom. British Journal of Music Education, 24(2), 147-
      164.Retrieved  February 1, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1394867971).

Flickr, folksonomy and the death of Dewey.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:56:00 +0000

"Dewey decimal is dead," proclaimed one of the guest speakers at the Kamloops Tech It Up conference in October 2009 to a crowd of over 500 educators. Librarians around the world let out a cry of shock. Dewey dead?! Will our libraries become a tangled web of information (pun intended)? Patrons wandering the stacks unable to locate the biography of John A. Macdonald? Can we no longer be assured that resources on natural science be located in the 500s? Will the digital age see the end of the library classification system as we know it?

Welcome folksonomy, the new dewey. Thomas Vander Wal, an Internet developer, came up with the word folksonomy to describe a new approach to categorizing information on the web (http://tiny.cc/Npjva). According to Vander Wal, “ folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one’s own retrieval” (http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html). The fascinating aspect of tagging, and the resulting folksonomy, is that people are providing their own meanings, interpretations and understanding of the objects being tagged. In the case of photosharing sites like Flickr, the folksonomy can end up reflecting a myriad of ways to look at an image. It can widen our own personal interpretations of an image and in turn how we examine the world around us.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

Flickr, along with other photosharing sites, had entered into my personal and professional learning but only on the periphery. A few friends use Flickr to share their photos, mostly without tags or compiling them into sets. I link to their photos and view them as a slideshow but that is about the extent of it. Professionally, I have directed students to Flickr through Creative Commons to use photos for digital storytelling, digital booktalks, as well as for voicethread projects. I did not provide any more instruction than simply to use the site to find images. I didn’t know enough about how the sites worked in terms of tagging, sets or groups. I had never heard the term folksonomy before reading Davies and Merchant’s Web 2.0 for Schools. I had signed up for a Flickr account back in September and recall being somewhat annoyed that I had to start a Yahoo account to become a member. Most of the web 2.0 tools I currently use are through Google and having yet another email address to remember didn’t seem efficient. Picassa is a Google photosharing site that I could also use. Other than that it was easy to get started uploading photos, adding titles and tags and sharing with the EDES group that was set up. One of the neatest features that I used was the labeling of a photograph using the textboxes that pop up as you scroll across a picture.

2. Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning

I spent a considerable amount of time using different tags to get an awareness of the community of users and individual interpretations of an emotion or word. I have been reading blog articles on engagement vs. empowerment (http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2178) and so when I entered empowerment in the search there were various images from symbolic to literal but what I found interesting were the tag clusters that were listed on the right hand side: women, africa, india, education, children and ngo. The folksonomy surrounding the word reflected the associations of the Flickr community. Hyperlinking from image, to group to tags and back again was entertaining and educational. By typing the word ‘hands’ in to the search box I found an interesting picture which had been tagged ‘bokeh’ and there was a whole ‘bokeh’ group. I learned that ‘bokeh’ is the term that refers to the blurred area in a photograph with a shallow depth of field. There were some stunning images in that group. I will definitely spend more time browsing images as it does help you look at your environment in a new way. I will be using Flickr to create family albums and send links to family and friends. You can link your Flickr photos to your FB account by simply inserting a Flickr tab (download the app) at the top of your FB home page. This makes it much easier than resizing pictures and emailing them. The drawback though is that family members who like to print out the pictures we send will have to order them online. Flickr is also a great way to introduce my kids to new places around the world that we may visit, or find images of interesting bugs and animals. Images are powerful learning tools that can generate great questions.

3. Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

Reading both Davies and Merchant and Will Richardson provided me with an entirely new take on photosharing and its possibilities. As mentioned in my introduction, the term folksonomy was new to me but really summed up the impact web 2.0 tools have had on categorizing information. What is most intriguing is that tagging and clouds reflect users values and interests. It is the people who contribute to the read/write web as both consumers and producers, creating a dynamic space so it should be that we in turn ‘reflect on our participation’. This is not a static or systematic way of organizing materials, but by its nature idiosyncratic and responsive to change. Rather than organizing information, people are “providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding” (http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html). Even museums like the Guggenheim, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are employing a folksonomic approach by allowing patrons to add their own tags along with those of curators to their online collections (http://tiny.cc/Npjva). An examination of tags would be an excellent way for students to study connotation and denotation. It would also provide an opportunity to learn about individual interpretations of an object and how when we begin to label things we start to examine our environment in a new light.

As a teacher-librarian Flickr is a great tool to teach the importance of intellectual property rights. Many of the images on the site belong to Creative Commons and can be used as long as a student attributes the image to the creator. This links into the use of other media such as videos and music for personal and public use. Many of my students want to use their favorite songs loaded onto their iPod when creating digital booktalks without realizing they don’t have the right to do so unless it is given by the artist. Students understand plagirisim in terms of copy and paste but don’t always connect that with the intellectual property rights that accompany other forms of media.

The uses of Flickr in the classroom seem endless:

1. writing prompts – sometimes referred to as Flicktion. Students write storylines in the comment area.

2. connecting images to poems

3. documenting field trips

4. step by step ‘how to’ photos

5. labeling parts of a dissection using the text boxes that are overlaid on the images

6. geotagging and exploring images of a particular country

7. documenting school events or student work

8. creating your own visual story of a literary work like Macbeth

The possibilities are endless but what is really fundamental is that photosharing sites like Flickr can be used to create attentiveness, what Davies and Merchant term attentive noticing (p. 46) Through the process of seeing, tagging, and affinity spaces we can begin to pay more attention to similar objects around us and this leads us to new ways of knowing.

One of the reasons educators may be weary of photo sharing sites is that all types of photos are posted and we may find something inappropriate pop up on a students screen unintentionally. This only highlights the importance of educating students on how to deal with inappropriate materials while working online prior to introducing Flickr to a lesson.

Flickr and similar sites provide images to teach visual literacy skills, intellectual property rights and an attentiveness to our environments. It also provides insight into the community nature of web 2.0 tools that ranges across race, religion, age and demographics.

Introducing the 'real' Nicola Kuhn?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:21:00 +0000

I am in a dilema. Should I be the Nicola Kuhn who thrives on adventure and outdoor pursuits (many of which my mother won't admit I do out of fear I may injure/kill myself.) Or maybe I should present myself as the professional teacher-librarian who advocates for TLs in the district? The Nicola who is mother of two young children? Maybe the Nicola who has been married for 13 years to the man I met while swimming in the Pacific off the beaches of Puerto Vallarta? I would love to be the Nicola who travelled around the world for a year, crying the day I had to depart India. I could fabricate an avatar and leave you in the dark as to my gender and race. How much to share on my online profile? Who may see it and will it come back to haunt me?( http://tiny.cc/o8hmj)
So who am I really? All of the above and more.
One of the four criteria of Web 2.0, outlined by Julia Davies and Guy Merchant in 'Web 2.0 for Schools' (2009), is presence. The read/write web allows users to create an online identity fashioned from reality, fantasy, personal or professional lives but because it is so text based race, gender, class and place may no longer provide the clues we use to identify with someone. Now we may be connected through hobbies, work, family or off the beaten track interests such as ThumpingGuide to NYC, dedicated to banging on the city's most resonant protrusions. We can create various online identities or have them all merge with twitter feeds linked to FB linked to Flicker with embedded Youtube videos and podcasts. The way we present ourselves and interact with others is continously changing.

1. Reflections on the process of learning about blogs and blogging.
Setting up this blog was easy, as I have been using blogger with my library blog for about a year. Blogger was the tool recommended by other educators for ease of use and its compatibility with other Google applications. I learned about blogging at the BCTLA 2008 conference in Victoria. I remember Jennifer Branch was sitting beside me and questionned if blogging wasn't dead. I think I could now answer that it definitely isn't. It has matured and become a very useful tool in connecting me with current ideas and pedagogy surrounding web 2.0 and its role in education. When I initially used blogger I found intuitive and user friendly. At the time, our school had blocked Youtube and I was unable to upload videos and it was difficult to work around the other blocks as well. I am happy to say our Superintendent was easily convinced that blocks should be removed. What I did learn by reading Will Richardson's 'Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts adn other Powerful Web Tools for Classroooms' (2008) was the distinction between not really blogging (daily diary type entries) and genuine blogging. True blogging has a reflective quality and happens when you read, think, synthesize and then comment by pushing the ideas further and disseminating your views. Having set up a google reader with RSS feeds to education-technology blogs I can quickly be a part of the important discussions happening around the changes in our field due to the digital environment we inhabit. I can further contribute by reflecting on these ideas in my own blog and linking to other relevant sites. Although this is officially my first blog entry for class I found myself using this blog early on to discuss my thoughts on what I had read and observed in using web 2.0 in the classroom. (See previous posts).

2. My own personal learning
I began playing around and exploring various web 2.0 tools out of my own initiative and interest. As a new TL, attending conferences and doing my own learning about what the position entailed, I came across the term web 2.0 was intrigued at the possibilites the tools had for education. I knew I had to spend the time to learn them before asking others to use them for their personal lives or in the education field. When I set up the library blog it was a good introduction to the ins and outs of the tool itself. My library blog really isn't blogging but more of a venue to post student work, interesting news stories, highlight school groups and initiatives. Slowly I began to contribute to it in other ways by uploading powerpoint presentations for students to refer to or creating a pathfinder for a particular unit I was doing in collaboration with another teacher. I am beginning to use it more as a 'blog' with reference to things I have read, links to similar articles or ideas. There are few comments and the interaction on the blog is almost nonexistent which indicates I am not truly blogging. I could have set up a wiki to do the job but I like the ease of creating posts as well as the overall look of a blog. As for creating a personal blog, well I don't think I will go there yet but when that year off with my husband and kids comes around I will set up a blog to document the adventures we have around the world and to keep family and friends posted.

3. Using blogs in teaching and learning
I managed to introduce a few teachers to blogging last year. The most successful was the Biology teacher who would post ethical medical dilemas, interesting new discoveries or pose science related questions. Her students would then have to do some further inquiry into the topic, read, think, synthesize and contribute links and discussions based on that week's post. Her students were actively invovled in the reflective act of blogging. I would like to set up a blog for the art teacher who does a social issues art project every year in Art 11/12. Students do some research and find an issue they would like to study. Be it poverty, racism, teen pregnancy, abuse or simply the role of music students inquire and produce a piece of art to represent their thoughts and insights into the issue. Setting up a blog would allow them to discuss the issues further, link to relevant articles, videos, podcasts, interviews and music. It would push their learning further and they can discuss some sensitive issues without feeling awkward in a face to face environment. Being able to connect resources and ideas, while combining solitary reflection and social interaction is what Richardson discribes as real blogging. I hope to be able to show teachers and students the benefits of blogging and that this tool, along with many other Web 2.0 tools, is not simply a neat way to produce projects; it is more than 'old wine in new bottles.' (Davies, Merchant 2009).

What's my online identity?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:37:00 +0000

Taking some time to scan through Google Reader and the hundreds of RSS feeds provided some thought provoking information. Several of the blogs I follow had postings relating to online identities (A GeekyMomma's Blog) and protecting reputations (SLJblog). I must admit that when I had to start using twitter, created a blog, joined a NING or two and start using FB with my classmates for EDES 501 WEB 2.0 I immediately felt a need to separate my private life from that of my professional life. My twitter posts relate to education, the role of technology, links to others blogs/post/websites concerning education but refrain from including the more personal events of my day. Meanwhile my FB account, started a few years ago, is the personal side of my online life. I rarely post professionally related items or comments and decline or ignore requests from students to 'friend' me. I may even ignore a request from a colleague with whom I interact on a work related basis.
So why separate the two? Isn't it only a false sense of privacy anyhow? Maybe, maybe not. How often do you find yourself looking at a friend of a friend's photos on FB? Controlling when others take photos and where they post them is nearly impossible. It isn't that my behaviour outside of my work is unacceptable or embarassing but I don't necessarily want my colleagues or other professionals knowing everything about me: who I hang out with, what my kids look like, those vacation photos on a beach in a bathing suit, (you get the idea). Can I hide all of this if it is on FB? No, I am not disillusioned that those posts are private but they are less accessible if I don't 'friend' those in my professional realm. It surprises me how many bloggers link their sites to FB (TheInnovativeEducator) so that the rest of the world can peer into every aspect of their personal and private lives.
It is worth thinking about and if you are curious you can find out what your online identity looks like:
pipl.com
123people.com
wink.com

Protecting Reputations Online: New from Common Craft

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Protecting Reputations Online: New from Common Craft: "

Our friends at Common Craft, experts in the art of video explanations, released Protecting Reputations Online in Plain English yesterday. If ...

Connecting and contributing through Web 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:13:00 +0000

Always looking for great examples of how others are engaging students to contribute to the read/write web. Check out 21st Century Global Leaders where student projects are posted. Their works are demonstrative of how they can delve into inquiry based learning, research, synthesize, connect and produce insightful new knowledge.

Thinking outside the box

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:46:00 +0000

It is quickly becoming apparent that the students I work with have not really been exposed to many of the new web 2.0 tools in the context of the classroom. They are of course familiar with social networking sites like Facebook and are continously exploring youtube videos, but ask them to use a wiki or blog and they are at a loss. The biggest surprise I had was that the 'A' students have the most difficulty with new forms of demonstrating their knowledge. They don't want messy or creative or risk taking; they want it simple and obvious because it is easier. I am glad we have presented them with a challenge: stretch your thinking, make connections, take risks and explore new ways of gaining knowledge. Don't rely on your teacher to hand you all the information you need to know; learn how to find it yourselves. Take responsibility for your own learning.
The students who are often on the fringes of a class and not the top academic students totally get the concept of the wiki as more than a word processing document. They are exploring issues and themes from their novels and making connections beyond the obvious. The are providing insight into their understanding of the works through their research of a particula topic or issue and bringing that information back to their wikis. Having read Will Richardson's book 'Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools' over the winter break I have a much better understanding of how to use Web 2.0 tools for higher level thinking. Found a good wiki today while searching our rubrics to use with wikis. (http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/) (Check out the various rubrics and the Bloom's taxonomy revised for Web 2.0.) The students began to realize the criteria they and their teacher had originally come up with wouldn't work as the wikis would all look quite different. This was a great learning experience for us all and I am so glad this particular teacher is willing to take risks with her own learning and try something new with her students at my suggestion. I am no expert either so we all learn together. It was a good day.