Book Reflection: Chapter 10: What It All Means

"So, now that you have a good idea of the tools and the pedagogies, what is going to be the impact on education?" (Richardson, 2010) Good question Will. After all this talk and discussion about the Read/Write Web, blogs, wikis, RSS, Flickr, social bookmarking, podcasting and social networking, where do we go from here? Richardson sums this up in 10 "shifts" that these technologies have created for the future world that our students will inhabit and that we as teachers need to prepare them for.

Big Shift 1: Open Content
The sources that students have access to for learning can no longer be controlled by schools like they were in the past. The Read/Write Web has blown the doors open on information accessibility, and teachers need to shift their attention to including these new sources of knowledge and educating students on how to digest them efficiently.

Big Shift 2: Many, Many Teachers and 24/7 Learning
Learning is no longer restricted to the time period between bells or the start/end of the school day. Teachers have the opportunity to interact with students through blogs, wikis and social networking systems anytime and from anywhere. The Read/Write Web never sleeps.

Big Shift 3: The Social, Collaborative Construction of Meaningful Knowledge
The idea that students produce work in isolation, turn it in for evaluation by a single source (a.k.a. their teacher) and then the process ends has expired. We need to shift to the realization that students need to learn how to work in a collaborative environment, publish their work to a large audience and then continue to refine their understanding through continued feedback and more collaboration.

Big Shift 4: Teaching is Conversation, Not Lecture
Students, more so than ever, are turned off to learning when a teacher talks to them. The response greatly improves, however, when we talk with them and give them a say in how the class tackles the issue. Students cease to be passive learners and become active learners, contributing their knowledge and experiences to enrich the learning experience for everyone.

Big Shift 5: Know "Where" Learning
This one may be my favorite. "In the Read/Write Web classroom, it's not as essential to know what the answer is as it is to know where to find it." (Richardson, 2010) Teaching-to-the-test just doesn't cut it in the real world, but teachers continue to feel pressure to do this to meet standards and expectations set by an administration that is, well, clueless. The answer is not going to do a student any good if they don't understand how they got it. The destination is not as important as how you got there.

Big Shift 6: Readers Are No Longer Just Readers
Thanks to the "write" part of the Read/Write Web, anyone can publish anything online. Whereas before we had book, magazine and newspaper editors who would check content for accuracy, this is no longer the case. The result is that teachers must shift their focus to include educating students on how to be readers and editors of Internet content in order to seek out what is true and what is hooey.

Big Shift 7: The Web as Notebook (or Portfolio)
When I watch a teacher instruct students to print off two copies of a product (one to turn in, one for their portfolio) it drives me nuts. More and more of the content that students are creating today can't be printed on an 8 1/2x11 piece of paper (have you tried to print a podcast? Trust me, the results aren't pretty). Digital or ePortfolios are the future, because they allow students to include rich multimedia artifacts like podcasts, videos, Voicethreads, Storybirds and much more to show their mastery of fact and skill.

Big Shift 8: Writing Is No Longer Limited to Text
We need Shift #7 because student production is no longer limited to just text. Students are "writing" about their knowledge and experiences through the genres of podcasts, iMovies, digital photography, live-streaming and others. I'll never forget a presentation by two 7th grade boys on "Italian Food" and "Coca-Cola." They started their presentation off with a podcast which was animated, even funny at times, and yet still addressed each of the requirements set by their teacher for the assignment. However, they had run out of time to finish the podcast and had to rap things up via traditional oral presentation…it was painful to watch! I asked their teacher if she would grant them an extension so that they could finish their podcast, she agreed.

Big Shift 9: Mastery Is the Product, Not the Test
"Would you feel safe in world where kids were awarded drivers licenses by just passing the written test?" (Richardson, 2010) That question right there hit me like a Mack truck (I won't say how old the driver was). Think back to Shift #5 here; we asks students "how" and "why" because we want them to be able to show us that they have mastered the skills so that, when they are confronted with similar (or different) scenarios in the future, they will have what need to be successful.

Big Shift 10: Contribution, Not Completion, Is the Ultimate Goal
What students have to say and contribute to our community has value. As teachers, it is our job to help them add to this library of knowledge so that their contributions become stronger, fuller, richer. The work students do is "…not meant for the teacher or the class or even the school. It's meant for the world - literally. It's not meant to be discarded or stored in a folder somewhere; it's meant to be added to the conversation and potentially used to teacher others." (Richardson, 2010)

That is the power of the Read/Write Web. That is the power that our students are already using, whether we are aware of it or not. It is this power that we as teachers must educate our students on how to understand, control and use to contribute to the greater good of our society.

One final note…
I have to admit that I'm finding my experience reading this book incomplete. I think it may be because the final chapter ends in a comma. Seriously, I think my book is incomplete. So, I am making a official shout-out to my colleague Bryan to ask if his final chapter in his book ends with the line, "Here is where the real learning,"

I think the culprit was Colonel Mustard…


Diigo: Book link list

Book Reflection: Chapter 9: Social Networks

In chapter 9, Will Richardson dives into the controversial topic of social networks in the classroom and even uses the F-word…yup, you heard me, Facebook. Just like any other web2.0 tool that Richardson has discussed in his book, I can see social networking being integrated into the classroom given the right service, oversight and expectations. And, I know that Facebook is the "in" thing right now for networking online, but I've also seen first-hand the hurt, harm and damage inflicted on students due to Facebook misuse.

Technically, it shouldn't be an issue for us at the middle school level, what with Facebook's 14-years-and-older policy for having an account…but it IS an issue. A week doesn't go by when the assistant principal and I aren't investigating a report of cyberbullying between one or more students via Facebook with one of the laptops from the MLTI 1-to-1 Initiative. We even have a school Facebook account for the sole purpose of investigating these incidents. But I digress…

Richardson rightly advocates that we as educators need to be aware of social networking and Facebook in particular, regardless of whether it is permitted on our schools or not, for the simple reason that our students are using it right now. Because if we know how Facebook works then we can educate our students on how to use it appropriately, ethically and safely. It all comes back to the idea of digital citizenship and the need to integrate this into all corners of education. My colleague Jen has a very well-written blog post that covers this topic in more detail. You can check it out here.

A popular path to social networking integration in the classroom is to create a Ning network. While sometimes also blocked by school filters, most IT departments will be more open to allowing a Ning site through than Facebook. After that, you can create a Ning around any interest-topic of your choosing. Richardson provides some great examples of teachers who have integrated Ning networks into their classrooms that, although prove to be a lot of work to manage at times, have yielded fabulous results with students. Check out my Diigo links at the bottom to see for yourselves.

Richardson sums up the chapter with one word of caution for you Ning users, "whatever you do, don't let anyone click on that 'Add Apps' button." If you've ever seen a students' iGoogle page, then I think you know what he's talking about.


Diigo: Book link list for Social Networking | Facebook | Ning

Book Reflection: Chapter 8: Podcasting, Video and Screencasting, and Live Streaming

In chapter 8 Will Richardson jam-packs a lot of multimedia tools, ideas and resources for you to consider to the point where you can easily be overwhelmed. Thus this was definitely not a chapter to read all in one sitting. However, the goal of each of the sub-topics is the same: to get students to invest time and energy to create quality pieces of work for the purpose of publishing the products online.

I love podcasts and the power they give students to tell a variety of stories. Each year I see podcasts popping up in more and more of our 6th grade classes as an option for students to express their understanding and/or mastery of a topic or skill. So much in fact that "How to make a Podcast" has become a necessary part of my computer literacy curriculum that fights to be the first taught each year. Last year we got our first set of "enhanced" podcasts from one of our 6th grade language arts classes published to the web (click here) and we hope to add more classes in other content areas this year!

Video and screencasting are just like podcasting except you are cranking up the difficulty level a notch or two. When you add video, you are adding a lot more to the process in the form of planning (a.k.a. scripting and storyboarding) filming, editing and rendering. While the time investment is significant, the results can be well worth it and students will be invested - remember how popular YouTube is!

For those of you who are technology integrators, media specialists, or the teacher who everyone turns to for tech. help, screencasting is a great way to provide tutorials and how-to guides for both students and teachers. As the MLTI Tech Lead for my school, each year I would create tutorials and guides for my users on a variety of topics, everything from changing-your-password to saving-to-the-server to backing up your browser bookmarks. Just one problem…NOBODY was opening the documents to read them. No matter how many screenshots I used or how many times I refined my directions or how many funky arrows, circles and squares I added, I would still get flooded with emails and phone calls asking for help. Then, last year I used the screencast tool built-in to Quicktime 10 to make my tutorials and WOW what a difference! That was it, I was sold on screencasts.

In the case of podcasting as well as any digital video production, this is a great time to talk with students about copyright, creative commons resources and citing where you get your digital media from. The reason why my school has yet to be able to publish student iMovies online is because this issue has yet to take a firm hold in our school culture. However, with the integration of podcasts and iMovies entering into more and more classrooms and emerging from more and more assignments we hope to see a change in this for the better.

Resources…
My Podcasting Unit
Diigo: Book link list for Podcasting | Screencast | Live Streaming

Book Reflection: Chapter 7: Fun With Flickr

In chapter 7, Will Richardson looks at photos, images and online organizers as powerful tools for student expression and igniters for project ideas. Leading the pack in this corner of web2.0 is the photo sharing site Flickr.com. Flickr allows users to upload digital images, organize them into albums or "photostreams" and set permissions for who to share them with. One of the founding struts of the site is the use of tags (there's that word-of-the-day again, aaaaahhhhh!…oh, flashback to the days of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, my apologies) to organize photos for searching later as well as take advantage of a growing number of web2.0 tools. For example, you can create RSS feeds from Flickr based on specific tags.

For teachers and students, an important place to visit on Flickr is their Creative Commons section. I like how Flickr provides a legend to educate us about the different types of permissions photo authors can give and how they would like their images treated and referenced. This provides an important teaching opportunity to educate students on citing sources from the Internet; citation is just as important for images as it is for text. In fact, some general search engines now have filters under their "advanced search" tool that allow you to find content that has been tagged with Creative Commons permissions.  Google | Yahoo! | Flickr

The potential for teachers to enrich assignments using Flickr are quite numerous and continue to grow. Just a few of the ideas Richardson mentions are: photo field trips, random writes and Make It Mine. And the projects do not have to be complex. Richardson describes a simply activity where students go to Flickr and in the search bar type in the first word that comes to mind. Then, they take the first image listed in the search results and writes a story about it. Check out my Diigo link list for several web2.0 applications highlighted in the book that use Flickr to enhance web content.


My Flickr Photostream
Diigo: Book link list

Final Project Proposal: Dropbox

For my final project, I've decided to investigate the program Dropbox and a companion tool called DropitTOme. Earlier this year I helped one of my 8th grade science teachers setup this system because he was having problems using his MobileMe account to collect student homework digitally. Then, just this past week our Assistive Technology Specialist mentioned Dropbox to our IT Director. When I mentioned the pilot I was doing with the science teacher my boss asked if I would develop a presentation on Dropbox for our next department meeting.

There are several implications for Dropbox for both teachers and students:

• It uses cloud-computing technology, something our district is looking very hard at with our conversion this summer to Google Apps. for education.
• It allows access to the data from any computer with Internet access, plus syncing technology to those computers teachers have control of.
• The system, when integrated with DropitTOme, allows students to securely submit work to their teachers from their laptops in class, in study hall, or from home.
• Dropbox has a mobile app. version (this is what our Ass. Tech. Specialist was originally writing about). This means teachers and students could  possibly gain access to content they create on their laptops from their mobile devices.

 Having just spent the past week dueling with every single one of our network printers on one issue or another, anything I can do to support paperless communication between teachers and students is time well spent. Dropbox and DropitTOme may prove to not be the answer to all of our prayers, but if they come close then at least they will be one more tool that I can offer my constituents.

~Tally-ho!

Book Reflection: Chapter 6: The Social Web: Learning Together

The magic word for Will Richardson in chapter 6 is "tag" as it relates to two forms of social networking: Twitter and social bookmarking. He describes Twitter as a "microblogging" tool that has become what some describe as "a 'sixth sense' in terms of the network(s)" that the Internet provides. (Richardson, 2010) This social networking system revolves around a web of people who are either following, being followed, or both as they micro-blog about a variety of topics in 140 characters or less. As a result, an impressive vocabulary has emerged to describe the various actions taking place in the Twitterverse. If you're like me, you wish there was a Twitter dictionary of sorts to help define them all…oh wait, there is: Twittonary.

Within the Twitter community there are two tags to take note of:

• Use the "@" sign in combination with a person's Twitter name to denote your response to one of their tweets. This helps to make connections with others and build up your list of contacts.
• Use the "#" sign (also known as a "hash" tag) before key words to mark your tweets so that they will show up in a search using that particular tag.

I was introduced to Twitter a few years ago at a technology education conference, ACTEM. I created the account but didn't see much value or use in it (it didn't help that my school district was blocking Twitter either). However, as time progressed and I started following other teachers, tech. integrators and just really smart and savvy people it has transformed into something more. It is now a tool for sharing cool websites, asking for suggestions and ideas for an activity, and cries for help when technology doesn't go the way you want it to (I use it for this A LOT).

The other half of chapter 6 focuses on the concept of social bookmarking, with the two largest players in this arena being Delicious and Diigo. Social bookmarking is simply the act of taking the bookmarks you have stored in your web browser on your computer and moving them to a spot on the Internet. In this configuration, you can access your bookmarks from any computer with Internet access. I had a teacher come to me just this week in a panic because he had somehow lost all of his bookmarks in Firefox. I strongly suggested that we setup a time to meet so that I could show him how to setup a social bookmarking account so that this wouldn't happen to him again. This feature alone in my opinion solidifies social bookmarking as a valuable web tool.

Now, I know what your thinking, "Where does the word 'tag' fit in with social bookmarking?" When you bookmark sites using D-&-D (Delicious-&-Diigo) you have the option to add tags to the entry which can be used in future searches. Think about it, how many sites do you have whose content is applicable across multiple educational disciplines? I used to go so frustrated when trying to organize websites for teachers because I was never sure under what category to list the site…now I don't have to - YEA! Better yet, how many times have you wanted to find a site you bookmarked but can't remember the site's name? If you use tags, then you them to search for the site because you remember that it had something to do with history, videos, a quiz and Napoleon.

The "social" in social bookmarking comes into play once you start adding sites to your library. D-&-D both allow you to see who else has also bookmarked a site or are using similar tag identifiers. This  allows you to search for other users who are bookmarking sites that you both share an interest in. And, do you remember my blog post about RSS feeds…yup, you guessed it. You can setup RSS feeds based on tags so that when someone applies that tag to a newly bookmarked site your aggregator will notify you. At this point in the game we realize that we have come full circle, where "RSS lets us read and connect with what others write; now we can read and connect with what others read as well." (Richardson, 2010)


Follow Will Richardson on Twitter
Will Richardson search results on Diigo | Delicious

Follow Me on Twitter
Diigo: Book link list

WebQuest: Historical Facebook

<Historical Facebook>

For my WebQuest assignment I designed an activity around having students use Facebook without actually going to Facebook. Thanks to Derrick Waddell who created the original template, the WebQuest asks students to create a standard Facebook profile. However, instead of making one for themselves they create one on behalf of a historical figure. Students must research their historical person in order to provide accurate biographical information for the profile fields. While some information is factual there are places such as the friends they would follow, the groups they would join, and their recent wall posts where students are encouraged to be creative while remaining in character. When complete students must provide references for the information they entered and justify the posts they added on behalf of their historical figure.


There are many ways that this WebQuest can be modified to fit broader or more specific activities. For example, check out the Facebook assignment entitled “Pirates need Social Networks too!” by Tara, which is designed to go along with the reading of the novel Treasure Island.

HistoryTeachers Channel

Created by two history teachers from Honolulu, Hawaii, HistoryTeachers has over 50 music videos that cover such topics as Napoleon, The French Revolution, Shakespeare, Pompeii, Vikings and more. Their YouTube channel has been going strong for almost 3 years now with new videos being uploaded about once a month. Below is their video about William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings. I will never forget the year 1066 again!

Thanks to ktenkely for sharing this find!

I Spy (ECOMP6008)

Web Apps. Assignment: VoiceThread In-Depth

VoiceThread is a Webapp. that allows users to upload multiple types of media and then invite others to add comments via multiple media forms. Audiences can comment on a voice thread via:

• phone
• webcam
• microphone
• text
• file upload

 Your VoiceThread can be embedded into most webpages and access can be set to public or private with groups or individual members that you specify. Once audiences have started using the VoiceThread, the site will email the author of the project with a "Daily Digest" summarizing the comments added, the type of comment each one takes the form of, and links to easily listen to each individual comment.


EXAMPLES

• "I Spy…" with ECOMP 6008 cohort group
• "I Spy…" with Mr. Warren's 6th grade
• What's the best kind of pet to have?
• When you hear the phrase "East Asia", what comes to mind?

EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS

• Can engage all students
• Gives students choice in how they contribute to the conversation
• An interactive way for students to demonstrate knowledge and comprehension
• Because VoiceThread is publishable to the web, students will take greater ownership of the quality of their comments

APPLICATION POSSIBILITIES

• Presentation of student poetry by peers and teacher and invite constructive criticism
• Pronunciation and cultural presentations in world language class
• Math problems or homework could be responded to by class
• Historical events presented and questions posed to students
• Participation by students who cannot be physically present in class
• Q&A session where students answer in the foreign language they’re studying
• Use as a bridge to connect with students from other cultures

Book Reflection: Chapter 5: RSS: The New Killer App for Educators

Okay, let me just say that this chapter was by far the coolest one yet in Richardson's book. Chapter 5 did not earn this because it is only twelve pages long and it only had one picture so that's not it either. No, the reason RSS has earned such a high coolness factor is because of its ability to help you manage both your time and the relevant content on the Internet. This is big for me, and in reading the blog posts of my cohort colleagues I think it's the same for a lot of people.

RSS stands for Really Simple Sindication, although I like Richardson's twist on the definition as well: "Reading Skill: Synthesizing." (Richardson, 2010) Using a form of HTML code (the mechanism behind the workings of all web sites) called XML, sites that employ this allow web tools called aggregators to collect newly added content and display it for you in one place. With this system in place, "the content comes to you instead of you going to get it." (Richardson, 2010) This is very cool stuff.

Because RSS is really that simple, Richardson spends the rest of the chapter talking about techniques for selecting the most important feeds that you will want to follow. To keep your RSS feeds organized, Richardson suggests using several of Google's apps including Reader, News and Groups. If you use Google Reader, note that even within this app. you can use additional tools to organize and manage the content that is "feeding" into your account by way of tags (for searching later) and stars (so that you can read the content, just not right now). And, if you want access to your Google Reader content even when you are disconnected from the Internet, there's Google Gears.

If we as educators are having a hard time trying to pick out what's important and what's not from the Internet, just imagine how it must be for our students. Educating students on what RSS feeds are and how to setup their own aggregators has some real benefits and payoffs.

• Use aggregators with students to as a "personal information filter" so that students are receiving only relevant content and cut down on the bologna that's out there. (Richardson, 2010)
• Use RSS feeds to easily inform parents when students publish new content on their blogs and/or wikis.
• Inform yourself when your students upload content to their blogs, then use the links provided to quickly add your assessment of their work as a comment.
• You can even use RSS and web tools like Pageflakes.com and Netvibes.com to create actual web pages that display specific content that you want students to interact with.

Google Reader Gadget in iGoogle

After reading this chapter, I have to admit that I went hog-wild trying to make the online content I interact with on a daily basis a little more manageable. After setting up Google Reader, I wondered: could I get feeds setup to all the blogs from my Lesley cohort group…OH YES! Now, whenever one of my colleagues posts to their blog, my Google Reader gadget lets me know and provides both a quick link to the entry and a link to the full blog entry.

RSS in Mac Mail

I did some more experimenting and found that other applications have RSS integration components as well. Do you spend a lot of time within your email client? Then you can integrate RSS feeds into most clients like Mac Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird so that new feed posts come in just like email.

RSS in Firefox

Is your web browser your main mechanism for managing content? Then you're in luck! Almost every browser including Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer allow you to create RSS tabs with links to your feed content. New posts should appear at the top of the list and act like bookmarks to the content.

RSS is a great tool because not only is IT simple, but its primary job is to make it simpler for you to find the content online that is of interest to you. More and more information is being created, posted and distributed everyday on the Internet but unfortunately the amount of time we have to ingest thsi information has stayed the same. All we can do is try to be more efficient with our time and RSS is a tool that will help us do just that.


Diigo: Book link list

Book Reflection: Chapter 4: Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All

In chapter 4, Will Richardson turns away from the world of Weblogs and dives into the world of wikis. Starting with the first wiki in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, the idea behind a wiki is to give everyone full access to the site content; anyone can change anything at anytime. Richardson spends some time talking about the most famous player in the wikis game, Wikipedia, and looks at the pros and cons of this site as an information source for the classroom.

The issue of the reliability of the information on Wikipedia is constantly debated in my school district. With every and anyone being able to change the content of any Wikipedia entry, how can students be sure that the information is reliable enough to include in their research projects? Richardson asks us to have faith in the community of "watchdogs" who are not only working to add new content but who are on the lookout for potential misuse and misinformation. He believes in the strength of the collective good of many over that of a single individual, "Each entry is the group's best effort, not any one person's." (Richardson, 2010)

In my school we are not quite ready to make the full jump into Wikipedia. In the past, the rule of thumb has been that students cannot use Wikipedia as a primary source for their research. This year however, some teachers have begun to relax on this rule with the stipulation that if students do use Wikipedia they need to verify the information from another primary source. So, perhaps we too will reach Richardson's level of faith in Wikipedia as a good source for student research, we just need a little time to get there.

As more and more classrooms look to a wiki instead of a blog as a potential web 2.0 tool to integrate, Richardson is quick to point out that some services have attempted to meet them halfway with wikis that require a login and password. If I were to integrate a wiki into my curriculum then I would start out with one of these services because as Richardson states, "…it would only take one parent to open the wiki and find something inappropriate to derail the project." (Richardson, 2010) However, I wonder how it would work if parents were also invited to participate and contribute to the project wiki? Maybe the wiki would start out with just the teacher and students working inside the realm, and then invite parents to come in later to mix things up a bit. Something to think about.

Diigo: Book link list