Blogs + RSS = Love

It’s official – I’m a blogger. When my husband and I went to Northern Ireland for Spring Break and walked past the Belfast Public Library he suggested that I take a picture of the library and put it on my library blog. If he has accepted it, I will accept it. (If only he would actually read my blog!)

Since September I have been tracking my first year in a high school library with a Wordpress blog (www.freshlymintedlibrarian.wordpress.com). To help a teacher who was interested in using blogs in her classroom, this term I learned how to create a blog using Blogger. After attending a district workshop about  Blogger, I spent a day playing around with it and learning about the program. I created a blog for our library (www.mcmath-library.blogspot.com) and this blog, the Blogger compliment to my Wordpress blog. Since blogs shouldn't be massive tracts of text, I used internet resources and help pages to learn to add a LibraryThing widget, slideshows in both Blogger and Wordpress blogs and how to create links in the sidebar. I have played with the appearance of each and been forced to develop some photography skills (which, of course, have been enhanced by Picasa). This term I have gotten two other friends to create blogs, one for a classroom and one for personal enjoyment.

Blogs have been a great way for me to learn more about my interests. Up until January, I had a collection of blogs that I would check every day (mostly quilting related) but I found that I had

a) a hard time remembering all of the blogs that I wanted to check

b) a crazy laundry list of blogs in my favourites bar

c) bouts of frustration when blogs weren’t updated often enough for my liking

After registering for this course I saw that we were meant to sign up for an RSS reader. My response was, “A what?” followed closely by an “I don’t know what that is so it must be scary.” To take my fear down a notch, and answer some of my questions, I started to read about RSS (RSS for Educators by J. Hendron (2008) is a fabulous book that I would highly recommend!).

My first question was what does RSS even mean? Apparently it stands for “really simple syndication” and it is (simply) a way to be constantly updated on posted information without having to manually check every site. It is kind of like driving the internet in an automatic car, rather than a standard. 

I chose to use Google Reader as my feed aggregator (feed aggregator has nothing to do with dinner time for an alligator, rather it is the program that collects new updates from specified websites). I initially subscribed to my few quilting blogs by simply clicking “Add Subscription” and then typing in the blog’s main URL or the name of the blog. After selecting the correct site from the list that Google Reader generates you can add the site to your aggregator. But what does that actually mean? Now, instead of going to each site, Google Reader will automatically check the site for updates and then place a copy of the new update into your feed list. Every time you log in to Google Reader, all of the recent blog or website posts that you haven’t read yet are put into one easy place for you. That in itself is wonderful, but wait, there’s more. You can view folders of each website’s feeds, star items for further viewing (and easy searching) and “like” items. I think that the most powerful use for me is the ability to smoothly share items through RSS, email, Blogger, Facebook, Delicious and Twitter. You simply finish reading, decide you like it and would like to share it and click on the Send To tab to select the item’s destination where you are automatically asked to login and the page information is embedded as a link. I love anything this easy (since, realistically, if it is more difficult than this I will tell myself that I will get to it later and then probably never get to it).

Now that I know how to use these tools in my personal life, it is time for me to begin to use these in the classroom and library. To increase traffic to our school library blog I have created labels and slapped them on the back of bookmarks. When classes come in I direct them to the blog where they can easily access links created specifically for their class and their project. While they’re there, I’m sure they take a moment to view a book trailer, watch a Prezi presentation, or spot a book that they would love to borrow in our LibraryThing widget (we all have our dreams).

I think that blogs can be a powerful tool in the classroom. According to Lenhart and Madden (2005), 57% of teens create internet content and 32% have contributed to blog content. True blogging is not simply writing one’s thoughts but creating content by linking and interpreting information from a variety of sources and adding a personal twist or insight to the material. This sounds like critical thinking to me. So if 32% of teens are already creating online content and the creation of a blog pushes students towards critical thinking and analysis, blogging seems like a wonderful tool for classroom teaching.

I would consider using blogs in different ways such as...

a) As a blog for the classroom – a portal into our mini-universe. This would have teacher updates and student contributions. You could highlight work that has been done by students, post videos and pictures (if parental permission is given) and post upcoming events. This would increase communication with parents and help to make things in the classroom more transparent.

b) Individual student blogs to develop their learning. These could be maintained by students as an online learning portfolio. Students could be asked to respond to questions, find and link new information, comment on information given by the teacher, and track their own development. Blogs are also a fabulous way to increase the modes of presentation by allowing students to use and embed YouTube, Prezi, Xtranormal, Audacity, Comiclife, etc. The list is endless and can allow for all learning styles to be expressed.

As Richardson (2010) suggests, you can use your RSS feed to track all of the students’ work and posting. As long as you have a subscription set for their blog, you will be automatically sent updates. This makes following their progress, monitoring their content and tracking assignment submission quite easy.

There are some concerns that arise with using blogs in the classroom (just like using any program where personal information is shared, created or posted online). Parents and administrators would need to be informed of the blog usage and a special information package with a permission slip should be sent home. Throughout the year, students, teacher and parents would need to be vigilant about not sharing personal or identifying information online and only posting appropriate content. This would need constant teaching and reminders and would probably be an issue to highlight all throughout the year. Privacy settings can also block search engines from finding a class or student blog.

A second concern is that blogs usually have comments and, though this feature can be disabled, this helps to link the students and classroom to the world. Comments can make the experience much richer and will usually only be made by people who have some connection to the class. Comment moderation should be selected so that the teacher is sent an email and has to approve each comment before it is visible on the blog. Though this may take some time up front, it could prevent a major headache in the future if an inappropriate comment was to slip through.

Thirdly, there is always the issue of some students not having easy access to a computer. While this is not something that is within a teacher’s control, the teacher may be able to arrange some special time for those students to use computers in a lab or library in the school.

Even with all of these potential concerns, I think blogs are an exciting addition to a classroom, and blogs combined with RSS are a power due. It's kind of like an internet Batman and Robin because of all of the great things that they can do in your classroom. Blogman and RoSSbin anyone? 

For further reference, check out Cybrary Man's list of student, class and school blog links, Common Craft's RSS video and Makeuseof's How RSS Feeds Work in Simple Terms.

References

Hendron, J. G. (2008). RSS for educators: Blogs, newsfeeds, podcasts, and wikis in the classroom.  Washington, D.C: International Society for Technology in Education

Lenhart, A. and Madden, M. (2005). Teen content creators and consumers. Pew Internet: Pew Research Center. Retrieved on March 16, 2011 from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/Teen-Content-Creators-and-Consumers.aspx.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

With a name like "Twitter" you think it would be simple.

I have resisted joining Twitter. I like to resist things that are popular, so this seemed to make sense. I really shouldn't resist things so much. After all, my husband and I, former high school friends, reconnected on Facebook and became engaged within 4 months. Good things can happen from social networking sites. Then Grey's Anatomy, one of my favourite shows, forced me to think that there may be ways to use Twitter to help with work. No, I'm not performing surgeries and saving lives but I am trying to learn and grow as an educator so that I can help the teachers and students in my school. If Twitter can help me to do that, maybe it is worth a look.

I've spent much of this year as a librarian reading back issues of Learning and Leading With Technology, School Librarian and Multimedia & Internet in Schools (now called Internet@Schools). I began to realize that the reason that I read those magazines was to learn about new ideas. These magazines constantly talk about establishing a Personal Learning Network, so I decided that I was going to use Twitter to do that very thing. It was going to help me learn, grow and develop as an educator (a lofty goal!).

I actually held my breath when I signed up for a Twitter account. I always swore that it would be the end of the world when I became another one of the Tweeple out there. I'm a little bit gullible (even for things that I make up myself) so I was nervous. But, good news, the world didn't end.

Using lists such as Best Education Tweeple (Barnes, n.d.), Building a PLN (Cybraryman, n.d.) and Twitter4Teachers Wiki allowed me to find other educators with similar interests to learn from. I focused on adding people who were librarians or technology educators since these are the topics that I am actively learning about in order to do my job better. 

Once I started "reading" the Tweets I was so confused. Thankfully I found Mom, This is How Twitter Works (Hische, 2010)! I finally understood why people kept throwing the @ symbol around like it was going out of style. I also understood how the placement of the @(user name indicator) in the tweet controls who will see it and how it will be traced on mentions. Retweeting was easy to understand - and easy to do! That was how I first managed to break into some Twitter conversations. Hashtags stumped me for awhile longer. They work kind of like a file folder, grouping tweets about the same topic together. Cybraryman (n.d.) has a list of all of the educational hashtags out there so that it is easy to find and join conversations (www.cybraryman.com/chats.html).

(Can I quickly mention that I feel like a little blue bird has kicked my cyberbutt this week?!)

One thing that I found difficult was having followers. I thought that this might be because the only thing that I posted regularly were my blog posts and that is just shameless self-promotion. For a week I decided to tweet at least 5 things a day. I retweeted great ideas, tweeted about blogs that had helpful information and posted useful links. Did that help me gain followers? Actually, yes! It also was a wonderful week because for the first time I felt like I wasn't just being a Twitter parasite. Now I was in a mutualistic symbiotic relationship with the tweeting blue bird. 

Why Tweet: A Personal Journey Through the Twitterverse (Via, 2011) is a laugh-out-loud explanation of how Twitter can be a beneficial addition to further learning for teachers, though, initially many educators resist it. 

After using Twitter for the past few months, I agreed with everything Via said. I felt that same resistance. I struggled to use Twitter effectively. But in the end I saw it's value. As Via succinctly states, "Whereas tools such as Diigo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Reader add depth to my personal learning network, Twitter adds breadth and allows me to participate in conversations that help me every single day."

When I log on Twitter I think, "Wouldn't it be great if I find something new or exciting for work?" and I'm rarely disappointed. I've found new blogs to follow, great project or lesson ideas, and some fabulous online tools to use.

Great things that I have found because of Twitter:

• makeuseof.com
• Google chart tool
• Popplet (an exciting discovery for a visual learner like me!)
• how great Glogster can be (because so far I have been unimpressed)
• new blogs like http://librariansquest.blogspot.com/
• the adorable bedside bookmark shown to the right (that I have to make as soon as possible!)

Some of the best resources that I have found to help educators learn about successfully using Twitter to expand their teaching practices are:

• 10 Steps for Educators New to Twitter by Justin Tarte
• How to Use Twitter for Social Learning by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
• My Twitter Resources Library by Angela Maiers

• Twitter Collaboration Stories
• Advanced searching on Twitter

I will admit that I still don't use Twitter as much as I probably should, but I think this will grow as I have more time to play on it and feel like I have more to contribute. After all of this, I am still a newbie on Twitter. I would like to create my own custom background and continue to use Twitter to learn about and share new ideas and resources. All that I know is, Twitter definitely isn't a tool that I will be dropping when this course is done!   

P.S. - Fake Tweet Builder would be a fun tool for teachers to use in class. Not as developed as FakeWall but still pretty cool!

References

Barnes, M. (n.d.). Best education tweeple. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from http://socialmedia.editme.com/Best-Education-Tweeple

Cybraryman (n.d.). Building a PLN- My PLN stars. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from http://cybraryman.com/plnstars.html

Cybraryman (n.d.). Educational chats on Twitter. Retrieved on March 3, 2011 from http://www.cybraryman.com/chats.html. 

Hische, J. (2010). Mom, this is how Twitter works. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://www.jhische.com/twitter/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Via, S. (2011). Why tweet: A personal journey through the twitterverse. presented as part of Wicks, D., Via, S., & Rhode, J. (2011, January 27). Using Twitter for Teaching, Learning and Professional Development. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://www.edupln.com/video/why-tweet-a-personal-journey.

Keep in touch, won't you?

I am constantly wary of Facebook. For example, I am wary of the time that it takes from my life, the way that it feels that it "owns" my personal pictures and the information that is shared each time you join a group or add an app or a game. Because of this I tend to limit the ways that I use Facebook. I simply skim through status updates, look at people's pictures and keep tabs on my sister who lives in California.

Richardson (2010) and much of the reading that I have been doing for this course over the past months (many random blog posts and articles) heralds the use of Facebook as being more than I am using it for.

There has to be a better way for me to use Facebook. As David Lee King (2008) suggests, there are many ways for a library to use Facebook. This week I decided to branch out and create a Facebook page for the library. This is a different option than a profile because Facebook pages don't have friends, they have fans. It was tricky to set up the page because the set up of a page for an organization is different than establishing one for a person. I called my brother to help me with some of my questions and the rest I learned through use. Even though I muddled my way through, in the end the McMath Library officially has a social networking presence!

My goal for the Facebook page is to help give the library more relevant, to inform students of new books and draw them in with YouTube book trailers, to give students updates about events in the library, and to provide them with Web 2.0 links that might interest them or help them in their classes. 

It was difficult for me to publicize our new Facebook page just because I have a fear of rejection. I am afraid that I will only have 3 people "liking" the library for the rest of the year. But in the end I put up a new window display to share our new Facebook page with the students. I will also be putting it into the announcements after Spring Break. I think that the most important part of making this work in the school is updating the page frequently with things that the kids are interested in. It will be important to keep my audience in mind as I'm thinking of my updates. Chris Bourg (2008) gives me hope that my Facebook page may become a relevant part of the school community but I know that it will take awhile. As of right now, I still only have 3. Sigh. 

Shelfari and LibraryThing are also helpful social networking tools for librarians. I have created accounts with both and primarily use Shelfari for personal use and LibraryThing for our school library blog. In LibraryThing you can create a widget for Blogger that is a rotating slideshow of book covers that you want to highlight. We use this to highlight new books that we have added to our collection. The best part is that under "Add Books" you can simply scan the ISBN and the system is able to locate the book to add the cover to your widget. The widget is directly linked to Blogger and the covers are updated automatically. Less work = Library love!


Another social networking platform is Ning.com where you can actually create your own social network around a topic.  In my exploration of Ning this week I joined Classroom20.com. It took a day to be approved (whereas my application for ArtSnack was approved within hours) but once it went through I was free to set up my page and start exploring. I also joined the TLNing for teacher librarians. This site has 5,656 members! I'm sure to find some great ideas there with that many people contributing.

I was searching for a way to make Ning something that I would be using long term and that meant finding some serious value in it. Since Ning is all about networking with others, it makes sense that I found that value on the forum page. The forum page of Classroom20.com is nicely organized by topic and I simply scrolled down to find a topic that interested me. While looking for more information about creating effective presentations, I found a thread with  information about successful Prezi presentations complete with links to YouTube videos, tips and suggestions for use. Perfect! I'm seeing value already. 

To get into Ning deeper I joined the Classroom 2.0 Beginner Group. After taking this course I don't know if I would consider myself a beginner anymore but this group has recent activity and quite a few members which promises a lot of conversation (most questions asked on the discussion board have more than 5 answers). People use the discussion board as a way to ask questions, answer questions or share resources. I am helping a friend develop a iPad program for 5 year olds for a summer teaching program at a fancy private school. I put out a call for iPad app suggestions on the discussion board and got three responses. Just to compare, I also put the question out on Twitter but I only got one response. The responses made on both platforms were unique and incredibly useful and will help me with program development.

I also joined TLNing and the groups High School Teacher Librarians and Web 2.0 in the Library World. These groups are modestly active and I got some good ideas for some contests that I can run towards the end of the year to get more books circulating. 

I think Ning is a good way to find a group of people with similar learning interests who are willing to help each other get better at what they do. This might be especially beneficial for new teachers who can use all the help and support that they can find in this new and often overwhelming job!

References

Bourg, C. (2008). Our library Facebook page. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://chrisbourg.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/our-library-facebook-page/.

King, D. L. (2008). What can you do with a Facebook page? Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://www.davidleeking.com/2008/10/09/what-can-you-do-with-a-facebook-page/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

This week was all about playing. My guide this week was David Kapular's recently created Top 25 Web 2.0 Sites for Education (2011). Since there are so many Web 2.0 tools out there, it can be hard to know where to start. I had to go in with a plan.

My goal: to advertise for the library. 

My tools: Prezi and Glogster. 

My computer: busy.

I found Prezi earlier in the year and watched (open mouthed) my first ever Prezi presentation. I loved the dynamic, cohesive way that it was presented and it managed to keep my attention for the entire presentation (something that is difficult when Grey's Anatomy is on). I wiggled with excitement going into this week because I would finally have a reason to use this tool myself. (Insert squeal of delight here! I'm such a geek, but I love it!)

Prezi is quite simple to use (and, dare I say it, easier to use than powerpoint even). After a simple sign in, a new user is directed to a series of how to videos. I love a good how to video. Honestly, I only watched the first one and then assumed that I would now be a pro at using Prezi.

I guess they knew that many of us skip the how-to videos because they have a mini hands-on learning tutorial as soon as you sign in to create your Prezi. Many of the videos that I watched about creating Prezis stressed planning, so, even though this is a Web2.0 course, I pulled out my trusty side-kick, Mr. Pencil. I have missed him. Here is what he and I created together.

Making this plan on paper helped me to visualize what I wanted to include and how I wanted to link the components together. When I was faced with the white Prezi background I wasn't as overwhelmed as I would have been if I went in blind. I copied much of the information from my planning page onto the Prezi page and added YouTube book trailers for each book. Prezi makes this addition so simple! With the Insert bubble you can add files, YouTube videos and shapes. Changing the colours is easy too. One thing that would be nice is the ability to change individual fonts in the free Prezi download, but then there would be no incentive to buy Prezi Pro.

The most confusing part of creating my Prezi was trying to choose the path for the presentation to maximize its readability and impact. At the end, my paths looked like this:

My final presentation is great promotion for our school library that highlights some of our new books. One of my goals is to try to get book trailers to the students and this presentation allowed me to link them up with seven trailers in one place! This will be going on our new Facebook page asap! Here is the full presentation.

New Books in the Library March 2011 on Prezi

While reading about Twitter in my Google Reader feed, I came across a blog post that linked to this Prezi presentation below. (Did anyone else notice how 4 different Web2.0 platforms were totally interrelated there?!)

CHCS Tweets on Prezi

I found the use of an image as the backbone of a Prezi inspirational. That is something that is being filed away in my brain for future Prezis (this may be foreshadowing for my final project).

Prezi is searchable and it pointed me to some more Prezis created by the same author, Kelly Tenkely. Her Prezi, Breaking Free of Vanilla Education, is a stunning example of what Prezis can be. I can only dream of creating something that involved.

Breaking free of vanilla education on Prezi

I have already told quite a few students about Prezi. I can't wait to see what they create!

Prezi - I love it.

Now for Glogster EDU, an online poster creator for educators. I have seen quite a few student-created Glogs and I have generally been underwhelmed. Most of them are a busy background, a few different pictures copied from the web, a video and a few lines about the topic. This does not demonstrate new learning or critical thought.

My negative perception of Glogster began to change when I came across  Glogpedia: The Best of Glogster. These Glogs demonstrate the integration of multiple sources, focused writing for an audience and, critical thinking while teaching the viewer more about the topic.

In the end I couldn't hate Glogster anymore when my burning questions about QR codes were finally answered in this information-filled Glog.

I think that teachers need to ensure that there is learning happening as the Glogs are being created. Are the student's own thought being given? Are his or her opinions presented? Is there an argument? Is the material student-created? Does it show knowledge growth? While Glogster is an easy-to-use program with simple controls and a significant amount of content, there is still a significant amount of teaching that needs to go along with them. I think that I would use Glogster with students to demonstrate the outcome of critical thinking projects or other projects which don't simply allow for cut and paste from Googled sources.

The other way that I would use Glogster would be to create a visual compilation of information or quick links to YouTube videos, links and more. This would be an easy way to have all of those links in one place that can be easily accessed. Here is a Glog that I created to highlight the changes that have taken place this year in our high school library.

To learn how to make my own Glog, this quick video gave me a general overview of Glogster and then the rest I learned by just playing around. 

Glogster's ability to use the computer's webcam and microphone to capture video, audio and photos of the user and embed those into the poster make this a good tool for teachers who want to include instructions or directions for the poster's components or follow-up work. There are definitely lots of possibilities here!

My final assessment: I can't wait to use Prezi and Glogster again.... Soon!

Other fun sites to check out that can be used in conjunction with these tools:

• Blabberize
• Wordle
• LinkBun.ch (currently offline because it is being revamped)
• StripGenerator
• Popplet
• The Pursuit of Technology: Integrating Educational Technology has a long list of other Web 2.0 tools for educators. 

References

Kapular, D. (2011). Top 5 web 2.0 sites for education. Retrieved on March 6, 2011 from http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com/2011/01/top-25-web-20-sites-for-education.html.

Tenkely, K. (2011). Breaking free of vanilla education. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://prezi.com/1bmvnznjhnbq/breaking-free-of-vanilla-education/.

Tenkely, K. (2011). CHCS tweets. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://prezi.com/kgfokf9t3lds/chcs-tweets/.

Tenkely, K. (2011). Twitter in the classroom and Twitter posts. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=3738.

TheOhioBloke. (2011). QR codes in education. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://theohiobloke.edu.glogster.com/qr-codes-in-education/

Zimmer557. (2011). Integrating educational technology. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://www.edutechintegration.com/2011/03/integrating-educational-technology.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+edutechintegration%2FrBlN+%28The+Pursuit+of+Technology+Integration+Happiness%29

Wiki Me!

It's like Will Richardson (2010) sneaked inside my head and is reading my mind! I laughed out loud when I read, "Now, I know what you're thinking, something along the lines of 'Well, I can skip this chapter, 'cause this anyone-can-do-anything wiki thing will never work in my school.'" (p56). That was exactly what I was thinking! But he promised me that wikis are "amazing and versatile", so, in my brain (which he can read anyways so we apparently we can communicate like this), I said, "Fine. Show me what you've got."

My Wikipedia background is not extensive. I use the site to as a starting point to learn about topics that I have little or no knowledge about. The PSA that I work for has a wiki but I can't stand using it because I feel that it is too messy for me to even look at. Other than that, I have little to do with wikis.

I tried searching for wikis in education and I ran into many of the same issues that I have had in the past - they are messy, messy, messy! To solve my problem and try to see the potential that Richardson (2010) promised to me, I defaulted to one of my personal favourite lists of teacher-created Web 2.0 materials - the Edublog Award List. One of the award categories last year was the Best Educational Wikis.

When I found Celebr8UandMeDigitally I finally saw the fabulous collaboration that Richardson swore I could experience. This wiki is a collection of student work across countries that explains how students across the world celebrate different holidays in their homeland. What a great idea! The students have submitted their work using Glogster, AnimateMe, GoAnimate, Vocaroo, YouTube, Wallwisher and Toondoo. Being a blogger who is sometimes frustrated by trying to ensure that every program I use is compatible with my blog, the freedom to share work created with so many different programs is like a breath of fresh air. This proves to me that wikis are something to seriously consider to encourage the inclusion of multiple intelligences in technology projects. Visual learners may choose to use Glogster, while kinesthetic learners may act out the holiday in a YouTube video. Auditory or musical learners could create a radio program or song to upload as an audio file. I love that this is a Web 2.0 tool that allows for all the different learning styles!

To learn how to use a wiki in teaching I used the wiki Technology4Kids (Terrell, 2010) as a resource. As an overview of setting up, maintaining, editing and using a wiki in education, I cannot recommend this resource enough. It is a perfect starting place for teachers who are looking for information about wikis in the classroom. 

Finally, after a lot of reading, I was ready. I created my own wiki at aarneilllearning.wikispaces.com. Watching their Wiki Tour videos helped me learn a little bit about how to use my brand new wiki, but, of course, I actually learned far more from playing with my new wiki.

Since I'm not in a classroom right now and I want my wiki to be something that is actually beneficial, I decided to use the wiki as a platform to share some of the classroom resources that I have created. I've had some of these published in our PSA publication but I don't necessarily want to put all of my hard work out on the internet for everyone to use. With an educational wiki not sharing my work with the world isn't a problem since only people that I have invited can view and post on my wiki.

I think that the privacy of an educational wiki is one of the things that makes it a great Web 2.0 tool for the classroom! With a blog, once someone has the URL they are able to access it and view the work that is posted there. With an educational wiki, users need to be invited and login each time they want to view it and this could help to minimize privacy concerns. 

One thing that I found easy to do with my wiki was delete things (oops!). This wasn`t necessarily a good thing as many of the items that I deleted should not have been. Apparently, my learning curve for using the wiki controls without deleting items is not steep because this happened over and over again. Thankfully, with a class wiki, the wiki controls allow the wiki page to be restored to an older form and deleted items magically reappear. As the moderator of a wiki, you can be alerted to changes and keep an eye on everything that is added (...or deleted) (Crane, 2009).  Richardson (2010) points out the importance of giving some of the moderator control and management to students as increased control is correlated with increased responsibility and ownership of a wiki's contents. While a teacher may initially want to hold most of the control, as a wiki progresses control could slowly be given to the students. This is not unlike the way things naturally progress  throughout the year in a classroom anyways. Our goal is to always teach a skill, have the students practice the skill with our assistance, and then learn to use the skill themselves. 

My favourite inspirational collection of ideas for wiki use is the teacher collaboration document titled 17 Interesting Ways to Use a Wiki in the Classroom. It had so many ideas that it got my mind spinning!. I could see myself using wikis as a way to show off student work as a class, create student learning portfolios, or share teaching techniques among the staff (Barrett, n.d.). 

As with all Web 2.0 tools, one of the most important things is to continue to use a wiki in new and creative ways over an extended period of time. As Dossiers technopédagogiques (2005) outlines in their list of key wiki guidelines for teachers, there are ways to begin  and finish using a wiki.

"How to begin

• Begin with a period of open use (i.e. a sandbox).

• Use introductory activities (e.g. "who’s who", movie reviews) and other not-required-but-useful activities to convince students of the utility of the exercise by generating discussions.

• Get students to post questions and requests for other students to answer; people are happy to help when someone actually seems to want the help.

• Plan what will be covered in future class meetings.

Where to end

• Don’t."

                                         (from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/dossier_imprimer.php3?id_rubrique=110)

References

Barrett, T. (n.d.). 17 interesting ways to use wikis in the classroom. Retrieved on March 3, 2011 from https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_164hj4tw6gf.

Crane, B. E. (2009). Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc.

Dossiers technopédagogiques. (2005). Pedagogical potential. Retrieved on February 29, 2011 from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/article.php3?id_article=970

Edublog. (2011). Celebrating blogging and social media in education: The Edublog 2010 awards. Retrieved on February 27, 2011 from http://edublogawards.com/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Terrell, S. (2010). Technology4kids: Wikis. Retrieved on February 27, 2011 from http://technology4kids.pbworks.com/w/page/24645238/Wikis.

A world of pod-abilities!

I'm starting to develop a slight inferiority complex because it seems that every post I write for this course starts with "Since I didn't know anything about    (insert topic of the week)   , I had to do a lot of research." And, yet again, this is how my post starts. Sigh.

This week, Twitter came to my rescue riding on a white horse! At the beginning of the week, Steven W. Anderson (aka @web2.0classroom) tweeted Kit Hard's education and technology related blog (Hard, 2010). On November 15, 2010, Hard wrote A Teacher's Guide to Using Audio and Podcasting in the Classroom. This post is complete with a helpful chart of the audio and podcasting resources available and videos demonstrating the use of each one! After viewing each of the videos, I chose to spend this week exploring Audacity as a recording and editing program.

I enlisted my husband's help to create my podcast. One of the things that I love about him are the accents that he can do; they always manage to cheer me up when I'm feeling down. In order to keep things somewhat educational, I asked him to record himself reading Sandra Boynton's "The Going to Bed Book" in his Three Little Pigs accent (yes, the accents all have names). I used Editing for Beginners: Part Two Cut, Copy and Paste to select the areas that I wanted to keep and take out the audio where some impromptu Ernie from Sesame Street happened (though I kept that in a personal file for myself to listen to when I need a pick-me-up).

I was left with a simple audio file that would have been good enough until I started to reminisce about the good ol' days of my childhood. I used to sit for hours with my little red record player and accompanying books and play them over and over again. Each time the page needed to be turned, there was a lovely chiming noise. That was what I needed for my audio file! Jeff of Caddicks.com suggests using Microsoft Clip Art for simple sound effects. I found that their selection was satisfactory but a little bit frustrating because the titles for some sound effects are not an accurate description of the audio. For example, they classify this as a lullaby. I don't know who puts babies to sleep with that!

I was ready to attach the mp3 or wave file to my blog but first I needed to upload it to a hosting program. I was unsure about where I wanted to put it so I turned to Learn It In 5 (2010).

Audioboo is a simple and easy to use program. After only a few clicks I had an account and had uploaded my file.

Click #1: Create my account

Click #2: Add a boo

Click #3: Upload my file

Click #4: Get the embed code
(It is also easy to tweet, share it with Facebook,
add it to iTunes or create an RSS feed)

So... drum roll please... here is my final product!

Now that I've had experience with creating my own podcast, how can I use podcasting in my personal life and in my teaching? Well, I'll be honest, I think I will use it more in my teaching than in my personal life. I have a very hard time with auditory learning, so listening to podcasts does not really appeal to me. I prefer to see videos of topics that I am learning about (ex. using Adobe InDesign, sewing zippers, starting vegetables from seed) and I will probably continue to use that mode for my own learning.

However, I think podcasting is a fabulous resource for classroom teachers! While doing this research, I have found some fabulous sites that I have sent to the teachers in my school: The Education Podcast Network, CBC Podcasts, Education Podcasts and Podiobooks. These sites have some amazing content and they cover all of the subject areas that are taught in high school. Teachers can find a podcast that fits their area of interest and subscribe to it through their iTunes account. Choosing to automatically sync their iPod to their iTunes means that every time they plug their iPod into their account, the new podcasts will automatically be added for them to listen to at their earliest convenience (Richardson, 2010).

If I have a classroom again I will definitely be podcasting with my students! I can only imagine the creative things that they would come up with to show their learning through this mode. Kerilee Beasley (2009) has a list of ways to use Audacity in your classroom like recording a radio show or taping the kids as they read aloud. I can imagine having my intermediate class create a tailored listening lab for a kindergarten or grade one classroom based on the books that the teacher owns. I would also love to record the read-alouds that I do in class when I'm teaching or put readers' theatre productions up on a classroom blog. It would be exciting to have a student-created podcast of our classroom events each week.

I wish that I had known how to use podcasting and audio recording last year when I was teaching a student with serious reading difficulties. I would sit with him, read the instructions and questions, and then scribe his responses. Hard's blog (2010) outlines the steps to embed audio into a Microsoft Word document. Recording the instructions for the student and enabling him to record his answers would have made things so much easier! I'm glad that I will have this knowledge under my belt for the future.

Other sites to check out:

• For a general overview of podcasting in the classroom and how to make it work for you, see Poducate Me: Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education.
• Voicethread - Audio recording supported with images and pictures. My favourite combination!
• Voki - Who doesn't want a speaking avatar?
• Art Mobs combined with Google Art Project to take a student-led tour of MOMA.

References

Beasley, K. (2009). 10 great ways to use Audacity with your students. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://kerileebeasley.com/2009/04/08/10-great-ways-to-use-audacity-with-your-students/.

Caddick, J. (2008). Free music and sound effects for podcasts. Retrieved on February 21, 2011 from

http://www.caddicks.com/blog/2008/01/12/free-music-sound-effects-for-podcasts/.

Hard, K. (2010). Ed tech kit: Be the change. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from  http://edtechkit.blogspot.com/.

Learn It In 5. (2010). How to video: Using the all-in-one podcasting application Audioboo. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://www.learnitin5.com/Classroom-Podcasting.

Ovadia, M. (2010). Poducate me: Practical solutions for podcasting in education. Retrieved on February 23, 2011 from http://poducateme.com.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 

Better bookmarks

This is how I keep track of websites that I like:

I love being able to file away a snapshot of the website in my "important papers" binder under the corresponding topic. To atone for the waste of paper, I say a small prayer for each tree that has been sacrificed for my enjoyment of this organizational system.

To learn about social bookmarking, I watched Social Bookmarking in Plain English.

It was a good starting point and inspired me to create a Delicious account. However, after a few days of use, I was still printing out screenshots and filing them away in my binder because Delicious did not agree with my predominantly visual learning style.

Delicious allows users to save websites with a series of user generated tags (keywords). The bookmarks are  then filed by tag and date. My difficulty with Delicious was that I could never remember the websites by name alone and I would have to reopen each of them. One way to remedy this is to create notes for each page, but that takes time, and time is what I don't have a lot of these days. (I'm also nervous to invest more time in Delicious because of rumours that Yahoo is selling the site  (Tsotsis, 2009) and who knows what will happen to everything I have accumulated.)

I kept looking for more information about social bookmarking, convinced that there had to be a better way. I perused an overview of social bookmarking (Educause Learning Initiative, 2005), enjoyed a quick tour of other services (Jackson, 2009), and read Crane's Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom (2009). Finally, while reading Richardson (2010), I found Diigo!

Since my learning style is so visual, I knew Diigo would be the perfect fit for me. I had bookmarked Diigo in Delicious (ironic) and I had intended to go back and check it out later, but this was my motivation - Diigo has a tab which opens a website preview without navigating away from your Diigo page. 

To learn more about Diigo, I watched their clear and informative introductory videos and quickly felt like a pro at the site (an indication that the videos are very well done).

Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

View this list here

Diigo also made the transfer of my Delicious bookmarks easy with step-by-step instructions for exporting Delicious bookmarks in an idiot-proof process. But best of all, now when I save a site in Diigo it automatically links to Delicious and ensures that the same link is saved there as well! Genius. I am in favour of any site that does the work for me.


In an attempt to seem invaluable to the teachers in my school, I have been putting learning links onto the website. However, I have run into difficulty when linking to our EBSCO database and it is confusing to try to lead students to the location (and it takes way more than the suggested 3 clicks). Searching on Diigo allows me to find the sites behind the password and save them for kids to view. If students want to expand their search they can simply enter the school's username and password and continue their search within EBSCO. Perfect!


I set up a Diigo account for school use (separate from my personal account for the same reason that I have two Facebook acccouts) and bookmarked some sites for a teacher's upcoming Humanities 8 project. Diigo was so simple to figure out that I easily created a list for the sites and exported it to Blogger. Within minutes I had the link posted on my school library site. I tried adding annotations but I didn't like that other people's annotations also show up when students access the site through the Diigo bookmark list. 

It is also possible to set up an educator account in Diigo where you can create private groups and share bookmarks within the group (Wylie, 2010). This isn't useful for me in the position I'm in this year but it is definitely something that I will look into if I enroll a classroom in the future!

Finally, I have to mention one thing that disturbs me - the sharing aspect of social bookmarking. Richardson (2010) and Crane (2009) both tout social bookmarking as an indispensable researching tool where you can save bookmarked sites (great!), search other people's bookmarked sites (okay) and even get RSS feeds when select people add new bookmarks (and this is where I become uncomfortable). 


I do understand how social bookmarking can help find research. I love reading bibliographies to find further references but these people have published their work with the intention of having it viewed, referred to and critiqued. I feel like my bookmarks should not have to stand up to the same sort of dissection.  


I view my bookmarks as akin to my closet. I have some things that I want to have people see and other items that are more personal. Using social bookmarking and making any links public is just like inviting anyone and everyone to take a browse through your closet. I can just hear it now... "I'm sure that site makes her hips look huge" or "Who does she think she is looking at that site?" Who knows what people are thinking? Who knows who is traipsing through my bookmark closet? Creepy. 

Oh well, at the end of the day, the pros of social bookmarking greatly outweigh the cons and I have officially become a convert. 

For further investigation (when time allows):

• Image Spark - This is perfect for the graphic design work that I do on the side. It would be an online inspiration board.
• Have students create their own research list and tagging system with the lesson outlined in Developing Info-Seeking Fluency (Hendron, 2010).
• Use annotated bookmarks as a way to share comments and conversation with a future class as Richardson demonstrates on his blog (New Reading, New Writing (April 9, 2009)).

References


Crane, B. E. (2009). Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc. 


Educause Learning Initiative (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf.


Hendron, J. (2010). Developing info-seeking vocabulary. Learning & Leading with Technology, 38(2), 32-33.


Jackson, L. (2009). Sites to see: Social bookmarking. Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml.


Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


Richardson, W. (2009) New reading, new writing. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/new-reading-new-writing/. 


Tsotsis, A. (2010). Is Yahoo shutting down Del.ici.ous? Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/16/is-yahoo-shutting-down-del-icio-us/.

Wylie, J. (2010). Teaching social bookmarking with Diigo education. Retrieved on February 11, 2011 from http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/62228.aspx.http://www.delicious.com/