But then this morning I read Joyce Velenza’s post On School libraries and scalability .   Then going to Joyce Velenza’s new virtual library site, a truly student engaging and collaborating site, I wonder, can I too model this? Perhaps time isn’t the issue…perhaps it is letting go.  I remember in my post Come on in…we are now open 24/7 I clearly stated my intention of creating a space that  invites students to participate in the virtual library.   I just needed to be reminded.  It’s time for me to let go of the virtual library and invite the students in. 

So I ask myself…is time really the issue or is control stopping the virtual library from evolving into the place my students and staff need?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this course made me sick but that rollercoaster ride is the easiest comparison for me to make when I reflect on my learning throughout this course. There were times when the car was climbing up that I felt I had a handle on everything—I was learning and creating and then, inevitably, there would come the screaming, stomach dropping descent where I questioned my sanity and just wanted to close my eyes and scream.

The Downs

I remember when I read through the blog post assignments feeling that same feeling in my stomach as I had stood in line waiting for the rollercoaster. Can I learn how to create a Podcast? What is an RSS feed? What are Animoto and Voicethread? Can I successfully make connections on Twitter and Facebook? What have I gotten myself into?

And while writing every blog post, including this one, I wondered do I have a good hook? Do I sound unique? What can I say that won’t just be regurgitation of every other classmates post? Am I being authentic? Do I have enough research material? Are my posts too long? That nervous feeling would be in my stomach until I finally hit post in frustration tired of writing, rewriting and second guessing myself.

I didn’t realize how much time this course would take. It took so much time because everything was so new to me. Quite honestly there were times when I felt I couldn’t do anymore and would go to bed in tears. My poor husband and family have been sorely neglected as I sat at the computer for up to 14 hours a day—No wonder my back is so sore!  Right at this moment, I am feeling a little burnt out.  I know that isn’t a discussion of my learning but I had to put it in because it is definitely a low point.

 A Steep Climb Powerhouse Museum Collection

I would just start to understand how to use one tool and then it would be time for the next. It was like I would finally get to the top of the mountain only to find out that there was another bigger mountain to climb on the other side.I never felt like I had enough time to really feel comfortable with all of the tools.I definitely need to go back and spend some time on some of the tools—especially Voicethread and Podcasting.

Another low point came when I would try to put something on my wordpress blog and I couldn’t figure out how.  I spent countless hours trying new things on my blog that wouldn’t work at first.  I think had I not had to stick with it, I would have changed blog programs—but then I wouldn’t have learned the program wordpress as well as I know it now—so even though it was a low point, I was pushed to figure out how to make it work and in the process learned things like Vodpod.

Facebook really pushed me out of my comfort zone.  Maybe it is the way I am looking at it—-I see it as being more of a personal tool rather than a tool that will help me be a more effective teacher/librarian.  And the fact that it is blocked at my school makes it easy for me to dismiss.  Don’t get me wrong, I do understand why we explored it, we need to be aware of what students are doing in the social network on the web. I still consider it to be the one tool I didn’t like using so it was a down for me.  I will keep my account and check in occasionally—but if anyone wants to get in touch with me, putting something on my wall wouldn’t be the most effective way!

The Ups

I read through my blog posts prior to writing this post and you know what?  I am proud of what I wrote and created.  So even though I put writing posts as one of my downs, writing my posts was the hardest thing for me to do,  but without a doubt it is one thing that I am the most proud of.  It forced me to think hard about how I would use the tools we were learning, question whether the tools would work for me in my situation and what some potential issues could arise from using the tool.  Had I not had to keep a blog throughout this course, I would never have blogged and I would never have discovered that I can have a voice in the edublogosphere. Heck, I wouldn’t even have known what the edublogosphere was.

This leads me to my biggest up— the knowledge that I have gained in how to create and maintain connections. 

The Networked Teacher

by David Courosa

Prior to this course I had never heard of RSS.  But now, after only six short weeks, I don’t know how people can stay up to date without using it.  I get the latest buzz from professionals I respect.  And now I know how to social bookmark and share the ones I feel are relevant.  The other great thing about social bookmarking is that I can join groups inside my account—just today I received from one of my Diigo Groups—Clif’s Notes on EdTech Group—10 new bookmarks on web 2.0 tools as discovered a few more tools I want to explore like Wink  and VuVox  and the ones I receive from the Teacher-Librarian Group are always full of great links and ideas that I can use.

I haven’t fully developed it but I am creating my own social network—joining the library twibe and following experts like Joyce Valenza, Buffy Hamilton, and Will Richardson on twitter.  I can even contact them directly, as Andrea showed when she tweeted Richardson regarding “complex blogging”.  What a powerful professional tool twitter is going to be for me.

And then there is the network I have on Nings.    When someone adds something to the Nings I signed up for, I get a message in my inbox that I can respond to if relevant.  I can post my own questions and collaborate with other through these networks.  I am no longer a lone librarian—I am part of bigger culture that I can connect and collaborate with.

Being able to create is a definite highlight—not only my blog but using Wetpaint, Glogster, Animoto, Audacity and Smilebox.  I had fun and am proud of my creations.  I know that that is something that I can use with my students in both the classroom and library. And now that I have had that hand on experience creating them myself I can relate to the students and teachers as they use the tools.  I can see how they be used in both the library and classroom.

Learning from my peers was also an up—As I read each blog I found could take something away with me that helped me.  I was constantly adding to my bookmark lists that I created on the topics of our blog posts.  I can’t possibly list everything I learned but some include:

A Slice of Knowledge  provided a great link to Libraries that use Podcasting.  As I was flipping through I was able to see several ways I can use podcasting in the library beyond just a review of the book, or bloggers I started following like David Jakes when Dawn quoted him in her blog Dawnelia’s Blog.   I started thinking maybe I should try to creating a wiki similar to the one Niki mentions in her post My PMS Wiki so I can share ideas with the colleagues I no longer work with but who I email ideas back and forth with. Tammy’s enthusiasm for everything was contagious.  Because of Tammy’s enthusiasm, I have now introduced Smilebox to everyone I know. Norene’s perspective on using the tools with adults was always insightful.   Sheryl’s focus on how to use the tools with language learners was very helpful because I too teach students who don’t know a lot of English.  I had never heard of Webnotes until Tara mentioned them in her blog post Wiki wiki what?   I can’t wait to introduce them to my students. And May always had things worded perfectly in her posts.

These are just a few of the things I learned from our EDES 501 professional learning group. I am hoping to go back and reread their blog posts now that the class is over as I revisit my blog posts on the topics to see how I am going to use my learning in my classroom and school library.

Discovering podcasts and podiobooks was also a high point.  I love them.  Yesterday as I procrastinated while cleaning the house, I listened to The Immortals by Tracy Hickman.  It made cleaning much more pleasant.  I am hoping that I can introduce podiobooks to some of the students who don’t enjoy reading.  I already ordered some playaways for the library but podiobooks are free (which is always nice) and they have a wide variety including educational ones!!  And I must confess, I am now hooked on GrammarGirl’s Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast. 

Now that I have time to reflect—there were many more ups on this rollercoaster than downs.  And although I may have felt like getting off the ride a few times, I am glad I stayed on for the entire ride!

The Future

I have a toolbox full of some powerful tools that are going to help me maintain my learning and help me create a truly collaborate and interactive virtual library space.  And my toolbox grows each day because of the connections I have made.

One of the goals I wrote about in my first post was that I wanted to make the virtual library a place where interaction can take place.  Well, now I know some ways in which I can do this.

I have created a Wetpaint wiki for book reviews, an Animoto video for the YRCA Nominees, a podcast for the novel Impossible, used Wikispaces to create two library pathfinders and set up a library Diigo account for students to use to bookmark class research projects.  But it isn’t just about what I am going to do on the virtual library site—it is about how I can create an environment on the virtual library site that allows for collaboration and creation in the read/write web.  With the Wetpaint wiki for Strathcona reads I am hoping that students and staff will take over and write their own reviews and begin a discussion about the books they read, with the Audacity Program I am going to invite students to create book talks, I also want to experiment with a twitter library account.  I like what the Unquiet Library has done.  Because I have students pictures on the library site and the kids love when new pictures are on the site.  With the library Flickr account students can now add pictures.  I would like to have them on the sidebar on the library site similar to the one on my blog.

I am looking forward to using blogs with my students to help teach them to develop a voice.  Perhaps I will do something similar to what we have done in this class.  Can their blogs not be a journal of their learning as we make our way through our English Program?  They could have entries on each of the themes we study with links, readings, creations…oh the places we can go with blogs.  I am going to revamp my CALM blogging project and instead use a wiki.  It is a much better place for collaboration.  I also want to introduce Glogster to my English class when we do work on understanding theme.  Oh, and I have to introduce my students to Creative Commons using Flickr now that I actually understand what it is. 

But these are just a few of the ways I am going to use the learning that I have had in this course.  There are so many things I want to do that I am going to have to make sure I go back and look at my blog posts to see how I said I was going to use the tools. 

I have so many ideas and ways to incorporate the tools to help my students become ethical participates in the read/write web.  I am going to have to sit down with my year plan now that this course is over and go back through my posts and see where I am going to introduce and use the tools.  I will continue to blog on how I use these tools and the others I am being introduced to through my network in the year to come. 

I need to, as Richardson says, be a connector of content and people.  I must become a content creator —know how to build and sustain my own personal learning network.  I don’t just read what someone else has said about a topic for professional development, I now read it and discuss it.  I can now create a community where I can ask questions—and receive responses.  I need to continue to be true collaborator and continue to learn alongside my students.  I need to continue to model the skills that students need to be successful and motivate themselves to strive for excellence.   Now I consider myself to be as Richardson says in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom “a reader/reflector/writer and participator in the social media world” (137)

I have truly become part of the social media revolution.

I really struggled with this last post. What could I possibly that would capture the shift that has occurred in my thinking because of my involvement in this course and then, Will Richardson once again came to my rescue. In my RSS yesterday was his post Willing to be Disturbed”. In it he states that “[t]echnology is not additive; it’s transformative.” He urges teachers and schools to “have the conversations, begin to build a culture around change, encourage learning on the part of every segment in the school, and create a long term vision and plan that attempts at least to account for whatever deficiencies or roadblocks currently exist.” I now have the tools to start the conversations around learning and using the web tools effectively—both literally with blogs, wikis, podcasts, twitter, and Nings but also figuratively. I am in a position as the T-L to be a leader in change. My being involved on the technology committee gives me a venue in which I can encourage “a long term vision and plan” for technology learning. As I continue my professional development through blogging, interacting with other professionals in my field through the Nings I belong to, twitter and my RSS reader, I can continue to share and learn from the community I am creating. Please know that I am “Willing to be Disturbed”.

“We no longer live in those sweet, slow days when life felt predictable, when we actually knew what to do next. We live in a complex world, we often don’t know what’s going on, and we won’t be able to understand its complexity unless we spend more time in not knowing.” (Wheatley, 2002)

I can’ t really predict my future but I can definately state two facts.  Fact one:  I am going to be involved read/write/reflect/participate web. Fact two:  my learning — it is not finished. 

References

Richardson, W. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.

Wheatley, Margaret J. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to
Restore Hope to the Future San Francisco: Berrett-Koshler Publishers, Inc., 2002 at http://www.ode.state.or.us/opportunities/grants/saelp/willing-to-be-disturbed.pdf

As I try to put my ideas together for this post a million questions and issues float through my mind and everything becomes a blur…

How do I pick one out of all of the tools I have learned and experimented with these past six weeks to introduce to my staff?  How do I put one tool as being above the others with regards to impact on teaching and learning.  Don’t I need them all to be effective?

Do I go for flash like Animoto or VoiceThreads in hopes of showcasing the use of technology in the school?  But a nice shiny vehicle is nothing without a good engine to keep it running.

Should I select the one that I believe is the most important?  But then what is the most important to me is based on a web 2.0 knowledge that I now have.  The majority of the staff at my school are not ready to collaborate and create online so the fact that I love Nings and Blogs and see how potentially they can help teachers create a focused learning community isn’t going to help the teachers in my school if they still aren’t even reading content in what Richardson coins as Read/Reflect/Write/Participate web (137).

With over 60 teaching staff can I introduce a tool that will allow for differentiated professional development for each staff member while at the same time help improve the use of technology in the school? I need to be realistic within the context of my school.

Is there one tool that I can introduce that won’t overwhelm and will be useful to all teachers?  It’s impossible to pick one tool because everyone is at different places with technology and different subject areas have different demands.

I want to be authentic in what I select with the goal of actually following through on this post with my staff. 

 And then everything comes into focus…

I catch my breath and think about what Mack Male said in his illuminate session on August 5^th.  He said that if he was a student today it wouldn’t be that he would want teachers to necessarily use all of the tools out there but that he would want his teachers to aware of what was being done and used in the read/write web world.

I remember when he first said that, I was taken aback and thought shouldn’t teachers be using these tools with students in order to prepare students to “create, sustain and participate in these [social] networks in a safe, ethical and effective way.” (Richardson, 131).  But the more I think about his statement the more I come to agree with him—it is more important that teachers keep up to date with knowledge because without even being aware of this knowledge they will never use the read/reflect/write/participate web with students.  If I begin with too much, I will just overwhelm and perhaps turn off some staff members. 

So, by no means am I saying that what I select is my favourite or the most important tool but it is the one that will meet the current needs of my staff.   It is the one that I believe will bring my staff an awareness for and connection with the web 2.0 world.  So for all of the reason I list above the one tool I am selecting to introduce to my staff is RRS. 

My Case for RSS

Why RSS?  Well, Richardson said it best “RSS connects information and people together…in a personally defined network.”

My school district has set up a Google account for every staff member.  Setting up an RSS Reader in Google is so easy to do that even teachers who are not technological comfortable can set up a Reader and, not to be trite, but all teachers can read.

RSS feeds as pointed out in libraryonthego’s blog post Off to the Moon I Go  “it is the future coming to us” and although some may argue that the voice in the edublogosphere is not the future, it definitely discusses the future—maybe even forecasts the potential future in education.  It is where new educational technologies and ideas are being shared, discussed, disputed and tried.  So, if I can start to get teachers to read in this edublogosphere they are taking a step into the read/reflect/write/participate web. 

As well, as part of our school professional development plan we select small professional learning groups to explore current topics related to education.  Well, finding professional blogs and readings that relate to those topics can allow these professional groups to develop even further.  Again, it isn’t adding to teachers already full plates—instead of spending time hunting for reading material it will come to them through their Reader.

Educators need to “[t]ake advantage of blogs and their aural cousins, podcasts, to keep abreast of the latest thinking in the field-and to connect with educational leaders.” (Valenza, 2008).  These connections are the first step in becoming involved in the read/reflect/write/participate web. 

Adult learners need immediacy (Killion, 2009) and by subscribing to feeds they are getting that immediacy.  Like me, they will be “in the know” whether it be trends in education, technology or even their own subject areas.  They will have that awareness that Male Mac mentioned in his illuminate session.

Research shows that adults “are self-reliant learners and prefer to work at their own pace” (Brinkerhoff, 2006).  Allowing staff to subscribe to their own reading material through subscription to an RRS feed allows them to be “actively involved in determining how and what they will learn.” (Binkerhoff, 2006)  It allows for differentiation and new reading can be added as teacher’s progress and knowledge needs evolve.

Will Richard’s wrote in one of his post Continual, Collaborative, on the Job Training that “our continued emphasis on tools in PD misses that larger point, obviously, because the power of the Read/Write web is not the ability to publish; it’s the ability to connect. Broken record, I know, but tools are easy; connections are hard.” To me RRS is the beginning of making those connections and therefore the place I need to start with my staff.

For myself, RSS has become an invaluable professional learning tool.  I believe that teachers will also see the value. 

Method

Time…is that a method?  If not, it should be.

But it is something that as teachers don’t have a lot of so I think the best way to introduce RSS to teachers would be to make time for the entire staff.  I am going to ask my administrator for at least one hour on one of the first two none instructional school days.  We do PD during this time anyway and this will benefit the entire staff originally I was going to go through using the databases but I can do that at department meetings.  I really believe this will be more useful to the entire staff.

I will show the Common Craft Video RSS in Plain English

I will briefly, maybe I can create an Animoto video,  show how RSS has become one of the my most valued professional development tools this summer.  By subscribing to educators feeds that I value I have created my own professional learning community.  And when people may argue that they don’t have enough time they will see in a short while that “with a 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, 2009)

Those staff who may already subscribe to a Reader can use the time to look at possible feeds they would like to subscribe to while someone shows the teachers how to set up their feed and then I would say give teachers time to explore the content out there so they can select at least one feed they will make a commitment to read and share with their PD group or their department at department meetings. 

This is where the time comes in—finding something that would interest them.  I will provide them with some great links to possible edubloggers like: 

• Learning With Blogs and Wikis
• Top 100 Blogs for Educators Blogs
•  Science Blogs
• Science Update
• Nasa Blog
• Language Blogs on the web
• Math Blogs
• Educational Blogs You Should Be Investigating
• SupportBlogging.com

However,  I would really them to by in to one that interests them as professional reading material.  That ownership is important or the reading won’t meaningful or sustained.

I will really caution teachers to subscribe to no more than five to begin with.  As they start to become more comfortable skimming and scanning the readings perhaps they will add more.

I really believe that if teachers try this they would then see the value in other web 2.0 tools—of course, then someone would have to introduce a social bookmarking sites like Diigo or delicious so that they so that they could organize and share all of this great material, and then…

Domino by Jordon Miller

Implications for Teachers

Teachers will be more informed and being armed with information is going to help improve instruction in the classroom. 

Without a doubt, reading on the edublogosphere is only the beginning of professional development.   I wish I could report back and say if it had the impact—was the first domino in some of the staff members I work with.  Perhaps I will make that one of my June blog posts.

A further outcome I am hoping for is that teachers will either show their students how to use RSS themselves so they can read more on that specific subject and if they don’t want to, perhaps they will let me come in and do it with their classes.

As an aside I had a really difficult time selecting just one because really once teachers are using RSS they need to start bookmarking right away.  I kept thinking what came first—the chicken or the egg—RRS or social bookmarking.  I am planning on setting up a Strathcona Diggo account on the library site with subject list for all teachers so that what we read can be shared, connected and discussed.

Keeping the Momentum

Last year as part of our school technology plan a group of us set up in services or sessions where would make ourselves available to teachers to show them a certain technology.  My first session is going to be using social bookmarking because once teachers start reading all of this material, they are going to need a way to organize and share it.

And of course there will have to be a session on blog and blogging.  If educators are reading these, they may want to comment and perhaps even start keeping their own.

Speaking of our committee, I am planning on setting up a NING for the technology plan.  I will open to everyone but I know that on the committee we already have a couple of people who will participate in building content.  We can provide tools, ideas, and link to other educational technology and web 2.0 sites.

I also will be using the topics we covered in these six weeks as topics for the PD sessions the technology committee sets up for interested staff.  This year I really can be a true tech mentor for my staff. 

And when I collaborate with teachers on inquiry projects, I can introduce even more tools and applications in an environment where we can work together one on one. 

So, it isn’t just RRS that will be introduced to my staff.  It is just the first step in a long line of tools that I will modelling and using to help us support one another as we build a community of learners who connect, collaborate and create!

“Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.” – Anatole France

References

Jonathan Brinkerhoff.  (2006). Effects of a Long-Duration, Professional Development Academy on Technology Skills, Computer Self-Efficacy, and Technology Integration Beliefs and Practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(1), 22-43.  Retrieved August 11, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1145391431).

Ferriter, B.. (2009, February). Learning with Blogs and Wikis. Educational Leadership, 66(5), 34.  Retrieved August 8, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1645300881).

Killion, J., & Williams, C.. (2009, July). ONLINE Professional Development 2009. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 16(4), 8-10.  Retrieved August 11, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1800924581).

Joyce Valenza, & Doug Johnson. (2008, May). Reboot Camp. School Library Journal, 54(5), 56.  Retrieved August 11, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1471231101).

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and now that I am using one I whole heartedly agree with Richardson –it is the one technology that teachers should be “using today, right now, this minute” (71) And tomorrow, we should be teaching our students to use it.  As opposed to continuously checking for updated from my favourite websites, news sources, and blogs RRS brings the material to me.  It saves me time and has helped me organize my reading.

RSS for me has become a personalized professional learning tool.  I have subscribed to the feeds that will best help me as a teacher and learner.  I use Google Reader because that was the one that Richardson recommended.  It was so easy to set up and I use iGoogle as my homepage which allows me to see the new feeds in brief form as soon as I log on.  I can then decide if I need to read the full article or blog and if so do so, if not, I just mark it as read and move on.  It also remembers the ones I have read and haven’t read and I can easily tag and save the ones that interest me.  I find as time goes by I am subscribing to more and more blogs/newsfeeds.  Although I must confess that one day when I logged on and there were 55 new feeds in my Reader I was very tempted to just click the mark all as read button. 

Although I selected to use Google Reader for my personal feed aggregator there are a wealth of sources that teachers can access.  Such as: 

iGoogle – Formerly known as Google Personalized Home, iGoogle allows users to include RSS feeds as part of their custom start page.

Netvibes – This personal homepage provider includes hundreds of “modules” but also lets users create their own modules by simply entering an RSS feed URL. 

Pageflakes – Another personalized homepage provider, Pageflakes functions similar to Netvibes, letting users select from pre-made modules or create their own by adding an RSS feed.

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox is a great source to refer to if teachers are looking for alternatives.

According to  the Education Development Centre at Carleton  benefits of using RSS include: 

 • Simplifying Instructor’s Research. For busy Instructors who want to easily keep up in their field of study, RSS allows for access to all new research via news articles, blogs, and websites through one simple interface.

• Staying up to date with student activities. If students have class blogs (such as one for group projects, discussion groups or lab groups) then RSS can keep you up to date with any new activities on their blogs. You can check to see if the content is appropriate, comment on their posts, or see the participation levels in discussions.

• Allowing students to easily keep up with course. If you have a course blog or website you can allow students to use RSS to keep track of changes. This can allow for you to give them information almost instantly about what is happening in your course and in your field. If other classes use RSS then students can compile all their class RSS feeds in one easy to access location.

• Class/Social Bookmarking. RSS can be used to create a list of useful websites that the professor or the students have visited that relate to the class or a particular project. This can be done in class through a community class blog publishing web links, or made easy and streamlined through the use of online applications built for social bookmarking which allow for rating and annotating

• Targeted Searching. RSS feeds can be used as a way to bring news on a certain topic for a paper or project directly to your reader/aggregator. All the information on a certain topic can be found by a search engine such as Google and then converted to a RSS feed and put into your reader/aggregator. Searching feeds can also allow for a wealth of useful research finds.

 So why wouldn’t we use such a powerful tool to help students and ourselves manage new information? 

The Future

I set up both a Pageflakes and a Netvibes account and played around a bit with both.   I even started to create an RSS pathfinder using Pageflakes but I didn’t have time to completely finish.  What I would like to use Pageflakes in the library for student research similar to what Joyce Valenza has done with her some of her student pathfinders like Global Issues , Spanish Resources and Science Resources . I can see having students create the RSS feeds using a program like RSS when they are researching. I can even see using Pageflakes to set up subject specific areas for teachers.  Perhaps this is a way for me to encourage them to subscribe to blogs.  A fellow teacher librarian in Edmonton used Netvibes to set up a feed for National Poetry Month .  It too looks great.

Ummm… I still have a lot to try and learn.  One thing I do know though is that I will be showing teachers and students how they can use RSS to organize and collect information from the web.

In Luehamann’s  Using Blogging in Support of Teacher Professional Identity Development 2008 Case Study she found that blogging provided opportunities to further develop thinking for the teacher involved because of interaction she had with her audience, blogging provided rich opportunities for reflection and metacognition, and provided the teacher with the opportunity to be self directed.  However, she was quick to point out that the benefits that this teacher experienced was also related to the time she put into keeping up with her blog.  And I agree, blogging is time consuming and I don’t know if all teachers will take the time tor have the interest in keeping their own professional blog.  But to benefit from blogging a teacher doesn’t just have to keep his or her own blog, instead they can participate in other professional edublogs.

In the past teachers didn’t have time or schools didn’t have money to send teachers for professional development. I personally hate creating supply teacher plans and coming back to complaints from students after missing a day for an in-service but with access to thousands of educational blogs it easy for me and other educators to have access to continual professional development. Ferritier is correct when he states that “[t]eachers rarely get to self-select learning opportunities, pursue professional passions, or engage in meaningful, ongoing conversations about instruction” but through my blog and by participating in other educators blogs I can create my own Professional Learning Community.  And in this community the potential conversations that can take place will enhance me as a professional. 

 Pebbles in the Water  by Jutecht

As I stated in my post on wikis, I am the only Teacher Librarian in my school and one of only eight in my district—that isn’t a big community.  But by reading and participating in other librarian’s blogs I build a bigger community.  I am one of many “pebbles in the water”.  I stay in touch and have others to discuss and share ideas and learnings with regarding technology and school libraries. Not only that, by reading professional blogs, like David Warlick’s ,  Will Richardson’s , Doug Johnson’s , Hey Jude and  a host of other edubloggers out there I am staying in touch with what is happening in education.  I never realized how much I could learn just from reading blogs.  Prior to this course I would never have even considered taking the time to read blogs.  But now that I do, I am not going to stop.  Now what I need to do is get the other teachers in my school on the blog bandwagon.  Perhaps I will start by finding blogs and sending interesting posts to teachers I know will be interested.  Maybe a link on the library site for teachers on the top 100 Edubloggers will also encourage them to participate in this professional development opportunity.

www.bluedoorphoto.com/images/time.jpg

 I do however worry about how much time I will have to continue this work when I go back in September. It is time consuming reading, posting and playing with my new learnings.  I already spend a lot of my home time working, marking and planning.  I hope that someday school boards will acknowledge blogging as professional development and give teachers time.  It is well worth the investment.

References

Ferriter, B.. (2009, February). Learning with Blogs and Wikis. Educational Leadership, 66(5), 34.  Retrieved August 8, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1645300881).

Luehmann, A.. (2008). Using Blogging in Support of Teacher Professional Identity Development: A Case Study. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17(3), 287.  Retrieved August 8, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1529761101).

Richardson knew what he was talking about when he said “if we want our students to learn from blogs, we have to experience that learning firsthand” and “[j]ust as writing teachers should write, and literature teachers should teach, teachers who use blogs should well, use blogs” (43). 

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that blogs don’t have to be everything but the potential of blogs to lead students to become reflective, life-long learners who want to share and communicate with an audience to make meaning of the world is quite amazing.  Teachers by using blogs with students “can promote student self-assessment by providing opportunities for students to think and talk about what they are learning, including why and how they are learning it. By encouraging them to evaluate their own progress, [teachers] are empowering students to reflect on themselves as learners” (2006, Joseph). Blogs, like the one we have done for this course, allow for this type of reflection. And if I am not mistaken, doesn’t every course we teach in schools encourage student reflection?

Rachel Boyd has put together and excellent video on why we should be blogging with out students.

Anne Davis in Edublog Insights  also has some great insights into why we should blog in her post on the Rationale for Education Blogs. Such as:

• Blogs provide a space for sharing opinions and learning in order to grow communities of discourse and knowledge — a space where students and teachers can learn from each other.
• Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.
• Blogs can give students a totally new perspective on the meaning of voice. As students explore their own learning and thinking and their distinctive voices emerge. Student voices are essential to the conversations we need to have about learning.
• Blogs foster ownership and choice. They help lead us away from students trying to find what the teacher wants in terms of an answer.
• The worldwide audience provides recognition for students that can be quite profound. Students feel more compelled to write when they believe many others may read and respond. It gives them motivation to excel. Students need to be taught skills to foster a contributing audience on their blog.
• The archive feature of blogging records ongoing learning. It facilitates reflection and evaluation. One student told me that he could easily find his thoughts on a matter and he could see how his thinking had changed and why.
• The opportunity for collective and collaborative learning is enormous. Students have the opportunity to read their classmates blogs and those of others. This is not possible in a regular classroom setting.
• Blogging provides the possibility of connecting with experts on the topic students are writing.
• The interactive nature of blogging creates enthusiasm for writing and communication.
• Blogging engages students in conversation and learning.
• Blogging encourages global conversations about learning–conversations not previously possible in our classrooms.
• Blogging provides the opportunity for our students to learn to write for life-long learning.
• Blogging affords us the opportunity to teach responsible public writing. Students can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

There is so much information out there on how to blog with students and blogs are so easy to set up with free programs such as blogger and wordpress that any teacher who has students who have access to the internet and computers can have their students keep blogs.  Teach Web 2.0 and Blogging Options for Teachers   have some wonderful resources for teachers who want to blog in their classrooms. 

With all of this information and tutorials available to us on blogging and using blogs with students I wanted to bring up a  question  that has been at the back of mind the entire time I have been writing this post. 

Should a teacher who doesn’t blog or read blogs expect her students to blog? 

After emmersing myself blogging for the last five weeks I realize blogging is tough and can a teacher who doesn’t understand the difficulties with “putting yourself out there” really understand the difficulties students might experience.  I realize I didn’t even suggest that my students read blogs prior to having them create their own blogs.  Was this because I myself didn’t read blogs?  Did my inexperience hurt the students?  I am definately rethinking what I did.  I still don’t think I have a firm grasp on the nuances of blogging effectively. I don’t agree with and never have agreed with the idea that  ”those who can’t…teach”  instead it really should be “those who do… teach”.    But then, that is just one short-time blogger’s opinion.

References

Nancy Joseph.  (2006). Strategies for Success: Teaching Metacognitive Skills to Adolescent Learners. New England Reading Association Journal, 42(1), 33-39,75.  Retrieved August 9, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1047701411).

Topping, K.. (2009). Peer Assessment. Theory into Practice, 48(1), 20.  Retrieved August 9, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1634923481).

Can’t everyone just stop for a second?  Can anyone hear me?  My heart beats faster, the conversation overlap and I can’t understand anything.   The people move around even faster talking over one another.  I still don’t recognize anyone.  It’s so crowded I can hardly breath.  I have to get out.   I start to push my way towards the door.  And then…ah…there’s someone I think know.   I slowly work my way over.  Do you think they’ll notice if I start to follow them?   There is always the chance that they will reject me.  After all, I really don’t know them that well. 

Apprehensive but feeling a little braver I start to follow a few others.  I am feeling a little safer as I move around the crowded room adding my voice into the room  but the crowd still intimidates me. 

What are you doing?

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging site that lets users send and receive messages known as tweets based on the question “What are you doing?”.    I felt really silly writing an answer to the question the first time.  Who cares if I am trying to figure out twitter for the first time?  But really, unless someone is following me or searches for a topic that my tweets fit into to, they are going to see my tweets. 

Tweets can be up to 140 characters and are displayed on the author’s profile page and are delivered to the people who follow or subscribe to that author.  People can restrict or accept followers.  Sounds so simple and really it is but at the same time with more than 4 816 693 registered users in the twitdir it can be overwhelming when exploring.

For something so small, 140 characters really isn’t very much, there is a lot to it.  Once I set up my profile, uploaded my picture and found a few people to follow I began to play with some of the features.  I found the Twitter Guidebook from Mashable  to be an invaluable resource it includes everything from the basics like how to create and account, the language of Twitter,  and guides to managing your tweets.

Using Twitter for the first few weeks was really confusing.  There seem to be no rhyme or reason fo the tweets.  Finally, I read about Tweetdeck and set up my own.  It was so easy and now my tweets are divided into groups such as Friends, Librarians, Edmonton, Facebook (yes, you can post and see your facebook updates right on the tweetdeck) and technology.  When I am on the computer I get a chirp to let me know when someone tweets in one of the categories I have set up on my Tweetdeck.  I also joined a twibe for librarians.  I have posted a couple blogs that I came across that I thought might be of interest to others in the tribe and I have read a lot of the things they have posted.

I have also learned to use some of the finer features of Twitter such as #hashtags to narrow and connect tweets and @ to address certain people.   The twitter search allows users to capture tweets in real time, organize tweets and learn about news in real time. Users can even save searches.

The language of Twitter is cute (although it tweally becomes a little twidiculous at twimes) but unless you know what the terms mean it can be quite confusing.  I found the twictionary wiki to be quite helpful. 

Who uses Twitter?

With all of the hype about Twitter I wanted to see some actual statistics on users. You would think it would be easy to find and maybe it is but not for me.  I finally found out that in the twitdir.com there are 4 816 693 registered users.  Wow! 

And of the twitters( I wanted to say twits but that seemed wrong), most are between the ages of 25 to 54.

However, how many of these registered users actually use twitter? 

According to ReadWriteWeb’s recent post entitled Twitter’s Most Active Users:  Bots, Dots, and Tela Tequila  “only 5% of Twitter’s users account for 75% of all the activity on the service and almost one third of all the tweets posted by the most active users come from bots that generate more than 150 tweets per day”.   What is a bot you ask?  Good question—  According to wikipedia.com

Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.

So that means that a lot of the Twitter traffic isn’t from people like you and me. 

Sysomos’s Alex Cheng and Mark Evans in An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World  took a look 11.5 million Twitters accounts and found that:

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
• New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009
• More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
• There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
• Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.

How can Twitter help me as a teacher and librarian?

I like the way Laura Walker stated it in her post Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools  because together we’re better. “Twitter can be like a virtual staffroom where teachers can access in seconds a stream of links, ideas, opinions, and resources from a hand-picked selection of global professionals.”

Twitter can be used as a professional development tool.  I can listen in on conversations about educational topics that interest me.  I can even join in if I am comfortable.  I can post questions that I have and make connections with others who think like me. I can create a group to discuss a professional learning topic. 

I can create a  Twitter account for my library.  Using twitter to quickly update events, library news, resources, etc.   Twitter for Librarians  lists a variety of other uses for library use as well.

There is a lot out there on Twitter uses for educators such as:

Top 100 tools for the Twittering Teacher

Uses in the classroom:

It gives students a way to participate during lectures.  This idea of letting the audience participate is happening in a lot of conferences.  Why not take a page from conference use and allow students this back-channel type participation. Of course, this only works with mature students and I am sure it would have to be modelled and practised before it became perfected. In his blog post How to Present When People Are Twittering, Pistachio talks about the benefits of allowing this back-channel conversation through Twitter such as:

•  helping the audience focus by engaging them in the presentation
• the audience gets more content because people tweeting add explanations, elaborations and other useful information.
• the tweets can be in the form of questions which can let the presenter know he/she needs to add an explanation or the questions may be answered by someone in the audience without having to interupt the presentation

I think that in these benefits could also be seen in the classroom.  Of course, it wouldn’t be used all of the time but for some lectures or guest speakers—why not?

As pointed out by Duncan and Arcus in Skills for Surviving the 21st Century

[t]he new literacy studies… [make] us aware of our learners in relation to their identities. literacy learners produce texts – bits of writing and other expressions of meaning, like drawing and talking. They become makers of texts and, as such, infuse their texts with their sense of identity and the everyday life things that happen to people. These include shopping and cooking and watching television and a myriad of other practices, all interwoven into the act of being literate.

Without a doubt, Twitter hits all of these skills students need.  Students need to make sense of this new social media and educators can help guide students in developing and honing these skills. 

Setting up groups sounds easy at least according to 30 More Ways to Set up Twitter Groups  but  it is something I will have to try when I get back to work. 

I do a unit on debate with my AP English students.  The observers have such a difficult time not adding their ideas and points to the discussion so I usually open the discussion at the end to the entire class.  Again this is frustrating to students.  If I was to allow them to set up a group in twitter the students could use that to state their points.  Also, for those interested the conversation can continue outside of the classroom.

The students could write a review of a book or movie in 140 words or less.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  Students need to be aware of audience (which is now larger), and word choice.  This fits right into the English curriculum.

Steve Wheeler in his blog post Teaching with Twitter has some great ideas for using Twitter with students such as:

• Summing Up’ Ask students to read an article or chapter and then post their brief summary or précis of the key point(s). A limit of 140 characters demands a lot of academic discipline.
• ‘Twit Links’ Share a hyperlink – a directed task for students – each is required to regularly share one new hyperlink to a useful site they have found.
• Time Tweet’ Choose a famous person from the past and create a twitter account for them – choose an image which represents the historical figure and over a period of time write regular tweets in the role of that character, in a style and using the vocabulary you think they would have used (e.g. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).

The post 25 Ways to Teach with Twitter lists even more ways teachers can use Twitter in the classroom.

Twitter really is a great social media tool that can be used as a professional development tool, an information source and allows us to connect and collaborate.

Possible Issues

As always access to technology is an issue.  You can’t use Twitter with students unless they have access to the internet and a computer. 

I don’t know if younger students would really benefit from Twitter.  I can’t see using it with students in an elementary setting—but then I don’t have any experience teaching this age group. 

There are a lot of useless tweets out there that are not educational at all. How can users/students weed through these irrelavant tweets?  Yes, there is Twitter Search but you still get a lot of irrelevant information.

Can students stay focused at the same time as they are tweeting?  Can instructors handle not having “all eyes on me” when they present.  Really, using Twitter in the classroom is going to force some teachers to change the way they instruct.  Not that this is necessarily negative.

We need to be critically readers and thinkers.  There is a lot of information that is not relevant or even valuable to the general public.

There is no separate education platform.  I hope that when Twitter updates it will provide this feature.  Maybe it will even have an Educator’s edition.  Wouldn’t that be something? In the meantime, there is always Edmodo that will allow teachers to set up private class groups for online discussions.  I think I will probably use this to introduce the students to microblogging during lectures and presentations before I let them fly free in Twitter. 

 However, for professional growth I will continue to use my Twitter account to stay informed about media and technology. 

I turn around and what…now I’m being followed.  I smile.  I’m  beginng to feel even more comfortable and before I know it I have become a member of a twibe.  I belong…

 References

Duncan, B., & Arcus, C.. (2009, January). SKILLS FOR SURVIVING THE 21ST CENTURY. Education Forum, 35(1), 20,22-23.  Retrieved August 5, 2009, from CBCA Education. (Document ID: 1664289801).

I look at social networking as a way to improve my knowledge and to me, Nings are much more focused than Facebook.  I guess the purpose is different.  I am networking for professional development and to building a professional community.  And Nings fit in perfectly. 

When you think about it, teacher librarians are a lonely breed. I am the only one in my school and in the high schools we are a community of eight and during the year we seldom have time to connect face to face.  Belonging to librarian Nings gives me a much broader network of experts and learners to draw on.

I joined four Nings.   Two prior to taking the course but I didn’t really explore them until this week .  When I first began playing with WEB 2.0 tools earlier this year, I joined the Classroom 2.0 Ning and within that Ning I joined the Classroom 2.0 Beginner Group.  I didn’t really do very much as a member although I did attend two of the illumunate sessions they offered—both on libraries and I read a lot of the discussion forums.  I guess I was too afraid to ask questions.

Next I joined the CASL Ning.  It is a really small group but I thought I should belong to a Canadian group for librarians.  And actually through this group I was able to connect with a local teacher librarian which was kind of neat.  I think that with word of mouth and by inviting others to join this group will grow.  So, if you haven’t joined it yet, consider signing up for the Canadian Association of School Librarians Ning!

I also joined TeacherLibrarian Network.  Wow!  With over 3000 members think of the expertise here.  I actually followed a discussion thread on using Ning with student groups and as a result I am really looking forward to experimenting with them with my own students.  And if I have questions I can go to the group and add my question.

The final Ning I belong to is Library 2.0.  Again, I want to connect with other librarians and see how they are using the web to expand and improve their libraries. 

I really like that I just by logging on to Ning.com I see all of my networks in my profile.  I can see the updates, my groups, everything from one page.  And I when I post a question or someone responds to my response to their question I get a direct message in my mail.  It is so simple.  Isn’t this appealing?

Now, besides professional development opportunities and creating a wider network how can Nings be used in schools. 

Well, they aren’t blocked in my school which means I can use them with students.  I wanted to see how easy it was to set up a NING for students to use so I created a Strathcona School Ning  for students to connect and collaborate.  I made it private so only students I invite will have access. I am planning on using it with the library club first to see how it goes.  I still need to play with it but I can see a lot of potential.

As pointed out in Seven Things You Should Know About Nings

Ning provides an ave­nue for instructors to take advantage of social networks in a neutral setting, offering functionality and an experience that are familiar and comfortable to students. By creating social networks around academic topics, or even about specific projects for a course, an instructor can facilitate a strong sense of community among the students, encouraging personal interactions that can lead to the creation of new knowledge and collective intelligence.

Ning provides an opportunity for students to create their own social networks and learn how to cultivate and sustain a community of users that might resemble professional contacts and relationships.

We know that our students are on social networks so why not use Nings as an opportunity to teach the students the ins and outs of safety, appropriate conduct and allow them to connect in a safe environment.  And you know what, the students will also be learning curriculum at the same time!

Although I know that most of the students I teach, a lot of my colleagues and some of my friends are on Facebook I was not willing to walk down that hallway.  I can now admit that it was ignorance that made me fear joining Facebook. 

I knew nothing about Facebook except that it was a social networking tool.  I didn’t even realize that originally it was set up in 2004 by Harvard University students and that it wasn’t open to everyone until 2006.  Having set up an account five weeks ago, I have learned a lot:  how to add friends, pictures, videos, have private conversations, write on people’s walls but I haven’t learned to like it.

When I talk to friends they love Facebook.  Why? They point out that it is a great way to stay in touch with friends.  They can do a quick login and see what news everyone has.  Ummmm…wouldn’t a phone call work as well or even better, a face to face visit?  I know…I know…it is much quicker to type a little sentence on your wall and add a few pictures than it is to talk on the phone for an hour and sometimes face to face isn’t possible.  Especially if the person you are connecting with is a world away.  For instance, my friend Lisa connects through Facebook with her relatives that live in Newfoundland, her dad in New York and her friends in Japan.  When I asked my teenage babysitter why she likes Facebook she says that she loves keeping in touch with friends, they plan their weekends and talk about things that are happening in school.  When I asked why not use the phone, she says she likes being able to see what all of her friends are up to at the same time and she doesn’t need to worry about if they are home or not. I see the appeal but to me it still impersonal and awkward.  Perhaps I need more time to play or a wider social network. 

Another issue that I have with Facebook is that the professional use and personal use lines are blurred.  On my Facebook, I have friends and I have colleagues and I belong to professional groups.  I personally need to separate my professional and personal life.  However, that being said there are ways to keep everything separate on Facebook.

Besides just social networking the potential for networking as professionals and students exists.  Separate groups exist.  There are student groups such as School Library Group from Winston Churchill High School, professional library groups such as Cybrarians on Facebook, and host of other groups that may be open for others to join.  Both of the groups I mention are closed and people must request to become members so there is, if a user desires it, a way to create closed groups.  iLibrarian posted the Hottest Facebook Groups for Librarians and I joined the Library 2.0 Interest Group, Librarians and Facebook,  and Story Share groups.   I looked through some of the past discussion on the walls but didn’t find the depth that I found in the Nings that I joined.  A user also has the potential to set up their own groups and this would be a great feature if schools didn’t block Facebook.

Facebook…not in my school

Facebook is blocked in my school district and this is not something that I see changing in the near future.  I do agree that schools shouldn’t be blocking the sites and that instead we should be educating and providing information about online safety to our students and patrons (84, Library 2.0 and Beyond).  According to a 2009 study by A.C. Nielson, “nine to 17-year olds indicate they spend as much time using social networks as watching TV-about 9 hours a week.”  96% of teen users say they have use a social network and 59% of users say they talk about educationally related topics.  (Tran, 2009) I think schools are really missing out on a teaching opportunity here.

 Students are using Facebook and for educators to close their eyes to this fact is, in my opinion, tantamount to negligence. I think we have role to teach students how to be safe and appropriate on the social web and Facebook seems to be the one that gets the “bad press” in regards to people using it for cyber-bullying and slander.  As I was reading some of the cases of misuse I kept thinking Facebook isn’t to blame, people are—and if we aren’t willing to discuss its use in schools than things won’t improve. 

It doesn’t matter that schools block the site—students are on the site and things like cyber bullying, putting things on profiles that students may regret later are just a few things that schools need to be aware of.  Some of the information users disclose they aren’t even thinking about.  As De Souza’ research shows users fill in their profile they are prompted to provide certain information—age, date of birth, place of residence, etc. without even realizing they don’t have to answer these questions.  Schools need to be teaching students how to use the privacy settings and how to properly conduct themselves on sites like Facebook. 

I really like the way that Matt Levinson put it:

Schools can put their heads in the sand and ignore the problem.  They can draw a line in the sand, with zero tolerance rules written into school handbooks, or they can shift with the changing sands of social networking and seek solutions to incorporate social networking and utilize it as part of the educational program for students.  We have reached the tipping point here and schools must address and embrace the prolific energy surrounding the Facebook age. 

If schools block Facebook use on campus, students have no opportunity to integrate social networking into their learning environment, and are instead left to swim alone in what can be treacherous waters.  When problems arise, often after hours and even late into the night, schools face the fallout in the hallways.  Students carry the burdens of unhealthy Facebook exchanges with them throughout the school day.  

Keeping Private on Facebook

I finally took the time to read the privacy settings this week in preparation for this entry.  The problem isn’t that Facebook doesn’t have privacy capabilities, the problem is, as pointed out in The New York Times article Is Facebook Growing up to Fast, that  “most Facebook users haven’t taken advantage of the privacy settings; the company estimates that only 20 percent of its members use them.”  Why I wonder…probably because like me they don’t take the time to read the policies until they have to.     

The danger in social networking sites like Facebook “lies in the fact that, increasingly, our ‘friends’ on social networking sites are actually a mix of people—friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues—with whom we would normally share only a piece of our lives.” However, as Richmond points out in his article  On Networking Sites, Learning How Not to Share in Facebook  the default is a private profile–users decide how far to open the door.”  Users can also “create many ‘friend lists’ –one for college buddies, another for work friends, another for family—and control the information they share with each.” 

Facing the Future

Does everything I have learned about Facebook mean I am going to become a regular user?  I must be honest, I am still undecided.  However, if schools ever decide to unblock it—I can see a lot of educational uses—online discussions, a place to collaborate on work, creating Facebook profiles for people in history or authors (what would their wall look like), etc.  Facebook even has a group of educators who collaborate on how to use Facebook with their students.

Now, if you will all excuse me…I’m going to give my mom a call and perhaps I’ll even pop in for a face to face visit later this afternoon!

References

De Souza, Z., & Dick, G.. (2009). Disclosure of information by children in social networking – Not just a case of “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine”. International Journal of Information Management, 29(4), 255.  Retrieved July 31, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1743569341).

Tran, L. (2009).  Let’s Get Social. Retrieved online at www.teachmag.com/teach_archives/09/TEACH_spring_09.pdf

Levinson, M. (2009). Schools and Facebook:  Moving Too Fast or Not Fast Enough. Retrieved online at http://newmedialiteracies.org/blog/2009/04/schools-and-facebook-moving-to.php

A book loving librarian who couldn’t compete with the telly

Then one day she was reading through her mail

When up from the web came a digital tale

Web 2.0 that is.  Animoto, voice thread.

Well, the next thing you know her students are creatin’  away

Kinfolk said let ‘em share on the information highway

Said getting feedback from others is the way it’s gotta be

So they loaded up their creations and shared with me

Social Media that is.  Connecting, collaborating.

Everyone loves stories and to me that is what all of the multimedia sharing sites were about.  They all allowed for people to share a story.  The story could be told through a poster, a music video, a timeline, a comic strip, or a simple slide show.  The sites that I explored all allow for, and in some cases ask for,  audience feedback.  Audiences can comment, rate, or even applaud the work of the creators.  I think that that is what makes these multimedia sites so powerful.  No longer am I creating something just for an assignment, am I creating something for a larger audience that I may get feedback from.    

One of the issues I had when I first started exploring was with the amount of multimedia sharing sites out there.  How, in the limited amount of time I have, can I pick the best ones?  And then I discovered COGDOGROO.  Not only does it have a great name but it was the answer to my dilemma.  It is a wiki, create by Alan Levine, entitled 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.  He lists more than 50 web 2.0 tools that can be used to tell a story.  He has tried them all and given feedback on the ones that worked for him.  He has included examples of actual creations from each site and links to the various sites.  The discussion section is also a great place to go to see what other educators are saying about the tools.  I only tried a few but I will be going back to this wiki to try a few more and I will be sharing this site with the teachers in my school who are interested in using digital media sharing with their students.  I may actually put it right on the library site for students to access. 

My Multi Media Meanderings…

Toondoo

I think making cartoons is a type of media sharing.  You create the cartoon, share it, others comment on it, and you can even embed your comic into your blog.   

There are more comic creating sites out there but I really liked this site because it had content control—no profanity, nudity, sexual content, etc.  It was easy to sign up for an account and it was free (although you do have to be 13).  Once signed up a person could go right in and get to work.  The site offers tutorials and a lot of online help.  Users can create their own characters from the templates available or if artistic, they can even draw their own.  A person can leave comments on others cartoons and suggestions or ideas for improvement.  They even have how many times a particular comic was viewed and a globe that shows users where the comic creators fan base is.  Looking through the site, I would say that it is primarily young adults creating and sharing.  Isn’t that great!  I was not feeling creative enough to come up with my own comic but here is one that made me giggle and when you look at it you can see how they are rated by the viewers.  It is call Eating Homework.

I could see students using this site and learning a lot.  In English students could create graphic stories based on ones they’ve read or even their own.  In social they could create editorial cartoons on an issue.  Wouldn’t it be inspiration for some of our students if libraries allowed students to post their comics to the library site.  Again, they are creating content to share with a larger audience.  I know that I would have students go to the site just to read their friends latest comic addition.  What a way to inspire participation.  However, there is no educator’s space so everything is open to everyone.  This may turn some teachers off but I hope they would look at the site before snubbing it.

VoiceThread

Setting up an educator account was easy— users can invite people to participate and view their creation through email and users can embed the voice thread into their blog or web site. 

The fact that it has an educator’s site makes this site appealing.  Comment moderation allows the educators/creators to see all comments before they are visible to others.  The moderator can choose to save or delete.  I created one on the novel Wicked Lovely.  I could see using this in the library as a book review or comment place.  What pictures suit this book?  Why?  Write or record a one sentence description of the book. 

There is a digital library of ideas for using voice thread in the classroom. And there is also a voice thread wiki just for educators.  A wealth of ideas for use can be found here.  Some of my favourite ideas were for book promotion, author studies, and biographies. 

What I like most about voice thread is that it is a venue that allows for lot viewer participation. 

Animoto

This site will allow users to create a 30 second video and add music.  It has music on the site itself that can be used but it also allows users to grab their own music.  This is where those open source music sites would come in handy.  I like that the site emails you when the creation you made is  finished.   Animoto is easy to share—email, upload to YouTube, Facebook,  Myspace…etc. And adding your own music is a piece of cake.  Although they do warn users to make sure they are not breaking copyright laws.  As I said in my previous post, students will love this as much as the adults around them.  One drawback is that only the 30 second videos are free.  If you want a longer one you have to pay.  But then—as I go on and on—isn’t the ability to “say a lot” in a short period of time a skill that we want our students to learn.

I can see using this for advertising books, people, historic events, etc. 

Glogster  

This was very easy to use.  It is a poster creating site that allows users to insert audio, images, links, video, print.  I really found this site easy to use and I can see students enjoying using this to showcase their knowledge on a subject.  It is geared towards schools.  It can be embedded into a web page easily.  The educator’s site allows teachers to set up groups within her account and give out passwords so the students themselves don’t have to sign up for an account. 

The classroom possibilities are endless—travel logs, biographies, timelines, historical highlights, showcasing a novel, …the possibilities are limitless.

xtimeline

This is a neat site to use for media sharing.  Once a free account is given, members can create timelines, add to other timelines if that feature is made available, and comment on others timelines.  I can see this being used in a lot of different ways.  It sure would make that background information that students need to understand historic events or eras a lot more interesting.  Users can add video, music and pictures.

I did not make one—I was feeling blocked on ideas but here are some great ones that could be used as exemplars and then students or class could be challenged to create their own timeline.  This program allows for that group collaboration.

The Educational Technology Timeline is really neat and I bet there could be a lot of discussion around it just based on their future predictions. 

William Shakespeare’s Colorful Life would be a great one to use as an introduction to Shakespeare.

The Biography of Stalin would be a good one to use when the social students are studying dictators.

Once the timelines are made they can be embedded right into a webpage, blog or wiki.   If you find a timeline you would like to add to, you request permission from the timeline creator, and once granted you may co create.  Also, some timelines are completely open and anyone who has an account can edit and add to timelines with the creator’s permission.  In the privacy settings users’ control who sees, edits and comments on your timeline.

Valenza in the School Library Journal has some great ideas for using the timeline http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/260011426.html

• We can use this tool to build a history of our township in collaboration with senior citizens and our historical society. 
• We can use this as a presentation tool, for instance as a frame for presenting the family and immigrant stories our students often prepare.
• We can build timelines of controversial topics with other classes, perhaps from other cultures.  If we ask students to be truly selective, we can compare reasons why different classes would find different events most important.
• We can build timelines that explore events that might have been left out of history, science, and other textbooks.  What were women doing?  What were children doing?  What was happening in the non-Western world?  What was going on in the worlds of music or art?
• We can create timelines relating to literature–novels, nonfiction, plays–that incorporate analysis.
• We can examine the timelines of others to analyze choices and improve them with richer description and analysis.
• We can ask students to evaluate and reach consensus by justifying the “most important” events.
• We can use this as a tool for learning evaluation strategies. As they should with all the documents they use for research, students should validate these timelines against more reliable sources. Students should ask, “What sources are the timeline builders using?”
• We can create carefully researched timelines, and share our new knowledge.
• We can up the level of thought by establishing what a good description looks like.  (Perhaps all descriptions need to have a “so what?” or an analysis element present. These criteria might be jointly negotiated by a class.)
• We can up the level of digital citizenship by insisting on solid documentation and by insisting students use copyright-friendly media in their timelines.

Digital Story Telling

According to Library 2.0 and Beyond “[d]igital stories are a kind of social networking technology…that allow storytellers and their audiences to share mutually interesting content through new digital technologies.”  They also point out that, “storytelling is a reciprocal process of give and take between storytellers and their audiences” (130).  Is this not what all of the tools discussed here allow for? Isn’t this what our new participatory culture is all about so shouldn’t we, as educators, being exposing our students to these tools?

As pointed out by Bull and Kajder using digital storytelling “can provide a voice to the struggling readers and writers who might not otherwise find an authentic means of expression.  It places the technology in the hands of the learner, allowing him or her to control its use within objectives carefully constructed by the teacher.”  I think of my students who cannot write but have great expression and are able to depict a theme or idea visually.  How much power will showing them a program like Animoto give them to tell their story?

In his article Digital Storytelling:  A Powerful Tool for the 21^st Century Classroom, Robin argues that digital storytelling is a learning experience that “encompasses…what society hopes that students will know and be able to perform in the 21^st century.  The push for students to gain 21^st century literacy skills by using the latest technology to communicate effectively is facilitated by students actively participating in the creation process of digital storytelling.  As they do so, students develop enhanced communication skills as they learn to conduct research on a topic, ask questions, organize their ideas, express opinions, and construct meaningful narratives.  Students who participate in the full digital storytelling experience may also benefit from learning to critique their own work, as well the work of others, facilitating social learning and emotional intelligence.”  Digital stories and the sites that allow this storytelling belong in our best teaching practises in order to promote the literacy skills we want students to have in order to participate successfully in society.

The Centre for Digital Stories that is highlighted in Chapter 11of Library 2.0 and Beyond is a site that is well worth visiting.   

I would definitely recommend looking at the story section to see some of the incredible stories that have been created. 

The resources section  has an abundance of resources including places to go for images, video, and audio that are all available for use if properly cited.  Teachers and students will find this very useful if they want to create their own digital stories.  I especially like the section on copyright.  As we move into more digital media forms students need to be more aware of copyright. The information and material here will be an asset to teachers and librarians.

Possible issues and areas for concern…

The same issues that always come up…

How can teachers who don’t know about the tools out there introduce and use them with their students?  What about the digital divide?  How can schools and teachers use these tools if they don’t have access to them?  What about privacy?  And what about the big copyright issue—none of these have simple answers and they aren’t going to be gone tomorrow.

What can I do?  In library, I can introduce the tools to the students and perhaps there will be a domino effect. I can keep asking teachers to collaborate with me on assignments and projects so I can introduce some of these tools to them. I guess I can continue to offer PD sessions with the staff.  I can continue to stress copyright with the students.  I can highlight the new tools for media sharing on the library site and I can model my use of them. 

Teachers who are using this participatory media sharing also need to make sure they are teaching students how to comment on others work and how to accept comments on their work.  I don’t think this is going to be a difficult one to cover but one that we need to be aware of as we delve deeper into multimedia sharing with students.

Well, now it’s time to say good-bye to Kelly and her opinion

And she would like to thank you folks fer kindly dropin’ in.

You’re invited back again to this locality

To have a heapin’  helpin’ of her hospitality

Blogging that is. Journaling,commenting. 

Y’all come back now, y’hear?

(based on the Beverly Hillbillies lyrics)

References

Robin, B.. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom. Theory into Practice, 47(3), 220.  Retrieved July 29, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1504044431).

Glen Bull and Sara Kajder. Digital Storytelling in the Language Arts Classroom.  Retrieved July 28, 2009 from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2a/18/fe.pdf