With profound apologies to screenwriters, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossi, (and not forgetting the original book author - William Steig) I have come to believe that, like an ogre, blogging is like an onion - it has layers. Perhaps I should use Donkey's metaphor of parfaits and layers, but, like onions, I've found some of my blog posts "smelly", while writing blog posts occasionally makes me cry. Parfaits are just far too sweet and don't reflect the struggle that are part of critical thinking and metacognition. Onions are a fabulous metaphor - for ogres and blogging.
Learning about blogging
Personal Learning My initial experiences with blogging began in February of 2007, when I created an account in Blogger after attending my District-wide inservice day. The keynote speaker, whose name escapes me, talked about the benefits of blogging in a general way and I thought I'd give it a try. Like many beginning bloggers, I began on the surface level by journalling about my family and particularly the experience of living with a child with Down syndrome and then living in the country. At the time, I was on parental leave and we were living on a acreage with a heritage farmhouse in a very small town beside Shuswap Lake. I didn't really want to post too much, for fear of putting too much information on the web and I'm a sporadic journal writer on paper, so I carried that habit into the blogosphere. I started reading other blogs, particularly those of other parents and educators whose blogs were recommended by others, but I hadn't discovered RSS feeds, so I didn't develop habits of returning to blogs on a regular basis. I didn't post to other people's blogs, either, as it felt intrusive at the time. Most of the questions that I wanted answered as a parent of a child with special needs were answered as part of a Yahoo Group of Canadian parents, so blogs weren't an effective way for me to gain insight into parenting or visioning what life will be like for daughter as she gets older. I was also very busy writing professionally for a regional magazine and so I needed to ensure that I was spending time with my children and not developing a significant relationship with my home computer screen. When I have time to blog on a personal level again, I will approach it in a significantly different way. Linking to the blogs and writing of others, while incorporating the life experiences we've gained along the way, as well as visioning a future will be much easier and much more important than before.
Moving from Personal to Professional
When I moved from working in an elementary library to a secondary library, I peeled away a layer of surface level interaction with technology. I needed to become more capable and confident in my use of various tools and decided to create a blog to support a colleague who was working on a Social Studies project with his students. Every year, his students create propaganda posters about Napoleon Bonaparte. They research to discover who interacted with Napoleon, what the nature of the relationship was and possibly what individuals may have said about him. Based on what they discover, they create a poster either praising Napoleon or villifying him. This blog works well as a project page, although had I known about wikis I would have chosen that option. I learned a great deal about linking to other information in this project, but Will Richardson would tell me that this is a web-based project page - not a blog. (Richardson, 2006.) Although I had peeled a layer back, I still had much to learn about blogs and blogging. The impetus for learning more about blogging came at Tech It Up in October of 2009. After listening to Doug Johnson, I knew I had a lot more to learn and based on various discussions during the course of the day, I began reading Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms when I had spare moments - infrequent as those were. Because of my need for practical information, I skimmed for information that was applicable to my needs of the moment, rather than the foundational reasons for blogging. Like most busy educators, I needed a solid reason for engaging more deeply with the topic of blogging and going deeper. When I registered for this course, I knew I would finally have a reason to peel back another layer. Despite this, one of the things I've discovered about blogging is that a topic needs to be something the blogger is passionate about or is choosing to explore in a more critical way. It is very difficult to blog at Richardson's highest levels (7 and 8) in what Davies and Merchant describe as "well-written and concise posts (are) most likely to be read to the end..."
From Professional Practice to Professional Learning Networks
As a teacher librarian, reading the blogs of excellent practitioners in my field (and related fields) and blogging about my own learning and practice has allowed me to expand my network well beyond my district and even my province. Being able to refer others to posts about 21st Century Librarianship (Valenza, 2010.) or literacy and blogging (Hamilton, 2010) for further discussion, while incorporating that learning into my own practice has changed how I view professional development. While I have been an early adopter in many things, I feel dangerously behind in my skill set because of my reading of blogs. There is a new urgency in my need to ensure that I am exemplifying best practice, not only in my school, but in my district and beyond. I recognize that by blogging, I open my professional practices to scrutiny in a way that I don't even get a chance to do in front of teacher librarians in my own district. While I may be ahead of the curve compared to some, I have much to learn from those ahead of me. I am reminded of the Desiderata (a poster I saw frequently in my teen years) which encouraged readers to remember that comparing oneself to others is fruitless because there will always be those ahead and those behind. (It's timely that a DigiDesiderata has come out recently.)Really, blogging is about the web which I named the blog after - a connection of threads creating a beautiful whole. Perhaps I'm reaching a deeper layer after all.
Introducing PLN's to Students
What has me most excited about blogging is the possibilities for use with senior students. Because of the increasing push for "21st Century Learning" in all its varied meanings, opportunities for changes in practice are beginning to emerge. Recently, a major technology company approached our district to see if we were interested in using a new product for pilot projects. This would be a very exciting development. Immediately, I was struck with the idea of using this particular piece of hardware as a blogging tool for a year long research project that would incorporate the BCTLA's new Points of Inquiry. As blogging is an ideal means of allowing learners to reflect over a long period of time about "the progress of research, emerging processes, the aggregation of links or references and observations or reflections that develop over time," (Davies & Merchant, 2010) teaching students the Inquiry Process, while giving them time to work on a project that would be part of their final mark across two (and possibly more) subject areas seemed a timely idea. By building a "community of bloggers", students are able to "learn(ing) through social participation." (Davies & Merchant, 2010) Because the students would be choosing the research topic, it could incorporate at minimum, Social Studies and English and possibly other subject areas. Using tablet or slate devices could be a benefit to this process by allowing for easy access to RSS feeds and aggregators. I am eager to develop this idea further, in the hopes that I could be part of a team piloting a project like this. Blogging can encourage students to develop their own network, and take responsibility for their own learning - the cornerstone of most discussions about learners in the 21st Century. If effect, by learning about, and working to improve my own blogging practices, I may be planting onions as well as peeling back the layers of my own and really, that's the heart of why I became a teacher - to improve myself as a human being and hopefully influence others by being the best person I could be.
Retrieved from Flickr: Creative Commons image by Al Ibrahim
Works Cited
Davies, J. & Merchant, G. (2010). Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and participation. New York: Peter
Lang.
Ehrmann, M. (n.d.) Desiderata. Retrieved from http://www.inspirational-short-stories.com/desiderata
poem.html. (2010, November 28).
Hamilton, B. ( 2010, October 27). Assessment and metacognition: Blogging research reflections.[Web log
comment]. Retrieved from http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/assessment-and-
metacognition-blogging-research-reflections/. (2010, November 25).
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts andother powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand
Oaks: Corwin Press.
Valenza, J. (2010, October). Manifesto for 21st century school librarians. Retrieved from
My grandmother, a retired teacher and avid naturalist, called me "Chickadee" when I was a little girl. I talked all the time and could never sit still for long. I was curious about everything and needed to investigate and share what I was learning. Twitter may be the app that was truly designed for me, because it allows me to engage with a wide variety of people, find new and interesting information that can be shared, receive great professional tools and information, and I can use it while I'm on the move. How apt that it was named for a bird sound!
I started using Twitter in 2008, because I kept hearing about it in the media and was curious, particularly when it was described as the next Facebook and that many celebraties were using it to connect with their fans. Twitter was created by Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams as a spin-off from Odeo - a podcasting company. Dorsey described the naming of the site in a very appropos way:
"[W]e came across the word "twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that’s exactly what the product was."
Because it was based on SMS (short message service) for mobile devices, Twitter needed to be simple and began as a text based system, but it quickly expanded to include much more than simple text-based information. Today, Twitter allows for quick links to photos, blogs, data, news and almost anything that can be created on the web.
I set up my account in early March of 2009 and started following a number of people and news feeds. Within a few days, I found an interesting librarian in the U.S. to follow and began discussing professional issues, including reviewing books. I discovered my favourite music social site, Grooveshark, thanks to Twitter and occasionally posted a "tweet" about Down syndrome or politics. I enjoyed posting to the site, but wasn't getting much feedback, despite messaging others and retweeting, which is the equivalent of forwarding email. Sometimes others shared useful or fun links, but mostly folks were writing about the mundane aspects of their lives or using it as a marketing tool. I wasn't seeing images of people and the links being provided were mostly trivial or irrelevant to my needs. When I started getting lots of porn spam, I really got frustrated and decided that Facebook was pretty much the only social networking site I needed and I left Twitter alone for quite a while. I started using it again this summer as part of Joanne de Groot's Resources course and discovered a few good educators to follow who shared some interesting articles. It wasn't until this course, however, when blogging and tweeting linked up that I began to see the potential of Twitter as an educational tool - particularly a professional development tool.
Microblogging
Because Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, writers have to be concise. Statements need to be very clear. Thinking needs to be distilled. I know I have edited posts for clarity and brevity, sometimes four or five times. For bloggers and those who have more to say and share, though, linking to other sites seems to be the most effective way of sharing. The 140 character limit can still be a problem for lengthy URL addresses though. Thankfully, sites like bit.ly, which take long URL's and condense them to shorter formats have allowed microblogging to advance significantly. Twitter has also built in a URL shortening tool to ensure that web addresses don't eat up the entire 140 character limit.
Adding photographs to Twitter became another feature that enhanced the social nature of the site and websites like Twitpic made it easy to upload photographs. In the last week, I upgraded my phone from a Blackberry Pearl to an HTC Desire (Android platform) and wanted to ensure that I could easily add photos. After completing a Google search to see what application was most recommended, I found Twicca. I had already installed a QR code reader, so I scanned the QR code on the website with my phone and it directly installed the program. I was able to take a picture almost immediately,add a comment and then post it. As a tool to share family events, this is amazing, but the educational implications are also staggering. Privacy, though, is always on my mind because of the number of incidents I had of people trying to "follow" me, who really were posting pornography links. My settings do not share my location and I only share information with followers, not the entire Twitter universe. I know that locations can be viewed by some programs and do not wish to let potential thieves know I'm away from the house. The Twitter universe is large and diverse and does not guarantee ethical use by all its members.
Indeed, because of the popularity of Twitter, developers have created ways to organize and evaluate tweets and followers, link to other popular social networks and the ever-present Google, as well as see tweets in user-organized ways. Twitter Fan Wiki lists many of the most popular "apps" or applications for Twitter and organizes them by operating systems, so that users can tailor their apps to their system. At this time, I don't need all the possible applications for analysis and data collection, though. While I follow many of the educators at the forefront of educational reform and school librarianship, as well as leaders in activism and politics, I have not seen many of my students or local peers engage with this tool.
At the October B.C. Teacher Librarians' conference, I tried tweeting using a hash-tag (the #symbol to denote a particular stream of tweets) to see who else was posting from the conference. I was very disappointed to see only a few other posts from the day and no one engaging in discussion about what presenters were sharing. Perhaps everyone was fully engaged with the real-world discussions, but I wondered if more thinking could have been shared that day and more people engaged in pedagogical conversations had the hash tag been posted and people encouraged to share. The same is true in my school district. I can name all the teachers and administrators who regularly post to Twitter and I know I am at the beginning of building a personal learning network. I am pretty sure that there are fewer than 50 in a school district of over 1000 teachers.
A 5% ratio is is a small group and indicative of a few things. First, there are some teachers who still don't know what Twitter is. Second, there are teachers who are somewhat engaged with technology, but choose not to use Twitter for a variety of reasons. Third, the district's technology policy is antiquated and many teachers are waiting for changes that will allow for use of cell phones and other devices that will make using Twitter feasible. Finally, most teachers in our district have not heard of the term "personal learning networks" and can't see the benefits of being in a broader group which shares learning, resources and reflections for mutual growth. That change is still on the horizon, as the recent cuts and restructuring in the district have many teachers simply trying to focus on managing their classrooms.
Interestingly, Twitter is recognized by many as an excellent means of building personal learning networks and a source of professional development. Michelle Davis interviewed leaders in the Twitter education world in the most recent edition of Educational Digest and noted that Tuesday night "Edchats" on Twitter are becoming increasingly popular. (2010) The creator, Thomas Whidby, has found the discussions so popular that a second chat has been added in the morning to allow international educators the opportunity to participate in discussions. It is not surprising that Twitter is only mentioned briefly by Berger and Trexler as a possible social network to use in class, as this tool is still predominantly used by people over the age of 30. The examples they give of using Twitter to emulate a diary of a historical figure is clever and entertaining, but would be difficult to replicate in school systems where phones are still discouraged. If students can all be at computers and have either Twitterfall or Tweetdeck set up so that they can group the tweets they are viewing from classmates, it would be possible to use it as a discussion tool or a way of giving feedback during a discussion or presentation. It would also be interesting to observe what happens when students are required to find an expert opinion or artifact that could be retweeted to a class for discussion and evaluation purposes.
It will be a long time before my children or nephews use this tool, but in the meantime, it will be useful as a professional development tool and to follow politics, current events and activists. Small projects over time may change how Twitter is perceived by students, but in the meantime, the small community of educators using this tool will continue to reap the benefits of building great learning connections.
Works Cited
Berger, P. & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.
Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
Davis, M. (2010). Social Networking Goes to School. Education Digest, 76 (3), 14-19.
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. —Ursula K. LeGuin
If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel
Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. —Salman Rushdie
No previous generation or time period has had access to the kind of global story-telling and sharing that is now possible thanks to multimedia tools. As people across the planet attempt to make sense of their personal and shared experiences through a wide variety of tools, a new literacy is being built. The TED site, which houses a wide variety of presentations on wildly divergent ideas is an example of the possibilities for discussion and learning that can happen on a global scale. With so many different multimedia tools available in the cloud, students must learn new literacies and manners for interacting in the collaborative learning networks in which they are beginning to immerse themselves. Will Richardson has created the term "network literacies" and says that "acquiring these network literacies is a crucial first step in developing new pedagogies, and in turn, new classrooms and curricula that prepare students for the future." (Richardson, 2010)
The following examples of multimedia and presentation tools are only some of the possible tools available to the learning community. Teachers must begin to model their own learning as they use different tools to share ideas and curricula, so that students can see the immense potential for their own learning.
Animoto - the art of the movie
When I was six years old, I was very clear on my career path. I was going to be a movie star. I knew I had what it took to be center stage. I had no lack of confidence. After surviving high school, I continued to harbour a dream to be in movies. I wanted to be behind the camera, by then. Practicality took root and I finished up with an education degree, but always part of me hungers to share story and vision. Giving myself permission to take the time to nurture my creative side never seems practical, but this summer, I had a valid reason to explore my inner directorial vision.
When I was assigned and then finished a video book trailer for Joanne de Groot's summer class of EDES 501, I was elated. I had tried using Animoto once before as a way of sharing some fun photos of a family get together at Shuswap Lake. It turned out well, but I was frustrated by the limited length. Based on the length provided and no budget for "frills", I couldn't see much use for it. Animoto had only been around for one or two years at that point and I could see it had potential, but life beckoned and I moved on to other things. To complete Joanne's assignment, I decided to purchase a longer video time, then successfully negotiated permission to use a clip of music from Cirque du Soleil. I spent days hunting for just the right Creative Commons images. When finished, I had to share the clip with my friends and family simply for the sheer joy of having created something that looked great. The fact that it was relatively easy to make was a bit of a secret - similar to creating a great pie using pre-made crust. I know my teenage nephews were excited by the possibilities presented by this tool. My ten year old may see the benefit if he can put his favourite Pokemon images together with some great music.
While it wasn't real movie making, it involved decision making around editing words to convey a sense of plot and character, choice of music to convey mood and hunting through hundreds of images to find the right resolutions and qualities. I probably remixed the photo order 30 times until I was satisfied. I didn't do the work because I wanted a good mark. I did the work because I was deeply satisfied by the process and wanted it to really generate some buzz to read the book. Like many teenagers posting fan versions of songs on Youtube or creating "fanlit" to expand on their favourite book or manga series, I found it easy to create and share. I also spent a great deal of time ensuring that my final product matched my internal vision, much like the teenagers I know working on manga fan projects.
As a result of the project, a classmate and I have decided to run a contest for our students. The Stellar Book Award for YA fiction in B.C. is an excellent opportunity for teens to select, read and review the best Canadian fiction and non-fiction. Knowing how much fun we had creating Animoto book trailers, we will be encouraging our students to do the same thing for Stellar nominated books. Much like the Trailee awards bestowed by the School Library Journal, we will award prizes for student created book trailers.
We look forward to seeing the results.
Animoto definitely draws out the creative in the individual, but collaboration is the nature of movie-making. Berger and Trexler's suggestions for digital storytelling are essential reading for those about to embark on a project with this tool. The newest backgrounds for Animoto presentations are particularly well-suited to teenagers and dramatic, emotional story-telling. Creating story-boards as a group to ensure plot development or idea development is a critical skill in project presentation in the business world and an area where educators must help students develop stronger skill sets, in my observations.
Voicethread
As a story-telling tool, Voicethread is an excellent place for students and teachers to begin. The more static nature of the images, plus the ability of the story-teller to use his/her own voice (or a group story-telling process) means more control and the ability to focus on specific elements of story development. Voicethread is an excellent tool for elementary age students and students with learning delays who need a simpler tool to work with.
My own process for learning to use Voicethread came shortly after the birth of my granddaughter. Having taken a generational photo of the new baby, her mother, myself and my mother, it was a good time to try a simple description of the photo and my feelings about the arrival of this wonderful little person. The next phase should be to have all the other adults post a comment about their emotions and recollections, but despite having sent the link, the new mom and the reluctant great-grandmother don't seem to want to comment. I do see this kind of single image or small cluster of family images being a great tool for our family to comment on our lives and the changes happening in our lives, particularly as my parents age and we wish to capture some of the stories around photos that are important parts of our family narrative.
The second Voicethread I created was, again, for Joanne de Groot's course in Resources for Children and Young Adults this past summer. We were assigned an illustrator review and I selected Patricia Polacco. Because this required more images, it also required more significant scripting to demonstrate an understanding of the images and the illustrator. As a group, we chose a wide variety of presentation tools, but I found Voicethread to be ideally suited to this particular project because of the sequence of images I wanted to present. A more animated presentation would not have allowed for detailed investigation of the static images in the various books by Polacco. This is also something for educators and students to consider when choosing a presentation tool. This tool is well suited to presentations where students want to have the opportunity to share without necessarily being in front of a group. It eliminates the fear of stumbling over words, simply because a recording can be deleted and redone until satisfied with the results. I know I redid some sections of my Polacco presentation two or three times, until I was satisfied with how it sounded and ensuring that it made sense. It still wasn't perfect, but I believe that authentic voice is perfect in its imperfections.
When creating my Voicethread, I wish I had some of the support resources listed in Berger and Trexler's text. I found Bill Ferriter's wiki to be hugely helpful and look forward to sharing the rubrics and the Student Training Guide with staff and students. Particularly, I find myself in the role of instigating "unrestricted learning" as described by Richardson. Students are seeking tools to share their learning and given limited choices by teachers, seek out alternatives from their peers or trusted resources. Word has gotten out that I am knowledgeable about Web 2.0 and interesting methods of sharing learning, so students seek me out for suggestions. While I share ideas about tools learners might be able to use, I always have to qualify my recommendations with the proviso that students seek permission to use a new tool with their subject teacher and that they have a possible draft or story board to show how they will use the tool. It is unfortunate when teachers reject the ideas out of hand simply because it isn't on their "list" of acceptable presentation tools. Frequently, I remind my colleagues that I have access to a wide variety of rubrics to help with assessment, but fear and the status quo sometimes rule the day.
Prezi
One of the tools which teachers and students at my school are beginning to use more frequently is Prezi. I have been encouraging the use of this tool for the last two years. I first encounted it through my husband's work on a project for an educational technology course at UBC. He created a great presentation, which we have both edited and expanded on as a demonstration tool. Mark did the initial work on this project, but I quickly mastered the use of the Zebra tool, which is the editing circle with stipes. It has taken me a lot longer to get used to the idea of a large canvas, much like a poster, with ideas spread out on it. Prezi requires a much more spacial mode of thinking, as well as the ability to recognize when zoom in/zoom out can be useful. In many ways, it is much more like Animoto (with a presentation focus) simply because of the more animated movement and the ability to embed videos easily. Naturally, we focused on a topic that we've become expert in - Down syndrome. Our goal, as always, is to educate in a fun way and dispel some of the myths that continue to exist about this genetic anomoly. As a personal tool, Mark and I have both found Prezi to be more effective and engaging than slide presentations, and our teenaged nephews were excited by the possibilities when we demonstrated this tool to them. In the coming year, our soon to be eleven year old son will also get a chance to create a presentation and we'll demonstrate this tool to him as well, although it is likely he'll require more support than a teenager might. http://prezi.com/0btocwytfjgp/view/#1
More recently, I prepared a Prezi for a girls' workshop day called "Me 2 Me," which was designed for our school's grade eight and nine students. This presentation was on Web 2.0 tools and cyber safety. Many of the girls at my school want to learn more about technology, but struggle to use the technology they have at hand in a safe way. The day was very successful and the girls, who are now in grade nine and ten, continue to come and ask questions about the tools demonstrated that day. What I continue to find, though, is that when working in Prezi, students frequently seek assistance in working with the Zebra tool and the linking tool. It is not as intuitive as the tutorials make it look, but surprisingly, students (for all of the love of Youtube) infrequently seek tutorials on how to use various Web 2.0 tools.
For students who are seeking a web-based platform for a tradition slide presentation, two sources prove to be helpful. Google documents has a presentation format that allows learners to create simple presentations. The tools are limited, but it does allow for uploading of Microsoft or Open Office slide presentations. A better tool, though, is Slideshare. I discovered this tool when creating the podcast for this course. I was seeking statistical data about podcast listeners and creators and happened across a useful Slideshare presentation. When I realized that it was a site that was both an aggregator and editor, I was very impressed. For presenters needing to be able to easily access their materials, it makes much more sense to be able to work in the cloud, rather than carry around a program and editing suite. While I create slide presentations on an irregular basis for work, I rarely use slide presentations as a personal tool. I am reluctant to use this tool on a personal level because of the large number of overly emotional presentations that are forwarded to me as a parent of a child with special needs. I appreciate that some families like to share the images they've created of their child, complete with music, quotes and inspirational moments. I do not feel the same need to share these kinds of presentations with others. My experience has been that sharing is best done with those only in our immediate family and circle of friends, rather than the world at large.
As a result, my initial Slideshare is a work tool. Destiny Quest is a two year old addition to our Follett suite of tools, but has received little attention from students. I am hoping to encourage a more social and personal library experience for students and felt this might be a good starting point for orienting students. It was easy to integrate Follett's PDF screenshots into the slides and with music or voice-over, this is the start of an interesting tutorial to be embedded in our school website. Destiny Quest slide presentation
For the teaching staff and students at my school, this particular site will be of particular use. Students have not yet embraced the idea of using a program called NX Client which allows them to access our school server and work directly with their school files. As a result, students frequently create a presentation in Open Office format, save it as a Microsoft Powerpoint, then email it to themselves to work on at home. By uploading their presentation into Slideshare, they will be able to work on it both at school and at home. Editing may continue to be an issue, though, as most students do not seem to want to download Open Office and use it at home, even though it is free. For staff, ease of access to presentations both for actual presentation time and for evaluation purposes will make Slideshare very popular. Also helpful, will be the ability to gather all the presentations in one location. Students can ensure their own privacy with simple choice between public viewing or private only, then can access their presentation and ensure that the teacher has a link or downloaded version.
Slideshare's incredible power comes primarily as a tool for learner's to explore what makes for great presentations. It is currently running a contest called The World's Best Presentation, in which Slideshare members can vote on presentations that have been entered in the contest. There are a wide range of professions, topics, and languages for learners to study. Teachers should be reviewing presentations regularly for both pedagogical and professional skill-set reasons. Between students and educators, rubrics to evaluate presentations can be created to ensure that students have exemplars to work from when creating their own projects. Richardson challenges us to "seek and embrace diversity in the connections, not in race, gender, or location so much as in including voices and viewpoints that are different from our own." (Richardson, 2010) This tool certainly provides the opportunity to learn from diversity.
Vuvox This is an interesting tool that I have just started experimenting with. Having watched some of the sample presentations, particularly "Donna's Brain", I can see the huge potential of this tool. Donna's Brain is a piece created by a reporter as a support to a news story. It includes interviews with a stroke victim and the doctors who treated her. It is supplented with brain scan images and photos and links to support information for women to understand what symptoms may indicate a stroke. This format, like Prezi, allows for movement through images and text, but the use of video that can be embedded into images makes this quite impressive. I found it easy to upload images and audio into and it is easy to file materials into library or link to Flickr, Picasa or SmugMug. The feature allowing automatic placement is simple to use and allows for editing, should you not like where images have been placed or which images receive larger sizing. Text is easy to place and edit and music attachment is also simple. The limit for a free account is a five minute segment, so for users needing something longer, a pro account would be more useful. I can see my family finding this a very fun way to share family photos and information, particularly my brother, who is beginning a digital photography business. For my children, this would be an easy tool to learn to use to create a slide presentation with strong images that could be sent to a teacher or shared digitally, rather than using it as a support for an oral presentation. I can see this being an excellent advocacy tool to be used with staff and administration. With images of the library, screencast presentations embedded into the story and links to statistical evidence, it would be very compelling. Likewise, this would be amazing as a means of presenting a point of view on a controversial topic. I can see this being a great introduction for students in grade nine as a skill builder in preparation for learning to organize thinking for essay-writing. Using an outline to build the presentation would ensure all the points a student wanted to make could be covered. (As a support tool for the planning portion of Guided Inquiry process, Vuvox would be very interesting.)
Conclusions Each of the tools I've included in this post enhance digital storytelling. Ultimately, the sharing of personal understanding and meaning-making is what we ask of life-long learners. Howard Gardner talks about the Five Minds of the 21st century. When discussing the Creative Mind, Gardner posits that true large C creativity requires discipline (but not too much focus on the discipline), synthesis and a robust personality that see mistakes and risk taking as part of the learning process. When a learner is able to take a multimedia tool and create something that demonstrates not only personal learning, but completely engages viewers/listeners in a way that encourages questions and thoughtful reflection, then perhaps a small c creative process has been realized. Encouraging learners to share learning in a new way is a frightening process for both the educator supporting the process and the learners. It is the messy part of the Inquiry process where learners define what needs to be part of the presentation and how it will be presented. Learners need supportive environments to ensure that the risks inherent in telling a story or presenting new learning are not out of balance with the rewards. Scaffolding the "how-to" elements as part of the learning need to be taken into account when planning projects. As I've discovered, starting with the story in mind (after considerable reflection and reading, image collection and music selection, not to mention story-boarding) helps create a multimedia project of which one can be proud. I may not be standing behind a camera yet, but beginning the process of using multimedia tools is preparing me to think more like a director. Instead of interpreting in front of the camera, I'm ready to synthesize behind it and share with the world.
Works Cited
Berger, P & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for
learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA:
Libraries Unlimited.
Ferriter, B. (n.d.). "Voicethread." Retrieved from the Digitally speaking wiki: http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/w/page /17791585/Voicethread
Gardner, H. (2010). "Five Minds for the Future." 21st century skills:
Rethinking how students learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree
Press.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other power-
ful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Richardson, W. (2010). "Navigating social networks as learning tools."
21st century skills: Rethinking how students learn.
"As an intensely social, collaborative and inquisitive species, dependent on each other for survival, this sharing of ideas in a relatively small group - about ourselves, about other people, about eventspast and possible events to come - is the very stuff of our humanity." ~ John Abbott.
Creative Commons License: Dominic Alves
Spiderman vs Heroes - Group strength is better Collaboration is the one word that keeps cropping up again and again when reading about wikis. Never having collaborated on a web-based project, it's hard for me to imagine what this process will look like. I'm very much a "do it yourself and it will be done the way you like it" girl. This probably stems from the many years of being the student everyone else relied on to get things done. Sharing ideas isn't hard, but sharing a final product is like trying to emotionally shed spider webs. Once glued by strings of ownership, it's hard to unstick oneself and let someone else add threads, for fear the whole web will come apart. The trick is to remember that the more strings, particularly anchor strings, the stronger the web. By learning from my peers, I see how strengthened my professional growth is, but I also see how I grow as a person by allowing myself to let go of the control and learn from the process. .
Discovering Wikis - Slinging a line
Wiki (the Hawaiian word for "quick") writing, by virtue of it's easily editable page creation, allows for a single user or multiple users to create web-based documents for any number of purposes. The most highly used wiki and most familiar to web users is Wikipedia - the web-based encyclopedia with thousands of editors. The collaborative nature of the entries in Wikipedia has been a source of frustration and celebration in sharing the world of knowledge available today. The frustration, for editors and users alike, lies in determining the authority of the myriad entries. Because Wikipedia's vulnerability to malicious or mischievous edits, there have been reports that editors are being reduced and restrictions are being put in place. ( Wall Street Journal Article ) However, the immense size of Wikipedia and the thirst for basic information about emerging topics that are not traditionally covered in encyclopedia mean that thousands must contribute for the venture to be successful. Trying to weave a web of the size of Wikipedia requires many threads and many weavers. Looking at smaller wikis makes the process more easily imagineable. Professional wikis (as described by Berger and Trexler) that have helped me imagine how my own wikis will function and appeal visually include Tracy Poelzer's Wonderful Web 2.0 (an electronic portfolio) and School Learning Commons by David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin and Sandy Zwaan (a portal and resource aggregator). Both of these sites are frequently updated and are immensely useful to me in my practice. While I haven't contributed to either, I find them fascinating and admire the courage of those who add to the wikis. As with many Facebook friends or list serves, I find myself "lurking," often due to time constraints and prioritization of tasks.
Nuts and Bolts Experience - Tied in Knots Professionally
Collaboration is a term that education reformers have been using more and more frequently in the last ten years. Indeed, in 1997, Judith Sandholtz edited an oft-cited book, Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms, which called upon educators to incorporate technology to improve student learning and engagement through collaborative projects. Business leaders and politicians frequently cite the need for today's students to be able to work collaboratively in the business environment. Wikis provide just such an environment and several wiki service providers have focused on the education market to give educators an easy and safe way to protect student privacy. PB Works provides specific space for educators and provides tutorials to educators beginning to use wikis for the first time. Over the course of several days, tutorials are mailed out to the wiki creator to assist in creating the wiki. It is relatively easy to start creating pages, but templates are very limited in the free model. Adding a background colour to a page can't be done unless you are able to use HTML code. Adding images requires some searching and practice, but gets easier with practice. Mostly, the focus is on adding text. In the free model, the number of text types is limited, as are the sizes. Privacy settings to ensure student safety are very good, so this might be a good wiki site to begin working with senior students in a more text-based environment or academic focus. This has been a site I have been trying to work with in Firefox to create a wiki for the Sa-Hali Manga Club. It has proven surprisingly frustrating as I try to embed images at school in Linux. Because the site doesn't work easily in Linux with Firefox 2.0, uploading images has been next to impossible, but even in Firefox 3.0, when working at home, embedding a Voki avatar (in anime style) took much longer than anticipated as I had to search through all the sidebar tools until I got to the last "other" file type. Because it has taken me a while to set up the initial space to invite students to, it has dimmed some of the students' initial excitement about sharing. Wikispaces is a simpler site to work in with tabs at the top and direct instructions immediately upon opening an account. It is easy to embed images and animations and somewhat easier to edit text (with more options in fonts) and change colours. I like that Wikispaces uses HTML code for colours, although it gives you dots on a colour wheel to change hues. Wikispaces also uses icons to indicate topics in the management page, which I find easier to work with.
The only issue is actually getting students involved with these pages. I have yet to see for myself how student collaboration will work, but take it on the authority of my classmates that these tools truly do make collaboration easily possible. (TLKirsten's Learning Chrysalid and To Boldly Go... inspire me, in particular.) It will be interesting to see how the Manga Club will move into using a wiki to share their work and the links to their favourite materials. As this is an extra-curricular project, some of the guidelines (Berger and Trexler, 2010.) will necessarily be modified, although citing sources and respect of others' work will be key in any school-based project.
A wiki that I began several weeks ago as a continuation of the discussion around Web 2.0 tools in instruction may have more success that student projects. Our staff participated in two workshops as part of our professional development focus on educational technology. As part of the workshop, I suggested that we continue sharing our successes and struggles as we work with a few of the tools. As a reminder of the discussion, three staff members have agreed to share what has happened in their use of technology in the classroom on the staff wiki and it will be presented at the next staff meeting. Knowing that my colleagues are incredibly busy and particularly stressed this year, I can't begin to guess how many will participate, but it is something that can be built upon in the coming years.
Getting wound up
Attribution License: Ali Smiles:) from Flickr
The possibilities for how the weaving of ideas and resources will be wound together by students or colleagues appears to be almost endless. Now, it's time to see how it works in practical terms. The wikis will be opened to my students and my colleagues in the coming days. I look forward with excitement and trepidation to the results and the process.
Works Cited
Abbott, J. (2010). Overschooled but undereducated: how the crisis in education is jeopardizing our
adolescents.. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Angwin, J., & Fowler, G. (2009, November 23). Volunteers Log Off As Wikipedia Ages. Wall Street
Journal - Eastern Edition, p. A1. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.
Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world.
If podcasting is the Web 2.0 offspring of radio broadcasts - the art of speaking and presenting ideas on airwaves now made digital and easily creatable by the masses - then it's a wonderful thing that radio has given us templates to work from. One of my broadcast heroes is Jian Ghomeshi of CBC Radio's Q. I rarely get to listen to the live broadcast due to scheduling, but I can follow what's happening in art, music and Canadian culture (pop and highbrow) thanks to the podcasts of the show. CBC is brilliant at providing high quality listening materials, even if they are often of an educational focus. What they do for me is provide me the template for how a good podcast should sound. While Jian Ghomeshi is brilliant at questioning and drawing thoughtful, entertaining questions from his guests (in part because he is a professional musician himself), Stuart McLean of the Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio is legendary for his story-telling abilities. Each of these broadcasters (and professional podcasters by virtue of being on CBC) has a skill set I aspire to.
Learning How to Podcast
My first experiences with podcasting were disasters. I blame it entirely on the technology. OK, I blame it mostly on the technology and partly on my lack of testing the technology prior to bringing in the students. After all, everything on Web 2.0 is easy, right? This is what the websites and my technologically savvy friends assured me. Students wandered into my office looking for ...tape recorders and cassettes. I had a few dusty cassettes and some rather decrepit recorders - two to be exact. Old Bell & Howards, these clunky old beasts were. They worked. They just lacked microphones that had jacks the right size. It's all right, I assured the students. We can podcast. They looked at me blankly. I explained what my understanding of podcasting was: creating a recording on the web and posting it for others to listen to. Eyebrows were raised, excitement started to build and we set out in search of the program I had been told was really great: Audacity. It was already installed on our server and so it was available. I opened it and promptly panicked. There were too many symbols and commands that looked completely unfamiliar to me. This didn't look easy. I tried to find how to start a recording. Nothing looked obvious, so I headed to the help menu. Once I had figured out how to start, then we had to try some test recording. We were able to find a microphone with the right size jack and then began recording test samples. Nothing. We couldn't get voices to record. The students were frustrated. I was frustrated. I asked them to come back after break and I would have the problem figured out.
The solution was to go to Podomatic.com. This recording and hosting site was relatively new at this time and not as elaborate as it is today. There weren't samples of various podcasters and popularity ranking hadn't started at this time. It was easy to create an account and I was able to make a sample recording in a few short minutes that was successful both in sound and in uploading. When the students came back, we were able to record and upload so that the recording - a short "news" style presentation of information on a topic could be shared with their class. Unfortunately, when they went to present, the sound quality on the computer they were working with in the class was terrible - in part because of the age of the computers in our school at that time. Students were able to listen later, but it was a frustrating experience and it continues to be a challenge to podcast at school due to limitations of hardware. Older versions of Linux have proven to be difficult when working with third party software that isn't built into the server. Over time, the utility of open source software in improving particularly with the growth of Android based applications for cell phones.
In creating my own first podcast, I tried to take the advice of Kathy Schrock, working from a rubric to create a high quality product. I think as I went, I quickly discovered things I want to try and improve on. Podomatic still proves to be very easy to use and includes RSS feeds, followers, stats and can be upgraded, should podcasting become addicting. It will be interesting to try other formats like PodBean, as well.
It is interesting that Berger and Trexler closely follow the information about podcasting with an introduction to the similar, but visually appealing Voicethread. I find Voicethread to be much more useful educationally, because it starts with an artifact (an image) to discuss. Videos can be embedded as well, but primarily it is an opportunity to record thoughts and learning around images. This past summer, I had the opportunity to create a Voicethread for an illustrator analysis assignment. It was fun, easy to do and required me to really think about what I wanted the listening and viewing audience to focus on. In many ways, I see Voicethread as a much more compelling tool for elementary students and secondary students simply because the focus for the person listening is visual, with an audio supplementary. This method of presentation is likely to be more successful at imparting information, due to the use of two modalities(visual and auditory), as opposed to one (auditory)in traditional style podcasting. If one uses video podcasting, then the audience is even more likely to retain the message. http://bit.ly/9usIAj
One of the possible uses for podcasts in learning that had significant appeal to me as a mother, as well as a teacher, was mentioned by Fisher and Frey in "Preparing Students for Mastery of 21st Century Skills" from 21st century skills:Rethinking how students learn. By assigning podcasts as homework to supplement the work happening in class, teachers can encourage students to take ownership of their learning and explore their thinking with other students, possibly outside their own school. By accessing discussion boards, students can comment on their thinking and learning as well as engage critically with others on that common topic. While this would have to be monitored with younger students, with older students it moves learning beyond the walls of a building and into their lives. As a tool for communicating and sharing stories and ideas, podcasts, Voicethread and video podcasting allow students and educators the opportunity to share thoughtfully and creatively.
Note: The RSS feed to my podcast is located at the bottom of the site. Thanks!
Creative Commons license: retrieved from Flickr.com. Image by Christian Guthier.
Desire to Learn
I encountered social bookmarks about five years ago when I read about Delicious.com. I was intrigued by the idea of being able to mark a page or website and access it from anywhere. This was particularly important to me because I was constantly trying to remember sites I had bookmarked at home when I was at work or vice versa. I quickly set up an account and got started, but didn't use it nearly as frequently as I hoped. Technology was changing quickly and my flashdrive proved to be a useful way to save things I needed when shuttling between home and school. It certainly wasn't a "social" tool, as I was only using it for myself. I found myself rebuffed by my staff when offering to share or introduce them to this great tool. As a result, I didn't have a community that I could share with and I certainly didn't think anyone outside of my immediate school circle would want to visit the sites I was finding, because they were mostly related to the work of my colleagues or the work I was doing in the library or in the French as a Second Language class I taught.
Social bookmarking didn't really become useful to me until I took Joanne de Groot's Resources for Elementary and Secondary School Libraries course during the summer of 2010. As a class, we were sharing so many good sites and articles that social bookmarking became a truly useful process. It was interesting to see what people were reading beyond the class assignments and what sites were helping them in their professional work. Diigo was a required site for the course and I found it helpful, but not as familiar as Delicious. I followed Joanne's links, but didn't post any of my own. I loved that it could store images and notes, though. The potential for classroom use looked huge. Like all new things, it takes frequent practice to become familiar enough to enjoy a new tool. I think that Diigo could prove to be exceptionally useful for work in my school life, if not my personal life. One of the things that should be noted is that I don't tend to share things with friends because I don't have a large social circle. The work that I do as a community volunteer tends to be with older citizens who are not really involved with technology, so email is as complicated as I get with many people I socialize with. With my colleagues, this is beginning to change. I share much more than I used to, with both teacher librarians and with my school colleagues.
For this course, I've also picked up Evernote and have just started to explore the options available. I like that I can mark a whole page and have it show up when I'm in Evernote. However, I find many of the features similar to those in Zimbra (my district's web-based email and sharing tools program). In both of these programs, I can tag, share with colleagues and organize my notes and pages into shared notebooks. The bonus with Zimbra is that my email can be filed into "briefcases" which can be shared and I can then add notebooks and pages to the briefcases as well. I also like the fact that Zimbra has shared calendars which are linked to the email and briefcases, also. Evernote is useful, but not as useful for sharing as Zimbra can be. It may take more time to find the full benefits of Evernote for my teaching situation and perhaps it may not be as useful as other tools.
Passion for the New
As I searched for current information (blogs and articles) on social bookmarking tools, I was surprised that many of the articles and blog posts seemed to be older. Edubloggers have commented on Evernote recently, but not on other social bookmarking sites. Even a search through my school's database didn't find anything particularly useful beyond articles from 2006 that were specific to bookmarking sites. Perhaps these tools have become part of the larger collection of social tools used to organize and manage information, yet the function of folksonomies and taxonomies as demonstrated so wonderfully in the video "Information R/evolution," (as recommended by Berger and Trexler) is really the key to how these tools will be useful to students in the 21st Century. This is perhaps the hardest part for me to grasp, as sorting information into traditional categories is how my brain has worked for so long. I still default to keywords that make sense in a library setting when I am tagging. Students, on the other hand, could organize the information they find, in any number of ways that are personally useful, then share those tags with their friends and peers in ways that make sense to young adults. It makes the idea of the Dewey decimal system almost outdated. I am aware that some librarians are beginning to rethink the organization of shelves and this idea is intriguing. Does "The internet need a Dewey Decimal system?" or are we moving the other way? Are the Dewey's Days Numbered? Information organization is clearly something we need to help students with. Will Richardson comments, "Managing all of that information is wholly different from managing the information streams most of us grew up with in the paper world. ...How do we find the most current reliable information? In many cases, we get that information not by mining Google, but by mining our networks..." (Richardson, 2010.) To create excellent information miners, we need to ensure that they're comfortable working in the collaborative environments of social bookmarking sites! Now to make sure I can tag along with the best of them.
Creative Commons license. Retrieved from Flickr. Image by Luc Legay
Nearly five years ago, this November, our daughter had heart surgery. It was not surgery we had planned for. In many ways, it turned our world upside down. Because we were at Children's Hospital in Vancouver, we were four hours from home and suddenly needed to remain for a week or possibly longer. Our need to be able to communicate easily with family, friends and work was immense. We had access to the internet and a computer at the hospital for brief periods of time, and sent out regular email updates. At the time, we considered ourselves lucky that we had a way of keeping everyone up to speed on her condition, without having to start a phone tree. The cyber frontier has certainly changed in five short years. In many ways, it's turned the whole world upside down, but as the Youtube video you're about to see demonstrates, thanks to social networking, we've turned upside down with it.
Who are you and how do I know you?
When the buzz about Facebook hit critical mass in the media, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Facebook was easy to get started in. I created a profile, added a picture and started looking for people I knew. Initially, there weren't many people I knew who were my age, but within a year my entire family was involved, mostly to see pictures of the children and find out what was happening without spending half an hour on the phone. Within two years, I was linking to stories I found interesting to share with colleagues and friends, and I could see that using Facebook at school could be a great way to keep in touch with my students. However, before I "friended" any of my students, I started hearing warnings about the perils of having students as friends. I was pretty naive. I hadn't considered that I really didn't want to know about their drunken partying and the accompanying images. I did however, let students know that after they had graduated, I'd be happy to be friends on Facebook. I have found safe ways to increase my professional profile. I didn't really want to have two accounts (one personal and one professional, which my husband has done), but I've created a page for my school and work at trying to encouraging people to let me know about events so things can be posted, thereby increasing the school's visibility among students, international students who have returned to their home country and alumni. This type of outreach has also begun to have financial benefits, as a local group has begun fundraising for high school extra-curricular programs through the alumni for each school. I still find Facebook mostly a social thing and somewhat distracting. Like most people of my generation, I'm still most comfortable with the relative privacy and faster use of email. Facebook is just too darn slow to navigate through, sometimes, thanks to the distraction factor.
One of my greatest concerns about Facebook, is the nature of how teens use this (and other) social sites. It has only been a month and a half since a video of a gang-rape of a teenage girl at a rave was passed around to many students in B.C. thanks to Facebook. The subsequent discussions about the ethics of passing along this type of video and the indifference to the girl's plight has infuriated me and many other adults. "Kick a ginger" and other "hate" days created through Facebook continue to thrive in middle school culture. Social networks have taken bullying to a whole new level. Rather than ban social networks outright from schools, though, it makes a great deal of sense to be more involved. The less adults know about what is occuring, the greater the chance the bullying will continue. I dread the day when my son asks to start a Facebook account, but I know that by being his "friend," I'll be able to monitor what is happening.
Edmodo Perhaps the educational solution to Facebook is Edmodo. While the layout will look familiar to Facebook users, the private nature of the site might encourage a more thoughtful use of the site. I set up a group fairly quickly once I had logged in. I also liked that it posted my name as Mrs. McVittie, which is what students would expect to see. It requires a group to send invitations to, but I don't really have something like that at my fingertips, particularly a group that needs an assignment. I'll have to get a colleague to explore this more, but I found my husband's observations to be rather interesting. He looked at it and wondered why teachers would use this at the secondary level, when Facebook already exists. Students will still prefer Facebook and having looked at the tools linked to the site, they appear to be rather limited, so as a tool for educational purposes, it looks to be rather limited. He decided that there were better tools out there and dismissed it rather quickly. Knowing my colleagues, I suspect they would do the same, as they want to use tools that will connect students through the tools we already have at our fingertips. Why reinvent the wheel?
Micro-blogs: Twitter as Educational Tool
When I began my Twitter account, again based on the buzz that was happening in the media, I was excited, but quickly frustrated. I had lots of tweets streaming to me, but not lots of people that I knew. I found the lingo of the site amusing and selected tweet streams that were recommended. I rather hoped that the one or two celebrities that I chose would post something interesting that I wouldn't normally read on the front cover of a tabloid. I really wasn't interested in building up a vanity tally of people following me, nor did I want to follow lots of people in whom I had no interest. Because I had to click on links and rely on what I was being told, I found it a little frustrating. Because the people I was following were mostly marketers, I found the links a waste of my time. While it was interesting to hear how Twitter was being used politically by young adults (successfully or not), I didn't hear much about it at my school. When I asked my Web CT students whether they found Twitter useful, most didn't have an account and those that did never really used it. Facebook remained their preference.
Since the start of this course, however, Twitter has become much more useful. Because I am following ed tech micro-bloggers and people whose regular blogs I also follow, I am more interested in what they have to share and what they link to. I almost always find the comments and links interesting. I've also started to enjoy the use of hash-marks, but they can be a little depressing. I was trying to tweet while attending the BC Teacher Librarians Conference in Kelowna in October and no one else was sharing. I was suprised,and frankly disappointed to be the only person sharing the great bits of information from Dr. Jamie McKenzie. I know I'll keep using this and will probably increase my use of this tool, particularly after I get my new smartphone in a few weeks. Having the right tools to microblog really helps!
I can't see student use of Twitter increasing, unless an educator sets up a process similar to this course. Micro-blogging only becomes beneficial when you follow other bloggers and have links and comments on events that you think your followers would be interested in. In terms of developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN), this could become the fastest tool to work with, as long bandwidth issues don't get in the way. On the morning that Premier Gordon Campbell resigned, I could not get onto Twitter due to the number of users and tweets occuring simultaneously. For students who might be excited about a major event (Me 2 We comes to mind) lack of access would be enough to kill interest in the tool. I think it will be a while until my son uses this and even my nephews might not find this particularly useful as a social tool, because their social networks are built around their phones and Facebook.
My Space
Of the big social networks, the least I knew about was MySpace, so I decided to check it out. I was stunned at how much user account information was easily accessible through the "browse" tab. Even more disturbing (from my perimenopausal, mom p.o.v.) were the nicknames and blatantly sexual images that users were posting. It was easy to find people in my immediate area, but I noted that the majority of members were in their early 20's, somewhat counter-culture and more interested in meeting people as a dating service. The ads on the site clearly focused on this aspect of MySpace as well. As an educational too, my initial judgment was that it would not be appropriate for a secondary school, let alone an elementary. Yet, I noticed, the local university had a page. Perhaps this is simply a social site more appropriate for an over-19 crowd, whereas Facebook has positioned itself as all-age friendly, and "social media continues to be age-graded." (Boyd, 2009.) This won't be a tool I'll be using, nor would I want to encourage my nephews or son to use it. It reminds me a great deal of the Edmonton-based social network, Nexopia, which also focuses on a dating and self-promotion culture. Nexopia received a number of negative media stories, based on the number of young teens who were posting sexually explicit photos and information with little regard for privacy settings.
Ning
Of all the social networks I had hope for as an educational tool, Nings appeared to be most useful. The privacy features and ability to be exclusive to a specific group made it appealing to me as an educator who wants to avoid grief with administration and parents. I love the Nings I belong to, but I have them set up to send me digests. They are a huge source of personal professional learning. The features of a Ning are excellent. The professional learning and networking is simple to do, but few people I know locally are involved and many of the things I read in my blog roll are here as well. Unfortunately, it's too expensive to create and put into place in a way that would be most beneficial for the classroom setting. For this reason, I can't see Nings growing in the educational field.
Yes, it's blocked. (SNS and Value in Education)
Ultimately, I agree with Will Richardson and Danah Boyd. Teaching about social networks is essential, but using social networks in the school setting is probably counter-productive. Students are too easily distracted in our current educational setting to focus on the learning, in my observations over the last two years. Social tools, on the other hand, are incredibly useful, which is why I like our school Moodle so much. It allows staff and students to work on wikis, blogs, forums, shared video content and podcasts, all within a secure setting. It's free and Linux-based, so that makes it more attractive to the cash-strapped education sector. The only draw-backs are the quality of some of the tools. (PhotoShop is a much better photo editing tool than GIMP, for example.) Is it a social network? No. While it includes sixteen of the listed features in Berger and Trexler's comparative chart of selected social networks, it misses out in the key elements of friends, instant messaging, badges and tags (among others). In an overview of Berger and Trexler's additional social networks, only Qlubb appeared to be most appropriate for the district in which I teach. At the classroom level, Qlubb would particularly useful for an elementary teacher who needs class help from parents or is organizing field trips. Because of Moodle, I have no need of forum creators or a site like Mixxit, which might be a good music site for emerging artists and teens who like hip-hop.The other sites recommended might be appropriate for linking to pre-existing websites on Windows or Mac operating systems.
Berger and Trexler also comment on the AASL standards and the social aspect of learning. This brought to mind a recent post in David Warlick's blog entitled "Are they students or are they learners?"
For educators and parents who see teens as students, the one big elephant in the room that needs some discussion is the negative side of social networks that keep Facebook, MySpace and other SNS blocked in schools. Student experimentation with social identity(sexting) and social power (cyberbullying) are all part of human development, to a certain degree. Educating teens about netiquette and appropriate use of technology is more effective than out-right bans, but few districts seem to be implementing curriculum around this topic. Our district hosted an international tech-ed conference last year and is still in the process of discussing board level policies banning MP3 players, phones, digital cameras from classrooms and every school in the province is carefully monitored by the Provincial Learning Network which oversees all the public school wide area networks (WAN) to ensure that districts are not opening up the provincial network to attack through viruses or hackers.
By Beercha http://www.flickr.com/photos/vendene/4285542155/
Conclusion
Social networks are woven into the lives of nearly all our students and the lives of many adults in North America. Learning to navigate socially within the networks hosted on the web adds a layer of social complexity to the lives of teenagers and young adults, which many are just beginning to realize as they learn about their digital footprint. If learners, as opposed to students, make meaning from the various aspects of their lives, then managing social networks will have to become part of the fabric of school curricula.
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