We Teach We Learn » Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.

Chris — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:18:00 +0000

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer

Will Richardson does a phenomenal job of laying out everything needed to both initiate and defend the use of blogs and wikis in the classroom. While I have already used a wiki within my classroom, this book provided the pedagogical reinforcement that I to some degree already could have used to defend such use in my classes.

Early in the book, Richardson states,

“It is less about blogs and wikis and podcasts than it is about the educators behind them who are using them so creatively to motivate students to learn more deeply and contribute what they know to the amazing body of knowledge that is the World Wide Web” (vii).

For one, teachers can use these technologies to engage students who are not easily engaged. This alone is exciting.

Richardson outlines three goals for his book.

First, “To give educators some context in terms of what these technologies mean for our society as well as for education.”
Second, he looks to “challenge and motivate teachers to think differently about their classrooms and the potentials of technologies discuss in terms of pedagogy and curriculum.”
Lastly, the book aims to “share enough of the ‘how to’ needed to get teachers started using these tools right away” (vii-viii).

Richardson later focuses on the importance of securing the use of these technologies, citing the importance of educators’ communicating with colleagues, administrators, students, and parents alike. These technologies also neatly concentrate student writing and reflections in a format that is user-friendly to both the instructor and the students, for both various types of assessment and for potential portfolio work (23).

Of course, as an English teacher, the publishing aspect is also exciting. My favorite line in the book was as follows:

“Writing stops; blogging continues. Writing is inside; blogging is outside. Writing is monologue; blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis; blogging is synthesis” (31).

Every English teacher stresses process, process, process. The use of a wiki or blog can reinforce this and then some! And of course, the highest level of teaching takes place, theoretically, in a student-centered classroom. These technologies allow for such realities, once developed within the classrooms culture.

Richardson cites,

“In using wikis, students are not only learning how to publish content; they are also learning how to develop and use all sorts of collaborative skills, negotiating with other to agree or correctness, meaning, relevance, and more. In essence, students begin to teach each other” (65).

Toward the end of the book, Richardson cites a number of “big shifts” in education that could occur using these technologies, including:

open content (not confined to textbooks that can quickly become outdated);
24/7 access to learning and to some degree, teachers; student collaboration;
teachers getting in on conversation instead of lecturing;
students’ knowing where rather than what, as in being able to access resources to find answers instead of regurgitating information;
moving from “interactiveless” readers to collaborative readers;
using the web as a notebook of sorts;
writing digitally rather than solely on paper;
focusing on the product of learning instead of the testing of learning; and
reinforcing “contribution, not completion, as the ultimate goal” (131-132).

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Welcome to the blogosphere: the educational use of blogs.

Chris — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:00:27 +0000

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer

Ray covers the basics of using a weblog (blog) in the classroom at literally any educational level, K-12.

Dubbing them “edublogs”, Ray cites four great ways to incorporate blogs into the classroom, including:

using them to communicate information to students and parents,
to provide instructional resources and useful links,
to allow students the opportunity to collaborate with one another on various projects without being in the classroom itself, and
to showcase student work and projects, like poetry and photographs of project work.

Ray also highlights some cons involved in using blogs as part of a curriculum. First, she looks at the accessibility for students. Her greatest recommendation is that,

“teachers should determine whether or not students have computer and internet access at home before assigning edublogs as instructional tools outside of the school environment.”

She also notes that accessing “Kids’ Rules for Online Safety” at http://www.safekids.com/ is a must for teachers who “post class work on an edublog – whether text, drawings, or pictures” (177). Also, no names, addresses, or phone numbers should be associated with students in a direct manner.

Good points in this article for any beginning “edublog” user.

Ray, J. (2006). Welcome to the blogosphere: the educational use of blogs. Kappa delta pi record: 175-177.

Blog on: building communication and collaboration among staff and students.

Chris — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:39:16 +0000

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer

Poling, who is an administrator in Maryland, looks at the span of uses that blogs can have in a school environment, including:

individual blogging,
classroom blogging,
collaborative blogging, and
staff development blogging.

Her biggest statement is regarding increased motivation she observes in students who are blogging as part of curriculum:

“[B]ringing children and adults together in an online setting to build communication and deeper understanding, truly motivates children to learn and grow” (12).

She states that while individual blogging can be effective, blogging as part of a class is especially powerful because it “helps build communication and collaboration among students”(12).

In addition, she compares blogging to journaling with a positive edge to technology:

“Handwritten reading response journals allow students to communicate only with the instructor. Students are motivated not only by the use of technology and the ability to type rather than use pencil and paper but also by the audience they have when writing online” (13).

Lastly, she cites growth as something an educator can observe over the course of a semester and/or school year. Because the blog can become a portfolio of sorts, students can also observe their growth as writers, thinkers, and collaborators/debaters of ideas.

Poling, C. (2005, March). Blog on: building communication and collaboration among staff and students. Learning and leading with technology. Vol. 32, No. 6: 12-15.

Learning with wikis

Chris — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:44:53 +0000

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer

Orech goes all out in clearly defining a wiki, providing how a teacher can make and use one, and how a wiki can be utilized in the classroom for students. For each, he also provides some informative, helpful links. He also lists the advantages of using a wiki in the classroom, including the fact that it’s,

“. . .relatively simple technology; promotes ‘real world’ collaboration skills; fosters richer communication than synchronous communication; pools strengths of many; [is] assessable, easy to track.” He also points out that “collaborative writing produces higher quality writing than face-to-face collaboration.”

As for disadvantages, Orech sites safety and security issues for students, the potential for shared biases, the labors of whomever moderates (most likely the instructor, which adds to the already great burden of being a teacher in the 21st century), taking on the copy and paste mentality of some youth and society, and what he calls “inequitable work distribution by contributors.”

Bottom line – wikis can work, but they must be implemented carefully and thoughtfully. Orech writes, “to develop true collaboration, teachers must incorporate structured Cooperative Learning methodology into the project.” He also points out that designating clear roles and tasks, encouraging goal setting, and “creating a climate where the participants identify the need for each other will ensure a quality product.” In other words, none of this will just magically happen – the teacher has an integral role in how successful learning using a wiki can be.

Although the title is different, Orech’s article can also be found here at Tech & Learning . It’s also worth mentioning that Orech recommends reading 7 Things about Wikis, a concise pdf pamphlet produced by Educause.

Orech, J. (2007, April 27). Learning with wikis. Paper presented at the Insight and Innovation for Technology Leaders TechForum, Itasca, Florida. Retrieved June 9, 2008.

The next wave now: web 2.0.

Chris — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:29:07 +0000

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer

This article, geared mostly for administrators and superintendents, makes a great argument for using Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom and district webpage alike. Mills essentially works to convince on an admin level that it is time to get teachers on board with technologies that could become updated as they learn to use and implement them. Mills asserts,

“. . . the pace of Web 2.0 technologies can almost ensure another process or tool will be gaining notoriety and presence among our students as quickly as we gain an awareness and understanding of these established tools” (4).

That being said, Mills encourages educational leaders who “can and should play a major role in understanding and supporting Web 2.0 technologies” (4).

In particular, Mills makes clear the advantages, but also the way in which a superintendent or administrator must go about winning teachers over with these technologies.

“[S]uperintendents need to take the reins of the implementation. A great introduction in your district is to use the tools in your daily work” (5).

Mills lists blogs on the district web page, RSS feeds to the site in order to inform constituents and parents of school district updates, events, and news, and professional development opportunities that incorporate the given tools.

As Mills closes, he also identifies the importance of district policies needing updates as the technologies have changed.

“The top-down approach of the Web we grew up with now has been replaced with users who build information from the bottom up. With Web 2.0, the focus is not on software, but on practices such as sharing thoughts and information through self-publishing and harnessing the collective intelligence of all users to generate information and solve problems” (4).

Because of this shift, districts need to review policies on popular sites my MySpace, because the nature of these sites and who is using them has also changed.

“With presidential candidates now providing platform information via their MySpace pages, should allowances be made for access to these pages to use for discussion in the classroom?” (5).

Calling the incorporation of these technologies into the classroom “part of this likely revolution,” Mills makes clear that these technological advances are coming, with the public education system or without it.

Mills, L. B. (2007, December). The next wave now: web 2.0. Education digest: 4-5.

Wikis and literacy development.

Chris — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:16:53 +0000

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer

McPherson focuses one the differences between wikis and blogs, the different types of wikis available (as of 2006), how reading levels of various wikis and electronic information should be considered by teachers, and inherent learning objectives involved when using wikis in the classroom.

First, McPherson clarifies that the overriding advantage of wikis over blogs is that a wiki

“permits visitors to add new information and, more important, edit previous authors’ submissions”

while a blog

“typically allows visitors to post responses to previous authors’ submissions – that is, visitors cannot go back and edit earlier blog submissions.”

In addition, there are two substantially different types of wiki pages, including public wikis, which are primarily created by anyone for just about any purpose, and then classroom-based wikis, which are created by teachers and students for various classroom purposes. McPherson lists a number of examples that a reader could actually visit online to see and experience the differences.

McPherson’s greatest point may be regarding reading levels. He strongly recommends checking a site’s readability before sending students to read its content. By running readability tests by copying and pasting a chunk of text into Microsoft Word, a teacher can quickly calculate a source’s readability.

He goes on to point out that using this technology often increases classroom motivation, so where a student might give up on something that is just above his/her reading level, with this approach, a student is more likely to “stick it out.” McPherson states,

“[C]omprehension of the wiki’s content is significantly compromised when students are faced with print ranked two or more grade levels above their own.”

McPherson closes with some important questions a teacher or librarian might ask to determine learning objectives with this technology. They include the following:

“What information literacy skills are unique to this format?;
Can this literacy be learned faster or more clearly with another technology?; and
“Is this a good use of my precious time on these computers?”

He also closes by sharing the importance of teachers’ responsibility to prepare students to determine qualitative, credible information. McPherson writes,

“students must be taught information literacy skills aimed at evaluating the credibility and authenticity of a wiki’s information.”

In particular, McPherson points out a helpful website in this vein at www.stenhouse.com/pdfs/8196ch09.pdf.

McPherson, K. (2006, October). Wikis and literacy development. Teacher librarian. Vol. 34, Iss. 1.

Do-it-yourself broadcasting: writing weblogs in a knowledge society.

Chris — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:09:51 +0000

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer

Lankshear and Knobel elaborately outline:

the history of blogging,
the anatomy of a weblog,
a detailed step-by-step process of how to set up a blog, and
the types of blogs that existed as of 2003.

It’s also worth noting that some commentary in this article reflects its five-year-old presence in the Web 2.0 world, as some cautions are certainly important but somewhat dated. Important information for “beginners,” no doubt.

The authors go on to focus on whether or not blogs can be a window for what they dub “powerful writing” (6). They write,

“Blogs provide some interesting angles on such questions, particularly from the perspective of power in relation to language in the context of ‘an information society’ where, potentially, our use of ‘written language’ (broadly conceived) can reach larger audiences than could ever have been imagined even a decade ago” (6).

They go on to share and analyze a study on the power of quality writing in blogs by Clay Shirky in relation to writing pedagogy, and thereby share the 2003 perspective on blogs and online writing, which ends up being largely critical.

Another example later is regarding simply using new technologies for the sake of using new technologies:

“…our concern is that school blogs typically present themselves as earnest attempts to meld new technology use, student interest and school work in ways that risk ‘killing’ the medium by reducing its potential scope and vitality to menial school takes in which students seemingly lack any genuine purpose” (16).

No doubt, whether 2003 or 2009, this is important.

Interestingly enough, while powerful writing is not often present for a variety of reasons, Lankshear and Knobel recognize that,

“[t]o be influential means gaining purchase or edge in the market of ideas. From this standpoint, powerful writing will be a function, in the first instance, of achieving success in some market or other. This is why blogs are especially significant so far as offering a contemporary window on powerful writing is concerned. Blogs are most emphatically operating under market conditions and are widely being written and thought about as such” (8).

Regarding the pedagogy of powerful writing,

“Shirky’s ideas suggest…much of the power in powerful writing lies in affiliation with some larger collective” (11).

In online writing, this affiliation and grammatical editing don’t always take place, largely because getting ideas out there overshadows grammar and mechanics. However, the strength of blogging and online writing altogether can be found here:

“…there is little or nothing in writing pedagogy that invites students to begin from their concrete membership of affinity groups, or to go about establishing a constituency for real life (non artificial) purposes. On the contrary, much of the authentic writing students do in school settings for real audiences is ultra vires and discounted, if not punished” (11-12).

In other words, a refreshing opportunity here exists; one example is the wonderful opportunity to teach point of view and perspective in such writing. In another example, teachers can reveal to students ways in which they can be concise. K. Shanmugasundaram is quoted in the article as stating,

“Readers [of weblogs] come from a variety of backgrounds. Write to the point, be simple and short…Usually I spend a minute or two on a weblog to see if there is anything new and interesting. You probably have 30 to 45 seconds to get a user’s attention” (14).

The authors go on to point out a number of additional advantages to using online writing over classroom writing, most importantly stating the clear evidence of purpose-driven writing online versus generic, situational writing in the classroom (journaling, etc.). They also cite the potential “process of becoming knowledgeable about something” through “learners and teachers beginning from having authentic problems and questions to investigate” (16).

Perhaps most interesting is their citing V. Bush, who wrote an article in 1945 about the “memex”, which he defined as a

“device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his [or her] memory” (17).

This is exactly where the Web 2.0 technologies seem to be taking everyone – and fast!

They close by focusing on the epistemic potential of blogs in that

“blogging could be made into a highly sophisticated form of learning that engages directly with systematicity in searching” and “become important indices to and evidence of personal and collective knowledge structures by both recording and unveiling an individual’s or a group’s knowledge or epistemic effort over time” (18).

They also highlight the potential for a place of great reflection for students (and staff alike).

“Understanding where one went in an online search and why one went there thus becomes a key component of a blog, in ways that are not so evident and are not necessarily available in 5-part essay writing” (18).

Poignantly they conclude,

“In these and other ways research as blogging, and blogging as research, could potentially become potent pedagogical approaches to writing. And such writing might indeed be appropriately described as powerful” (19).

Lankshear, C. and M. Knobel. (2003, April). Do-it-yourself broadcasting: writing weblogs in a knowledge society. (Retrieved from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 478-120).

Mining the internet: a space for “writing without writing.”

Chris — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:13:04 +0000

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer

This article really was by Emily Van Noy, the teacher who employed blogging in her classroom, and Kajder and Bull assisted in writing it. The focus was primarily on steps in setting up and using blogs in the classroom.

Van Noy states that journaling in class was dying, and she even gave up on it altogether, until the new technologies came forward, and thus resurrecting journaling through online communication.

Essentially, Van Noy emphasizes the importance of planning and setting up a blog for a class in predicting its effectiveness with students. From parent surveys to student technology permission slips, she covers all the pre-blogging steps thoroughly before cracking application. Another step emphasized setting up accounts and assigning usernames that are appropriate, protect identity, and also contain something that a student will likely remember later (forgotten usernames and passwords can quickly affect a blog’s potential).

Van Noy then highlights some uses, including reflection postings, student responses, and “sharing ideas and work within communities” (34).

She also pointed out the benefit of archiving options that some sites contain.

Lastly, Van Noy stresses the importance of spell check tools – something many sites do not include (or if they do, are difficult to locate).

Favorite line at the end:

“We are convinced that, as we continue to work with blogs in language arts, they will expand the possible ways in which we engage and lead student writers in the classroom” (35).

Kajder, S. and G. Bull with E. Van Noy. (2004, March). Mining the internet: a space for “writing without writing.” Learning and leading with technology. Vol. 31, No. 6: 32-35.

Online literacy and new literacy

Chris — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:14:29 +0000

By Jeffery Ayer

Before I was introduced to wikis in April 2008, I never would have envisioned how much my teaching could use these new technologies. More importantly, my students could not be more ready to take their education to a new level that I sincerely hope will better connect them to the world and prepare them to participate in a digital world. The time is now, and while students have been hungry for this opportunity, the reinforcing research is thorough enough to justify using wikis,blogs, podcasts, Flickr, Moodle, and online writing technologies that I feel can significantly improve students’ writing, and perhaps more importantly, prepare them for digital citizenship.

This series, based on action research I collected while studying for my M.Ed, explores the impact digital technology can have on how our students learn, and how we, as educators, can leverage that impact for the good of our students.

Online literacy and new literacy

Another important line of literature focused on the importance of students both being exposed to concepts in and employing online literacy. In their article, “Information Literacy 2.0: Empowering Students Through Personal Engagement,” Brown and Bussert, who used the Web 2.0 technology Flickr in a learning community in Cairo, Egypt, point out that

“[c]ommon Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking tools are ‘intrinsically user-centered and can be leveraged by Information Literacy (IL) instructors for a creative, student-centered teaching and learning environment” (Brown, Bussert, 2007).

And while some resources argued that simply exposing students to these technologies does not improve their online literacy, this article opposes that position, stating that the

“. . .fundamental hypothesis underlying the use of social software to teach key information literacy concepts is that student learning will increase due to personal engagement, use of preferred learning styles, and application to daily life” (Brown, Bussert, 2007).

These resources go on to detail ways in which exposure is important, and also how they can more specifically be applied as powerful classroom tools. But in this set, understanding how to use them is part of the education, according to authors like Luce-Kapler, who cites visual literacy using these mediums as yet another layer of important learning students get while utilizing new technologies.

Calling these new literacies “radical change,” which is also a portion of the author’s title, Luce-Kapler highlights three main forms of new literacies:

“(1) changing forms and formats such as new forms of graphics, new levels of synergy between text and pictures, nonlinear and nonsequential organizations and formats, and multiple layers of meaning and interactive formats;

(2) changing perspectives such as multiple points of view both visual and verbal and previously unheard voices, including youth; and

(3) changing boundaries such as dealing with previously forbidden or overlooked subjects and settings, new types of communities, characters portrayed in new and complex ways, and unresolved endings” (Luce-Kapler, 2007, p. 215).

And although Jakes doesn’t come right out and say it, his assertion that using wikis and Web 2.0 writing technologies also “promote[s] a lifetime of participation and contribution,” leading to what some writers described as digital citizenship. Students will be sharing ideas, debating, agreeing, asking questions, and leading discussions using these technologies, and through such collaborative efforts, they will also be challenging their own thinking while challenging the thinking of their peers as well.

Finally, it is one thing for students to know how to participate in social networking Web 2.0 technologies, and many are doing so rather comfortably, but do they really understand what they are doing? Do they understand the potential that exists beyond the social web as they move toward this “digital citizenship” that undoubtedly stands before them?

J. Salpeter’s article “Make Students Info Literate” focuses on what the author calls education’s most clear goal for the next century: “[H]ow to develop a new generation of knowledgeable digital citizens who can operate in the unregulated online world” (Salpeter, 2008, p. 25). She also makes emphatic mention of the NTCE’s adoption of new literacy goals and correlating definitions – an obvious eye-opener to any educators (especially English instructors) who are failing to pay attention. The authors I read seemed to predict the NCTE’s move, as Brown and Bussert already understood through their Flickr implementation back in 2004-05, defining information literacy as “the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information” (Brown, Bussert, 2007).

Jakes’s most profound statement in his article, “New Literacies: Enrichment or Essential?” supports these claims, stating, “Our kids need to use the Web for learning in many ways, but we have to structure online learning so that it is true inquiry, supported by the requisite information literacy skills, so that students, when in need, have internalized a problem-solving approach to build answers to questions of importance.” In K. Bolan, M. Canada, and R. Cullin’s article “Web, Library, and Teen Services 2.0,” the authors go so far as to argue that

“[g]aming is one of the newer services that libraries are implementing that embraces library 2.0 beliefs. Contrary to what some may think, gaming is recognized as a literacy activity” (Bolan, Canada, Cullin, 2007, p. 42).

At this point, I can quickly see how information and online literacy is of great importance, and the NCTE obviously will be pushing all of us forward. For me, when I have historically looked at Wisconsin and national standards, the technology pieces are often those that are given the least attention, mostly because I know that although important, they will not be addressed on the test. But that is my motivation – not to teach to a test, but to prepare these students for digital citizenship.

One might argue that by not preparing them as such, they will be ill-equipped to fully function and contribute within our democracy, and further, with our international neighbors. By employing Web 2.0 technologies, I will already be assisting them in becoming more digitally literate – helping them to decipher quality resources from those that are potentially fraudulent. This always mattered to me, but now I will implement that concern by embedding that in my teaching.

In addition, as an English teacher who teaches a research paper and incorporates literary research with analysis papers, there are a number of opportunities for me to teach to these new literacies, and not to simply meet the “F” criteria in the Wisconsin State Standards. As for environmental aspects, I suspect that with these technologies will come new responsibilities for students as they are not working in their own corner of the room any longer; because a number of their contributions will be accessible to all students in my classes, they may feel more inclined to take care with the work they do, and more naturally become more conscious of the quality and compassion behind what they contribute. Jakes continually asked his title question: “Enrichment or Essential?” (Jakes, 2006). It will become my job to make online literacy essential, not simply an exercise in enrichment for my classes.

Bolan, K., M. Canada, and R. Cullin (2007). Web, library, and teen services 2.0 Young adult library services, 5 (2), 40-43

Brown, N.E. and K Bussert. (2007). Information literacy 2.0: empowering students through personal engagement. Eric Document Reproduction Service : ED 500-136

Jakes, D. (2006). New literacies: enrichment or essential? Paper presented at TechForum in San Diego, California

Luce-Kapler, R. (2007). Radical Change and Wikis: Teaching New Literacies Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51 (3), 214-223 DOI: 10.1598/JAAL.51.3.2

Salpeter, J. (2008). Make students info literate. Technology & Learning, 25-28

Flickr-ing – out. Guhlin, M.

Chris — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:03:24 +0000

Guhlin, M. (2006, August 15). Flickr-ing – out. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2006/08/flickring_out.php.

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer

In a blog entry, Guhlin humorously poses an imaginary memo response to a teacher trying to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies in her classroom by “Ms. Davis’ Supervisor.” Interestingly enough, its contents are important, and help to keep a teacher trying to incorporate these new technologies on the ground in reality. Guhlin lists a number of alternative “safe” approaches a teacher could take to teaching students the digital skills of the digital citizen that one might deem vital, including tagging, copyright guidelines, development of appropriate writing, and use of photos and RSS feeds. He also lists eight categorical sublists of questions regarding blog use in school and a variety of reasonable concerns associated with such curricular activities, including the existence of a release form for student work to be published online, parental notification/approval, and sufficient access for students to participate. Again, a challenging, necessary read for anyone excited about implementing Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom.