Web 2.0 – The Interactive Web

I explored the Toondoo tool because I really like the program ComicLife that comes with mac computers. Our school is moving away from macs and I wanted to explore this as an alternative for any platform. I really like the feature of creating a book, rather than just a comic strip. Not having enough time (or inspiration) to fill a comic book, I created a three pane strip to give it a try.

It’s pretty lame but gave me an idea of the tool’s capabilities.  It’s fine if students want to use pictures from the provided clipart gallery but it wasn’t easy and or capable enough to suit adding and edit new pictures. I got a little frustrated with the speed of the site..but I guess that’s what happens when it’s free.

I’ve not yet been in the habit of checking my google reader every day but I should!  When I do, I always find great information, and from sources I wouldn’t ordinarily check, such as Free Speech Radio News. I receive feeds about Peru and I just learned that there are continuing protests by farmers against governmental policies regarding oil drilling in the Amazon.   This is good to know since I’m flying into Lima on Wednesday.I I also learned that here was a big earthquake yesterday (luckily no one was hurt) and that the government has closed school early for the independence day vacation…this is critical information for my trip as we plan to work with teachers and students when we arrive.  This link is a bit of a bummer in that it requires a subscription to the WSJ but at least the heading alerted me to the issue and I could then search elsewhere for “free” information.

Not only does Google Reader pull in information from all different sources, but I can touch base on a wide variety of topics. Now that my daughter is heading out to college next month, my husband and I are more keenly aware of student loans. Today I learned that there is a new payback policy regarding student loans.

We are no longer getting a daily Boston Globe newspaper and Google Reader can be a great way to keep up to date…I just have to get in the habit of checking!

The most difficult part of this task is selecting a conference to attend! There are so many great topics that I’m interested in viewing. I started off with the Google conference as our district is currently transitioning to using Google Apps for Education. We’re offering professional development for teachers this summer and will also offer workshops in the fall as I’m afraid we won’t get too many takers this summer. The Google conference was for beginners as it went through every step in setting up a Google account.  If the person viewing was truely a beginner, the screencast video was not very helpful in that the audio was very soft (although subtitles were provided and were invaluable) and it was difficult to see where he was clicking on the screen. I would have trouble following along if I didn’t know Google already.

BubbleShare: Share photos – Easy Photo Sharing

Net Efect
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/3409167144/

kumasawa
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kumasawa/2983492713/

normanack
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29278394@N00/2457055952/

Jeff Werner
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffwerner/386367081/

Hello, I am Bruce
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruce_mcadam/2223418258/

Clover 1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clover_1/184508848/

LollyKnit
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lollyknit/2500866566/

I’ve only briefly explored the Flickr site so this task was helpful in that it made me take the time to explore further.  Until now, I was not comfortable sending kids to flickr to use the creative commons pictures because I thought they might run into something unappropriate so I shied away from it. I wonder if anyone else has run into any problems.

Knowing and having confidence that it’s OK to use these photos is a big relief to me and I am eager to show kids more of this site in September when my 6th grade students will be searching for photos to add to their slideshows.

This year, I’ve become involved in our school’s organic garden and I’ve been teaching students about composting. I’m also traveling to a remote village in the Andes of Peru to help them learn about organic gardening methods. This is the picture theme I chose for searching Flickr. The photo at right is a cross section of a composting bin and I like that one can see all of the items that are compostable and the eventual product at the bottom.  I have a composting bin in my kitchen, too, with red wiggler worms and it’s amazing how fast they turn my salad and fruit scraps to soil!

Photo by Hello, I Am Bruce

Creative Commons

Although I’ve known about CC for a couple of years, it was only this year that I’ve really begun teaching it to my sixth graders. This coincides with our switch from using bullets in powerpoint to using almost all images to visually convey information (along with presenter notes). Students really needed to search out the photo that captured their slide’s information and I did not feel comfortable sending them out to Google to search away (even though I did teach them how to change their filtering preferences to be strict instead of the moderate default setting).  I also have students use our school’s online subscriptions for images. Grolier, for instance, is a great resource for articles about a topic but they also have links to “media” for every topic.

I’ve also used the site freesound.org for when students need an .mp3 file. The most recent project involved a student recording her poem about a summer bon fire. Garageband didn’t have the effect but we found it on Freesound.org. You can listen to it here.  Since the poem is posted online it was very important to ensure that we used a sound file that was “free and clear.” Creative Commons Rocks!

I love wikis! I’ve felt the excitement that Vici Davis expressed so well in her CoolCat blog. I have a technology wiki that I use to update teachers with information, and there are many teachers in the school who have used wikis for the first time this year. It has been a great experience using this tool. The English teachers use the wiki for both book reviews and online reading journals. One Soc. Stud. teacher made an election wiki with multiple classes, keeping students informed on the pending presidential election last fall, and another teacher had students create their own wikipedia on the Middle East. A third teacher invited a documentary director to login and read comments students were writing about his documentary, The Orange Chronicals.  To the teacher’s surprise, the director took him up on the offer and posted comments back to students. This connection went even further and the students enjoyed asking him questions “face to face” via Skype. The success of this event has spawned other skyping events. One is to be held tomrrow with the educational director of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.!  [Note: all of the classroom wikis are not public, with the exception of the election wiki but it is no longer active.]

I’m glad I got to see some other wiki ideas in action. Not surprisingly,  I was particularly interested in the Holocaust wiki project as this is a big topic that our students are currently studying. The entire 8th grade theme is justice and last Friday we were visited by a holocaust survivor, Rena Finder, who spoke to the students about her life experiences. So powerful! I was a bit confused, however, by the setup of the holocaust wiki but I’m intrigued by the idea of a simulation wiki and hyperlinking to different directions.

I also really liked the flat classroom tales wiki. I have a teacher who would like to work with schools from Japan and I think it would be worthwhile exploring other wikis that have done this type of collaboration already.

A couple of years ago I was headed on a trip to Peru and subscribed to a Google news feed of all news articles related to Peru. I enjoyed reading all of the headlines, skimming through to get a sense of the main issues of the day. Now, few years later, I am part of a non-profit organization to help in a remote region of the Andes and I am much more knowledgeable of issues because of my Google Reader subscriptions.  I first learned of this type of subscription from Will Richardson at a MassCue conference. I think this type of subscription would be beneficial for high school teachers and their students, but not as worthy for middle school students as it’s a bit too advanced. They would have a hard time with skimming through this much information. Although this is a necessary skill, they should be taught how to do it with fewer links before they “graduate” to a larger feed source.

I’ve also subscribed to my children’s high school sports schedules and it’s great to have the latest changes sent right to Google Reader (schedule shown below). I only have to check one site to get all of the information that I need.  Now, I only need the new iPhone to go with it so I can get all of the feeds on the go! :0)

There were so many great articles for this “Thing” that I had a hard time sifting through them to focus on any one topic or theme…so, I’m going with the flow. Below are a few bullets from different articles that struck a chord with me. I’ve added my comments below each one. The links are there, too, in the event you’d like to go back and/or check out an article further.

• What, then, is beyond the tools? What should we really be reaching for? The Ripe Environment. The simultaneous personal and public experience of using all of the tools at the teacher’s disposal to tear down walls, collaborate with each another, and question the traditional role of technology in the classroom.
  So, how do we get to The Ripe Environment? Well, I have started to reflect on how I became a constant-learner and contributor to this thing I am more and more reluctant to call School 2.0. I want to replicate this process for others, and showing people my flickr account, my del.icio.us account, my blog, my podcast, my pedagogy, my wiki projects, and my twitter account just doesn’t seem to work very well. What does actually work is making sure that they have the right environment so that they can explore these resources on their own, through their own creation.I am now proposing the 10 prerequisites for collaboration as a way of creating The Ripe Environment in the classroom, in a school, and in a district.  http://learningischange.com/2007/06/29/the-ripe-environment/

  The idea of creating a ripe environment for change is very intriguing to me. What is that certain “mix” of factors for a teacher and a teaching culture that allows teachers to collaborate, experiment, and take some risks?  Time and getting rid of standardized tests! Since we can’t change how much time is in a day and it doesn’t seem that standardized tests are going away anytime soon, how about some professional development on doing PBL (project based learning) in a meaningful way? Mitch Resnick of MIT feels we need to make the rest of school like the kindergarten classroom. His article states” “Underlying traditional kindergarten activities is a spiraling learning process in which children imagine what they want to do, create a project based on their ideas (using blocks, finger paint, or other materials), play with their creations, share their ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences — all of which leads them to imagine new ideas and new projects. This iterative learning process is ideal preparation for today’s fast-changing society, in which people must continually come up with innovative solutions to unexpected situations in their lives.”
  He then goes on to say that technology supports this type of “play” for older students (and adults!) I think Kindergarten has the ingredients for a Ripe Environment.

• After 10 years, it was time.  We could not sit through another bullet-ridden, brain-numbing student presentation.
  Without their bullets, students were forced into storytelling.  They connected with their audience.
  Many students thought outside the box. The spoke to their audience.  They used humor. They used rhetorical devices–quotes, metaphors, repetition, questions, etc.  We saw audience engagement and we suspect that some of the presentations inspired learning. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/130020413.html

  I, too, got this dread for bullets with the sixth grade students. Each student creates a powerpoint based on their library research of a chosen topic and it was a bit tortuous to hear their presentations. No matter how many times I told them to embellish and expand on the bullets and not read from the slide…this is just exactly what they’d do!  This year I had sixth graders not use bullets at all. All of their information, except for a few key words, are entered in the notes section of the slide. They then use creative commons images (as much as possible) to visually enhance their information. On presentation day, I allowed them to have a copy of their notes (we don’t have much time to practice before presenting) but many students are able to just tell the “story” of their topic. It was so liberating! It does take more time to find the right images and re-work slides to make the presentation flow better, but it sure is worth it!

• I really liked the tone in Andy Carvin’s letter to Matthew Honan, Wired author, about his article  “The Six Lamest Social Networks.” http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/09/an_open_letter_about_cyberbull.html
• Perhaps we need to set a date for our education to switch entirely over from analog. By this I’m not really talking about the technology. Instead, I refer to the fact that the digital components (or more specifically, 21st Century tools and skills) is treated as add-ons, as optional, as preparation for the future, rather than implemented as necessary for now.
  You want to watch TV on February 18, 2009? You better give up those “Rabbit Ears.” You want to teach in the 21st Century? You better give up those 20th century schools. http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/?p=349/

  I like the comparison to the switch that the entire country is undergoing from analog tv to digital tv. See, cultural change is possible!

For a number of years I taught students how to create websites with HTML because I felt strongly that they needed to be active producers rather than passive consumers of the online world. By mastering the skills necessary to add to this vast resource, they were taking control of their own digital experience, and were wiser for it. Like learning a magician’s tricks, it diffused the awestruck effect the web can have on some kids.

With the advent of Web 2.0, students and teachers no longer have to spend hours learning code to participate online. This is HUGE! Anyone and everyone can post their thoughts and ideas, their passions, interests and easily connect with others that are doing the same.  The implications are far-reaching in to every aspect of our culture…socially, professionally, academically, politically. When I take it at face-value, the pace at which our society is adopting and using new technologies seems exciting but logical. Yet,  when I take a look at “the big picture”, I am truly amazed that NPR is on Facebook and the President is hosting virtual town meetings.  How long until we are voting online?

Students are excited by the digital environment and teachers can leverage the use of technology to motivate and engage students…not that this can’t be done by a dynamic teacher standing in front of a classroom. But, think of the potential for learning that that dynamic, engaging teacher can wield with a technology-enhanced curriculum.

Although many students are attracted to and feel comfortable with the digital environment, they absolutely need guidance in how to behave appropriately and safely while online.   Unfortunately, today’s students don’t have the luxury of making mistakes with little or no consequences…the digital world never forgets and their impulsive, juvenile decisions may end up staying with them far longer than for any other generation.