Twitter Quitter? I think not.

In the last few weeks I’ve logged on to my twitter account every day…all I really wanted to do was quit…every single time. Then one morning, National Grammar Day to be exact, I woke up and had some kind of tweepiphany.  I don’t know how I went from hating the idea of twitter to liking (sorry I can not yet say loving) it a lot, but I did. I can see how it could be a fun little tool in the classroom if you wanted to have everyone do something very short and very specific, like write one poetic line to later assemble as a poem, or chime in on a short question…or encourage your students to follow people for academic reasons and not just for fun. 

I don’t think I will actually do any of the above mentioned classroom activities, but I did have fun following Margaret Atwood who made me fall in love with poetry all over again, and Grammar Girl, who made me laugh at her clever little grammar jokes. As far as the usefulness of Twitter, I think I will look for more authors who are also educators like Jim Burke author of Reading Reminders, and Writing Reminders. I think twitter will help me feel connected to people I respect in the teaching world.

The type of information I gained at this point did feel random and fragmented, for example some of the people I follow might give a grammar tip, but others might be talking about a private joke or some other random detail such as “just walked into Menards.” Not that it isn’t useful to know that someone is in a Menards looking for a new toilet, but I just don’t care.  I definitely think that it is important to choose who to follow based on specific criteria. I think I’d like to keep my Twitter account just to follow authors, teachers and professionals. If I want to follow friends, I’ll create a separate account. That way I don’t have to feel bombarded by odd facts when all I’m looking for is a little brain food. In the end, I like the tool now that I’ve decided on a direction to go with it.

PLN

I think I first heard the term PLN in September when I was introduced to Plurk.  I heard educator and motivational speaker Kevin Honeycutt discuss his experience with networks of learners. He claimed that he wasn’t the smartest person on the planet, but by developing a network of smart people, he had 24-7 access to information he would otherwise be unaware of…that is the short version of his story anyway.  His explanation of a learning network didn’t really come apparent to me until I began exploring PLNs through this course.  Through this course I got the feel for the fact that we can function as a collective brain. I have my own ideas and way of looking at the world. Which, for me, means that I will participate in web searches using the same old key words and phrases as always. That means I will come up with similar results. But someone who thinks even slightly different than I do will come up with different results. Together we make a great team. Each of us is able to give something to the other person in our PLN and gain new  a new resource in return.  Delicious is one of those perfect examples of this taking place in real life.

Now, I can’t say that I fully fell in love with Delicious, but I certainly do see the potential for it for classroom use. If students in the same class all ban together and share their bookmarks with others, they can read a plethora of web pages that they may not have found otherwise (or would have taken hours to do so). Delicious also allows people to organize and tag things for easy access, which makes finding information quickly an easy feat.

The other thing I loved was the RSS feed. I thoroughly enjoyed the Google Reader. When  we began our blogs as a class, I was pretty scared that I was going to have to try and find each classmate every time I wanted to read a blog post, but (thank goodness) the RSS feed made it so that all recent posts of my fellow classmates were right there. The idea that any blog I subscribe to will automatically appear in my Google Reader, made me feel like I could manage this class (and any information) with ease.

The other tools I thought were interesting were Second life and Facebook. Previously I thought of these tools for social networking, but I can see the potential for both to be used as Learning Networks.  If I was really interested in the environment of Second Life, I could use the tool to set up my own virtual classroom. Students would have a more interactive learning environment than the D2L and other course management systems (CMSs).  Perhaps one could develop both socially and academically in a place like Second life, where Moodle and D2L provide more of a formal atmosphere.

Also, the idea of using Facebook as a learning network is attractive. Many of us already use it as a social network, so the familiar format would make creating a learning environment extremely simple. I also like how Facebook allows you to write messages longer than 140 characters. People could even reflect on activities and share resources there if they liked and respond to each other publicly or privately, which is very nice.

Outside of this class my personal learning network will include Diigo, Google Tools, Blogger, and, surprisingly, twitter. I spent a lot of time disliking twitter, but after I found a few people to follow that I actually enjoyed following, I decided it was a neat little tool. One I won’t be using to let the world in on what I’m doing at Menards, but one I will use to see what Margaret Atwood and Grammar Girl are up to. I might even consider using it to quiz kids on vocabulary, or remind kids of upcoming vocab tests. Just yesterday one of my students actually found me on Twitter without me telling him I was even on it. This it just goes to show that kids are using these technology and they are on the lookout for their teachers on those technologies.

Since our school already has Gmail as its main e-mail, I think that I would use Google docs to build a net work with desired co-workers. I have already discussed putting all of my handouts and worksheets for each of my classes on Google docs with one of the special education teachers. Just by making my resources available, it would make her life easier because she could get extra copies of my worksheets from me without me having to look for them, and e-mail them or print them off. Also, the kids could hand them in to me via Google Docs.

Convincing Administrators: Easier Said Than Done

Luckily, the school in which I teach is very much in support of cutting edge technology and programing. Our library media specialist is always on the lookout for grants to participate in or programs to learn about. I have mentioned before that I am in such a grant program. The program’s number one goal is to educate teachers to keep up to date with current trends in technology.

I don’t know what the most exemplary Web 2.0 tool is to support student learning, but I certainly have my favorite. I thoroughly enjoy blogs. In English class writing is a skill that is held in the utmost importance.  Students are also required to read and analyze texts. If students had the privilege and responsibility to write their own blogs about the things they are reading, they would take it seriously. 

I am lucky enough to have a computer lab in my classroom. I often have students use computers to create works. They like that a great deal, but when they have an audience for their creations, the atmosphere changes. Some students are shy about their work, and really benefit from the constructive criticism and the ideas of their classmates. Others are proud of their work and offer amazing help to others. In the end the students trust what their classmates tell them and their work is better for it. If my students could use blogs, their work would have a legitimate audience and I know they would be very careful to put the best work out there that they are capable of producing.

I wouldn’t have to ask my school for much to get this going. As I said earlier, I have a computer lab, and that lab of course is hooked up to the internet. I would have to ask my school to reword their internet policy which, as of now, prohibits blogging, and ask our technology coordinator to unblock at least one of the blogging sites.

To convince the administration that blogging can be a valuable educational activity, I would explain that audience makes a big difference in how people write. I would also try to find some examples of teachers from other schools that have used blogging successfully and explain the benefits of the activity include the fact that students collaborate in a way that isn’t possibly by any other means.

Pretty good, but I don't know about Del.icio.us.

I was very hopeful that I would like the delicious account. In fact I was excited to get the links of my colleagues and others.  In the end, I can definitely see that this could have some very nice uses for students doing research or teachers interested in specific subjects, but in the end, I really can’t say I’m going to keep up with this account.

There really weren’t that many commonalities between the types of websites I am interested in and the ones that my colleagues bookmarked. I did like some of websites under the technology tag, but in the end I could probably find other sites like those of my friends on my own.

I am not a very consistent soul. I have to say that my computer is just as disorganized as my office desk. I tried to be consistent with my tags, but mine do vary a little. I also noticed, I didn’t go crazy with tags. I only used a few for each link, two or three seemed like more than enough to me. I would say that the tags of others did have some influence over me, but not a great deal. I did also try to use the same tags across the different tools I used, but I don’t think I met my goal of being consistent with that either.

In terms of teaching tagging to students, I think I would try to run a discussion. Since I, myself, don’t feel 100% comfortable with tagging webpages, I’d begin by going to a web page they all are familiar with. Then would explain how Delicious works and ask them to collectively brainstorm a list of tags they think would be good. Then in a large group discussion, I would ask them to explain their choices and evaluate what makes a good tag, what wouldn’t make sense to them. Once we had a discussion, we would make a list of “rules” to follow when thinking of tags. I would, of course, guide them through this process.

When it comes to tagging, I’ve used the word technology the most. As it turns out I have a ton of tags that I’ve only used once. It seems that tagging is not one of my gifts. I bet my ultra organized friends had a field day with this, but I…did not do so well.

I added useful tags, but I did not actually write any annotations or descriptions of my web pages. The reason I didn’t write any annotations is because I really have been lucky in the past finding the pages I want by using my favorite search engine. Since Delicious was new to me, I didn’t really see the capabilities of the site. At the time, I didn’t figure I would actually use it long term. If I do keep my account long term, I think it would be useful to add some annotations. And the more websites that I find, the more useful those annotations will become. For example, if I have many websites with the tags web 2.0 tools, then it will be advantageous for me to write a description more specific to the exact content of the page so I won’t have to open every link, I can just skim the information I wrote and choose the page I was looking for with out having to open each page individually. It also might help anyone that has access to my bookmarks because they may be better able to weed out sites they are interested in, or choose ones that they are interested in.

I could use delicious to connect with other teachers who teach similar units. I always like to use resources that have been approved by my friends and colleagues. If someone has marked a certain page, I know they probably liked it, and are using it or considering using it.

In terms of the tag similarities, I didn’t find a terribly high amount of overlap in tags, but I did find that Geri’s bookmarked sites were similar in nature to ones I’d like…probably because we know each other and we teach the same subjects.

I think I might use the network feature if I was doing research with a group of people and I wanted to share access with some of my group mates. I would put everyone in my group in my network and ask them to bookmark sites they thought had valuable information. Then we could discuss the readings and figure out how to proceed.

For example, My husband’s two college roommates and their wives have been asking us to go to Vegas with them for two years. My husband and I have never been, but two of the four friends have. While we are deciding what hotels to choose, and what activities we would like to participate in, we could bookmark helpful sites. We could all visit the sites and then compare prices and accommodations.

                                                          

There are certainly a number of creative ways to use the site and if I could convince my friends to use the site along with me, I would enjoy the aspects of the program that would allow us to collaborate. The idea of planning an entire vacation without having to ever meet and hash out details is so great. I’m thinking that we’d probably use it in conjunction with Google Docs to create lists and narrate some of our ideas. I would enjoy seeing what kinds of pages my friends would pick in comparison to me and with busy lives we’d be successful in getting organized. And a little bit of organization goes a long way in the busy lives of friends who are also teachers, mom’s, dad’s, and coaches.  

                    

Tools, Tools, Tools

Wow, there are so many great tools out there. I keep thinking that I’ve seen everything there is to see, but then someone comes up with another creative tool to help me in my classroom, or for private use. This week I tried Second Life, Time line tools (on Read, Write, Think) and SurveyMonkey.

Second Life:

Second Life seems like it would be a very neat tool to get kids excited about learning if they were in an off campus situation. I actually heard a speaker at a conference say he used his Second life to conduct virtual meetings. He said it was very interactive. In my experience, roaming around in the secondlife worlds was confusing and I would think that some kids might not appreciate the extra task of navigating in that world, but if the community of kids was made mainly of technologically savvy kids, I think it could be an interesting virtual classroom.

Time Line:

The timeline on Read, Write, Think was pretty simplistic, but sometimes that is just what I want. I thought I would use this tool to create timelines for application in the classroom for quick and simple activities. I thought it might be fun and useful to create a timeline of Odysseus’ travels while reading the Odyssey, or  I could see my office partner, and history teacher, asking students to make timelines in this program for each unit she teaches.

Survey Monkey:

Survey Monkey was so easy to use. I don’t actually give my students that many surveys, but I do know that I have to pass out surveys in my classes for other classes all the time. I’d like that to stop. It is distracting and takes precious time away from my lessons. If my co-workers set up surveys and then put something in the announcements kids could log on from home and take their surveys.  This would alleviate some of the nuisance to me and my fellow English teachers. I do see some problems with survey monkey. It  would be possible to fill out the survey more than once, and there would also be a large number of students who don’t go to fill out the survey at all, but this is a problem with all surveys. Researchers always have a margin of error and a number of unreturned surveys. Perhaps this will help students learn about statistics and how to decipher survey results.

Tweet or Text?

Because Twitter is a microblogging tool, I don’t really see setting myself using it for educational purposes. I like the idea that kids are practically married to their phones and Twitter could make talking to them pretty convenient.  I once assigned students to write a poetic text to a friend and then document the results. I suppose if students set up their twitter accounts for educational purposes, they might find it fun to communicate with each other on small tasks such as the one I assigned via text messaging, but in general, I think it is more exiting to them as a social network.

A Little Technology Infusion

I have used discussion forums in my classroom to host literature discussions and it is the best example of something I do that falls in line with David Warlick’s idea of a technological learning environment. I enjoy the fact that all students get to voice their opinion and that they ask their own very interesting questions. I also like that they defend their answers drawing other students’ attention to the text. Sometimes, not very often, they add links or refer each other to other books and sources. Discussions online have been able to put kids at the steering wheel. When I see that kind of interaction between students I get excited about them taking their education into their own hands. It shows that they realize that there is more to learn than what they are asked to learn. I think that any tools we can utilize that help students make these realizations are worth the time and energy for us and them.

Good Points

Alan November makes a few good points about how schools teach technology. I agree with his suggestions to teach about global empathy, social and ethnic responsibility, evaluating the validity of online information, and the level of permanence online.  

I think these skills are important at all levels. Whether kids are using technology or not, they can begin to understand the concept that we must treat each other with respect. Younger students can learn this lesson in the classroom before they ever touch a computer. As they polish their skills, students can begin to use technology based activities to practice their respectful skills. Older students can be taught about some of the negative consequences of using e-mail, texting, or social networks to be mean or disrespectful. The written word is powerful, and can be used against students in a powerful way.

Aside from using technology in an irresponsible way, kids to want to learn how to use it in a responsible way. I think that one thing I will focus on by the end of this school year is evaluating internet sources. Kids do believe that if they find it online, it is probably true, which obviously isn’t the case. I think I might set out to find contradicting research and discuss how something like that can happen. Kids need to see some proof. Also, I would like to remind them of some of the ways they can verify information that they think is true by triangulating, looking for author names, looking for works cited information, finding information on sites that are considered trustworthy and things like that. I already discuss this in my classroom, but I still wind up with students finding and using sites that have inaccurate information.

I heart technology...and I fear it.

I love technology. I do. Diigo and Delicious seem like two very useful tools…in the right hands. I love the way that you can take snapshots of the screen and save the images as html in Diigo. If the page you love gets updated or eliminated, you can still capture what you saw the first time you visited. I really think that is cool. I also like how you can save the page with highlighted text and annotations for future use.  This tool is genius.

Delicious seems handy, Diigo has more features, but if simplicity is attractive to you, Delicious is the way to go. I’m not completely in love with the way that web pages are organized, but I do like the premise of Delicious overall.

These  tool seems to have many advantages over the old paper and pen. I remember my research days at the Racine Public Library. I’d stand there with a pocket full of dimes to make photo copies, and then highlight, underline and annotate with (gasp) a PEN! I think if more students knew about this, we’d see it quickly become their best friend for research. They already use Microsoft Word to copy and paste important details. They save and print out their research…no dimes needed. I think once they discover this tool, they’ll even stop printing. As Ipads become more popular and affordable, we might slowly but surely see fewer pens and pencils in classrooms.

Every once in a while I fear technology. At first I was thinking that plagiarism might increase as a result of all these gadgets. I thougth that maybe kids would find it easier to copy and paste, or just collect links and not actually construct a research project, but with a little further contemplation on the subject, I’ve decided that that is silly.  If we asked students to add us to their social bookmarking sights we could monitor their use of websites. We could actually help them decide which websites were worthy and which are unworthy. As always, it is up to the student to use these tools responsibly and it is up to us to continue to teach research skills such as paraphrasing and citing research, so I guess I can’t condemn the tool for being completely handy and useful. I’m very excited to try them in my classroom

Someday Google Will Run the World.

I’ve always loved it as a search engine, but I’m realizing now how innovative that company really is. I can see how google docs could be of great use for classrooms, businesses, and personal projects. Having heard of google docs, but not having used it, I was worried that it would be difficult to set up and difficult to communicate with. In our group assignment, we used traditional e-mail to communicate, but google docs to view and change our project. I really liked it. In the past, I’d have to meet with my group in person. That is can create scheduling difficulties. Once we’d meet face to face, we’d make small talk and then get to work. Inevitably, right when we started to make progress, someone would have to leave.

I liked google.docs because it was easy to use and VERY convenient, a serious time saver. When my group and I e-mailed, the correspondence was on the point, mostly business, and short. I also could revisit the old e-mails if I had questions, and any changes any group member made to the documents would be sent to individual e-mail accounts. My classmate even had her alerts sent to her phone so that she would know immediately if one of us was changing the documents or requesting help.  I loved it. I think there could be a number of classroom uses for the program as well. Students who can’t stay after school or have other obligations could work on presentations from anywhere at their own convenience.

Joining and Reading Other Wikis

I don’t know about these wikis. I like them…and I don’t.

I like the idea that people can collaborate on any given topic and come out with new ideas. One that I’ve found looks fairly interesting. http://teaching-with-technology.wikispaces.com/ has a number of pages on it centered around different types of technologies. People can go on and add other links they’ve found helpful. One page I’m particularly interested on this wiki is one for teachers who use ipads in education. I have recently purchased one for my classroom and really am looking forward to reading about other teachers. I requested to join the wiki…we’ll see if I have some things to offer to it in the future.

One problem that comes with wikis is that as multiple people have permission to edit, things could get changed or deleted accidentally. Also, in the wiki I’m in for a grant program, we meet a few times and work on the wiki at the same time. Our changes will cancel each other out if multiple people are viewing the page and changing it at the simultaneously. It becomes a problem. I wonder if a wiki is really the best tool for us to use in that situation.

As far as I can tell, joining the various wikis and using an RSS feed is tricky business. I’m beginning to feel fragmented with all the different memberships I’ve added since the beginning of this class. I especially like the RSS feed because it is a very easy way to see what others are blogging about, but I don’t love having to check the wikis separately.

Wiki vs. Blog

Blogs and Wikis are similar in that anyone can use them and anyone can comment. The major difference that I see between the two is that blogs are slightly more one sided. The author of the blog has his or her own agenda, begins conversations, and while people may make comments on the blog, it is the author of the blog who seems to have the control. Wikis are set up with collaboration in mind. Their focus is to give everyone an equal level of authorship.

When it comes to reading the blogs of others, I am more likely to read the blogs that are written in a friendly or personal tone. I like ones that may share some personal experience in the classroom, practical (and teacher tested) ideas, and advice.

I actually am part of a wiki for professional development. I am working with other teachers in CESA 2 to incorporate more technology in our classrooms. The coordinator for our program puts articles to read and activities to do on the wiki. Then we share the lesson plans/results of the lesson we tried using technology. Then we meet and discuss some of our challenges and triumphs. If I were to begin a wiki, I like the model she uses and think I would follow along those lines.

21st Century Skills

I know it seems contradictory to blog about not really loving blogs, but I can’t help it.  A week ago I had never read a blog. I value a beautifully bound book that smells faintly of the library, or a magazine filled with pages I can actually turn, not tabs I can click. I love sending a letter to my mom every once in a while, and receiving one back written in her perfect hand. Unfortunately, in the 21^st century I chat with my mom on facebook and the only one who writes a letter to me anymore is my grandmother (Thanks, Nanni G!)

I guess even I have to admit that there is some beauty in a blog, voice. I would recommend schools use blogs to give students a voice. One of my students confessed to me that she writes a poetry blog, and has been since last year.  I can only imagine what a community of poets can learn from each other. I think that as students collaborate across great time and space on topics they love, they redefine learning. Gone are the days where only the teacher teachers.  Everyone is a teacher now. Everyone is a learner.

One thing I’d like to see is a community of bloggers dedicated to building a better school climate. They would wind up using their problem solving skills to create a set of standards for behavior. They’d have to be innovative as they strive to promote their ideas to each other; they’d have to weigh the benefits of each suggestion and come to a consensus on their goals for the year.  I think that an outlet to communicate with administrators and teachers would give students a sense of ownership. Also, as they interact with adult models, they sharpen their skills in talking with (and like) an adult, an ever necessary job skill.

I suppose, for now, I will focus on the voice it gives to our 21^st century learners, and embrace the freedom it gives students to customize their learning.

Teachers Using Blogs

I am having trouble seeing how my school would use blogs in the near future. Access to computer labs tends to be a great difficulty. As the focus on technology grows, we as educators try to implement new technology based projects into our lessons. This wonderful move forward has created congestion in our LMC and computer labs, which means students coming in the LMC during their study hall time have limited access to work on projects at school.

If these challenges were to magically disappear, I would hope to see my school use blogs to provide an academic based social network where kids could ask and answer their own questions about the things they learn in class. I am always impressed by the students who ask high level questions and strive to contemplate answers on their own. I think blogs could create a community of students who are interested in taking things to higher level of investigation.  Sometimes I feel as if the gifted and talented students in our schools are looking for more educational opportunities. Perhaps blogs would create such an outlet.

Subscribing

In my search for some blogs to follow, I found one blog called "Beth's thoughts on technology" at http://www.bethknittle.net/wp_blog?p=875#comments.   In reading some of the archives of this blog, as well as current postings to this blog, I found the writer of the blog to be well written and inventive. I will probably use this blog to consult when I need some creative ideas for technology in my own classroom.

I also fund another blog called Literature Compass at http://literaturecompass.wordpress.com/. The address I have included is to a home page, but there are a number of interesting articles and blogs to read. I think I would use this as a resource when looking for creative ideas in teaching literature, specifically Shakespeare and Romanticism.

What do I want?

I would like to become more familiar with the same technologies that my students like to use or would enjoy using. I would also like to explore tools that might be helpful for online instruction. Our school is signed up for Moodle and I have my own online classes, but I don't actually utilize them to their fullest potential. I have created things for classes in the past using audacity, but I still don't feel comfortable using the program on my own.