Wikipedia: The Catalyst of Collaboration

Without Wikipedia we would be wallowing from whence we came. 

The World Wide Web was, and still is, a disorganized mess of vast volumes of information. Thanks to Wikipedia there are currently 16,000,000 organized and linked encyclopedia articles in more than 270 languages.  True to its name, Wikipedia is a tool for creating collaborative encyclopedia articles on the world wide web. Today, there are over 91,000 internet volunteers who collaborate and contribute to Wikipedia. This week I became a statistic and became the 91,001 contributor to Wikipedia.  

  

Where To Go From Here

 After a few years of creating various wikis and nings and evening adding a glogster to my wiki, I wanted to challenge myself to learn more.  After speaking with Jennifer in Chicago she challenged me to create a Wikipedia entry for the TLDL program at the U of A, and what a challenge that was. When I began researching the “how to” of Wikipedia I found out that there are 10 steps to getting started with Wikipedia.

1.  Create an account
2.   Begin by editing pages that already existed on Wikipedia and, to be bold.  After all, Wikipedia is in existence because of its collaborative nature. 
3.  Get lost. Quite literally. I was lost in Wikipedia I didn’t know where to begin creating. I thought I knew, until I tried to retrieve my “draft” the next day. I found that the best way for me to learn was to play around with it and ask google when I had questions.
4.  Create A User Page. People want to know who is editing and changing their information and it is only common courtesy. 
5.  Familiarize yourself with the criteria for posting to Wikipedia
6.   Read Wikipedia’s entry of “Your First Article” and start writing. 
7. Post and wait for others to: edit, give feedback, change, and add.
8. Witness first hand collaborating at its finest. 
9.   Challenge those that would be interested in contributing to add their knowledge and understanding of the subject.  
10.    Be thankful for Wikipedia pioneering a collaborative approach to the world wide web and count your lucky stars for those that created an educational and user friendly version.

My Challenge Is Now YOUR Challenge

I created a Wikipedia entry about the TLDL program at the U of A.  After I posted I realized that I forgot to include the word “program.” My husband commented that my title, Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning, was a bit deceiving as it looked like a new way of being a librarian. I was afraid that someone might delete my entry because of the false information. I knew I had to change the title immediately.  After quite a bit of research I realized that I was not able to make a change to the title until so many edits had been made, or after 10 days of it being posted. I will be sure to make the necessary change when the time comes.

Knowing that you can’t change the title, I am looking for participants to make changes and add information to the TLDL Wikipedia entry.  My challenge is for the students and professors of the TLDL program to harness their collective intelligence (Berger & Trexler, 2010) by collaborating together to create, edit, and share knowledge about the program.  Apply the knowledge that you gleaned by experimenting with other wiki’s and become the 91,002 user of Wikipedia.

Wiki’s At Home

My husband is an avid reader, and contributor to Wikipedia, and has even created a few wiki’s of his own. One of the wikis that he created was to keep track of his telescope making project. Unlike my husband, I have never used a wiki for personal use. Will Richardson (2010) shared some interesting exemplars of how people are collaborating with wiki’s in their everyday life: recipe wiki, travel wiki, and wikiquotes.  I’m not sure how much I would be able to share on the recipe wiki but I could add a comment after trying some delicious recipes such as the sweet potato salad.

Using Wiki’s in a K-12 Setting

I brainstormed a list of 21^st century skills that our students learn and obtain when using wiki’s and Wikipedia in a classroom environment.

 

Similar to using any other web 2.0 tool in the classroom, it must be purposeful. Before choosing the wiki host, decide on what you want your students to be able to do, what goals and outcomes you are going to achieve, how and if they will be evaluated, if you want the site open or closed, and how you will monitor it, ease of access and navigation, and the option for a wide range of media to be embedded or uploaded.  Thinking about the purpose and the other factors listed above will help you to determine what wiki will be the best for your purposes. Use the wiki matrix to compare the various wikis that are available. 

Ways to use wiki’s in your classroom

•  Have students document, reflect, share, write-about, and upload pictures from a class field-trip 
• A place for students to:  reflect, connect, wonder, investigate and gather information, construct new ideas, and express their new understandings during the inquiry process either as a class or individually
• Create resource aggregators, bibiliographies, and pathfinders
• Electronic Portfolios
• Journals or notebooks to house ideas and brainstorms

For examples of how educators are using wikis in the classrooms check out the following exemplars:

·

·         Educational Wikis

·         The Impact of Climate Change: created by a high school science class 

·         The Flat Classroom Project: Two classrooms from Bangladesh and Georgia USA collaborated to analyze the ten societal trends from the book, The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman  This wiki continues today with classrooms from around the world connecting and collaborating. 

·         Wikis for Collaborative Storytelling: Using wikis for collaborating during the writing process. 

·         A Grade One Classroom Wiki 

·         Wiki’s in Education: Jeff Utecht has created a space for educators to add and view how wikis are being used in the classroom.  

  

Wikis in the Library

             As we move forward into the 21^st century, teacher-librarians are shifting their virtual and physical environments to reflect a learning commons, and we are looking for ways to create a collaborative and participatory culture in our school libraries.  The library is a perfect place to begin modelling the social aspect of learning because “students who are learning in schools influenced by the innovations of visualization, democratization of knowledge, and participatory cultures need different skills that prior generations” (Lemke, C, 2010, p. 267).  School libraries and teacher librarians can model and collaborate with other teachers to immerse students in authentic learning.  Fred Newman (Higher Education Academy, 2009) states that there are three key elements to authentic learning: deep inquiry into the subject matter, relevancy beyond the school day, and knowledge construction.  With carefully designed learning tasks through web 2.0 tools such as wikis our students will be ready to thrive in a participatory society. 
 

Many school libraries use wiki’s for students to share what they are reading, review books, add content that they have created, host book clubs, and link to blogs. Here are a few exemplary library wikis:

Bookleads created by Joyce Valenza

SLMS library wiki 

Nancy Keane's Wiki 

Librarians Can Show Students How to Use Wikipedia

Start teaching students how to use Wikipedia rather than not to use it. Wikipedia is one of the top ten websites worldwide (Shapiro 2010). Rather than questioning the reading level and the authorship of Wikipedia we, as teacher-librarians, must begin teaching students how to navigate on the web, to be able to recognize the readability of a web page, provide them with other search engines, and to teach them how to search effectively.  Wikipedia can be a great starting point and can lead students to primary sources. We must teach our students to be critical consumers of information, verify and check the accuracy of information found, and to recognize when an article is incomplete.

 

Wikipedia can also be used as a tool to extend our students learning out of the classroom.  Will Richardson (2010) asks us to consider how Wikipedia can be used for our students to share new knowledge with a larger audience in an authentic way.  Out of curiosity I tried creating an account for Wikipedia at school and I was not allowed to. I have not had an opportunity to see if I could create an account for Simple Wikipedia. If so, I think that I am going to consider ways in which my students can share their new knowledge and understandings with a larger audience.

Wiki’s As An Essential Tool For Learning Leaders

In the book, Web 2.0 new tools, new schools, it is recommended that in order to support professional development we must “develop alternative forms of teacher professional development that embed the social networking tools we want teachers to consider using” (p.109).   As I consider ways to create a learning community within my school I must remember to use web 2.0 tools such as wikis to communicate and connect with staff. Last month, I created a wiki for the Home-Economics teachers of Saskatchewan for them to share information and lessons that they are creating with students. The teacher-librarians in my school division are discussing ways in which we can share lessons, and ideas using a wiki. Before beginning to create anything we must sit down and discuss our focus, purpose, and vision for creating a teacher-librarian wiki.

I know that I have grown professionally by accessing other educators wiki’s such as:

http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/

http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/Voicethread

https://schoollearningcommons.pbworks.com/

Without Wikipedia Would We Be Where We Are Today?

I believe that Wikipedia has served as a catalyst to creating the world of web 2.0 where users can share, collaborate, and edit content. Without Wikipedia, would wikispaces, pbwiki, and other wikis have evolved?  Instead of wallowing about where we would be without Wikipedia we must continue to create and design authentic learning opportunities for our students to become critical and creative consumers of information that can evaluate, make  new meaning, and collaborate with others to make sense of the world in which they live.

References

Berger,P & Trexler, S (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Richardson, Will (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classroom. Thousand Oaks: CA: Corwin Press.  

 

Bellanca, J & Brandt, R (2010). 21st Century Skills:Rethinking How Students Learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

(2010). How Elementary Is Wikipedia?. School Library Monthly, 27(2), 22-23. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

A Simple Podcast Recipe

Are you looking to spice it up in your classroom? If so, you have come to the right place.  I have compiled a recipe for podcasting just for you.  This simple recipe includes mostly staple ingredients that you should have close at hand.  Gather up the ingredients and follow the instructions and you will be on your way to creating your very own podcast.  As always, when you come across a great recipe don’t forget to share with your students and friends.  Happy creating.

Learning About the Tool

I was quite excited to see podcasting on the list of our web 2.0 tools to explore in EDES 501 because I have not had a lot of experience with podcasting, and as a result my students have not created podcasts either. 

Like most people, when I have questions and want to learn more about something I look to research, read publications and books published in the area, and immerse myself in the learning.  If you are looking to extend your learning and understanding about podcasts read the following books: Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World by Pam Berger, Web 2.0 new tools, new schools by Gwen Solomon, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful Web Tools for classrooms by Will Richardson, and Teaching with the Tools Kids Really Use by Susan Brooks-Young.  Each book offered different perspectives, links, exemplars, ideas, and new understandings.   Using the knowledge I gleaned from the variety of sources I read, I was ready to play and create.

Step 1: Gather Ingredients

 I already had the necessary items to start podcasting, although my microphone was purchased from the dollar store and the quality is not exactly professional. I may look at investing into a better quality microphone. 

Step 2: Put content in Bowl, Add Purpose and Let Stand

I am on the SYRCA Snow Willows committee and I am part of a group that reads and nominates the books for YA readers. As a teacher-librarian in Saskatoon Public Schools I also promote the Willows books to the students in my school. This being my first year being a TL, I am exploring ways in which I can promote the books, and how the students can respond to the books that they have read. I have considered using voicethread, and Animoto but had not considered using podcasts.  It dawned on me that I could use podcasts as a way to promote the books, and this could also be a platform that would enable the students to share what they have read.  I decided to create a book talk and a podcast teaser that would promote one of the Snow Willows books, Libertad. Libertad is a book in verse and it was not difficult to find an excerpt that flowed and left the reader wanting more.

Step 3: Record and Edit Using Audacity

I have used Audacity in the past but I had never really taken the time to play with it. Since I was using a cheap microphone I found that I had a lot of feedback. I used the noise removal option that got rid of a lot of the feedback.  I also experimented with the other effects and was amazed at what they could do.

Step 4: Locate Copyright Free Sounds

This was not an easy task as a lot of websites advertise that they have free sounds/music but then you have to sign up for an account and you only receive 10 free downloads. I found that Joyce Valenza had one of the most comprehensive lists. . As always Richard Byrne has a useful blog post, 7 sources of free Sounds for Multimedia Projects  and he just recently added http://www.jewelbeat.com/ .  

Step 5: Upload to a Server

After recording on Audacity I had to download LAME so that I could export my file as an MP3.  I am not aware of our school having a webserver, and I knew that I wanted to be able to embed my podcast into my blog. I decided to ask google and this is what I found:

How To Embed A Podcast Into A Blogger

View more presentations from Paty.Savage.

After discovering the following information, I decided to go with the Internet Archive because it was simple and free. Being able to quickly embed a file into a blog post is an added feature because I may want to highlight something specifically on my blog and this is not difficult to do. Here is the player that you can embed into your blog straight from Internet Archive.

Step 6: Locate Hosting Service and Publish Podcast

I compared the following podcasting hosting services: Pod-o-matic, PodPress, Podbean, Odeo, and OurMedia.  I found that the best hosting service for my purpose was Podbean because it was free, and it can be easily embedded into a blog, and there is a dashboard/webpage that allows you to view, organize, and share all of your podcasts using this interface. This was a winning factor for me as I can see myself using this in the library.

   
   
Powered by Podbean.com


I am glad that I took some advice from Will Richardson who mentions in his book Wiki's, Blogs, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms the importance of trying out the technology before asking your students to begin creating (Richardson, 2010). I feel more comfortable now and have a better understanding about what this tool can do and what needs to be done before trying it in the classroom or library.

Podcasting in Real Life

 I, like most grad students don’t find a lot of extra time in my day to watch T.V. My husband and I don’t watch T.V often and so we don’t invest in cable T.V.  Instead, we have our computer hooked up to the T.V and stereo and we get our movies from Netflix and itunes.  Often times we will listen to a podcast as we are preparing supper, cleaning, or doing other activities. Our favourite podcast to listen to is, “Stuff You Should Know.”   What I like about podcasts is that they are like the radio but you can listen to it on your own time, on your ipod, through your phone, and in your car. There are podcasts to meet the needs of people both young and old, and there are podcasts about almost any topic you can imagine. 

Podcasting in the K-12 Classroom

The AASL’s Standards for 21st Century learnersoutlines skills, dispositions, responsibilities, and self assessment strategies that are fundamental for our students to thrive in the 21^st century.  As I consider ways to incorporate podcasting in the classroom I must keep the purpose of the tool in mind. Podcasting encourages students to:

1.2.3: Demonstrate creativity by using multiple resources and formats.

2.1.6: Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.

2.2.4: Demonstrate personal and other informational tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess. 

3.1.6: Use information and technology ethically and responsibly

3.3.5: Contribute to the exchange of ideas within and beyond the learning community.

4.1.8: Use creative and artistic formats to express personal learning. 

Podcasting for the sake of podcasting, does not extend our students thinking, allow them to think critically, or to become ethical users of technology. Podcasts can be a platform for our students to think critically, or to become ethical users of technology. Podcasts can be a platform for our students to compare, make judgements, showcase creativity, share new understandings, and to record their reflections about their inquiries or the process and what that means.  As I consider ways to incorporate podcasts in the classroom I must consider what added value the technology is giving to students learning.  

There are many podcasts available, in a variety of subject areas, for our students to listen to, think about, make judgements, and respond to.

National Gallery of Art: Video and Audio podcasts

Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Pandora  Podcast Series: sponsored by the radio site Pandora (lets you personalize your own playlists) Some examples of these unique podcasts are: word choice in lyrics and hip hop rhyme scheme.

How Stuff Works:  Learn about a range of subjects.

 The Adventures of Dr.Floyd: An old time radio drama 

Where in the World: Geography quiz

Kathy Schrock has an excellent website and links to resources that includes the how to of podcasting in the classroom, and key questions for students to focus on when evaluating podcasts. The podcasts mentioned above could be used to promote podcasts, and as exemplars to analyze and evaluate what makes a good podcast.  Students should consider the following criteria: authority, accuracy, bias, availability. Producing and comparing their own work to others will allow students to gain valuable perspectives about communicating effectively, their own abilities and creativity, and the accuracy and reliability of information.

Some "big ideas" to center podcasts around, in any subject area, are:

• Describe current events and the impact they are having on the world and what it means to a student in Canada.
• Share opinions about what they have read and either defend or debate the main idea
• Consider the other side of the story
• Express an opinion or stance someone might take on a topic
• How can music and sound effects add to or detract from the message 

Berger and Trexler state that there are many advantages and reasons to use web based media tools such as podcasts because they " create an environment of active participants, encourage self expression and creativity, promote differentiated instruction, and incorporate various media for differentiation" (2010, p. 127). In conclusion, podcasting can support student learning and inquiry based instruction.

Teacher-Librarian and Learning Leader

I know that social media plays an important role in 21st century libraries. I have considered and planned on using a wide variety of web 2.0 tools to promote the library, books, and reading. Interestingly enough,  I had never considered podcasting as an option. Richardson (2010) says that students in elementary schools still seem to love podcasting, but it is the older kids that have moved on to video. Despite this shift, I think that there is still a place for podcasting in the library setting.

As a new teacher-librarian who is looking for ways to promote the library, and have students become more involved, podcasts are a good place to start. I mentioned earlier that  I created an account with podbean.com and with the account comes a web address where podcasts can be stored and viewed.  Both the students and I could contribute book reviews, teasers, and excerpts from our favorite books. We could simply link the podcasting site to the school blog or wiki.

Nancy Keane has one of the most comprehensive list of podcasts called Booktalkers Daily Podcasts.

I could easily see some keen students wanting and willing to create a podcast about their favorite part of a book, or an interesting scene or description of a character.  This year we are looking at ways to get students excited about reading and I am looking forward to trying out podcasting. I am going to spend more time considering ways in which to use podcasting to create a participatory culture in my school and library.

I came across a comprehensive site, All Things Podcasting, that includes links to: podcast creation guides, audio and video tours, mobile podcasting,  text to podcasts, podcasts to text, live podcasting, podcast searches and forums, and podcast creation software. 

Teaching with, creating, and sharing podcasts also allows teacher-librarians yet another opportunity to emphasize the importance of copyright, how to use and access creative commons, and digital citizenship. To assist in the process of locating copyright free music and sound effects it would be useful to create a pathfinder or wiki to be able to share the links with students.

I have found that as a former middle/high school teacher I am not as familiar with children's picture books. I came across the podcast, Chatting About Books: Recommendations for Young Readers K-5. I can listen to Emily's podcasts as I commute to work everyday instead of listening to the radio.

Learning Community

The International Reading Association has podcasts and webinars available called Class Acts: Ideas for Teaching Reading and Writing. I plan on sharing these podcasts, along with the one mentioned earlier, with colleagues and other teacher-librarians. I also came across another useful resource, Podcasting 101 for K-12 Librarians, that I could share with other TL's in my division who may be interested in podcasting and I will be sure to direct them to David Warlick's Education Podcast Network.

My role as publications counsellor for the Saskatchewan School Library Association may soon include blogging about books for our association. I may experiment with podcasts as a way of reviewing and sharing books with other teacher-librarians in the province and beyond.  As I continue to ponder on how this could be used in other ways in the TL community I must remember that one can learn not only from listening to podcasts, but also through creating them.

My podcasting recipe will be added to the web 2.0 cookbook of tried, tested, and true recipes to use in the classroom, library, and even in my personal life.

References

Berger,P & Trexler, S (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Armstrong, G., Tucker, J., & Massad, V. (2009). Interviewing the Experts: Student Produced Podcast. Journal of Information Technology Education, 8IIP-79-IIP-90. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Richardson, Will (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classroom. Thousand Oaks: CA: Corwin Press. 

Wanted: Help

Dear Cyberpaper Educator,

I need help! I have been a teacher and a teacher-librarian for many years and I have never felt so overwhelmed in my entire career. My staff expects me to be a learning leader and to be able to help the students and staff to stay organized on the web. But, there is just so much Information available on the internet these days and I can’t seem to find a way to keep myself organized. How can I teach them?  At school, I use the bookmarks tab on internet explorer but then I can’t access my bookmarks when I go home. I have been attending a lot of professional development opportunities and I am constantly learning about new web 2.0 tools and other teacher-librarians are sending me links to learn about new tools. I don’t know where to begin and there are so many tools and so much information. People say that some of the tools are delicious. I can’t see a tool being very tasty but maybe I just need to sink my teeth into some of them. But, how do I know what to choose? Where does someone new to all of this begin?

I feel like I am sinking instead of floating in cyberspace. Please help me before it is too late.

Sincerely,

Lost in Cyberspace


Dear Lost in Cyberspace,
You are not alone. The 21st century has brought about tremendous shifts in the information landscape and students, professionals, and adults are all looking for ways to stay organized in this digital world. Some of the best advice that I ever received was to “ stop thinking of technology in terms of nouns (powerpoint, Twitter, YouTube) and instead think in terms of verbs (presenting, sharing, and storing)” (Fisher & Frey, 2010, p.227). When thinking about Social Bookmarking it might be helpful to consider what the functions or verbs are associated with it. I have brainstormed a few:

It is important to realize that every day there are new tools created and it is impossible to stay abreast of every tool. What is important is to become familiar with the functions for which the tools were developed and to choose tools that suit our needs. Therefore to better assist you I will review some of the current social bookmarking tools that you could use in your personal life, and in the role of teacher, teacher-librarian, and as part of a learning community. I hope that by sharing the purpose, value, and noteworthy features of social bookmarking you will be able to move forward in social bookmarking.

Sincerely,
Cyberpaper for an Educator

Where To Begin With Social Bookmarking
I remember when I first experimented with social bookmarking when I was on the executive council of the Saskatchewan Middle Years Association. We all had to post some of our favourite websites that we used in the middle years classroom. I joined delicious and started adding my favourite websites that I had bookmarked in my favourites toolbar. I had no understanding of what I was actually doing, and why I was doing it. I knew that I was bookmarking useful sites for other Middle Years teachers but I didn’t know how it worked. So before you make the same mistake here is a short information video about what social bookmarking is.




Where to Start: Choose a social bookmarking tool that works for you.

There are many social bookmarking tools to choose from but the most popular are: Delicious, Diigo, and Evernote. How do you know where to start? Here is a glimpse into my own personal discoveries and frustrations using Delicious, Diigo, and Evernote.

Delicious

As previously mentioned, Delicious was the first social bookmarking tool that I experimented with. I was so excited to discover that I no longer had to e-mail links to myself or worry about not being able to access my favourites at home or school. In the midst of transferring my favourites over I failed to recognize or understand the value of tagging. Creating an account with delicious is easy, but does require you to have a yahoo ID. Once you create an account you can start saving bookmarks by entering a URL. You can add other important information such as: a title, keyword, notes, tags, and you can also send your bookmark to friends or post to twitter.

What I found to be the important features of Delicious:


• Allows you to tag, save, manage, and share web pages

• Share bookmarks with friends that also use Delicious

• Add –on options for firefox, google chrome, and internet explorer.

• Easy introduction to social bookmarking

• Access delicious bookmarks on your mobile phone

• Use delicious in itunes


Diigo
Diigo has been my staple over the past few years and I have had the most success with it. Creating an account with Diigo is simple, you only need a username and an e-mail. Here is an overview of what Diigo can do for you.



I found that once I created my Diigo account I had to spend some time thinking about what I wanted my lists to be such as: library, literacy, web 2.0, etc. This helps organize your bookmarking and is not as messy as tagging. Diigo has some extra features that Delicious does not have and one of the options is to be able to annotate text by: highlighting, sticky notes, and comments. Below is a Guide To Annotating with Diigo


Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize from diigobuzz on Vimeo.


What I found to be important features of Diigo:

• Easy to use

• Diigo toolbar can be added to any search engine

• Diigolet is a floating toolbar that can be added to your toolbar

• Diigo allows you to clip videos and view from your notepad

• Diigo groups

• Read later option allows you to mark a page for later reading

Evernote

I started using Evernote this summer and I found that it had even more diverse features than Diigo and Delicious. Evernote is a far more visual tool. Evernote has a multitude of tutorials from organizing information to handy extras in Evernote.




What I found to be the important features of Evernote:

• Capture everything from webpages, photos, and even screenshots

• You can add tags and organize notes into different notebooks

• Search for notes by keywords, titles and tags.

• Can be used on your mobile, ipod touch, and ipad

• E- notes

• Ability to access on or offline

How Can Social Bookmarking Help You Stay Organized in Your Personal Life?

Since I am passionate about reading I am always interested in learning about books that others are reading. I would typically record any book suggestions into my blackberry or notebook. Now, I can create booklists with Diigo by: bookmarking the page, clipping the front cover image and ISBN number, creating an appropriate tag, and creating a list.

So often I access the internet to find recipes. I need to start bookmarking and tagging some of the recipes. In the end I could my very own cookbook.

In the past I have used Social Bookmarking to plan for a trip. Some of the advantages are: more than one person can add to the list, you can save all of your necessary information to one place including tickets, and confirmations.

Where to Begin Using Social Bookmarking in Your Professional Life

Audience: Teacher

Value: Using social bookmarking tools to teach students how to manage and organize information meets the following Standards for the 21st Century Learner.

• 2.1.2- Organize knowledge so that it is useful

• 2.1.4- Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information

• 3.1.4- Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.


Noteworthy Features:

• Allows students to access information at home and at school

• Students no longer have to copy and paste websites into a word document

• Groups of students can network when collaborating for group projects and assignments

• As a teacher, you can view what your students are bookmarking and annotating

• There is a Diigo for Educators that allows you to create student accounts for an entire class

Applications for the K-12 Classroom: 

Social bookmarking tools “support 21st century learning skills as they offer a structure that is intellectually engaging, encouraging students to not only locate but also collaboratively tag, organize, and evaluate resources and thinking more deeply about the process” ( Berger & Trexler, 2010, p.50). Diigo is the only social bookmarking tool with an educators account that enables you to create safe and private accounts for students who are under the age of 13 and can’t sign up for their own account. Social bookmarking tools can play a pivotal role in the “investigate and search phase” of the inquiry process. During this phase of inquiry we want our students to think critically, apply, evaluate, and analyze the information that they discover.

Personal Learning Networks

Having students create a Personal Learning Network allows them to keep organized. Vicki Davis, author of the Cool Cat Teacher Blog mentions that, “personal learning networks are virtual lockers for school kids.” Having students create personal learning networks allows them to be in control of their digital footprint as they can have all of their channels and pages linked to one webpage. Examples of personal learning networks are: igoogle, pageflakes, and netvibes.

Would I recommend using social bookmarking in the classroom?

We all know that students in the 21st century need different skills than prior generations, and that today’s schools are not necessarily preparing them for a future that we can’t yet imagine. Social bookmarking allows students to participate collaboratively, share and collect knowledge, track their thinking, and as a result create new knowledge and understandings.

Audience: Teacher-Librarian and Learning Leader

Value: “By positioning themselves to lead the future of information organization, teacher librarians will be able to select the best emerging Web-based tools and applications, become familiar with their strengths, and leverage their usefulness to guide users in organizing internet content” ( Visser, M, 2010, p. 34).

Noteworthy Features: Teaching students how to, “effectively use technology to organize information is a required 21st century skill (Berger & Trexler, 2010, p. 50). Therefore it is absolutely imperative that teacher-librarians ensure that our students have the necessary skills and tools to do so.

Conventional methods of reaching our patrons are no longer relevant in the 21st century. Teacher-librarians must discover other ways to create an online presence and to consider more innovative approaches to accessing information such as: Live Binders, pageflakes, Jogger, and TrailFire. These tools can be used to create pathfinders, and to share information and links with both students and teachers. Here is an example of a  Jog the Web that I created about the Floods in Pakistan.

Creating groups in Diigo could allow you to share your lists with both students and staff. As a teacher-librarian I am always coming across links that I know another teacher would appreciate. Having the entire staff on Diigo would allow me to share my resources with them via e-mail and by tags.

Recommendations:

• Look at your curriculum to discover where social bookmarking would best support learning

• Open an account and begin to explore by adding and joining groups.

• Dabble with the different tools and become comfortable with them before teaching them


Audience: Learning Community
So often we become infowhelmed with new ideas, resources, and applications for education.




Value: By demonstrating and using social bookmarking for professional learning will allow others to see how powerful social bookmarking is.

Noteworthy Features:

• Larry Ferlazzo has come up with a list of the Best Social Bookmarking applications for English Language Learners. Share these with your Spec.Ed department.

• Common grade alike teachers could share their bookmarks for different subject areas

• As Saskatchewan continues to introduce new curricula with limited support and resources teachers could support each other by creating groups in diigo or delicious.

Applicable:

Another application for social bookmarking that would be useful in a professional learning setting is Live Binders. Live Binders is your “three ring binder to the web” and allows you to web-based resources. This would be a great way to share information with other educators. For example, here is a livebinder that a teacher librarian created about Google.

GOOGLE

Closing Thoughts About Social Bookmarking

It is my hope that you will no longer be “lost in cyberspace” and that you have the necessary skills and understanding to become organized in a digital world. Don’t forget that as humans, we have an innate desire to be organized, and that over time we have tried many different tools to aid us in the organizational process. My advice to you, Lost in Cyberspace, is to dabble, play and explore with each of the tools listed above and remember to consider your purpose when selecting the tool that is just right for you and your instructional needs.



References

Bellanca, J & Brandt, R (2010). 21st Century Skills:Rethinking How Students Learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Berger,P & Trexler, S (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Visser, M. (2010). Tagging: An Organization scheme for the internet. Information Technology and Libraries, 29(1), 34-39. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1967168931).

Peltier-Davis, C.. (2009, November). Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Library User 2.0, Librarian 2.0: Innovative Services for Sustainable Libraries. Computers in Libraries, 29(10), 16,18-21. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source. (Document ID: 1895896931).

Videosharing

The world of YouTube and social media is one in which our students are so familiar with and has now become part of young people’s culture. How did we get to this point, and what does it mean for education? (Soloman & Schrum, 2007)

Reflections of The Process    

 Being the digital dabbler that I am, I already had a YouTube account and have uploaded videos to it before. I have never felt compelled to share what I have created with the world and chose to keep my channel somewhat private. I know this defeats the purpose of videosharing, but I am not at the point that I feel comfortable broadcasting myself so that the whole world can see. Perhaps I should rethink this choice, especially after Justin Beiber became famous from a YouTube video. Maybe I too could become famous by simply putting myself out there? I did upload an Animoto video to YouTube this summer, but I haven’t had any calls from agents. If you know of any can you please pass this on?






Reflections on the Process of Learning About the Tool

Since I had already dabbled with YouTube, TeacherTube, Animoto, Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premier elements, and imovie, and various screencasting tools, I decided to explore some of the other moviemaking and moviesharing tools available on the internet. As always I looked to my favourite Technology Blogging guru, Richard Bryne, for ideas. I decided to try a few of his suggested movie making tools that appeared in his “Making Videos On the Web-A Guide For Teachers.”

Open publication - Free publishing

The first one I tried was Masher, which is a free tool for creating video mash-ups. Masher allows you to upload your own music, images, and videos, and offers a wide variety of themes through the masher library. The tool itself was pretty easy to use at first because of the simple drag and drop interface but as I continued to add some of the different features others disappeared and I was quite frustrated as there was no “undo” button and I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

The video clips that I chose from the masher library had a set time allotted to them and it was too long. Unfortunately I don’t have any movie making equipment of my own to test out how Masher works if you are uploading your own work. I will have to try another time as I think this is another potential tool for students to use.

I also tried Photopeach which is another free tool that allows you to upload images from your computer, Picassa, Flickr, or Facebook to create an audio slideshow. Photopeach allows you to add text and music, and you are able to determine the order of appearance of your photos, but you can’t import any video. Photopeach does not have all of the bells and whistles that other video creation tools do, but sometimes less is more.

New York 2010 on PhotoPeach



Even though I am quite content with Jing as my number one screencasting tool I thought I would explore what other tools are available. Screentoaster would do in a pinch if you were desperate to share and record what was happening on your screen. Unfortunately, it records with this image in the middle of your screen. To me, this defeats the purpose because you can’t see what is actually happening on the screen.

Videosharing and My Personal Life

I find myself, on the first week-end in October, feeling a sort of calmness. Or is it more a sense of normalcy in my life? After a month of getting into the swing of things I feel like I am figuring out a routine of balancing my teacher-librarian work, my teaching, my own school work, and my extra-curricular activities. Does this mean that my life is no longer chaotic? No, I am now accepting it as the norm. I think after a month and a bit I am getting better at managing and scheduling my time, after all I did spend many hours hashing out a color coded schedule for myself on my outlook calendar trying to get organized.

With this new sense of calmness, I spent the earlier part of the morning sipping on a cappuccino in my sunny front room while delving into a new YA novel that I am reviewing for our SYRCA Willows Book Awards. Even though I am reading for pleasure, because YA books are my favourite, I still have a purpose for reading and specific criteria to keep in mind as I read. As I revisited general criteria for reviewing books I had an “aha” moment. Why don’t I develop criteria for reviewing the web 2.0 tools that we are exploring this term? I started brainstorming what the criteria would look like and interestingly enough I discovered that the same criteria such as: audience, value, noteworthiness, purpose, applicability, and overall recommendations, for reviewing books could apply to reviewing web 2.0 tools.

Audience: Me

Value: A few years ago my husband taught himself to whistle through his fingers by watching a “how to” Youtube Video and it worked. Even though I primarily use YouTube as a learning tool for educational purposes there have been times that it has come in handy. We don’t own a video camera or a flipcam and the only video we have is on our smart phones and we don’t use that feature too often. Youtube and other videosharing tools are great for my job as a TL and teacher but in my personal life I seem to be more of a consumer of videosharing tools than a creator.

Noteworthy Features: I have a few friends that live overseas and we use Skype to talk to each other on a regular basis and we really enjoy having the video feature available. I can show my friend in Australia how much snow we got by simply taking my laptop outside.

Would I recommend videosharing?: I don’t use it very often in my personal life so it is difficult to recommend something that I don’t use. Although, there are times when my friends, or my husband and I share videos that we come across that are interesting, or applicable to our lives.  The other day my husband sent the following video as he thought it was quite clever. Even though we may not be creating the videos we are still connecting to them, and being a consumer of them.


Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.


Purpose: I know of some young parents that record their child’s first steps and other significant moments and share them with the proud grandparents via the internet. Maybe when I get to that point in my life I may choose to do the same. The purpose for videosharing in my personal life is striclty for entertainment.

Applicable? Despite not being a creator of videos, I consume and enjoy watching them. I will continue to save, and pass on videas that I think friends and family would enjoy.

Overall Recommendation?  Videosharing tools can be entertaining, purposeful, and informative. Don't forget to use them as a resource the next time you need to learn how to change a tire.  

Videosharing and Teaching

Audience: K-8 students at my school, teachers, and teacher-librarians.

Value: The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education is currently renewing curricula from K-12 and the new curricula emphasizes the importance of developing an inquiry stance to instruction and fostering "inquiring habits of mind that lead to deeper understanding of their world and human experience. (Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, 2009).  Shifts in education are occuring around the world and the "bottom line is that the changing nature of information and communications and how students are making sense of the world demands that we develop new strategies for teaching and learning" (Berger &Trexler, 2010, p.7). So, why not teach with the tools that the students are using?  In the 21st century we must strive to move beyond simply teaching our students to learn how to use technology tools, but more importantly to consider how the tools may enable our students to be more creative, to communicate and collaborate globally, and how to manage and organize the massive amounts of information that they have access to.

Videosharing tools such as Skype provide all of our students from K-12  with an opportunity to connect with experts around the world, and to communicate with, and learn from students from other countries and cultures. During my research this past week I came across the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration website that has been created for educators around the world to post potential collaborative learning opportunities. I e-mailed six or seven educators that were looking for schools to collaborate with and I am excited to see if any of the teachers reply. This would be an excellent opportunity for our students learning to move beyond the four walls of the classroom. YouTube, and other social media sites have the ability to push our students thinking forward. A few years ago I had my grade 11 English class create digital stories about a significant moment in their life. The process took them quite some time as they began with the writing process, moved into storyboarding, considered what media they were going to use, found copyright free images and music to express their new knowledge and understanding. In the past this lesson only required them to think  in a linear fashion and only encompassed one type of literacy rather than multiple literacies.

In the library I can see videosharing playing a key role. As you know, I am new to the role of teacher-librarianship and I am working towards creating a participatory culture in my library. A space where the students can come to create, connect, share, contribute, and converse with others. Buffy Hamilton talks about ways in which teacher-librarians can acheive this in her slideshare presentation "Beyond Balance: Participatory Librarianship for creating, connecting, conversing, and contributing"

Beyond Balance: Participatory Librarianship for Creating, Connecting, Conversing, and Contributing

View more presentations from Buffy Hamilton.

I gleaned a lot of useful information from this presentation and I firmly beleive that videosharing and other web 2.0 tools are the key to giving our students a voice in the library. One of the ways in which I hope to create this culture is by creating a learning commons blog where I can highlight students work, and have the students contribute their thoughts and ideas. This year I am hoping to have our very own Book Teasers Awards, similar to the School Library Journal Trailee Awards. I have already started talking to other schools to see if this is something we could all collaborate together on.

Noteworthy: Projects can be easily edited, and peers can provide feedback with most photosharing tools.

Purpose: Supports and extends students learning beyond the four walls of the classroom. Videosharing can be used to invite and engage our students to participate in making the library their own.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. As we move forward in the 21st century we will continue to see tremendous shifts in the information and communication landscapes, and this will continue to impact and transform the way our students read, write, learn, and contribue to society. I beleive that video-sharing has the ability to teach our students to: inquire, think critically, share knowledge, participate ethically and productively, communicate and collaborate globally, and to pursue personal and aesthetic growth. These skills reflect the AASL's Standards for the 21st Century Learner and are essential to allow our students to develop the skills and knowledge to be successful contributing members of society.

References
Berger, Pam & Sally Trexler (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Solomon, Gwen & Schrum Lynn (2007). Web 2.0 new tools, for new schools. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.

Brooks-Young, Susan (2010). Teaching with the tools kids really use. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin a Sage Company.

Digital Dabbler

      Even though growing up in the 80’s meant that I wore MC Hammer pants, anything neon, and always had my hair in a side ponytail, I can’t claim to be a digital native. The only claim to fame I have from the 80’s is hideous fashion and being an expert playing Duck Hunt and Mario Brothers. Young people from ages twelve to seventeen are considered to be Digital Natives, and those who were not born into a digital world are considered to be Digital Immigrants.  So where do I, and other almost 30 something year olds fit into this mix?  Right smack dab in the middle as a Digital Dabbler (Kulyk, 2010).  I think the term “Digital Dabbler” is a suitable term for my era as we all dabbled in our share of technology such as ICQ, MSN messenger, MySpace, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, IRC, and web forums.

A Digital Dabbler’s Photosharing Learning Process

       You may not be a surprised to discover that I, a digital dabbler, created a Flickr account back in 2005. I remember that one of my friends, a freelance artist at the time, was the one who introduced Flickr to me.  She used Flickr as a space to share and sell her new artwork and connect with friends, and I used Flickr as a space to store and share my photos with friends too.  Needless to say I did not keep up my Flickr account, and after other social media came along such as Facebook, I never gave it a second thought.  A few years ago I created a new account, but because I have not been an avid user I had to create yet another new account because I forgot my login and password.  This time around, my learning consisted of what was different between signing up for an account as an informed adult educator versus a digital dabbler and I concluded the following: 

There Are Privacy Settings 

    Signing up as an informed adult meant that I was aware of the “settings option” in Flickr and I changed it accordingly. Being a digital dabbler in the late 90’s meant that we all explored, created, and shared, without batting an eye. Why would we? No one was teaching us how to be smart online or what it meant to be out there in cyberspace. This time around I knew to look for my personal settings and make the appropriate changes.

It Is Important to Keep Track of Usernames and Passwords

   Over the past few years I have created a lot of new accounts for a variety of different online tools and have come to realize the importance of being organized. I don’t want to give my secret away, but I now have a system for tracking all of this information.

Photosharing and My Personal Life

     In the years 2004-2007 there was a widespread adoption of social media and I, like many others, was caught up in the hype. Yet, in 2010 I have moved away from creating albums online, organizing my pictures, and even taking pictures. We did take photos during our summer holiday in NYC but they are nicely organized on my husband’s MAC and have been backed up onto our external hard drive. I know that other digital dabblers continue to create and share their holiday photos, wedding and baby photos online. So why is it that I stopped creating, customizing and sharing my photos on social media sites? Is it because I don’t feel like I have a purpose for creating an album or uploading photos when we already use iphoto? I know that one of the driving forces behind personal media creation is sharing your media with others. As I pondered why I don’t use photosharing more in my personal life I realized that I don’t know who I would share it with.  I am aware that “online sites for storing and circulating personal media are facilitating a growing set of options for sharing and youth do not need to carry around photo albums to share photos with friends and family” (Lange & Ito, 2010, p.248). I know quite a few people who use photosharing sites such as Flickr to send pictures and videos of their children to their families and friends that live far away. I could see wanting to share our pictures that way when we decide to have children but, until then I need to have a purpose and driving force to create something. I am no longer driven to share my pictures with friends, but I am more inclined to share with family.  Until I have a purpose or reason to share my photos I will find other activities to do in my spare time. Just like our students, I need to have a purpose or driving force to want to complete an activity. I do realize that it is important for me as a learner to be aware and stay abreast of new technologies and advances in web 2.0 tools. After dabbling with Flickr and other photosharing sites I realized that I am more apt to stay current by utilizing this tool in my library and classroom. 

Implications For Teaching and Learning 

Teaching Digital Natives

      It is undeniable that the world is rapidly changing. What does this mean for education, and what should a 21^st century education consist of? Ken Kay (2010) believes that a 21^st century education must be “tied to outcomes, in terms of proficiency in core subject knowledge and 21^st century skills that are expected and highly valued in school, work, and community settings” (p. xx).  As I reflected on photosharing as a tool, I considered ways in which it allows our students to think, learn, solve problems, communicate, collaborate, and contribute with others and the world. Interestingly enough, I discovered that using and accessing Flickr and other photosharing sites allow our students to have exposure to multimodal and digital literacies.  Multimodality refers to “the combination of two or more modes in representation-linguistic (written words), visual, audio, gestural, and spatial” ( Mills,K. 2010, p.2).  But where do we begin? How do we introduce various web 2.0 tools and new literacies? How do we know if our students are ready for them? 

    Over the past few years I have come to realize that we can’t assume that all of our students are digital natives, or that all of them are at the same level of readiness to learn.  Dewey (1929) brought to the forefront the importance of learners’ readiness to learn and the need to take into account the knowledge, competencies, and interests of the learner as a place to begin instruction. 

Photosharing In The Classroom and Library

Using photosharing as a tool for instruction may not be a starting point, but rather a springboard. Teaching with, and using images allows students to explore tagging, privacy options, digital citizenship, searching, representing, and sharing. As with other web 2.0 tools we must consider how we could scaffold instruction for our students.  Photosharing is going to look quite different in the Kindergarten classroom than what it would in a grade eight classroom. There are numerous opportunities to use photosharing in the classroom as an instructional tool and an excellent starting point would be the teacher modelling and using this tool. Berger and Trexler (2010) in their book Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World provide examples of how teachers and students are using photosharing in many different ways.  Some of the ideas that I gleaned that I would like to try with teachers are: virtual storytelling, illustrating a poem, virtual field trip, art study, and classifying. I am also hoping to explore with some photosharing in the library by advertising library programs, capturing photos of our students reading and being engaged. These could be displayed on the projector as a slideshow or on a digital photo frame. 

Final Thoughts

 As we plan for instruction and consider tools and strategies for our 21^st century learners we must never assume that our digital natives have the necessary skills and foundation to read, view, and participate ethically and collaboratively both on and off the web. As I reflect on photosharing as an instructional tool I know that it could be used in almost every subject area and could be scaffolded in such a manner to meet the needs of all learners in different grades.  The “how” and “what” may change across the grade levels, but ultimately this is one more tool that will allow our students to become part of a participatory culture of learners. 

References

 

Mills, K. (2010). Shrek Meets Vygotsky: Rethinking Adolescents' Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1), 35-45. doi:10.1598/JAAL.54.1.4.

Berger, Pam & Sally Trexler. (2010).  Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.