Not So Distant Future

Uber librarian Joyce Valenza has created an extremely helpful wiki listing copyright free music and art sites for student projects.  Since it’s a wiki, anyone using it can also contribute sites to it, and create as she calls it, an “uberwikipathfinder” for copyright free media.  The wiki’s sidebar lists links for music, clipart, and even image creation sites.

Recently one of our teachers asked me in a workshop why I like blogging.  This is why–through the power of reading someone’s blog, I discover a tool that I can share with our entire campus and others in our district.   The ability to share resources is an amazing multiplier of our efforts as educators.

In this vein of sharing, another ”uber” site that I know of is one from Scott McLeod, at Dangerously Irrelevant, who is asking for contributions to his Moving Forward wiki of tools for schools addressing school change. 

And I’ve been working on a wiki site for our campus as well, which I created to introduce various web 2.0 tools to our staff.  I’m collecting some of these uber sites on my wiki, so if you know of one you’d like to share, let me know.

Update:  One of our teachers requested a summary of copyright law.  This chart is a good resource for that.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting feature today about various web 2.0 tools like Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Zoho that parents can use to help their children with homework remotely.

It especially caught my attention because the Gregg La Montagne in the article lives in the same household I do and happens to be my husband.    (There’s also a nice mention of Steve Hargadon and Vicki Davis.)

Newsweek Online has a fascinating article about how the use of blogs and wikis is spreading across government agencies, businesses, etc.  

“In what’s been dubbed the “wiki workplace,” a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software—a basket of technologies that include wikis, blogs and other tools—to foster innovation across organizational and geographic boundaries. Executives say the new tools make it easier for teams to collaborate and share information, and to get projects up and running on the fly. “Collaborative software has become a very important part of how businesses will invent and innovate,” says Ken Bisconti, IBM’s vice president of messaging and collaboration software.”

The article documents uses by the United Nations, Germany, IBM, and even a “wiki Congress” site.

“Imagine millions of people connecting with world leaders and thinkers to discuss, debate and collaborate on everything from global politics to climate change. “Wikinomics” coauthor Don Tapscott says wikis have the potential to spawn new models for international problem solving and dialogue, increase transparency in government and open communication between citizens and policymakers.”

As these tools move into the mainstream, how can schools still be blocking blog sites or wiki sites from student use?  Will we really be preparing our students for the world they live in outside of school, the workplace, or future where information is “transparent” if we don’t allow them to utilize them as part of the learning process?

One ”techie” tool that has got me jazzed this summer is Skype.

    If you haven’t used Skype, it allows you to “phone” or “conference call” others from your computer to anyone anywhere;  it also has a chat room feature which you can use along with the conference call or separately.

Some great features include the ability to log or bookmark the chat or call, so that it can be read or heard later, for your own reference or to share with others.

In the last couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to participate in some very exciting conversations via Skype.  This morning I got to be part of a teacher workshop in New Jersey.  The presenter, Patrick Higgins,  ”skyped” in three of us, and he interviewed us about blogging over Skype as the teachers listened in and asked questions.

The more I’ve used this tool, the more I’ve been thinking about its use in the classroom and in the library.  (And since it is Global Library 2.0 week, it seemed like the perfect time to write about it!)

We often talk about networking with others outside of our campus and connecting students to those outside of the campus.  There is so much that students can gain from interacting with students in other places with other experiences, or in interacting with experts in different fields.

But also, as our campus is thinking more about interdisciplinary connections between subject areas within our current “8 period day” framework, I think tools like Skype and blogs are great ones to enable our students in different classrooms to connect to one another within our campus, as well as without.

I am imagining the possibilities of our junior American Literature class skyping into our junior American history class, for example, to work on a particular investigation.  Add to that an outside person skyping into both classes to talk to them simultaneously about something related to what they are studying.

I’m imagining the use of this tool as a librarian, skyping in a guest speaker, or guest “researcher” for a class working on a particular research problem, or skyping in authors for a chat with a class.  Or hosting a regular once monthly “skypecast” of a guest speaker on a technology topic.   Or hosting a book discussion ”skypecast” during the evening as a special library event for students to join in.  It’s video conferencing made very simple, and like blogs, though it is a techology “tool” it offers all sorts of connective possibilities for us and our students.

And again, like blogging, it is about helping students have reflective conversations that extend their learning, and that extend their range of possibilities.

(I’m going to write more later about the Skypecast I participated in today, once the audio of it is available soon on Chalkdust, Patrick’s blog.   Even though I was there as a guest, I learned a great deal about blogging, (probably learned more than I shared!) because the other two Skypees,  Konrad Glogowski  and Clay Burrell, have used blogs much more in a classroom setting and shared a deep understanding of how to effectively help students with them.)

Barbara Barreda wrote recently about Joyce Valenza’s presentation at the Building Learning Communities conference.  Joyce talked about how as a librarian she wanted to be where her users are.   I see Skype as one  web 2.0 tools that would allow for that possibility.  

So many of the web 2.0 tools allow us to remove barriers–the hours of a school day, the walls of a classroom, the walls of a building, the city limits, a country’s borders.    What can we provide for our students when we open up the possibilities of a barrier free learning environment?

Technorati Tags: globallib2.0week

  Speaking of student voices, a couple of months ago, I had posted a request from Edutopia on our student blog, asking students what technologies they use at home that they wish they used at school.

We had several responses on the blog, which I sent to Edutopia, and to my delight today, I stumbled over the resulting Sky’s the Limit article  at Edutopia’s site, where several of our students’ ideas were included, and one of our students, Christina, was quoted!   I’m very excited for them!   (Though I am puzzled why the quote wasn’t credited?)  The article also appears in the print edition, by the way.

Thanks to Edutopia for including our students’ voices, and to Will Richardson, for sending an email about it in the first place!  

(And I’m hoping that more of our parents, students, and teachers will apply for their free subscriptions to Edutopia, since both the site and the magazine do an excellent job of bringing in many facets of the educational conversation.)

For some summertime “play,” here are a few new tools that I found on Karen Janowski’s blog about assistive technology– She has posted a very extensive list of helpful study skill types of tools.

My favorites from her list?  

Bubbl.us is a free brainstorming tool.   We have Inspiration on our district computers, but what about when students get home?  This tool can help them create mindmaps, complete brainstorming activities, and organize their thoughts. 

The added advantage?  They can share their mind map with others, either allowing them to just view their mind map, or granting them permission to also edit it.    One tip–for the younger students, you might want to teach them to press the zoom button in the top left corner to make them larger and easier to manipulate.

PBL Checklists allows you as a teacher to create a checklist for students, like a writing evaluation sheet or an oral presentation checklist.   They have some preset examples that you can select from.  Or you can type in your own checklist items.  When you click on create printable checklist, it organizes your list for printing–a very helpful tool for creating rubrics/checklists.

However, the one from her list that makes me say “wow” is Eyejot,  a video email tool.  So instead of writing an email, you record a video with a webcam.  It is stored until the recipient has time to watch it and record their response.  It works along the same lines as Yackpack for audio.   This has great possibilities for students with special needs, bloggers, teachers communicating across campuses, or families.

Photo credit:  “Pipecleaner Art”  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/35978363/

When you are searching for sites that are helpful to use with students, it’s such a slow process, looking through each site to see if the graphics, design, layout, etc., are appealing for younger students. 

During a workshop I was teaching today on Pageflakes (great visual tool for introducing RSS feeds–Thanks Will Richardson for sharing it), we ran across a very helpful tool I hadn’t seen before, Pagebull.

Pagebull is a visual search site–it displays the results of your searches visually.  For example, I did a search on “education blogs” and here is a screen shot of the results.

If you scroll over the little magnifying glass for each page, it enlarges it also so you can “check it out” in more detail.

A pagebull search box can also be added as a “flake” in Pageflakes, by the way, which is how we found it (Or I should say Susannah found it during my workshop!)  It is in the “full gallery” of additional “flakes.”

I love it when tools are this easy to use!

I love it when teaching “kismet” happens, when you accidentally find things that are useful right when you need them.   I’m teaching a workshop tomorrow on using wikis in the classroom, and today just by happenstance as I was reading through several blogs, I ran across three items about wikis that I’ll be sharing tomorrow.

Earlier today at the Communication Nation, I ran across this mind mapping tool, Wiki MindMap, that can be used with Wikipedia to outline any topic.  It opens up the topic map as you click on the subtopics, and is very cool.

Another thing I ran across quite by accident is this clever video explaining how wikis work, thanks to Sheryl at 21st Century Collaborative.

Sheryl pointed to Leigh Blackall, who first shared the video, and who also came up with this great quote to convey the usefulness of wikis to her students:  “Researching together is more effective than researching alone.”  

It struck me that we tend to think of research as a somewhat solitary activity (except for a few professions like science), and part of the paradigm shift for all of us with web 2.0 is to think about the effectiveness of utilizing our collective intelligence.  I think Leigh’s comment conveys that idea well and succinctly.

Anyway, all of these random finds will deepen my presentation tomorrow–so thanks, and hurray for serendipity!

  We’ve requested six iPods from our PTO for use in the classroom, for checking out audiobooks to students, and for podcasting use, and they’re arriving next week.

Want some ideas how to use them in the classroom?  Check out this incredible presentation by Gloria Woods from the Bolles School at NECC last summer and at FETC for a creative wealth of ideas for using iPods across the curriculum!

(A few of the slides wouldn’t play for me, but the presentation is chock full of ideas!)

photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/zengame/272483282/

A new study from the U.S. Dept. of Ed relating to technology is going to stir up some conversation.

The findings, as described in the Washington Post, were that after studying standardized math and reading scores:

 Educational software, a $2 billion-a-year industry that has become the darling of school systems across the country, has no significant impact on student performance, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Education.

However, if you read to the very end of the article, it lists the software that was studied–which was LeapFrog SchoolHouse, PLATO Learning, Scholastic Inc. and Pearson.     

Though I would be the first to agree that sometimes this software is marketed as a panacea,  my real fear is that this study will be used to bash all use of technology in schools.  In fact, much of what these companies market are skill builders or course recovery software, not the kind of creative or productivity suites that most high schools are using to teach students to communicate–like Powerpoint, Movie Maker, Publisher, Photoshop, and web 2.0 tools like wikis.  (An interesting aside–on  Two Cents Worth, David Warlick has a lengthy conversation going on about how to integrate these tools.) 

Also, the study evidently didn’t ask about student motivation or enthusiasm, or any other skills beyond standardized math and reading scores (what about science, social studies, music, art, computer skills?)  Is that all we are about in schools are a standardized reading and math test score?   Are there any other measures of student learning or success after high school?

I also would like to point out that although the study found that students didn’t perform any better, it also didn’t find that they performed worse.   How might some of the less motivated students have performed without the use of the technology?   Were the students studied against their own performance prior to having the technology?  Or were they being compared to last year’s students? 

Of course no software or web 2.0 tool is a panacea.  Teachers need training on how to use it.  It needs to fit smoothly into the curriculum or project being done.  It needs to ask students to synthesize or create something new or interact in a new way.  It needs to add value to the assignment, and a new way of communicating or understanding it.

But if we are preparing students for a world where almost everything is done online, from banking to purchasing to writing to corporate communications, I think we have to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here and use this study as an excuse for schools not to use technology of any kind, part of our national tendency to boil information down to one simplistic  headline.