Week 5 - Wikis & RRS Feeds

Chapters 4 and 5 from Richardson's text deal with Wikis and RRS feeds respectively.   Chapter 4 begins on page 55 with a powerful quote from the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, states "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.  That's what we're doing."  The collaboration and synthesis of the experts of various fields can come together and combine their knowledge for the entire world to benefit and share.  It is almost awe inspiring in its aspiration.  To be honest, if anyone has a question, and I don't know the answer, I quickly google it, and 4 out of 5 times I'll be forwarded to Wikipedia.  The tough part about Wikipedia is that it IS a wiki, it can be edited by any author at any time.  The collaboration that is included in that wealth of knowledge is wonderful, but dangerously powerful.  Although, there are always more editors ensuring that the information being edited is correct then there are authors posting incorrect information, it is difficult to always be certain that the page you're currently browsing is completely accurate.  For that reason, my schools have always called wikipedia a site that was 'off limits' as a resource for papers.
I am not positive where schools should stand on this issue now.  I suppose that if we want to teach our students to be critical users and active participants in the world of Web 2.0, then wikis are deffinately a part of them.  Similar to blogs, students can easily post, edit, review, and collaborate with peers or even experts from across the world.  It is also extremely neat that as history is in the making, a new entry can be created to share the events with the world, just as its occurring.  Similar to the events of the earth quake in 2004, listed on page 57.    Wikipedia is so frequently edited by experts to ensure correctness of information, that it can almost always be a trusted resource.  Maybe schools can use wikipedia as a stepping ground for research, to teach students to have a critical eye and find other sources that verify or disprove the information provided.  There are other uses for wikis, not just wikipedia, in the classroom.  Schools or classrooms can create their own wikis to create entries on, so that the work is more private and authentically each student's own, but still offers the venue for peer collaboration and editing.

RRS feeds were completely foreign to me.  I could not have guessed what RRS even stood for, fortunately on page 71, Richardson explains that  "RRS stands for Really Simple Syndication."   An RSS is basically a place where one can have technology do the work for you in terms of keeping up on, tracking, locating, and saving information from all of the many sites/blogs/wikis/whatever else you may want to be following.  In the ever expanding world on the internet, and the more time crunched lives of educators, it seems it would be impossible to check every site or blog for new information all the time, every day, or even just once a week. Utilizing this tool makes it possible for the work to be done for you.  This tool can be used for professional development, or personal interests, as well as in the classroom setting.  If a class is full of students with blogs, a teacher can use the RSS to follow all of them at once, instead of having to manually enter into each of the students weblogs.  The possibility of using RSS feeds for student research is just a wonderful use of a tool for research to be ongoing 24/7, which could be used for primary students as a whole class activity, or individualized for older students interests and projects.  Farkas' article Keeping Up, 2.0 Style, nicely articulates the bountiful usefulness of RSS feeds with the simple reminder of how busy and short our days can become.  Using RSS feeds can help simplify ones use of all of the great internet resources and help keep people up to date.

Radical Change & Wikis: teaching new literacies, written by Luce-Kapler is an article that discusses how to utilize wikis in the classroom.  The article promotes who well students took on the art form of the digital media and texts, and adapted those traits into their own publishing, making them better writers.  The article gives many great ideas and uses for wikis in the educational setting, as did the other article, Digital Literacies, written by Knobel and Lanksher. The two authors shed light on how even more valuable wikis can be for collaboration on the web.  It seems to be that wikis help to engage students and spark there interests.  With motivation always serving as a difficult thing to tackle for some students the resourcefulness of these online tools can really help to pool a classroom together towards literacy on the read-write-web. 

Week 4 - The Social Web/ Social Networking

Social Networking! Hooray! A subject I am finally well versed in!  I have been an online social butterfly, since I was, goodness maybe around 11 years old.  Wow, that fact is almost frightening, this means that nearly half of my life I've been wired to the World Wide Web.  My brain is probably mush by now.   Let's see, I began using AIM with my friends at school right about the time that instant messaging became possible.   When Facebook first began, you were only able to attain an account with a college email address, so I was a Myspace user.  The summer before my Junior year of high school FB opened its doors to any email account.  I've been hooked since.  I am sure I check FB at the very least once a day.  (And I don't even have internet access at home!)


I personally refused to be a Twitter tweeter.  However, it is only because I couldn't really fathom anyone's desire to follow me.  Twitter I believe is a very useful site for famous people like, Hollywood star-lights, popular musicians, authors, and highly published educated types.  Unless if someone finally talks me into trying for American Idol, X factor,  or some other crazy TV show jump to stardom, I seriously doubt anyone's need to know just what I'm up to or my thoughts on the matter.  My friends and family barely want and update on whats going on in all of my goings on, and that is perniciously why we're friends on FB and I sometimes state "whats on my mind".

Reading the article on being a Twitter teacher I really do see the educational benefits and uses to giving Twitter another chance, in a different light.   I love the idea of using Twitter as a form of alternative assessment during lessons to not interrupt class/ lesson flow, but still be able to keep track of where student's understanding.  Having a live stream for discussion, collaborative writings, helpful hints, clarifications, and video/photo connections seems like an endless resource to help enhance classroom learning.   The usefulness of social networks for administrative connections as well as community inclusion and information providing seems so practical as well. 




I had never really understood what Ning was before reading the Chapters in Richardson's text. to be honest, Ning was just another website, among the list, that my high school informed us that we weren't allowed to access while on the campus grounds.  I'm very disappointing in my high school, because Ning seems perfectly harmless and extremely practical for student/teacher use in appropriate school approved ways. It seems like another great location for a more private classroom network for students to collaborate and or have discussions on educational topics.

The debate over the practicality and safe use of social networking sites in classrooms is a hot one.  I have to agree with the choice most districts have made to ban most sites.  To be honest, teachers are just starting to catch up with their student's uses of sites for "friendship based" connections.   It may prove to difficult to monitor student's use, educate them, and guide them to tasteful choices, while the educator is still 2 steps behind on the uses themselves.  Teachers should not be friends with their students.  I mean, I call all of my student's "friends" as a collective whole, and relations should be friendly, and I believe they should transcend the school environment to the outside world.  However, students need teachers to be educators, authority figures, and most importantly role models not buddies, and especially not buddies online.  Showing students appropriate ways to use social networks is necessary, and I think that is were using private twitter classroom following, or Ning groups would come in. 

Week 3 - Weblogs

    Upon reading chapters 2 and 3 from the Richardson text as well as the articles on "HOT Blogging" and Connecting with Authors Blogs, I still feel completely blown out of the water for all that I did not know, and most likely still have to learn, about blogs.  Not only the topic of blogs or their creation, but the utility and  resource in the growing world of literacy in the classroom.  I feel excited about the possibilities because they seem endless, however, I also feel daunted and nervous about the many considerations that must also be incorporated into classroom blogging.

   The readings offered very helpful information on how to begin blogs and select blogging programs, as well as thoughtful insights as to security policies and classroom implementation.  The whole task seems a little intimidating at first.  I see so many positive features to using classroom blogs.  For example, being able to read and learn about insights directly from authors of texts can help students feel more connected to what they read, as well as have a deeper understanding of editing/ writing processes.  The ability to showcase art, poems, high achievements, and well contemplated blogs to help promote publication and connectivity, as well as fostering pride in students' works is a great asset to blogging.  A part of the publication makes writing authentic.  I really enjoy that student's work would no longer be an exchange between only that student and the teacher, but have real meaning and extension throughout the classroom and inter web communities.    I also love the enviornmentally friendly direction blogging can eventually take all classrooms.  With the ability to post via the internet, the classroom has the potential to become as paperless as possible.

    However, I do feel some concerns about the implementation of classroom blogging.  I worry about the extensive amount of time that would need to be involved in setting blogs up, managing, considering security, involving district authorities and parents, teaching students, trouble shooting, and who knows what else.  I do understand that with all new processes of learning things take time and once time has been devoted to a new task, things become more rapid with time and practice.  It is just, as I have already noted, the entire task can seem overwhelming, and I still worry for less computer savvy teachers.  I also feel a degree of concern for the special education community.   Blogging might be the avenue to finally equalizing some students with their on level or more advanced peers.  Blogging might also create a voice for the less outgoing students.  However, I worry about the disconnect of higher level synthesis and comprehension for some students.  I wonder what assistance will be given to non verbal students or physically disabled children.

I do suppose all of these concerns are natural and perhaps other teachers have already faced these issues and I can use edublog to ease my mind. 

Who knows everything is out there on the internet these days, right?

Week 2: New Literacies Perspective

Blogs, Wikis, Pdocasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms written by Will Richardson, will be the main text throughout, at least the beginning portion of, our class this semester.  Discussion last week served as a very good appetizer to wet my interests toward the main meal of these readings. 

I feel that because of my youth I'm in general technologically literate, the second I walked into any of my practicum or student teaching sites, I was used to trouble shoot any sort of computer glitch the teachers may have been experiencing.  However, by just reading these few short chapters, I realize there is a world of Internet connections I know nothing about.  I use google or wikipedia to answer quick questions, I'm a facebook and youtube user, I've been on friend's Flicker accounts,  but I had never actually blogged, or realized the vast implication the Read/Write Web would mean for my future teaching.

I feel fortunate to be a moderate user of technology as education makes this shift into new literacies.  I worry for other generations who struggle to integrate basic computer use into their daily lives, let alone their classroom.  I hope the best for all life-long-learners to see the usefulness of these paradigm shifts.

I'm excited to learn more and be able to find the uses for a generation of collaborative, yet consumer savvy students in the future. 

My first blog ever!   :-)