Reflections on Learning About Web 2.0

For the past 4 months we have been immersed in Web 2.0 learning. This experience has been like being thrown into a new culture with a new language and customs to learn. As I start my thoughts are like the leaves blowing in this great windstorm we are having. 

Picture from Flickr - "The Commons" 

They are all over the place and this blog will try to calm that wind allowing me to catch those leaves and put them in nice neat piles, explaining the learning that has occurred over this period of time. Not an easy task at all!!! 

Highlights and Lowlights of My Learning

I think that for me the highlight was all of the new learning that I was able to accomplish. I used to be quite “up with technology”. In a former job I was a technology coordinator for a small school division and at that time was the guy that everyone turned to with all things technology. As such I had to know at least a little about all sorts of “internet stuff”. I then changed jobs and have been away from that for that past 5 years. There have been a lot of things that I have heard about (most of the things studied in this class) that I did not have the time to explore and learn about. This class gave me that chance to familiarize myself with those things and I now have a renewed confidence to talk, at least somewhat knowledgeably about these things.

While the new learning was a high the low that went along with that was the high demand on time that was required from this class. I found that within a week we had to read about in texts and follow along to explore sites in a trailfire to gain background knowledge. We then also had to try out a new application and tie together all of the learning in the week. That often resulted in very busy weeks working in the evenings and most of the weekend. Just as one would end another would be waiting to start up. It was a lot more work and commitment of time than many of the other online classes I have taken along my journey towards a Masters Degree but as I said, all of the new learning was a highlight as well.

In terms of the specific tools we looked at I felt that some of them had a better fit than others to my world. In particular I really enjoyed using blogger. I find that RSS is a great tool and thus was another highlight. Podcasting has some great potential in schools. I was impressed with the ease at which you could create a podcast using a free program such as Audacity. I would have to say that trying Twitter was a bit of a low point for me. It was my second try at using this tool and I was disappointed to find that I still did not “get it” after giving it a real good try. I have not given up and with a bit of help from my friends may “get it” eventually. I will talk more about that later in this post.

Future Plans

As I have mentioned earlier, the highlight of this course for me was being able to learn about and use many of the newer tools from Web 2.0. I feel that I am just slowly getting caught up to the rest of the world. I want to continue to learn about these tools and also keep on top of new tools as they come out. In order to continue to learn about them I will need to use them on a daily basis. Right now I use blogger, RSS and Delicious regularly. I will continue this. I will need to edit and streamline my RSS feeds to make them more targeted and manageable.

For many of the other applications, I will need to revisit and try to put them to more use now that I have some extra time. For example I have not had a chance to revisit Flickr and upload my library of pictures. That may be a summer project. I would also like to explore and use podcasting a lot more with my job. I want to try out Second Life. This was not a specific topic of this course but it came up several times. I keep hearing about the great opportunity that exists with the use of Twitter. As I was reviewing classmates blogs I read in Brad’s Twitter blog (March 29, 2010) about three twitter applications that I want to try out. I think that if I was to have greater access to seeing and responding to tweets I may be able to make greater use of the tool. He suggests trying TweetDeck, TwitterGadget and Twitterrific. I am particularly interested in trying Twitterrific with my blackberry to see how effective that can be.

I am currently a curriculum coordinator so I do not have any one classroom where I can try out and integrate these technologies in my classroom with students. I can however model their use and use these tools to help with professional development of teachers. An example of this would be to create a curriculum blog. The blog could be a venue for creating awareness and interest in learning about Web 2.0 tools. Teachers could be kept informed about news relating to curriculum along with Web 2.0 applications. They could be encouraged to try them out and then look for ways to incorporate them into their classrooms. Twitter could also have a similar professional development application if I could get all of our teachers using it on a regular basis.

When it comes to deciding which tools to share with colleagues, I find it difficult to decide. I think that each of us in this small class would place different values on the various tools based on their personal perspective. As such I see value in all of the tools we have explored and individual teachers will also have their own values that they will place on each tool. I feel that teachers need to be first be made aware of the tools and try them out personally to develop a comfort level with their use. Once that is established they will be the best at deciding how and if they can be used in their own classrooms.

There can be benefit to our education system from using all of the tools we have explored. I see immediate and effective applications in classrooms to tools such as blogging (Blogger), photosharing (Flickr), podcasting (Audacity and Voice Thread), video sharing (YouTube), social bookmarking (Delicious), and wikis. On the other hand, I see many of the tools we used having a greater fit with personal use than in schools. In this group I would put applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

I have recently had some responsibilities added to my job. I am now responsible for e-learning in our division. A big part of this role will be providing professional development on the use of many of these tools. I like the learning model that this class used to develop the skills and learning about these tools and will try to form our professional development in a similar style. Teachers need to be able to enter the learning where ever they are and go in the directions that they personally need. Teachers are being asked to provide this type of differentiated learning for their students so we should also model it with professional development opportunities.

The future of education has been described by Richardson (2009) and Davies (2009) in their final chapters. Richardson points out that as students move into future jobs they will be asked to work collaboratively with others from around the world to “create content for diverse and wide ranging audiences. Compare that with an education system that, by and large, asks those same students to work independently for a narrow audience (usually the teacher).” (p. 130). He talks about “Big Shifts” that must occur in classrooms to adapt. Davies (2009) also has a similar vision but she sees it being a bit more difficult to achieve. She suggests that teachers “initial reaction is to seek for ways of using new technologies within the context of existing practices.” (p. 104)

There are many roadblocks that exist to reaching this vision. Among the challenges are negative attitudes to change. These attitudes come from several sources including teachers, administrators (school and division), technical experts and parents. Another roadblock is the reality that hardware and internet infrastructure in all of our schools and especially in our rural schools is often quite lacking. We do not have enough computers, they are often inadequate to run these applications and to complicate things our internet bandwidth is challenged.

I came across an interesting slideshow from A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School by drmaryannbell@slideshare.net(drmaryannbell).

This presentation shows results of surveys conducted between 2008 and 2010 regarding filtering and Web 2.0 access in K-12 schools. I have included as a separate blog post directly below this one.  It is interesting to see the extent of blocking and the rational for it. This would not be much different than my school division.

Another reference to this resistance comes from David Warlick’s, 2 Cents Worth blog It Was Good Enough for Me. In this blog he talks about these challenges but provides 5 suggestions for dealing with them. This will be helpful to me as another future role I see for myself is to be an advocate for the inclusion of Web 2.0 tools in our schools.

Key Learning’s From Classmates

Learning in this class was not restricted to books, internet etc but was certainly enhanced by the interactions with all of the classmates. This was facilitated by the discussions on the course site as well as by linking to each others blogs and applications. There are many examples of things that I learned from my classmates. A couple of the key things I learned from others in the class are highlighted below.

1. When we were learning about Flickr Karen Burkett created a photostream with her pictures. This provided me with an example of how photos could be shared with “friends”.  Thanks for that Karen.
2. Another source of help when trying to figure out Flickr was the Mel Varga post.  He noted “The site noted below was mentioned in Chap. 7 of the Richardson text. Check out getting to know flickr (basic) video
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/265279980/” This video as well as the other links within the site was very helpful in learning more about flickr. Thanks Mel!
3. Bradlee McDiarmid suggested to use a site called VoiceThread to upload my MP3 files to and then use that site to create links to the files in my blog. This was very helpful in moving me forward when I was stuck. Also I referenced Brad’s advice regarding Twitter apps earlier in this post. Thanks Brad!
4. Throughout the class I have kept in touch with Rob. We have had several classes together in the past as part of the same cohort for the MES program. We both were taking this class in conjunction with another class and thus it was a lot of work and challenging to find time to do it all. The discussions with Rob throughout the semester helped both of us successfully handle the workload. Thanks for all of the help Rob!
5. Nancy and Pauline sent me an email with birthday greetings on Facebook. Not only did I discover that Nancy and I share a birthday but it was my first connection with classmates on my Facebook account. Thanks Nancey and Pauline!

These are just a few examples of how my classmates influenced my learning in this class. I did not mention everyone in these examples but I certainly could have. Thanks to all of my other classmates not mentioned here as well.

Reflection on the Process

As I mentioned earlier the class was a lot different than I had expected. I was not sure what to expect but found that the class really was jammed pact with work and learning. Right from the start we were introduced to this new learning style. I recall those early weeks becoming familiar with the course website, struggling to find my way around including finding how to link to my new blog site, creating the new blog, reading the text and going through the trailfires. Wow there was a lot to get familiar with.

It did not take long to realize that I had to work consistently throughout the week in order to be able to keep up with the pace of the class. I recall the relief I had (which was shared by all my classmates) when Joanne announced that she was dropping the second assignment from our requirements. Although this would have added additional learning opportunities it would have added a lot of stress to our lives and I feel that I was able to meet my learning expectations for the course this way.

I also recall my concerns early in the class regarding sharing any information about myself. When I would sign up to sites required for the course I was very hesitant to use my real name and information. I suppose this fear has developed over the years from hearing rumors, stories, and advice about keeping your personal information private. This notion was in conflict however with the theme of sharing in social websites. I have found that as time went along in the class I was more comfortable sharing more information about myself than at the start of the course. I am still not sure what an appropriate level of sharing is and will only find that with time and experience.

As we started signing up for more and more sites it became difficult to keep track of things if I was using different names for everything. We had some discussion on the course site about how each of us was handling this and I settled on creating a document in word that I keep all my site information. As I signed up for sites I would record and save the pertinent information here. I also started to be consistent with things such as user names from site to site.

The learning of so many different things was aided in that all of the social networking sites have similar look and feel to them. Before long it did not seem so overwhelming to learn new tools. Every week we were introduced to a new tool. I found that each week I signed up for something new and set out learning about it. The week of immersion allowed me to develop a level of awareness and knowledge that will allow me to explore further in the future and feel confident as we finish this class.

Although it seemed like we had more sources of information and learning than we could consume in a week we were encouraged to do additional research. I found that much of the additional research I found using the U of A library databases and Google scholar a bit. This may have seemed like a lot of extra work but much of the things we were learning about in the week were greatly enhanced by doing this additional reading and research.

Finally I would just like to comment on my growth as a blogger. I would like to think that I have developed as a blogger over the course of the semester. The discussions regarding finding our blogging voice was very interesting and I think we have all found that voice. The interesting thing about blogs is that you have a chronological record of your growth. You can go back to see what you did in February and compare it to the work now. It is no wonder that marks in this area have improved with time.

Another aspect of blogging that I like is that it is a permanent record of the course work. With most of the classes I have taken the work and the learning pretty much stops at the end of the course. That is not the case with this course at all. I will continue to work at this and keep adding to my blog. The topic may change but I will not be “throwing out my notes” at the end of this course.

Thank you to all that have helped throughout the course. A special thank you to Joanne for you guidance and expertise and to the way that you have structured this course. It is definitely a course I would recommend to others.

References

Davies, J & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools learning and social participation, New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

                                                           

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. 2nded. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2346

http://www.slideshare.net/drmaryannbell/son-of-mr-gatekeeper-tear-down-those-walls

Son Of Mr Gatekeeper Tear Down Those Walls

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Son Of Mr Gatekeeper Tear Down Those Walls

View more presentations from drmaryannbell.

Blogs and RSS

Blogging…. This thing is getting HUGE.

Some thought provoking quotes.

~ Blogging is the new poetry ~

Unknown

~ A blog is in many ways a continuing conversation ~

Andrew Sulliva

~ Where the Internet is about availability of information, blogging is about making information creation available to anyone. ~

George Siemens

~ A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. ~

blogger

~ Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand. ~

Michael Conniff

REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING

It seems as though blo0gs have been around for quite some time now. In fact I have even tried blogging prior to this course. A few years ago when a group of friends signed up for a fantasy baseball league there was a blogging option on the Sporting News webpage that hosted the fantasy draft. I recall signing up for it and posting a few derogatory remarks about the Toronto Blue Jays. My hope was to get a rise out of some of my friends who were really big Jays fans. I recall how I was so surprised to have comments from complete strangers and even a couple followers. I wrote a few short blogs for this but then lost interest or could not find the time to continue with that and so it eventually disappeared. I tried to go back to the sight to see if it was still available so I could link this to it but I could not recall my user name. It was probably a name set up to disguise my true identity as I was a lot more paranoid of exposing my identity online back then.

With this experience however I still feel that I knew very little about blogging when we began this course. I did not realize that a blog was a website that was easy to create, open to anyone to create or comment on and even the structure of listing posts from newest first to oldest was unknown to me. Someone explained to me that a blog can be described as a cross between a diary, a website, and an online community.  I think this explanation sums it up well.

When the class started I asked around about which program to use for blogging and everyone I asked recommended Blogger. I went to sign up for an account without even realizing that it was part of Google. This made things so easy because I had been using iGoogle, Gmail and several other aspects of Goggle for about the past year and was quite familiar with the look and feel of this. I recall being a bit torn about the whole privacy online thing and not being sure I wanted to attach my name to it. I think that I felt more confident and used my real name instead of a pseudonym because it was Google and I was used to it along with the fact that I was doing this for a class and wanted the instructor and classmates to be able to recognize me. It was not difficult to set up my blog account nor to set up my page. It took only a very short amount of time and I recall being thankful that there was not a lot of expectations about content (nor marks) associated with the first blog post we were required to publish. This allowed us time to explore some of the features of the program and become familiar with it. I must add that the experience was dramatically different than my initial foray into blogging had been.

As the term progressed we were required to write a blog entry each week and to comment on classmate blogs along the way as well. I recall being excited to receive comments from others. I also am quite guilty of being more of a reader than a contributor to other people’s blogs. I know I should leave more comments as others probably have similar feelings of excitement to know that some one else had read their blog and has some thoughts on it. I can only imagine how excited young students would be to have comments appear on something they wrote!! I was eventually able to get around to and figure out how to add other’s blogs to follow. This made life a lot easier and now I can access the updates to blogs of my classmates much easier.  I also have 7 followers of my blog.

I must say that I really enjoyed this style of writing. When I initially saw the course outline I thought that this sounded pretty good. There were no big papers to write, no exams. This was going to be an easy class!!!! Wow was I wrong. I could not believe the amount of work that goes into creating a blog every week.  It is much more work and much more effective learning, in my opinion than traditional essays and papers. You need to really know your stuff well as it can’t be faked when you have to write about it. The week leading up to a blog is a blur of learning, research and experimenting. Then all of that learning and experience needs to be synthesized, organized and communicated. The communication needed to blog goes way beyond written words and includes pictures, podcasts, videos, links etc.

Throughout the course Joanne had made reference to “finding your blogging voice.” I was not sure what this meant but with the experience we have had writing blogs and the discussions that have occurred within our course it is starting to be clear. Not only do I feel that I am developing my own voice and getting better at writing, I can see development in the rest of the class as well.

By allowing us to use blogging throughout the class I have been able to do more experimenting with new things than with the other tools. I truly enjoy using this style of writing and think that it is much better than writing papers and doing test. It allows for differentiation of learning and allows the instructor to see the specific learning of each individual within the group. I have developed a confident in using this that was not developed when exploring and using the other tools. Perhaps that is a hint that I should keep with them and through use and experimentation I will gain similar confidence and expertise with the other tools we have explored as well.

Just as we were about to head into our week on blogging about blogging one of my catalyst teachers pointed out an update from Blogger. Google has been developing an update to their blogger site and is making it available to try in a draft site. If you have not tried it you must. It is called Blogger in Draft and this short video highlights some of the features that it provides.

I gave Blogger in Draft a try and find it to be pretty good. I tried out and included some more gadgets. In particular I have added a gadget that will allow you to search through my site. I also have included a poll. This week it is about the upcoming baseball season. If you haven’t participated please try it. You are able to create a new poll whenever you chose.

I found that the Blogger in Draft has a lot more flexibility and choice. I have changed my template, design and background. You can easily adjust the width of your blog with sliders. There are many more choices and things are even more customizable than the original blogger site.

As usual the trailfire for blogging was another great source of learning. I only wish that I would have thought to explore it in the first week of the class. One of the neat things I came across there was a slideshow called The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging... And When To Use Each One. I thought that the information it contained was worthwhile sharing in this post so I wanted to imbed it as I have learn to embed YouTube videos. There was no similar feature to do that but a blogger button appeared below the slideshow. This is a presentation created at a site called slideshare. It allowed me to “post to Blogger” which asked my blogger account for permission to access it then posted the slideshow on my blog. Very neat. You can see this in the blog directly below this post. (Sorry not sure how to or if I can link to other posts within my blog or I would do that.)

The other part of this blog is supposed to include discussion and learning about RSS. Well I have known about RSS for quite a while now but never really understood it and never used it either. The trialfire for RSS was very helpful in explaining RSS. As I have found with most of their videos, the Common Craft video - RSS in Plain English did a wonderful job simplifying and explaining it.

Just like Blogger I was very happy to learn that Google had a Reader. I had used a lot of the Google features and was set up with an account so it was not difficult for me to get onto using the Google Reader feature. Reader allowed me to keep track of blogs, websites, news, sports, professional sites etc. Instead of me going out to check on each of the sites I followed or was asked to follow they would come to me. Reader does a pretty good job of organizing all of this material for you.

We were asked early on in the semester to add and follow a few blogs. These are the some of the 25 feeds that I have added and have been following with my reader.

_ Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog

_ Will Richardson’s Webblogg’d Blog

_ David Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth Blog

_ Adventures in Web 2.0

_ NationMaster - Canadian Education statistics

I added the ones that were recommended including blogs for this couse plus thought I would add a few that were related to my job. I found that it was just too much to follow initially. I thought that I should be reading each one and did not have time. I think that this will be a wonderful tool but I will need to reduce the number of feeds I subscribe to after this class is complete so that it becomes a bit more manageable.

I really like the features and flexibility that is allowed with Reader. You can easily search through any of the feeds you have and we all know about Google’s ability to search. You can easily manage your feeds and add or delete anyone that you want to follow. You can view and organize groups of feeds or display any one feed if you choose. It is a very useful tool but I need to work at it a bit more to develop the skills to use it as effectively as it should be used.

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

When I reflect on how and if I will continue to use blogs in my future personal use I have difficulty understanding that question. There are two ways to “use” blogs. One can create or author them and one can read and comment on others.

I am not sure if I will continue to be an author. I may since I enjoy it but I am not sure if I have anything that anyone else wants to hear. Perhaps that is not true. Once the dust settles from these classes I can see myself doing some blog writing. I will need to search out and find a group on the web that has similar interests and before long I may acquire a vast following. If I don’t create blogs I will however be much more confident in my ability to write and use blogs. I will not hesitate to comment on blogs I find interesting.

I will also encourage my children to take it up. They are not actively using blogs in their classes yet but that day will come. By practicing and writing more and more they will be developing a skill that they will definitely use somewhere down the road in their lifetime. It may be in higher education classes or perhaps in their future jobs or maybe just for pleasure but there will definitely be blogging in most you people’s future.

The other side of blogging is being a consumer of blogs. Over the past year things have dramatically changed. Blogs have become the main tool of journalism and news stories. Major news networks such as CBC, and CNN, and even sports networks like TSN do much of their reporting as blogs. They have become so sophisticated that you can’t tell the difference from a story or a blog unless you really look closely at how it is written. This has really opened journalism up to a whole new dimension. It is no longer a one way street with them reporting a story. The ability of readers to comment and add new insights, perspectives  and thoughts to a story have really changed the face of news. Because of this I think that it is obvious that I will continue to use blogs in some way into the future.

Another related aspect that I see me continuing to use is the Google reader. This will become the way that I get my updates on news and sports and even entertainment. I no longer buy newspapers or magazines and find that I watch much less TV than in the past but instead I spend more time on the web. The use of reader will allow me to streamline and customize my experience.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Richardson (2009) argues that blogs should definitely be used in schools. He does a great job outlining how they can be used in a variety of ways and the benefits of using them with students. I can’t agree more. This is a wonder way to show your learning and allow one to be creative.

Huffaker  (2005) believes that the use of blogs is a way of promoting literacy in the classroom. He notes the popularity of blogs with the youth.

           

“Adolescents make up a large part of the community of bloggers, often referred to as the blogosphere. Perseus Development Corporation, for instance, finds 51.5% of all blogs are being developed and maintained by ages 13–19 (Henning, 2003). A similar study finds that 40.4% of blog authors are under age 20 (Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, & Wright, 2004). A visit to the statistics page of Livejournal.com, one of the most popular bloghosted web sites, discloses the largest distribution of blog authors also falls below age 20.”

Because of this he feels that we should be utilizing this medium in our schools to promote and develop literacy. He says,

“Weblogs provide an excellent opportunity for educators to advance literacy through storytelling and dialogue. Storytelling and literacy are the foundation of language development, and more so, the foundation of learning. Telling stories remains important from childhood to adulthood because stories allow people to express experiences and feelings in an engaging way, help them to understand the world around them, and develop and sustain peer relationships. Furthermore, storytelling promotes verbal literacy, one of the most important aspects of education.”

Laurel Clyde (2005) explains that teachers should follow blogs because some are written by experts and have the added feature that others (perhaps additional experts) can comment and add to content. She claims, “Blogging provides students with a venue to publish online and for an audience and to engage in collaborative activities.” Students get and give feedback to each other. She sees blogs as “a virtual extension of the classroom”

Our school division has had a major focus on literacy for the past two years. This year a big part of that focus has been on writing. Because of this our team of e-learning catalyst teachers wanted to promote blogging as a means of promoting and supporting this writing focus. Surprisingly it was not well received by those leading the writing initiative. They had their own perceptions of writing and did not see nor understand the strengths that blogging could add to their development. Their focus was on more traditional forms of writing. We have discussed resistance to these Web 2.0 through out the course. This resistance just highlights the struggles that we will continue to have trying to move the paradigm of the “school” into a future that is better and more relevant to students.

Even without a lot of support we went ahead and tried to promote blogging where we could find some interest. One of the concerns that was expressed was the lack of privacy that existed when students used something like Blogger (This will be a seemingly impossible hurdle to overcome as we try to advance toward web 2.0 tools). One of our elearning catalyst teachers tried out some school blogging sites. Two of the sites she explored were 21 Classes and Class Blogmeister. She was most impressed with the Class Blogmeister site. It allow a teacher to set up a class for blogging within a controlled closed environment. There are some issues with the site but this is the one she recommended so if you are wanted to do some blogging in your schools it might be a good place to start.

Another great use of blogs is for communication and professional development of staff. Our e-learning catalyst teachers use blogs for this purpose. If anyone wants to follow a great blog we have one called Cal’s tech tips. He creates a weekly blog on a variety of technology hints and suggestions that teachers follow and look forward to reading about. It is a great way to provide ongoing technology professional development. Teachers should use RSS to follow this and to help monitor blogs and expert websites that they should follow to provide that ongoing professional development that is a must have in these times of rapid change.

References:

De Groot, J. (2010). Trailfire: Blogs, Blogging for PD, and RSS. http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61578

        http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/58016       

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote

literacy in the classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.

Laurel A Clyde.  (2005). educational blogging. Teacher Librarian, 32(3), 43-45.  Retrieved April 3, 2010, from CBCA Education. (Document ID: 805270341).

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. 2^nded. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

http://www.finestquotes.com/select_quote-category-Blogging-page-0.htm

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

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The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

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Twitter

The whole world’s a Twitter …

REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING

Twitter is certainly becoming extremely popular on the web. In fact it was talked about so much in the media last year that I even set up my own account and gave it a try about a year ago. I set up the account and within a day I had one of our distance learning teachers following me. I was impressed to have someone follow me that quickly. I followed a handful of people and tried several tweets but after about a month of trying it out I really did not “get it” so I stopped using and following it.

When our class started I made a decision to really give it another try. Perhaps I was just missing something my first time around. Maybe I was not following anyone that had anything to tweet about. Surely if I followed the people that were suggested in the course outline I would get a better understanding of how to effectively use this. One of the first things that I did differently this time was to look for and add several people to follow. By doing this several people started to follow me as well.

Since my initial trial of Twitter I have gotten a cell phone (yes I know that I am a bit late getting into that too) and have found it wonderful to use SMS text messages to keep in touch with family. I love this technology and the restriction to 140 characters in Twitter appears to be very similar to text messaging so I thought that this would now make more sense to me.

I also did a much more thorough job at looking at my profile and the settings in my Twitter account. I had not paid much attention to the settings in the program and I wonder how many others blindly go about using this and similar services without much thought about these settings and the privacy or lack there of that is inherent in the system. I updated my profile and included a picture of me. I think this is important to include so that people have a better idea of who they are actually talking to.

I did not go so far as to have tweets sent to my cell phone. I worried about the amount of data I would get sent on my phone and the resulting charges. Another consideration was that my phone would be constantly buzzing indicating new messages and I would lose the messages I valued in the forest of tweets that were less important and not as meaningful to me.

By following as many people as I did this time I learned some of the language and finer points of Twitter. I learned things such as how to use @reply to reply directly to a tweet. I learned about the use of hashtags. This is where #tag is used to identify a group of similar tweets.

Even with the addition of all of these new people to follow I was still struggling with using Twitter. I think for me the way I had it set up was limiting. I did not have new tweets being sent to my cell phone as explained earlier and thus the only way I could follow tweets was to actually go to my twitter.com page and look. Well this does not happen on a regular basis for someone that has a busy schedule. I did a bit of research and found a few suggestions for some add in software. The one that I installed and have been using for quite some time now is Twitteroo. This software is small and easy to install. It runs when your computer is turned on and alerts you when you have new tweets. Not only does it alert you but it displays the tweets in a little pop-up window. You can customize the way it displays and responds. It is very good in that I don’t have to now consciously remember and take the time to go look at my Twitter account and I don’t have to run it through my cell phone. By using Twitteroo I have been able to stay on top of the tweets coming from the people I follow.

The YouTube video here discusses How to use Twitter.




One feature they talk about is a Twitter gadget for Windows Vista. The gadget is similar to Twitteroo and would be helpful but it is only for Vista so I will have to wait until I upgrade my OS to give it a try.

Another piece of the learning for me has again been the trailfire for twitter. In particular I found that a very useful link from the trailfire is a link to a web page called The Twitter Guidebook which explains everything you need to know about Twitter. In particular I liked the description of the language being used with Twitter. Don’t get me wrong. I said I liked the description of the language. That doesn’t mean I am a big fan of the “cute” little names and the use of “tw….” For everything that is done. Just too much!!!

Twitter is still in its growing phase and I think that the world is just trying to figure out ways in which to use it effectively. This story illustrates how law enforcement has found a way to use twitter.

This YouTube video discusses 100 twitter secrets and talks about the website http://twittinsecrets.com/

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

What do I see in my future with Twitter? Well I haven’t given up on it just yet but I think that I will start to follow more famous people and use it more as entertainment and news than work. It really is becoming more and more prominent and I don’t go a day without hearing about the latest person to be on Twitter and encouraging people to follow them on Twitter. I have not given up on it just yet but I am finding it very hard to follow at this very busy time in my life. Perhaps when things settle down a bit and I am through with all of these classes I will be able to use and enjoy it.

It is interesting to note that my 3 children have no interest in Twitter at all. They are very aware of it but just have no interest in setting up an account and using it for their own use. Perhaps this should not be too surprising as Wikipedia reports that “Just 11 percent of Twitter's users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore.” With demographic usage like that I really wonder if it will be able to continue to grow and find new audiences and usage. I suppose that it is still quite new and institutions have not really started to use it. Perhaps as they go through school and university in the next five years they will be expected to use it as part of that. The fact that they have no desire to use Twitter is interesting also since they are rabid users of text messaging which is basically the same thing. Perhaps over time these two separate parts will merge and they will be using Twitter in new ways.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

I can see how some people have really taken to this but I still find that much of the content of Twitter is a huge waste of time. I think my feelings on this were validated when I read about the results of a study regarding Twitter in Wikipedia

“Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a 2-week period from 11:00a to 5:00p (CST) and separated them into six categories:

· Pointless babble - 41%

· Conversational - 38%

· Pass-along value - 9%

· Self-promotion - 6%

· Spam - 4%

· News - 4%”

This study showed that 79% of the tweets were pointless babble or conversational in nature. That is a lot of “stuff” to sift through for a busy person and I think that is one of the reasons why it is difficult for some people to take a liking to the service.

One of the most active people I have followed on Twitter has been Dean Shareski. He actually works in the school division adjacent to us and although I have never met him many of my colleagues no him. He is at the extreme end of using technology. I think that by him using twitter he has become quite well known. In fact when I was in San Antonio we were discussing it at our table and one of the teachers with us from the US said they knew him and followed his Twitter. This is an obvious example of how it can be used to become known worldwide.

Also at the ASCD conference I attended a short breakout session on Web 2.0 tools in schools. One of the people I sat with explained that his wife is a teacher and tweets homework and messages for parents. It is quite well liked and appreciated by her parent community.

Also the use of hash tags within twitter was highly present at ASCD conference. In one of the sessions that I attended we all participated and provided ideas to the session using twitter, the workshop leader’s friends and followers participated in the session. One lady was in Florida sitting on her deck enjoying a coffee while following us and adding her insight into the discussion at the San Antonio conference from the comfort of home. This is one of the applications that seems to appear in a lot of the readings I have done on the use of Twitter.

The following Youtube video discusses the use of Twitter in Education

Young (2010) describes the way a professor at Perdue University is using Twitter. He opens up the class and invites comments through Twitter though out the class. The article describes how doing this is quite a risk for the instructor as there is a definite loss of control. I tend to agree that this is one of reasons that twitter is not being taken on in schools as quickly as in other realms.

Ferriter (2010) writes an interesting article where he highlights the use of Twitter to allow for and facilitate differentiation of instruction. “We can use digital tools

to differentiate learning experiences for students.” I never thought of using it in this regard but it does provide that opportunity. Differentiation is one of the hot topics in education these days and I think that teachers struggle to know how to do this. If Twitter can be a tool to allow for it I think that teachers would be very eager to hear how it could be used to accomplish this.

Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools provides additional arguments for the use of Twitter in schools and the Science Based Parenting website has an article that provides some suggestions for twitter in schools. Here are the
TOP TEN SUGGESTIONS FOR TWITTER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

1. Keep it simple – No more than two tweets a day – unless there’s an emergency. Twitter should be used sparingly, patterned after the morning and afternoon announcements. Parents who sign up to follow the school system’s tweets don’t want to be bothered with unnecessary text messages.

2. Keep it smart – The tone of the tweets should be professional. Use of txtng shorthand should be avoided. Attempts at humor and casual folksiness should be avoided. Keep the messages short, simple, and direct.

3. Guide the parents – Plan on providing parents with an explanation of twitter and instructions on how to set it up and use it. Let them know what it is, how it works, why you are doing it, and how they can get started. Focus on the fact that it is free and simple.

4. Prioritize your data – Snow information, important news, and emergencies should take precedence. Then offer reminders about sports, clubs, and activities. Don’t saturate the flow of data with irrelevant nonsense.

5. Be useful and efficient – Administrators should be careful not to favor one sport or activity over another. Choose events of significance to tweet about, such as a reminder about the homecoming game or the soccer team’s regional championship. Don’t abuse twitter with random noise… nobody cares that the baseball team is playing an away game three counties away.

6. Protect your source – There are risks that the tweeting source will be compromised. Administration should be extremely cautious to restrict the tweet source to one person such as the school secretary or public relations director. The benefit of twitter is that the information tweeted to parents and students comes from one source, so as long as that source is careful not to lose his/her cell phone… all will be well. Try to keep your source confidential if possible.

7. Be timely – Try not to tweet during school hours unless it’s an emergency. It would be inappropriate to disrupt a class in the event that a student has neglected to turn off his cell phone. Save tweets for before or after school and resist the urge to send a tweet on weekends, holidays, or over the summer (except in the weeks before the 1st day of school).

8. Combine your tech – Use twitter as a way to link to the school blog and/or official web site. This allows parents and students to read more information if they are particularly interested in a specific tweet.

9. Use it as a resource for parents AND students – Invite the parents to allow students to register with twitter, so that messages can be received by students on their PC or cell phone. Reassure parents with a pledge to continue enforcing a ban on cell phones in the classroom. It might help to remind them that twitter can be used as a way for parents to keep tabs on their children and to communicate as a family. Be understanding when twitter is viewed with cynicism as just another tool to distract their kids with more gadgetry. The decision to follow tweets ultimately boils down to parenting style and is not the school’s concern since the service is optional.

10. Sell the concept to the community – Push the idea aggressively in the local media. Parents need to feel confident in the technology, and they need to adjust to the idea. Twitter is not new to tech-savvy net surfers, but parents will probably be unfamiliar with the format and skeptical of it’s benefits. But once they try it, they will like it… you just have to get the message across that it is useful and easy.

Yet with all of this advice and potential Twitter really has not taken hold at all in our school division. If it is being used it is not a part of the school day. I have not heard of anyone using or even requesting to use it. I just don’t think that teachers see how it can be used effectively in a classroom. They see it more as something that you might do for fun outside of school. Adding to this lack of knowledge are the roadblocks to the use. These are sites that are often blocked by school filters because those decision makers are even less likely to see how it can be useful. Adding to this is the continual fear and sensationalism reported in media. Just a couple days ago one of the lead stories on our local news was about a person that had been robbed. They blamed the robbery on the use of social networking sites (not twitter but it could have just as easily been that). It seems that media have a particular bias to report negative aspects of these tools.

Unless there are major changes in attitudes towards twitter in schools I really don’t see it becoming a part of a regular classroom. There may be some experimentation and real tech savvy teachers may use it to communicate with parents but beyond that it really is not being considered at this time.

References:

De Groot, J. (2010). Trailfire: Twitter. http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/77917

Ferriter, W. (2010). Why Teachers Should Try Twitter. Educational Leadership, 67(5), 73-74

Young, J.. (2010, March). TEACHING WITH TWITTER. The Education Digest, 75(7), 9-12.

http://sciencebasedparenting.com/2009/01/08/10-suggestions-for-twitter-in-public-schools/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Social Networking

Social Networking is changing our world in ways never before imagined. The following quotes from Quotesdaddy.com regarding user’s feelings about Facebook illustrate the impact it is having.

“This is a small world, and Facebook make it even smaller.”

Reed Nandawan

“Every single one of you are on my friend list as a result of a conscious decision. I am not only glad to count you as friends but also as family! You can't choose family but... you can choose friends..♥ ♥ ♥ Thankyou for your friendship”

Paulette Sedgwick

REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING

My learning regarding social networks began at the start of this course. When I started this course I had not used Facebook or any of the other social networking sites at all. My oldest son at university and my grade 12 son along with my wife had a Facebook account but I had not been convinced of my need for it. They had each been using the account for perhaps a year and often my wife would tell me of people we knew that she would be in contact with. I found that she would spend a lot of time on her Facebook account but I was never ever that interested in checking it out. I had heard things about it; like the site had some security issues and you should not be sharing your personal information.

When this course started we were encouraged to try out Facebook and explore what it had to offer. I signed up for an account and have been using it ever since to try to learn as much about it as possible. I recall when I was setting it up I was quite concerned about what information I was displaying about myself and who would be able to see my information. I did not realize that you could see almost anything from almost anyone when on Facebook. You are able to see into pictures of friends of friends etc. so without too much effort you can be looking at pictures or information about complete strangers. I guess I was a bit naïve and thought that it was a lot more “locked down” than that.

I soon found that you could restrict access to all or parts of your profile. I went in and added some information to my profile but not too much as I am still concerned with privacy matters. You can go in anytime and edit your profile easily. I then went in and explored the Privacy Settings area. This allows you to control who can see what. Although this is a very good think and helps protect a person’s privacy there is not a lot of instruction on how to do it and the importance of doing this. I can’t help but wonder how many people even know they can and should do this?

I searched out some friends that I knew were on Facebook and sent them a friend request and they soon replied. Before long I was getting requests to be friends with people that I had known in my past. These ranged from family members I have not seen in a while to friends from high school and former students. My list of friends quickly grew and I was able to explore their sites and pictures. This was a very interesting and enjoyable experience.

I also uploaded a picture for my profile and another one just to explore and learn how this was done. Many of my friends had several albums of pictures that they obviously upload on a regular basis. Soon after events occur you are able to find pictures of it on Facebook.

Another feature I tried out and was not familiar with prior to this was the ability to chat with others that were online. I had some great chats with long lost friends and my son who is away at University.

There are many features that I stumbled across. For example, I was met with a flurry of birthday greetings. It seemed that everyone on Facebook knew it was my birthday and sent greetings my way. Many of my friends were trying out Farmville and encouraged me to join. I even tried this out and have myself a nice little farm started. If you want to see it I think it is open for anyone to look at. Perhaps you could send me a gift. I like chickens but am having trouble getting my shed built. This is kind of a fun little add on but would be a real distraction to some.

Another feature is the groups feature. You can find a group to join with people of like interests for just about anything. If one does not exist you can create your own group. It was real interesting to explore some of the groups that my friends belonged to. One of the groups that I joined was the EDES 501/544 Winter Cohort group for this class. There are 10 members in this group. There have been a few posts but I suspect most of the members are classmates and like me tend to look more than add content.

I also had a couple classmates request to be my friend. We have had a few discussions and shared a mail or two. By the way there is email built into the system as well. Since I use gmail and I am very pleased with it I have not used the Facebook email very much at all.

Another site I explored was the Ning. I went to Ning.com and signed up for an account. I explored the sites there a bit and found that you could join existing Nings on a wide range of subjects. I think that they are much like Facebook groups. You can also create your own Ning if you choose. I did not really “get it” however and have not done much with my Ning account.

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

Facebook and social networking sites in general definitely have a great place in my future personal use. I have enjoyed my experience using Facebook and have found many surprises along the way. Within a day of signing up I was being asked to become friends with a guy that used to be a very close personal friend. He was actually part of our wedding party but has moved to Kansas and we have lost touch. I have not heard from him for about 5 years and within hours Facebook had us reconnected. I have made contact with so many friends that I have lost touch with. I am able to send messages to them directly, have the occasional chat with them, share my pictures and look at their pictures of family and fun times.

My son is away at University and I will often find that he is online whenever I sign in. We often have a short chat and stay in touch that way a bit. I also can go into his site and see who he is hanging out with and enjoy keeping up with the happenings of all of his friends. (Not sure if they are happy that I can do this!!)

I found it interesting that my daughter has been following what I am doing in the class. She saw me using Facebook and Farmville in particular and wanted me to help her get an account set up. She is in grade seven and several of her friends have a Facebook account so I agreed to help her set it up as long as I could make sure she was not giving out too much information. When we tried setting it up it would not allow me to create her account. I had used her actual age and they must have an age restriction on the site. This is very effective because it has prevented all of her friends from getting accounts as well. (remember all of her friends had access) In order to get her set up we used a false date for her age so now she has a facebook account that her father monitors closely. It is quite good for her since she is able to communicate and chat with her cousins that live in distant cities. She even has access to it with her ipod. Times are a changing and I don’t think there is anything we can do in education to stop it.

In the Web 2.0 for Schools book, Davies and Merchant (2009) talked about Second Life. I did not have any time to explore this but it is something that I have heard a lot about and I am fascinated with. I can see myself becoming a member of this when my classes are complete and I have some addition time to explore. If any of you have any comments or advise on this I would love to hear from you.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

As we have been trying all of these Web 2.0 tools I have been checking with our e-learning teachers and determining how they are using the tools in our school. They have always been very positive about the web 2.0 tools and are the first to look for ways to incorporate the tools in our classrooms. They are our advocates for technology and argue those that want to prevent, block or stall technology applications in our schools. Even this group very tech savvy web 2.0 allies do not support the use of Facebook in our schools however. I have given the tool a very good try and really struggle myself to see how it can effectively be used in our schools. I do not support blocking it and feel students should have access to it at school but I have not had any good ideas or insights into how to use it in the classroom.

I did a search of journals through the U of A library to try to find pros and cons of using it. I did not find any real good examples of how it can be used in classrooms but found one article arguing for its acceptance in schools at least. Farr (2009) argues the call to prevent social networking sites is not new. He likens it to being similar to preventing Mad magazines, calculators, and other new inventions through the years that have been initially banned or restricted. By not allowing access to technology at schools, education is at risk of becoming antiquated. He lists three reasons why schools and teachers are reluctant to embrace this.

1. Afraid of the loss of control
2. Concern that not all students will have equal access
3. Unfamiliar with the technology and therefore uncomfortable with students using it.

He refers to this YouTube video “What if…?”

On the other side of the issue it is not difficult to find articles and opinions that do not support the use of Facebook and social networking sites in schools. Fodeman (2009) founder of Childrenonline.org says that Facebook is one of the two most popular sites for student’s grades 4- 12 and explains these ten main concerns he sees with its use.

Concerns

1. Use a lot of bandwidth
2. Takes a lot of time
3. False sense of privacy
4. Thousands of scams targeting teens in their social networks
5. Spyware and Adware concerns result from Facebook add-ons
6. Screens act as a moral disconnect from many of our students
7. Students have little knowledge about how much they are being marketed to, how their purchasing decisions are being manipulated, how their personal information is being used and how valuable their personal information is.
8. Teens are increasingly using telecommunications technologies to avoid difficult face to face conversations.
9. More and more children are turning to making friendships online.
10. The meaning of the word friend is changing for our students and this change puts them at risk in several ways.

As I read this list I kept thinking that these are the things that I keep hearing over and over. I am torn as I continue to hear more and more negative aspects but then see more and more people using. Just this weekend we saw on the news and messages from our IT department warning of fraud emails trying to get passwords / personal information from you Facebook accounts. We constantly hear stories (urban legends perhaps) of employers checking up on prospective applicant’s Facebook activities before hiring. We need to be careful of what we make public when we are young. It may have a lasting impact.

On the other hand we have seen it become more and more used. Recently we saw it used by major television news networks when Haiti and Chile had earthquakes. Their first pictures and reports were based on Facebook accounts of these disasters. We also saw the past presidential election heavily influenced by the use of Facebook by Barack Obama and along similar lines Prime Minister Harper used a YouTube video last week to transmit a message. Social networking is becoming the norm but is having a very difficult time finding its niche in the education circles.

The following quotes from the trailfire on social networking seem to sum it all up.

http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/forum/topics/your-thoughts-on-the-use-of Karon Lippincott “social network used in school should be closed/private. Students should be able to access it from outside of school, but it should be secure. We cannot put our students at risk for predators or any other social ill by foolishly making a school-run social network public. It is a quick and easy means of basic communication...snow days, late starts, sports scores, club reminders, book picks, etc.”

In response to whether teachers should have a Facebook account – “I, personally, see nothing wrong with belonging to Facebook, etc. but we must be prudent with what we post and what we choose to make public. If you cannot manage your FB account to keep your private life private, then you shouldn't have an account.”

And finally from The Blue Skunk blog -

Every website shall remain unblocked until proven to be "harmful to minors."

References:

Davies, J & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools learning and social participation, New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

De Groot, J. (2010). Trailfire: Social Networking. http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61581

Farr, G.. (2009). Mad Magazine to Facebook: what have we learned? Teacher Librarian, 36(5), 30-32.

Fodeman, D., & Monroe, M.. (2009). the impact of Facebook on our students. Teacher Librarian, 36(5), 36-40.

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7025.pdf