Rambling Reflections

Now that I have caught up on posts I had saved regarding new web tools I can continue to gear my thoughts towards which direction I will head with my class this year in regards to social networking and which direction I need to get teachers to focus on.

Background Information – At present there are a handful of teachers using wikis, mainly for communicating class news and some homework tasks. Mine is the only class which has ventured nto the world of blogging.

The school’s expectations for 2008 are that every teacher will have a class blog / wiki / online presence for communicating with students, parents and others.

This year the school has purchased Ultranet which is a LMS, something which seems to being promoted by the MOE. Ultranet seems to have many possibilities as an intranet (walled garden) but I am wondering where it fits as a social networking tool.

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I have had one short (one hour overview) introduction to the sorts of things that Ultranet can offer and …. I have to say that I approached the initial introduction with some misgivings and concerns about a ‘walled garden’. As I have already successfully implemented student blogs and a class wiki with my class in 2007 I was somewhat concerned that we were going to be ‘forced’ to fully implement a system which I see saw as a backward step.I can see how Ultranet will be useful as an intranet, saving on the reams of paper we seem to generate for internal messages, memos etc. I can also see possibilties for its use for e-portfolios, something I have wanted to gt started on for a couple of years but I do have concerns for its use as a social networking. Now this may not be what it was intended for but using blogs has become important part of my whole class programme and I certainly want to continue my students exposure to the views and comments from others around the globe.

Anyway, I sat through the introduction, asking many questions – many concerned with the open – ness of the programme. Eventually I was shown the USpace possibilities as a blogging platform and yes, it could be opened up to the ‘general public’ for viewing and commenting. We were shown screens of what students in other schools had done with their USpace pages and I began thinking that maybe I could continue my year 8 blogs and start my Year 7 students with Ultranet’s USpace. After observing my Year 8 students working on their blogs the following day my apprehensions about using Ultranet for blogging again resurfaced – would we be able to add Cluster Maps, widgets etc. These are the sort of things that do interest students – the bling for their blogs!

uSpace, Ultranet’s e-portfolio module -
This will give your students the ability to be creative within the Ultranet framework while giving you the confidence that it is secure and safe.The module will include live chat, photo galleries and a work area for each student.

Last Thursday three of us had a ‘play’ with Ultranet – suffice to say that two of us who had had experience with blogs and wikis found that they were definitely much easier to navigate than the Ultranet interface. I came away from that session with concerns at how the less IT literate on the staff would cope with Ultranet.

Dilemma – Do I stick with my blogs for all my students? Do I continue with my class wiki or transfer its content to Ultranet for my students and their parents viewing only? What about our staff – Will using Ultranet suffice as being involved and using the read write tools of Web 2.0 (blogs and wikis)? I am concerned that many staff will opt for using Ultranet and that their students won’t be given the opportunity to have their work, views, ideas shared with others around the world.

I would love to hear comments from others who have similar systems already in place in their schools. I’d also love to hear from teachers who are using Ultranet – please feel free to convince me of its possibilities!

With reports finished I have been trying to catch up on my RSS feeds and investigating other bits and pieces which I’ve bookmarked.

I have been wandering around the Time4 Online Conference site and ended up at the conference wiki. This wiki would be a great starting point for new teachers to Web 2.0 tools. There are a couple of pages showing teachers what they can do with video and slideshows. I’m even going to point my students in that direction.

Then I read a post from Chrissy at Teaching Sagittarian. She was commenting on the number of new tools available to us.

I’ve been trying loads of new things this year. YackPack, VoiceThread, TiddlyWiki, Wikispaces, CamStudio, FreeMind, Google MyMaps, Scratch, Splashcast, to name a few – and believe me – the list goes on! That also got me thinking – well …. no ….. better than that ….. it actually got me reflecting.

Just how effectively have I been using or teaching my students to use, these awesome new tools? One of her students commented, …… there’s so much going on, and we’re doing so much, we don’t have time to do it very well.

If I’m really honest with myself ….. it’s pretty much the same for me with all these new things too. So I am going to take up the challenge to try something new each week – I’m just going to take it in a different direction.

I’m going to take one of those new things I’ve tried so far ….. and I’m going to do something with it ……. better!

I share Chrissy’s sentiments but I think I need more hours in the day or …. This is something I need to discuss with my students as we seem to doing bits of everything and really need to have a more focused approach to using these exciting possibilities. I’ll be watching Chrissy’s progress and hopefully will gain something from her journey.

After beginning by linking to a host of Web 2.0 tools and then reflecting on Chrissy’s post I’m finishing this by saying that we need to take great care that we don’t overwhelm newbies to this Web 2.0 journey.

The keynotes and workshops will be released between 28 May and 8 June, and available beyond this time. Keynotes include Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Derek Wenmoth. Check the Time4 Online Blog for daily updates. Tag your blog posts with time4online and time4online07. This is your conference – enjoy! Register now!

As part of this online experience, students in my class were videoed discussing their thoughts on blogs and wikis with our cluster facilitator, Donna Dyet.
Download: Posted by jillhammonds at TeacherTube.com.

This is a great video from Allanahk for those thinking of embarking on a having a web presence for their class.
Download: Posted by AllanahK at TeacherTube.com.

This is my presentation for the Time4OnLine New Zealand Conference that starts on 28 May. Yay- you get a sneak preview! It is six minutes long and here is a pdf of the shownotes! Time4OnLine Conference Shownotes

BTW if you haven’t signed up for the Time4OnLine New Zealand Conference you should head over there now and sign up.

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Bing Miller, The 21st Century School House, writes,

If there’s nothing else I’ve discovered this year during my web 2.0 journey it’s that we, as teachers, have to be just as willing to learn as we expect our students to be. How can we promote 21st Century learning if we don’t model it? What I’ve seemed to discover is that there’s limitless possibilities on how these digital tools can be used. We need to experiment and implement.

How true this is! Unfortunately it becomes quite frustrating or down heartening when some teachers state quite plainly and loudly that they can see no point in blogs or wikis ….. !

Bing was reflecting on a workshop he had recently taken with a group of teachers. I found his comments on the conversations which emerged from the workshop really interesting as they touched on things that I have been wondering as I attempt to get my students more involved in writing posts for their blogs. I am putting the bulk of his comments here for my own reference and also in response to comments to my own questions regarding student blogging. The important thing about the whole topic is that we are prepared to get students involved, and continue to experiment and implement!

What about grammatical and spelling mistakes? The kids still make them, just like they do on old fashioned paper. However, I haven’t seen too much “text-speak” in their writing, using u for you and other common abbreviations. The reality is that the students know everyone is reading (theoretically). Just like any student writing, there are endless possibilities for mini-lessons. What’s great is that the student writing is easy to access for use in a future lesson, whether it’s cutting and pasting it into another form or simply sending the students back to the postings with a task that requires them to re-read, revise or re-think what they or their classmates wrote.
What about commenting on student work?
As far as I know, there’s not a way to do it like we are used to the old-fashioned way, the way many teachers envision it: taking out the red pen. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it will open some of the teachers up to looking at the student’s writing more holistically at first, instead of instinctively tracking down errors. Maybe it will encourage students to write more, eliminating the fear that whatever they do will just come back marked up and looking like Sonny Corleone at a Long Island tollbooth.
But how can we as teachers provide constructive feedback so they can learn and improve?
I agree that having students post comments on a blog limits what the teacher can do when you compare it to traditional in-class essay writing. For me, it has meant I’ve looked at the comment writing as more of a place to “deposit” homework. It is by no means the only place students write. In fact, it has forced me to constantly rethink what I ask the students to do so that they are reinforced that what they write is not simply being checked off and ignored. I take their ideas and incorporate them into class discussions. I’ve projected their words onto the SMART Board as part of class lessons. From a teacher’s perspective, I think I’ve done a better job at that most basic of pedagogical requirements: making learning relevant to the students and connecting new knowledge to prior knowledge. There’s limitless possibilities in how the technology is useful in this area. Konrad Glogowski, for example, offers an nnovative way to “comment on” and assess his students’ work on their blogs. What he describes is more like conversations with the student writers as a way to encourage their growth. Isn’t that where we should be striving as teachers?
How do students revise their writing?
They can’t change their comments. However, there’s nothing says they can’t take their comments and use them as part of another, longer, more formal writing assignment. This is where the limit of using the comment section lies. And this is where more discussion and experimentation needs to take place in the classroom. Discussions about providing students the means in the class to set up their own blog, link to one another, post regularly as part of class. Use the comment section to respond directly to a student’s writing. This might address some of the feedback issues raised in an earlier post. Again, there’s limitless possibilities on how to move in this direction.
But how do we tackle the larger issue of using blogging to improve student writing?

That’s the big question. And that’s where many edubloggers spent a lot of time discussing and exploring. It takes time. It takes initiative. Ideally, it should not be done in isolation.
So what’s next?
That’s an important question. Ideally, I’d like to get my students set up with their own blogs. With individual student blogs, some of the questions regarding individual teacher feedback and collaboration can be addressed. It’s not easy and it requires some planning ahead thinking. We as teachers need to be experts (of sorts) using this technology or else we run the risk that what we do in the classroom will be nothing more than playing around with cool stuff. Ms. Sigman and Clay Burrell have recently addressed this issue. In a recent post, Ms. Sigman says “In other words we can teach in a very techno-rich environment, but unless we put the tools in their [the students'] hands and teach them not only how to use them but how to learn the skills themselves what we teach in class will be irrelevant to their lives.” I agree. It can’t be in isolation and the purpose of blogging, or using wikis, or any other web 2.0 application can’t simply be to just use it. Otherwise, we run the risk of making the use of some of these powerful applications seem like nothing more than things that are used only in a classroom, like writing a five-paragraph essay. The skills behind them have to extend beyond the classroom. As with anything in education, that growth and that learning starts with the teachers. It’s no secret that we have to be willing to grow and learn along with our students.
Here’s where I think I’m echoing the general sentiment of what I’ve been reading these last several months. Patrick Higgins, in discussing virtual schools, says it quite succinctly but right on the nose: “Teaching will be different, and this will happen
very soon. Teaching will require that we are risk-takers, savvy, and cavalier. Teaching will be different, or it will be irrelevant.”

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Before I begin this post I want to publicly thank Lyn Ross, Wanganui, for the many resources she has on her cluster’s web page. I attended one of Lyn’s workshop at Tuanz (Rotorua) after a colleague had attended one of her sessions at the Learning@Schools conference. While I have not actually met Lyn she has left a very generous comment here on my blog and I know she has had a look at my class blog.

As the lead teacher at my school for this elearning / inquiry contract I have the task of getting my staff on board this coming term with an inquiry unit. I have used inquiry, problem based learning and the many forms of constructivism with my students for many years, with varying degrees of success. So it is with a bit of trepidation that I am embarking on these workshop sessions within my school. The resources available at the Wanganui ICT PD Cluster will certainly be a help for teachers and have given me a few starting pointers to use.

So thanks to Lyn and her team for so generously making these resources available to others.

I have left this too long and now can’t remember where this post originated but after re reading what I had saved I decided that it was important to me and that I would continue with my post.

Although I have yet to get involved in any collaborative project with another class I have had my students collaborating on class projects. These have proved to be very powerful learning experiences for all students with one of the steepest learning curves being how to work together with others to achieve a common goal. I now have my students working in mixed groups for as many class activities as possible. These groups are not always student chosen and often contain a mix of students who would normally not choose to work together – in this way I am trying to create a ‘real world’ situation where completing the task is more important than being with your ‘mate’.

“If technology is irrelevant to how you communicate and collaborate, then schools are irrelevant to your students.” David Warlick

David goes on to ask a question that I made ask one of my own. His question is, If we know that our students are communicating and collaborating online at home, why are we not doing so in class? The question I am compelled to ask is, HOW are students collaborating online at home? The answer may be that they’re not collaborating the way we define collaboration (how do YOU define collaboration?), but in some other way. While I have no doubt collaboration IS occurring in the classroom, it’s no longer sufficient THE ONLY way to collaborate.

Shouldn’t children learn to collaborate within groups in their classroom, around the world, as necessary?

I suppose that a developmentally appropriate curriculum is needed…at what grade level do you start kids collaborating in school? At what grade level do you recognize student collaborations are occurring at home in the real world?

If they are collaborating, what are some examples of that collaboration? Social networking isn’t collaboration is it?

· Collaboration occurs as children/teens work to solve the puzzle or are engaged in achieving a mission objective in an online game. As they play the game, they also use instant messaging, audio-chat to coordinate their efforts for maximum effect.

What’s so exciting about teachers like Vicky Davis, Julie Lindsay, Clay Burell is that they’re actually engaging their students at school in collaborative Internet projects. The question is, what about the rest of us? What are we each doing to encourage this in our districts and classrooms?

Well yes I am quietly encouraging collaborative work / activities within my class bit I guess it’s now time to branch out into the wider world. Any takers?

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I’ve been sitting on this one for some time now.  I’ve read several posts and articles regarding portfolios, in particular eportfolios but none have really answered my questions regarding student eportfolios.

At my school, an intermediate, we have used portfolios in English for the last five plus years. These are meant to be a reflection of the students work in English over their two years at our school. We try to include work from every facet of the English curriculum and I have also included ‘English’ type work from other curriculums. Where necessary we have used digital photos to record posters or other large pieces of work, printed off Powerpoint shows etc. These portfolios have been really successful and ceratinly reflect the students growth in this curriculum over the two years.

However I think it’s time for us to move into the 21st Century and become digital! This year I am trialling the use of our class wiki or student blogs (listed on the sidebar) to try and create eportfolios. I began the year giving all students a space on our class wiki to use for all their English work. This got off to a slow start … During the term some students began setting up their own ‘work’ blog and eventually many  most of the students decided that they preferred the blog to the wiki for their portfolio.

At the end of the first term (last week) all students had managed to upload the few bits of work they had completed in English during the term. They have all printed off hard copies of this week which has been peer assessed and will have teacher comments by the end of these holidays!

Yes we are doubling up but I need to give the students helpful feedback and feed forward and I’m not sure that either a blog or a wiki is the place for this. Sure I will add comments to all their posts once I have carefully read through each piece. On scanning many of their posts I can see a lot of errors (I suspect lack of careful proofreading) and am now wondering how to tackle this. Do I get the students to leave their work as is or once I have ‘marked’ their work do I get them to correct their errors?

I would love some feedback on what I have started, links to other student eportfolios (particularly  those that are a reflection of student progress or ongoing) ….

If you are an ICT facilitator or someone in charge of trying to initiate change in teachers’ attitudes towards catering for our students unknown future, you might be interested in reading this post from Wesley Fryer.

I’ll say that overwhelming teachers with the messages from “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” by Tom Friedman may not be the best way to encourage teachers to teach digital.

The ideas of the “Did You Know” presentation are VERY intimidating and even overwhelming for teachers. Some of the responses from teachers about the video, after having discussed it with their peers, have lately included:

- Boy I’m glad I’m retiring soon.
- The United States is really in bad shape.
- I’m overwhelmed.
- I may be in the wrong profession.
- My kids can’t and won’t teach themselves. How will they survive in this new world?

The amazing thing to me in listening to and documenting these teacher responses has been that no one has said, “Maybe we need to teach differently in our schools.” The common responses instead have been: I’m overwhelmed, I’m so behind, there’s no way I can deal with this. I’m ready to retire.

Wes comments that showing them videos like 2020 Vision, Did You Know is probably not the right approach in getting them to teach digital. I think we have found the same reaction in some of our staff and cluster meetings. We need to take smaller steps and as I was reading Wes’s post I was thinking back to the ‘old days’ when we were using something similar to epals.com (can’t remember the name) to connect students with each other via email.

Maybe that’s where we need to start once again – simple email connections to get them involved in this digital age. I’m sure if we got something like this happening the students would drive the move towards greater digital connections via shared wikis, skype etc.

Any thoughts?

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Check out the e-learning work Chris Harbeck’s class are doing. They have created their own portfolios to share with parents and have also been doing some great work with wikis.

My class had a look at their work today and were quite motivated to start something more themselves. Watch this space!!

YackPack makes it easy for groups to communicate,
using your own voice and an ordinary Mac or PC. YackPack is simple: You just click and talk. No typing required – and no software to install.

YackPack is ideal for groups such as: – Work Teams
- Education Classes
- Family Groups

Your group can use YackPack in two ways: Live Voice & Voice Messaging. In both modes the richness of voice helps people communicate easily and clearly, avoiding the misunderstandings caused by email.

E-Palsis a simple resource for teachers looking to develop learning partnerships for their students. This web based service is designed specifically to link classes with each other. They also can provide student blog space and secure student e-mails.

ePALS Classroom Exchange® maintains the Internet’s largest community of collaborative classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing and language learning. ePALS is also the leading provider of school-safe emailTM, blogs, eMentoring and web-browsing technology for the global educational market.

If you are looking to connect your students globally this could be a good starting place