Week 4 - Blog Posting #8.2 -Reflection on Web 2.0

I have enjoyed this class from the standpoint that we were introduced to so many cool Web 2.0 tools, many which I will continue to explore and some that I will attempt to implement in my practice now.

Week 4 - Blog Posting #8.1 -Reflection on Blogging

A SERIES OF ONE LINE BLOG MUSINGS:

To blog or not to blog.

Blog on!

Let there be blog.

If a blog is never read by anyone else, is it really a blog?

Don't step in the blog.

Who's your blogger?

Frankly my dear, I don't give a blog.

I want to be a blogger when I grow up.

What blog is this?

Have you read the latest blog?

Blog it again Sam.

This blog is made for you and me.

So, you blog here often?

Why blog a sentence, when you can blog a whole paragraph?

I no longer read novels, only blogs.

BA: Blogger's Annonymous

If I had a blog, I'd blog in the morning, blog in the evening, blog all day long.

Blog unto others as you would have blogged unto yourself.

Free blog with every purchase.

Whatchu bloggin' at?

I only blog at night.

Blogging has been proven to damage cognitive functioning if done in excess.

I lost my blog!

One good blog deserves another.

Blog, you're it!

Oops, I broke my blog.

But I don't want to blog, mommy.

How many blogs does it take to change . . . the world?

Dude, where's my blog?

I am my blog and my blog is me.

If you haven't got anything nice to blog, don't blog at all.

How much blog can a blogger blog, if a blogger blogs a blog?

Week 4 - Blog Posting #7.2 -Second Life

I have been a member of ISTE since we were first introduced to SL when we started our Full Sail program. I haven't had much of a chance to take part in any of their programs but I have met a few people there and chatted about SL in general. Because of a contact I made on ISTE island, I joined VSTA (Virginia Society for Technology in Education), http://slurl.com/secondlife/VSTE%20Island/224/232/28



I also subscribe to the mailing list--Educators -- SL Educators (The SLED List): https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

The daily e-mails are a great way to see how others are using Second Life and because of those messages I have started to compile a nice list of resources and references.

Week 4 - Blog Posting #7.1 -Second Life

Ok, that was a cool trip to Second Life. Hadn't been back in a long time and was just reminded of how much potential is there for education and how badly I wished I had more time to explore and then learn to use it more and eventually build an island. I am pretty sure that I will be using Second Life for an in-the-near future project.

I loved the Iowa State Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching slurl. The Bloom's taxonomy pyramid and this tower is a great learning tool:



This led me back out of SL to Iowa State's website to see what other resources and technologies they were using. Quite impressive, particularly these posts: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/elearning/?s=second+life


Iowa State University. (2009). Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Retrieved September 25, 2009 from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/homepage.html

Week 3 - Blog Posting #6 -Communities of Practice

The in vogue term for communities of practice in schools is the Professional Learning Community. Based on the work of Rick Dufour (1998), the PLC movement is common best practice for schools engaged in any transformation or reform practice. Like a social network, the professional learning community is made up of individuals connected by some purpose. Unlike social networks, they typically limited to the school site.



One of my favorite resources for school reform is the National Staff Development Council website and they have a very good annotated bibliography on Learning Communities at: http://www.nsdc.org/standards/learningcommunities.cfm

It takes most schools several years to build a culture where teams of teachers collaborate successfully. It is more than ironic that while we take forever to work together, we are now looking at creating learning experiences for students to work together right now. The question is can we help students network with one another, in and out of school and beyond, when we can barely do it ourselves?

Check out this group that has created a learning community of school districts in Second Life





DuFour, R. & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service and Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Week 3 - Blog Posting #5 -Social Media

The rise of social media as an educational tool seems both revolutionary and overwhelming. Revolutionary in its ability to move students beyond the classroom to be able to connect with other students from anywhere in the world. Revolutionary in the teaching and learning that can extend outside the confines of the school building and the school day. But overwhelming in that I am not sure most teachers have any idea how to effectively use social media as a learning tool, myself included. As I learn more about how to use social media it remains important to recognize why it is important.

In "Here They Come", Shirkey (2008)says "[T]he ;core idea is [that] we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations.... (p.248).

I remember when cooperative learning was a hot topic for teachers (1980s?) and how that seemed so transformational, with articles and books written about how to "facilitate cooperative learning groups." Web 2.0 and social media sites in particular are founded on cooperation and collaboration. I love what James Surowiecki writes about in his book The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, (2004).

His basic claim is that there is wisdom in groups of people. Where we have for too long focused on looking for the one smart person or one smart idea, some of the best ideas and trends (in his case marketing trends) have come from the thinking that evolves from people working together. A "crowd," according to Surowiecki is really any group of people who can act collectively to make decisions and solve problems. So, on the one hand, big organizations—like a company or a government agency—count as crowds. And so do small groups, like a team of scientists working on a problem. Social media is the consummate example of a crowd that could be two guys making a video in their garage to a team in a company working from different sites, to the entire world.

Surowieki says that there are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd's answer. It needs a way of summarizing people's opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks.

In any formal or traditional setting it is not typically possible to get these elements to occur. But Web 2.0 social media allows it to occur all the time. This is revolutionary and overwhelming, but in a positive dilemma kind of way.

Shirky, C. (2008.) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin Press HC

Surowiecki,, J., (2004) Wisdom of the Crowds, Random House

Week 2 - Blog Posting #4.2 -21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

Howard Rheingold says that "we have to get beyond skills and that skills are very much an individual attribute. We need to move beyond skills and to the concept of literacies--skills plus community." This is a bold statement that is at once a challenge to do and a challenge to comprehend. The thread here is obvious. We are being asked to become aware of and understand what Web 2.0 applications are. We are being asked to first define media literacy and now to parse out the skills that are important for being media literate. But when we attempt to look at a skill that is "beyond skills as an individual attribute" but incorporates an awareness of community, is that something beyond our reach because we (the teachers) are digital immigrants? Or can we single out a skill or skill set that helps us direct our students to best become media literate?


Rain, Steam, and Speed by JMW Turner

Inquiry seems to be the one skill that drives the 21st century skills "train." And we have a choice: get on the train, get off the train, or get run over by the train. I like the train metaphor for a couple reasons. Just like the steam engine train revolutionized Europe and then the North American continent, technology is revolutionizing the world. That revolution requires a new set of skills that as Rheingold has discussed incorporate an ability to collaborate with a larger community, i.e. the world. My favorite resource for understanding the 21st Century Skills framework is The Partnership for 21st Century Skills website (2004): http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php. This large advocacy group with it's numerous corporate sponsors has developed a framework for learning in the 21st century based on what they have determined are essential skills that kids will need to succeed as citizens in the 21st century. While they acknowledge NCLBs identification of the core subjects as English, reading, math, science, foreign languages, civics, government, economics, arts, history, and geography; they also emphasize several significant, emerging content areas that are critical to success in communities and workplaces:
Global awareness
Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy
Civic literacy
Health and wellness awareness
The contention is that we do not typically emphasize these areas in schools today, and the implication is that we had better start.

When we do begin to teach these skills, with our digital native students in mind, what we get is pretty magical. This video from Edutopia (2009) paints a train ride that I am exited to be on.


Edutopia: What Works in Public Education. (2009). The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Retrieved September 15, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-
generation-project-overview-video

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2004). Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=195&Itemid=183

Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 -21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

To be political or not? Too many of us want to close our doors and just teach. In the best schools, teachers at least collaborate with each other to improve practice and learning for students. The real challenge is to see ourselves as activists as well as teachers. This seems like one easy thing we could do to enter the political arena to support change that would positively affect students in terms of more and better technology integration.

Visit this site for more information on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Action Agenda.

Week 2 - Blog Posting #3.3 - Media Literacy

So that is an interesting deal. Somehow I was in my "learning new technology bliss" when this article shows up and suddenly I am jolted back into the awareness that technology in the classroom is still part of the great political agenda as it pertains to education. It seems that this definition of Media or Technology Literacy is very important.

From T.H.E. Journal: http://thejournal.com/Articles/2009/09/11/SETDA-Urges-NAGB-To-Reconsider-Tech-Literacy-Test.aspx?Page=1

SETDA Urges NAGB To Reconsider Tech Literacy Test

• By David Nagel
• 09/11/09

How does your education system define technological literacy? Chances are, whatever the definition, it doesn't align with what the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) is proposing as it develops a nationwide test for technological literacy among students. And that's going to cause serious problems, according to the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), which is now publicly urging the group to reconsider its position.

At issue is a framework being developed by NAGB staff as part of the NAEP Technological Literacy Assessment, which is currently expected to be administered for the first time in 2012. To date, as has there has been no national standard for technological literacy, states have adopted their own definitions, generally based on definitions and standards developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) or SETDA. They're using these definitions to fulfill the NCLB mandate to report "the percentage of students who meet state technology standards by the end of the eighth grade."

However, now NAGB, which sets policy for NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as "the Nation's Report Card"), has developed its own definition--one that, according to SETDA, does not align with established practice.

Week 2 - Blog Posting #3.2 - Media Literacy - Do the students really want us to integrate Web 2.0?

Found an interesting paper while looking for information about Web 2.0 applications to the classroom. Neil Selwyn from the Institute of Education, University of London did a literature review to question the educational potential of Web 2.0. While he noted that there were a variety of studies, with a variety of conclusions, he seemed to feel that Web 2.0 applications have more potential in informal education scenarios and that ultimately there were some important questions that needed to be researched:

• To what extent do learners expect/desire to use ‘informal’ forms of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the formal educational settings such as the school?
• Which ICTs do learners see as being most motivating, engaging and personalisable?
• Conversely, which ICTs do learners see as unsuitable for the classroom and why?
• What unintended consequences and/or risks do learners see as arising from importing ‘new’
informal modes of ICT use into the classroom setting?
• How can these issues (such as e-safety) be addressed without curtailing the informal learning
potential of ICTs?

Two points that I found very interesting though, a PEW report in 2005 found that more than half of young internet users in the U. S. had created some kind of online content, while another study, undertaken in 2006, of European youth, found that passive retrieval of information remains the most popular internet-based activity among young people, with content creation a less widely practiced activity.

And perhaps the most interesting point of all was the citing of research that said kids may not even want Web 2.0 applications used in school. "Young people’s forms of ICT use should not be simply transported or co-opted wholesale into classroom as 'young people resent having their cultural forms (mis)appropriated into schools'. They cited one article that said, "recent research with older students suggests that learners do not necessarily expect or even want to use technology in educational settings in the same manner as they do at home."

So are we wasting our time trying to find ways to integrate Web 2.0 into our classrooms or is it just too early to tell and we haven't got enough research done yet to know?


Selwyn, N. (2007). Web 2.0 applications as alternative environments for learning - a critical review. Retrieved September 12, 2009 from www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/3/39458556.pdf