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

Week 2 - Blog Posting #3.1 - Media Literacy

"In the 20th century, literacy meant the ability to read, write and present cogent arguments on paper. In the 21st century, literacy is going to extend well beyond that and into what could be termed, a language of screens." (Barish, 2002)

As an English teacher I feel it is my duty and obligation to help students become aware of their own literacy. I actually start the year with a short inquiry project where they analyze all the ways they are literate and then compare their language practice with those of their parents. It reinforces the traditional notion that literacy is reading, writing, speaking and listening, but it begins to create the awareness for them that there is more to being literate than just those traditional skills.

It is interesting to note that as early as 1998 the The Workforce Investment Act, "defines literacy as 'an individual's ability to read, write, speak in English, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual and in society.' This is a broader view of literacy than just an individual's ability to read, the more traditional concept of literacy. As information and technology have become increasingly shaped our society [sic], the skills we need to function successfully have gone beyond reading, and literacy has come to include the skills listed in the current definition" (National Institute for Literacy, 2009).

It is apparent that we (teachers) will need to do more than we ever have to help students develop the literacy skills necessary to be successful in the world that they live in now and one which will most likely be radically different in the future. The medium by which we define literacy is no longer simply a written text on paper. Media literacy no longer just what is delivered to us, but is now what we connect with, who we communicate with, what we create and who we collaborate with. There are challenges to do this though, starting with our paradigmatic framework by which we define literacy, particularly media literacy.

Anna van Someron (2009), from MIT, in her presentation on New Media Literacies, says that we must be preparing students to learn in a participatory culture. Traditional media literacy consisted of analyzing mass media from a consumer perspective, was critical in nature and was rarely if ever integrated into the curriculum. Digital literacy is about tools and techniques. Similar to the list Dr. Sielgel cited from Jerkins (2008), Someron lists them as social skills and cultural competencies: play, simulation, performance, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation, and visualization. She also describes an integrated approach to media pedagogy which includes exercises to develop technical skills and cultural competencies; the concept of using exemplars to critically analyze media texts; the mode of expressions to create new media content; and, the role of ethics which helps focus on critically reflecting on the consequences of choices.

I think my next direction for my own learning and consequently applying to my teaching practice will be to better understand the concept of appropriation. I think the middle grade learner is in a prime state for modeling and creating based on inspiration from others.

Stay tuned . . .



Barish, S. Edwards, R. Anderson, S. Fron, J. (2002) Innovative Pedagogies for 21st Century Multimedia Education: An Introduction to the USC Annenberg Center for Communication Multimedia Literacy Program. Vol. IV, pp.617, Sixth International Conference on Information Visualisation.

National Institute for Literacy. (2009). Retrieved September 12, 2009 from http://novel.nifl.gov/nifl/faqs.html

Van Sommeran, A. (2009). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, keynote speech delivered at the Waag Society's Creative Learning Studio, Amsterdam.

Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

I think one of the challenges of teaching in the 21st Century is facing the fact that we are not doing everything we can to engage all of the students all of the time. And while I don't want to make excuses, there are some serious barriers and limitations we are up against--including but not limited to: computer/technology access, training, and of course the omnipresent variable of time.

That being said, my participation in this program has just made me more committed to doing everything I can to be part of the change. I have set a goal for myself, which is, to find a space in our curriculum for one new technology related project, instructional design or activity every month--whatever it takes. I want to be able to evaluate what works and how the kids respond so that I can be the best teacher of a technology tool, so that I then might influence others at our school and then at the district level.

How critical is it that we do all that we can to help bring about change? According to 2008 Speak Up results, when asked to imagine their dream school, middle and high school students were twice as likely as adults to select online learning as a technology with the greatest positive impact
on learning (44% of 6-12th graders compared to 28% of principals and 21% of parents and teachers). Awareness among 6-8th graders has caught up with their older peers with 42% choosing online learning as a component of the ultimate school, a 40% increase from 2006.
The statistics from the video, A Vision of K-12 Students Today (2007), were striking. 76% of teachers have never used wikis, blogs or podcasts. Only 14% of teachers incorporate any kind of technology that allows students to create something on a given week, while 63% never do. That's NEVER! These are students who spend the vast amount of their time, outside of school, connected to technology and through that technology to each other. As a believer in constructivist theory, we have got to change the way we teach, which means that if we do, if we are truly committed, students will get to experience Learning 2.0.





Project Tomorrow. (2009). Selected national findings: Speak up 2008 for students, teachers, parents and administrators. Retrieved August 29, 2009 from http://www.tomorrow.org/

Week 1 - Blog Posting #1 - Web 2.0

So my little trip down computer memory lane helped bring the point home, that although I am a digital immigrant (Prensky, 2001), I have been working hard not to be for quite awhile. When I think about how many computers I have owned (I forgot about the Toshiba Tablet and the custom built PC tower I bought in 1999), I have been intrigued by computer technology.

When I started teaching in the late 80s, technology integration consisted of the overhead projector. I mean if you had an overhead projector and by the end of the day your hands were all smeared with Vis-a-Vis ink, you were cutting edge! Wow, how things have changed. Yet, I am really beginning to wonder if they really have. Are we really integrating the technology or do we just use the hardware in place of older hardward, i.e. LCD projected Powerpoint presentations instead of transparancies. The bottom line as Solomon and Schrum (2007) point out is that school is still a text dominated experience.

The authors of Web 2.0 new tools, new schools (2007) emphasize in the early chapters, citing numerous research, that the kids we teach today are radically different than kids just a few years ago. One statement that really caught my attention: computers and the internet are communications tools, first. I think that is what truly sets the digital immigrant apart from the digital native. Even though we (teachers/adults) are using social media, we still predominantly view the computer and internet as a source for material. The paradigm shift is to understand it as a collaborative tool . . . and use it for collaboration.

I remember that one of my professors defined a research project and the subsequent paper as an opportunity to enter into the professional conversation about that topic. Hah, there was no "conversation" unless someone read the paper. Today, Web 2.0 has created a place for the whole world (granted they have internet access) to enter the conversation. And not just converse, but to build and create together--collaborate.

I am pretty jazzed about the future. I hope that by becoming more aware of technology as communication, I will be able to help students better use the tools they use and play with everyday. What a great opportunity.

Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. Washington, D.C.: International Society for Technology in Education.

Remember when . . .

I remember one of my last classes before receiving my Professional Diploma (the University of Hawaii's version of a teaching certificate) was a class in education technology. That was the spring of 1988. I barely remember any of the content (I know that I barely went to the class because I was so done by then--it was my seventh year of college), but I know the professor introduced us to the Apple IIgs.

At the time I kind of remember that there were some educational programs but for me it just seemed like a really cool machine to replace that Royal typewriter that I had lugged to college with me. Granted I did make some good beer money from typing papers for other coeds, but I was hooked, I knew then that I wanted my own computer. My girlfriend (eventually my fiancee then my wife) and I did some house-sitting back then and one of the couples we house-sat for had a Macintosh II. Whoa. That was like a $3000 computer at the time. It had the coolest NFL football game on it and I remember staying up all night playing it. After graduating and teaching for three years back on the Big Island, we moved to Utah (1991). My mom was teaching elementary school and they had a brand new lab full of Apple IIGSs' and so she bought one to have at home to learn the programs her kids in 2nd grade would be using. I created quite a few English worksheets on that one to use in my 9th grade classes, but that was it.

In my M.Ed program (1992-1994) we used the University of Utah's computer lab quite a few times and even took our comprehensive exams on a networked computer. After receiving my administrative certificate and getting my first assistant principal job, I had my own office with a MacIntosh computer and I remember producing the weekly newsletters for the staff and we even got e-mail from the district office. In 1998, with my first principal position, I purchased a Powerbook G3. I used it to work on documents, spreadsheets and played a few games on it. I still have it actually. At school we were now using e-mail regularly and the internet was predominantly a research tool.

In 1999 I purchased my first PC and we had dial-up internet access at home. In 2002 we purchased an iMac G4. The internet for me was still a search and read, copy and paste, e-mail experience. It is hard to believe that since then, just a few years actually, the internet has evolved to what it is now. Mind boggling!