Discovering the Nuggets of Gold in My Learning Journey

Thinking about my learning over the last 6 weeks immediately brought to mind panning for gold. I have deposited many grains of information that now I need to carefully sift through for the nuggets of gold. Over the past 6 weeks I have been introduced to and tried many web 2.0 tools. I have reflected on how I could use them in my work and read how my fellow students were thinking about using them. At the end of the day, I need to gently swirl the learning, resources and ideas around in my 'pan of knowledge' and see what I am left with. How do I use my experience, knowledge and tools to make me a more effective educator? I need to separate the gold from the sand...the ideas I can use from the volume of links, blogging and discussions that we took part in...all interesting, but what can I actually sink my teeth into and use?

The Highs and the Lows in My Learning

Originally, I had the highs and the lows separated into two topic areas. As I started to refect, I realized that sometimes the lows ended up being highs as they became opportunities for learning. So here they are together...

I have learned about more web 2.0 tools than I ever imagined existed during the past 6 weeks. There is life after lecture! I am invigorated to discover that with these new tools I can reach the digital native...the students who make up the bulk of my classes in ways that will invigorate and hook them. I look forward to reflecting on and trying new ways of teaching that incorporate web 2.0 tools. I am eager to share this learning with my colleagues.

Blogging and tweeting (yes, I know I detest it...but there is a certain lure to having people actually respond) are a way of putting my voice and ideas out there into cyberspace and connecting to like-minded people. When I was thinking about how to use twitter in college, I tweeted that thought...and I got a response from someone outside of this class. The ability to throw a question into cyberspace and make a connection with a previously unknown person to me motivates me to continue exploring these tools, even those I am less fond of.

I enjoyed some of the more "fun" tools like Animoto and Picasa that I could also use (just for fun) in my personal life too. I made some connections for myself with wikis and nings I joined that will help me to continue my learning in using technology as well as in content specific to my area of teaching.

I began this course with no experience to speak of with any of these tools. Blogging was not something I had ever experienced outside of reading blogs on rescue dogs (I have a soft spot for rescue dogs!). My blogging was very rudimentary to begin with - I still have a ways to go I think, but I began to 'get it'. Jenn (our professor) talked a lot about 'hooking' the audience and directed me to the blogs of some of my classmates who were exceptionally good at this. I have enjoyed reading the blogs of my classmates - all are great bloggers - and I have learned a lot from them. Many of them were exceptionally good at intertwining their personal experiences (in life and in learning) into their blogs, which added a richness to them. There was a great deal of creativity in everyones' blogs and I learned from reading them what can be possible in blogging. I will continue to go back to their blogs for ideas. I also noticed that others were using tags or labels in their posts. I did not do this which may account for why some of them got outside traffic on their blog where I did not. Organization in the digital world - something I need to develop!

I do regret that it took me awhile to catch on to RSS feeds. When I finally signed up with Pageflakes, I loaded all of the extra blogs I chose to follow. I made the mistake of continuing to follow my classmates from my blogger site. This was not a good idea. If I would have added them to pageflakes, I would have been notified of any new entries as soon as I opened my browser (pageflakes is now my home page). Instead, I had to go through my blog site to access theirs. On a positive note, I now have an EDES501 page on my pageflake. So...if any of you continue to blog, I WILL be reading you!

There is absolutely nothing in the content of the course that stands out as a 'lowlight'. I must admit though that Twitter was a tool I thought was absolutely useless when I started this course and I could not see how I could find any use for it. I am keeping an open mind about it and I have experienced some positive with it as described above, but it won't be the first tool I go back to.

I am amazed at how much I have learned in the past 6 weeks. What does smack me in the forehead as the biggest 'low' was the time factor. This course all seemed doable at the beginning - after all, how hard could it be to do a course that was completely on line and was about exploring cool web 2.0 tools?

When I began this course, I was still at work 36.25 hours a week (spend 35 - 40 hours per week on this course...no problem!!). Halfway through I went on a week's vacation to BC (with my parents from Ontario whom I hadn't seen for a year), and then went to Toronto for a week, attending a 3 day conference. I had many 'vacation days' where I stayed up until 5 am finishing a blog. It was a bit of a juggling act to fit the course into my summer schedule - but I am glad I did. What I do regret is not being able to have the time to really dig deeply into the material and reflect on each tool in detail. The pace of the course and assignments resulted in rushing through one to get to the next. As a result of the frenzied activity over the past 6 weeks, I am going to take a break before coming back to these tools for my continued learning and teaching. I will be back though.

I also experienced a few technology 'glitches' over the course - the biggest being the loss of all the content of a 4 GB USB drive when I came back from Toronto (lesson here - never let a memory stick go through the Xray machine at the airport). I lost a lot of information (work and university) including everything I had researched and saved for this course. While the tools are great this experience reinforced the fact that technology is not infallible and backing information up is crucial. Some of the web 2.0 tools I learned about will actually be helping out with this loss of information. I have a delicious page - so any of the urls I copied into my rough notes in Word are also bookmarked there. My blog also has references to most of the reading I did for this course and I will be able to track down the articles again (it was just something I didn't have time to do for this final blog).

In using the tools for each blog, there were also learning curves and bumps along the way. For the most part, the tools were quite simple to figure out, but with technology there are always minor glitches that go beyond what we may know. For teachers who are just learning this can be a critical point in whether they will continue or not. If they find the experience too frustrating and time consuming they may not get to the point of using the tool in their teaching. I found that having an online community with my fellow bloggers in this class provided me with helpful advice (either directed at me or another blogger having a problem).

I still struggle a bit with doing so much of my learning online - I am still a bit of a paper and pencil person! My own digital literacy and learning to read online is still a work in progress. I found that I hopped a lot from on link to another...read bits of interesting information - and then never saw it again. I really need to work on my ability to organize information well - delicious is good, but I think I need something beyond that. I wonder if a wiki would work as a way to organize my information better?

What's Next?

Using technology for teaching requires educators to develop some basic digital literacy. In his blog Dangerously Irrelevant, Scott McCleod commented that "we never seem to hold folks accountable for being self-learners" and provide teachers with courses for tools like Facebook instead of letting them learn on their own. In reflecting on McCleod's comments in his own blog, Ferriter (2009) suggests the time spent in these courses could be used in more meaningful ways by learning how to use the tools in ways that will enhance student learning. This quote from his blog is worth posting here - it is something I want to remember as I continue my learning:

"But most importantly, do we REALLY want to send the message to teachers that they bear no personal responsibility at all for exploring new teaching tools, strategies and techniques? Whatever happened to our professed commitment to “lifelong learning?” Can we expect our students to embrace self-directed study when teachers refuse to demonstrate the same independence? Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I’m tired of our tolerance and ready to see basic digital literacy and a willingness to experiment be a fundamental expectation for every educator." (August 11, 2009. Do we really want to facilitate co-dependence?)

In this course I have done a bit of both - I have been a self-learner in figuring out how to use the tools as well as thinking into the future about how I can use these tools effectively in teaching. I have a long way to go in this learning journey and I am hoping I won't have to do it alone. Ideally I would like to have my colleages along for the ride - we could really shake up our practice, particularly in distance learning. The online community - blogs, wikis and nings in particular - will also be places I return to. As I introduce these tools to my colleagues two strategies will need to be developed:

1. Dealing with the technology
I agree with McCleod and Ferriter - we do need to take responsibility for our own learning and muddling our way through the tools can be the best way to learn. However, it is nice to have a resource or two to turn to for occasional help. I will share a few of the resources I found and bookmarked - Web 2.0 for Newbies and WebTools4U2Use for starters as well as my blog and delicious site. YouTube is also a great source for 'how to' videos on many of the problems that can arise in figuring out web 2.0 tools. We can also be a resource for each other as we begin to use these tools.

2. Incorporating the tools into teaching
Richardson (2009) suggests that most teachers are still simply taking their analog resources and digitizing them for posting on the internet. I admit this is what I have done to this point and I would guess most of my colleagues do the same. Our inclass courses are also offered through distance and we have not "taken advantage of the power of the Read/Write web" (Richardson, p. 130) in our distance delivery. Many of our courses have a lot of 'soft skill' content that is difficult to teach when there is little or no interaction amongst learners and the teacher. The use of web 2.o tools could greatly improve the learning experience.
As educators we will individually decide how we want to incorporate tools into our classrooms, but we can also collaborate and have our own learning community. As a group we can strategize on how to do this - take a part of faculty meetings, use a tool like a wiki, ning or blog.

What's Next for Me?

I plan to go back to everyone's blogs in detail and make sure I get the 'nuggets' of learning that you have each discovered. I wish I would have had the time to do this during the entire 6 weeks of the course. However, there were great discussions on our weekly discussion boards.

I need to find my own 'community'. I am not a full-time teacher, and I teach at the college level. I also have considered at length how this course impacts my 'real' job - the full time work I do as a project coordinator for the government, and more specifically, my work with our 'learning community'. I have hope for my involvement with the PersonCenteredPlanning ning...I am excited to connect to people outside of my local geographical community.

I am beginning to run out of steam...not for the ideas presented here, but for the time it has consumed out of my life. I need to take a break, take a step back and critically reflect on my experience and what it means for my work - particularly for my teaching.

I am not linking my thinking to my reading as much as I'd like to (really Jenn...it is there somewhere in the back of my mind), if I had another day or two I would. So... with this, I think I will end it...a great experience, a ton of information, a mindboggling pace - that has opened a door I cannot close. I will be looking for ways to use this information and share it with my colleagues. I look forward to the future...and some day (maybe) you might see me tweeting again!

I loved this 'If you Give a Mouse a Cookie' take on introducing digital tools, the internet, and more simply, the computer, to teachers - once that door is opened...


References

Richardson, W. (2008). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (Second Edition.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwinn Press.

Time to Get Real with Technology

Biting into Technology

What's next? That is the question I am to ponder in this blog. When it comes to using Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning - I have read about them, tried them and blogged about them. I have thought of how I could (or would) use each of them...and there it has stopped. Now I need to consider where I will actually start...how will I taking my learning out of this digital classroom and incorporate it into my work. And into my head popped chocolates...a whole box of them!

I think of my journey with technology as being like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get...and where it will lead you! Okay...not exactly what Forrest Gump said, but that's what came to mind. Technology is a bit like a box of chocolates - you open the box and gaze upon an array of different choices...dark chocolate or milk chocolate, round or oval shaped...wiki or ning, myspace or facebook, blog or twitter, picasa or flickr. Where to start? Which to choose? You've tried some of these chocolates (web 2.0 tools) before and had a few favorites. I had previously tried Facebook before this course and thought it was okay, so I tried it again. Some are new - you try a taste of it and now have a new favorite to add. Maybe you like it a bit more than your old favorite and will scoop all of those first! I also tried Ning - another social networking tool and found I liked it better than Facebook. It offered much more on the inside than Facebook did, and so I set up a Ning for my work.

Others are a complete mystery - you have no idea what you'll be biting into! I had never tried blogging, photosharing or VoiceThread before. I was unexpectedly surprised with the easy photo/video creations I could make with Animoto...that tool is definitely a keeper! I also had no idea what I would find inside of the VoiceThread site. Now this was a tool I could definitely see myself chomping into again.

So, in my box of chocolates - I mean tools - I have many favorites (and some I don't like as much)...I will definitely keep using some of them, others that are not favorites (like Twitter) may have an acquired taste...I may have to keep trying it to develop a taste for it. What a problem to have...so many tools to choose from...which will I try first?

Just Pick ONE!

My task for this current blog assignment was to pick one tool to introduce to my coworkers. I chose to focus on my fellow instructors in the Disability Studies program at the college where I am a sessional intructor. All instructors in the program have some experience with online tools as we have been using Blackboard for the past few years. I don't know how extensively it is used by each instructor as there is no set standard for its use. Though we have all posted material online, emailed and posted grades I think we would all agree that there is so much more we could do.
I like a number of web 2.0 tools and it was difficult to choose just one to introduce to my colleagues. I decided to use Voicethread as the tool to share first. According to Bill Ferriter, Voicethread has a lot of potential for teaching and I would agree. Users can upload images, video and documents (pdf, Excel, Word and PowerPoint). All of the instructors use PowerPoint and most have uploaded their slides onto Blackboard at some point. Voicethread would allow them to use a format they are familiar with (PowerPoint) and take it to the next level by adding audio. This would allow them to try out a new application with little effort - they would already have teaching notes to accompany their slides. I think we would all agree that the addition of audio to a slide presentation would only enhance it. In his blog Ferriter (2007) praises Voicethread for being easy to use - you don't have to be a techy to use it well. The minimal skills needed reduce any technical barriers users need to overcome and "because the tool is simple by nature, the focus of any digital effort remains on the content rather than the technology". I think this alone would attract instructors to it. Once everyone has tried it out using a familiar format they can explore other ways to integrate Voicethread into their curriculum.

Why Web 2.0 Tools in Disability Studies? Making the Case

When I introduce Voicethread to my colleagues there is a risk it could be viewed as a neat little trick we can add to jazz up some of our material. I also need to make a case for the value of Web 2.0 tools in general. In recent years we have become more aware of how technology is invading our classrooms in unwanted ways with students using their cell phones and internet to communicate with their friends while in class. They are using technology, so we should take advantage of this and find ways to use add technology that enhances versus detracts from their learning and our teaching. Here is my plan for introducing technology:

1. Share my learning experience from this course with my colleagues at our first faculty meeting in September. I also plan to give them the link to my blog so they can see some of the tools and learning I engaged in. Have a discussion about the type of students we are seeing now who are digital natives - what does this mean for teaching? This video below is a good introduction to digital learners and makes a case for using web 2.0 tools in the classroom.



2. Have a dialogue with colleagues about technology. What is everyone using? Don't assume they aren't making use of Web 2.0 tools. What do they think about introducing new tools? Are there any concerns or fears? This following video illustrates one teacher's transition from "sage on stage" to a participatory model of teaching. An important point made in this video is the suggestion to start small:



What is participatory learning in a digital world? According to Davidson & Goldberg (2009) it"includes the many ways that learners (of any age) use new technologies to participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment on one another’s projects, and plan, design, implement, advance, or simply discuss their practices, goals, and ideas together" (p.12).
Why should we care about this? We are teaching college students who are already using participatory learning to get information. As adults we are also turning to the internet to find out from what Davidson & Goldberg call the "wisdom of the crowd” or “smart mobs" (p. 13) to find out what kind of car or cell phone to buy, what restaurant to go to, etc. Learning that occurs in a participatory 'peer to peer' versus 'sage on stage' method is more likely to motivate and excite students to learn. Davidson & Goldber (2009) describe the influence of technology on today's students:

"An increasing number of those born after 1983 (the desktop) and 1991 (the Internet) learn through peer-to-peer knowledge networks, collaborative networks, and aggregated private and open source social spaces (from MySpace and Facebook to del.icio.us). Given that the entering college class was born in 1989 or 1990, we are talking about a cultural change that touches every aspect of the educational system as well as nonformal learning environments for all ages: (p. 22).
It is time for us to pay attention to this and embark on a collaborative journey to include web 2.0 tools in our teaching.

3. Share the Voicethread tool.
There are a number of resources I can share with colleagues that will give them information on what Voicethread is and how it can be used in the classroom. There are 2 Voicethreads I will share with them (they can see it in action and learn about it at the same time). The first is a presentation by Michelle Pacansky-Brock on how Voicethread has enhanced the teaching and learning experience:



One of the useful features of Voice thread is the abililty to use audio - which is particularly advantageous for auditory learners. According to Ice, Curtis, Phillips & Wells (2007), audio creates a more dynamic learning environment by:

• creating a teaching presence
• reflecting a sense of caring on the part of the teacher that text alone does not
• allowing for inflections and nuances in the voice that helps students better understand the meaning behind the words
• creating an increased sense of involvement
  
  More Examples of How Teachers are Using VoiceThread:
  
  

I would also share with them my first try at using Voicethread for a course I teach - they can see it on my blog. Once I actually use it in class, I will share my experience and the feedback from students. There are a few online resources I will also share:

1.Voicethread ning - I recently joined this ning. They have specific groups within it for librarians, Chinese language learners, linux, ESOL skills for life, voicethread and deaf students, global collaborations, secondary school, middle school education, elementary ed, art and Music. There is no group yet for college instructors or post-secondary…maybe we will create one together!

2. Voicethread4Education wiki - This wiki has:

• Samples submitted by teachers of VoiceThread projects made by their students
• VoiceThreads used in professional development
• Resources, including other websites that contain VoiceThread examples
• Best Practices - tips and ideas of how to best implement VoiceThread in your curriculum
• Subject area ideas &examples of those ideas (from the home page of the wiki) for K - 12, college, library, admin, ESL/EFL, Special Ed and Ed Tech

3. DigitallySpeaking wiki - This wiki on web 2.0 tools has great resources on Voicethread, including an number of Voicethread examples of how it has been used in education. Bill Ferriter has created a number of useful handouts which are on this page as well.

4. 7 Things You Should Know About Voicethread - this is a quick handout which would be a good introduction to Voicethread, created by Educause

Keeping the Momentum Going
One way to keep the momentum going is to keep it on the agenda for our faculty meetings. We can share how we are using it and what impact it has on teaching and learning. One of the barriers in learning from/collaborating with each other as faculty is time and place. Many of us are sessional instructors and are at the college only when we are teaching a course. Those who are full-time are busy and often juggling multiple responsibilities. It is not often that we are in the same place at the same time. Hmmm...sounds like we need another web 2.0 tool!

Another tool I think would be very useful is either a wiki or a ning. I must confess, I am not sure which would be better to use as I haven't used them enough yet. Features that would be useful are: abililty to embed audio, video, documents so we can share what we are doing with web 2.0 tools and the ability to engage in asynchronistic discussions. In addition to keeping the momentum going for using Voicethread, this would be a great forum for ongoing collaboration on the overall content of the program.

The courses over the two years of the program overlap a bit in content as well as build on each other. Some of the resources could be used for a number of courses. At any given time, we individually have no idea what other instructors are doing in their courses. A wiki, for example, could have a page for each course where the instructor responsible for the course could add content - the course syllabus, curriculum, addtional readings, potential guest speakers, videos, web sites, etc. Others could add suggestions of other resources that might be useful. This would be helpful when teaching a course for the first time as assigned courses do change from year to year. I know I would also appreciate being able to see what the content is for other courses to be able to reinforce ideas/concepts in my teaching. It would also help to prevent any duplication in use of materials - or at least give us the heads up so we can make sure we are using them differently.

Well...I'm excited about the possibilities...I hope my colleagues are as well! I think web 2.0 tools have a lot to offer to the teaching and learning experience. They are inexpensive (many are free), easy to use, easily accessible and best of all - increase critical thinking through collaboration with others...

SWEET!

References

Davidson, C.N. & Goldberg, D.T. (2009). The future of learning institutions in a digital age. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts. Retrieved on August 13, 2009 from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/Future_of_Learning.pdf

Gooding, J. & Morris, R. (2008). Web 2.0: A vehicle for transforming education. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education 4(2): 44-53

Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P. & Wells, J. (2007). Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and student’s sense of community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 3-25.

SnagFilms Film Widget

Getting Smarter with Blogs and a Daily Dose of RSS

“Community development is the new professional development. We forgot that and taught Web 2.0 tools. Discuss.”

This tweet was posted back in April 2009 by John Pederson and shared by Will Richardson on his blog at http://weblogg-ed.com/category/professional-development/. In his reflection on this statement, Richardson posed the idea that professional development is a process and not an event and that we should look at it as learning not training. There is some debate in the literature on the difference between the two terms. In my opinion, learning (versus training) involves a process of critical reflection and change. Grant (n.d) proposed that "professional development goes beyond the term 'training' with its implications of learning skills, and encompasses a definition that includes formal and informal means of helping teachers not only learn new skills but also develop new insights into pedagogy and their own practice, and explore new or advanced understandings of content and resources" (p. 3 in Malopinsky et.al.)

Blogging as a form of professional development provides the community forum mentioned by Pederson for teachers to pose questions, reflect, collaborate and change their practice. Teachers today are teaching in a digital world as illustrated in the video below. They not only require the tools, but they need to understand how they can effectively use them and what will mean to teaching and learning today. Knowing how to use web 2.0 tools does not guarantee they will be used well. Blogging, wikis and all the rest provide educators with opportunities to understand the pedagogical implications of these tools and will bring their practice into the digital age.




Teachers work fairly independently and do not have a lot of face to face time for collaborative learning. Blogs allow for that continous collaboration, acting as online learning communities where teachers can engage in “as-needed, passion-driven, hour-here-fifteen-minutes-there learning flow that relies on the interactions of many learners, not on the expertise of any one person” (Richardson, April 30, 2009). According to Richardson, it is in those interactions not in the tools where we will find the most value – it isn’t about the publishing, its about the connections we achieve through the publishing – the new ideas that come out of our connections - the discussions, collaborations and sharing of ideas. As I have read many times in my learning during this course - having a voice and making connections is really at the heart of Web 2.0 tools. I think that is what Pederson was refering to in his statement.

Getting Started with Blogging

Ferriter (2009) suggests when getting started with using blogs as professional development to start as a reader, He suggested the following 4 steps:

1. Use a feed reader for a few weeks and target a few blogs that match your interest area or work. I used the SupportBlogging wiki to find appropriate blogs. I also used blogs suggested by other bloggers as I was reading. Ferriter suggested his own pageflake to find some blogs to start with (which I did). There are so many blogs to choose from that I appreciated any recommendations! You can use your aggregator service tutorials to help you learn how to create your personalized collection of feeds.
2. Dedicate daily time to browsing your feeds. A few times a week make time to read the posts that interest you – look for ones that will motivate and challenge your thinking. Leave comments, enter into a discussion with other readers and the author.
3. Spread the word – let others know about how the blogs are influencing your thinking and practice.
4. Share your feedreader with your colleagues and engage them in conversation about articles/posts they read (try to read some of the same posts they do).

If you do these things, Ferriter says your team will begin to “work from a common foundation of challenging ideas that can stretch your cooperative thinking and growth” (p.37).

I admit that I haven't completely followed Ferriter's suggestions. I was so intent on getting my blog started and working on developing some rudimentary knowledge and skill in using the Web 2.0 tools required for my assignments that I left the RSS feeds to the side for a few weeks. Instead I added some blogs to follow right on my own blog. This has not been the most efficient way of doing it because I only see the new posts when I go into my own blog. My commenting on others blogs has also been at a minimum as I am just trying to keep up with my own readings and postings. I know there is great value in this and will tackle that shortly. The learning is not the same when its one-sided.

Becoming a blogger happened early in the process for me - as this is a course requirement, we just had to jump in and get our feet wet! The process of blogging has added to my learning. The writing helped me to make sense of my exerience with the tools and reflect on how each of them could impact my practice. Without the blogging I would likely just move on to learning the next tool. Also, the blog gives me a permanent record of my learning - something to go back to and share with others.

RSS Feeds - The New Virtual Newspaper Boy

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is like getting your newspapers, magazines and correspondence all delivered to your door, with your headlines organized and emphasized, without you having to lift a finger (well...you do have to turn on the computer!). A feed reader allows you to subscribe to webblogs, online newspapers and other web sites to get the content you want delivered right to your computer. Any web page that has a RSS feed on it can be added to your personal page. To do this you need to sign up with an aggregator - a web-based service/software that will collect your feeds. The video below provides an overview of RSS and how to use it.

There are a number of aggregators to choose from. Some like Bloglines and Google Reader are Web-Based RSS Readers. There are stand-alone RSS readers that you download to your computer like NetNewsWire for Mac and SharpReader for Windows (I did not look at these as the process itself doesn't seem user friendly). The applications that seemed the most user friendly to me were the customizable page generators that will integrate and display RSS feedsas well as personalize with other gadgets. Among these are iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes and Live.com. (from http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/RSS)

Up until recently I had been bookmarking all my favorite websites, which according to Stephen Abram is "soooo last century!" I considered iGoogle, but settled on PageFlakes because I liked the look and layout of it.

CNet did a comparison of four of the top aggregators - NetVibes, PageFlakes, iGoogle and Live.com for home/start pages. NetVibes and PageFlakes were the top 2 with just slight variances between them. I took a tour of NetVibe and was impressed. I already have all of my feeds set up on PageFlake, so I will leave it there for now. I have just begun to visit my PageFlake - it is now my homepage - which helps! I think I will find it hard to limit my time reading and will need to allot specific time so I don't end up net surfing!

PageFlakes is a home/start page that you can personalize and add RSS feeds to
When it was started in 2005 it was very customer focused - the company talked to their users and made their site very functionable in response. According to Phil Bradley, it started to go downhill after it was sold to Live Universive consortium in 2008. Bradley who was a very enthusiastic user of pageflakes prior to 2008, now recommends using another service like Netvibes or iGoogle. I have not had any problems (still a newbie so I can't tell!), but will keep that in mind just in case. I would recommend checking out NetVibes though. Both NetVibes and PageFlakes are great if you use other social networking tools like FaceBook or Twitter, which you can access from your home page.

So...my journey of professional development with blogs and Rss is just beginning. If you are interested in seeing what I am following - here is the link to my pageflake:

http://www.pageflakes.com/daroye/27410036. Happy reading!

References

Ferriter, B.. (2009). Learning with Blogs and Wikis. Educational Leadership, 66(5): 34-38.

Malopinsky, L., Kirkley, J., Stein, R. & Duffy, T. (2000). An Instructional Design Model for Online Problem Based Learning (PBL) Environments: The Learning to Teach with Technology Studio. Paper presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Conference (AECT), October 26, 2000, Denver, Colorado. Retrieved August 10, 2009 from ltts.indiana.edu/about/aect_2000.doc

Twitter

Frequent Bits of Information

Twitter reminds me of those F.B.I. or Secret Service agents you see in movies constantly speaking into their shoulder or wrist mics, sharing bits of information with all the other agents linked together wirelessly. Not a lot of information but just enough to provide a network of people with the information they need to do their job. These quick and instant updates tell others what is going on in the immediate vicinity of each sender and adds to collective picture of what they are working on (saving the next U.S president for example, though I am sure if we listen carefully we might also hear where they are going for lunch that day!). These messages may not be useful or make sense to anyone else who is able to tap in to the flow of communication and will be ignored.

In my brief exploration of twitter, I have viewed a number of "tweets" as these messages of 140 characters or less are called. Most of these I either: a) don't understand what they are talking about (talk about the ultimate experience of having something taken out of its context!) or b) have absolutely no interest in. As you might have picked up on, I have little interest in Twitter and am having a difficult time understanding its relevance to our world and to our classrooms. It seems like just more noise in an already chatter and information filled cyberworld. I am sure some of you reading this share my bewildermint with the popularity of this new form of chatroom!

Now that my bias is upfront and center, I will put it aside and make an honest attempt to look at how Twitter could be used for my own professional development as well as for use in the classroom (I teach a few courses at the college level).

What's the Twitter with Twitter?

Twitter was developed in 2006 byJack Dorsey and a small group of board members at Odeo, a podcasting company (Wikepedia) as a service for people to be able to instantly message each other (primarily internal to Odeo to begin with). Twitter became a combination of instant messaging and microblogging allowing people to connect with each other without having to be attached to a computer (the twitter application can be added to and accessed from our mobile phones). What makes it different from the text messaging we can do from our phones is our ability to communicate with people from all over the world at the same time.

You can follow other Twitter users (celebreties like Ashton Kutcher, Ellen deGeneres and Opray Winfrey being among those most followed) or be followed.

How Do People Use Twitter?

The most common use for twitter is for people to provide friends and families with social updates. People also use it as a form of microblogging and to find out what other people are up to (as followers).

At the DoshDosh Blog, they have compiled a list of 17 other ways to use Twitter:

1.Personal branding.
2. Getting feedback.
3. Hiring people (or getting a job).
4. A direct traffic. route to your website or blog.
5. Share or read news and find out about conferences.
6. Make new friends and connections outside of your usual group.
7. Network with others from the same industry and get testimonials or peer recommendations.
8. Use it as a ToDo list (though there are other online tools that do this as well like Remember The Milk.)
9. Business management as a company intranet connecting employees.
10. Businesses can notify their customers about new products, etc.
11. Take notes on ideas you want to explore latter with relevant links (the beauty of this is the ability to do it offline using your mobile).
12. Provide people with updates for events.
13. Find potential customers or clients.
14. Provide live coverage in real-time of an event (useful for citizen journalism). Other users will spread the message in a 'retweet'.
15. A time management and analysis tool.
16. Setting up impromtu meetings or informal gatherings.
17. Acquire votes.

A rather unique use of Twitter I found was in a hospital operating room where the doctors were tweeting progress and answering questions from the more than 1000 medical students following the procedure live - the ultimate teaching tool!

But do most people actually continue with twittering on an ongoing basis? According to research firm Nielson Online, 69% of twitter uses quit using Twitter after just one month of microblogging (Channel Web News).

The largest groups using Twitter are 18 - 24 year olds - the typical ages of my students in college (19% of users) and 25 - 34 year olds (20% of users) (Retrieved from http://www.infoblog.infopeople.org/2009/02/who-uses-twitter/). Suprisingly it is not the 17 and under age group who are using this social networking tool.

How might I use Twitter? The two most likely areas I would use Twitter for are professional development and in my teaching. I decided to explore Twitter for professional development first. Below is a good slideshare of the types of communication Twitter can be used for:

Why is the Fail Whale Smiling?

View more documents from Rodd Lucier.

What I struggled with at first was finding others to communicate with (sorry Ashton Kutcher and Paula Abdul...I really don't want to follow you!).

How to Find Other Teachers on Twitter (this slideshare is a good example of a mashup!)



I was happy to find this PB wiki that has a list of teachers you can follow on Twitter. They are organized into different categories to make it easy to find teachers who share the same interests as you.

I decided to follow 3 teachers from the e-learning category (just started today): @bbray, @coolcatteacher, @jsuzcampos. I decided to put out a question to see if I got any tweets. I'm not sure how you get responses...is it only people who choose to follow you or who you choose to follow who hear your tweets? If you tweet into cyberspace and there are no followers there...does anyone hear? Anyway, I said I was thinking about how to use twitter in the classroom, and jsuzcampos tweeted back with the link to 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom . It wasn't until I added 3 people to follow that I received a response. So...maybe there is some use in twitter...I am still not sure! I still think there are better tools to use for professional development like blogs and wikis.

Using Twitter in Teaching

The largest share of twitter users are in the age group of the college students I teach and my second exploration was to look at how I could use twitter in the classroom. The following videos provide some ideas on how to use twitter in the classroom, including:

• to build a sense of community among the students
• as a collaboration tool
• as a forum for asking questions with the ability to get answers immediately
• to use as a place for classroom discussion (particularly for students who are too shy to speak up in class)
• helps students to think outside of the classroom about what they learned in the classroom
  
  
  
  

Twitter for Teachers is a wiki that is being developed as an e-book for teachers on how to use twitter in the classroom. It has good information teachers can access if they are interested in incorportating twitter in their classrooms.

Students are already familiar with the technology of twitter - and are likely already twittering on their cell phones at the back of the class...can I harness that familiarity for learning? What would I use Twitter for? A few university professors have used Twitter in the classroom where students could use their computers or cell phones during class to add tweets on the classroom discussion which are then displayed on a screen in class. I liked that idea, however...the class size I teach is usually between 10 - 20 students (as opposed to the 96 students in the one university class). I'm not sure if it is needed in a small class, but I would need to try it first.

Here is a video of the Twitter Experiment at a post-secondary level:

One area I thought Twitter might have a practical use is when the students are out on practicum placements. Over the 2 year program, the students are sent out on two field placements for a number of weeks, only meeting as a class once a week during a seminar placement. Twitter would be able to provide a continuous and immediate link to both their fellow students and teacher. We would need to ensure first that all students had cell phones with the capability to add Twitter for no additional costs. The Twitter feed would need to be a private one so students could talk freely with out anyone else being able to access their tweets. I am not sure if they would need to have a separate twitter account for this.

So...are frequent bits of information necessary for a good learning experience? Probably not. Would the little bits of information add up to something that is larger than the sum of its parts? It might. I have heard a number of times that you have to experience Twitter to appreciate its power. With the other web 2.0 tools available that are more appealing to me...I am not sure this will be the first tool I try out in the classroom

Is Social Networking a Modern Form of Alchemy?

Alchemy: a power or process of transforming something common into something special (definition from Merriam-webster online dictionary).

Wikipedia lists 154 social networking sites - from well known sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Ning to speciality sites like MOG for music, Muxlim – a Muslim lifestyle community and those that exist on the fringes of society like the gothic/industrial subculture in VampireFreaks...and this is not an exhaustive list.

Are these sites one person's modern version of the little black book and yet another's worst nightmare? We've all heard stories of educators being disciplined, or worse - fired for inappropriate postings on their MySpace or FaceBook sites. So...what's all the hype about social networking? Does it have any value outside of accumulating as many friends as you possibly can or being a space to let it all hang out? Biz Stone, one of the cofounders of Twitter, seems to think so. He has called these social networking tools a modern form of social alchemy – which he described as taking something worthless and turning it into something of value (PICNIC07 conference, panel discussion). According to Stone, "You can take a tweet that you think is meaningless, or valueless, like ‘I’m grabbing a beer at Logan Airport at Sam Adams Pub.’ Sure, it’s of little value, but if someone gets it in real time, and they say ‘I’m in Logan Airport, I’ll meet Biz for a beer, we’ll come up with an idea for a company, and it’ll become hugely successful,’ you’ve turned that lead into gold” (quoted in The Wall Street Journal Blogs, May 27, 2009).

So...why have we deemed these tools - used primarily for social and entertainment purposes - worthless - and do they have real value...particularly in the realm of education?

I must admit...I have been a reluctant online social network user. Not that I don't believe in social networking - in the real world! In fact, increasing one's social capital or social network give us a sense of belonging and well-being. Can this happen in an online community as well? How do we measure the worth of online social networking? Here are are a few things I considered in my quest to find the "special" in social networking tools:

First, I needed to clear the clutter from my evaluation of social networking sites. Pokes, hugs, bumper stickers and the writing on walls can distract us from seeing the value in online social networking - both for our own personal lives as well as in our work as educators. I do have a FaceBook page (more about that later) and share Julian Smith's list of 25 things he hates about FaceBook...



Secondly, I needed look at the balance of life online with life offline - virtual world versus real world. I needed to face up to my bias that there can be too much of a digital thing...and can we really, should we really be communicating with our "friends" primarily through a digital medium? Is my fear that social networking sites have pre-empted getting out in the real world and meeting with people face to face real or imaginary? This next clip illustrates my concern that the virtual world can consume some people's lives...



The third thing I did was to consider that there may be some merit in social networking by opening my mind to the opinions of those who do find value in them...



Social networks give us the opportunity to connect with old friends with whom we've lost touch and new friends that we would otherwise never meet. In a study by Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) they found that college students used Facebook primarily to "keep in touch with old friends and to maintain or intensify relationships characterized by some form of offline connection such as dormitory proximity or a shared class" (paragraph 42). Facebook helped students to maintain their relationships with people as they moved from "one offline community to another" (paragraph 51). Ellison et.al. (2007) was able to link a strong usage of Facebook with social capital, particularly that which keeps people loosely connected to each other. They suggest that these connections (social captial) could be used to gain future opportunities such as jobs and interships. Rather than keeping people from their real lives (as I feared), online communities may actually help to keep people in contact with friends and family even as life moves people apart in physical distance. Accoring to Ellison et.al "this use of technology could [also] support a variety of populations, including professional researchers, neighborhood and community members, employees of companies, or others who benefit from maintained ties" (paragraph 52).

And last, I looked at some of the critical issues faced by using social networking web 2.0 tools - and some practical advice for bringing them into the classroom.

With any web 2.0 tool internet safety, age-appropriate exposure and online behavior of students are a concern. Fodeman & Monroe (2009) identified a number of issues that have a negative impact on the social well-being of young people:

• younger children using sites like FaceBook that have a lot of adult content that they are not old enough to be exposed to
• social networking online is time-consuming and means you are always "on" when it comes to your social life. Students need to have some down time where they can disengage from the pressures of social life
• there is a false sense of privacy on the internet and students really don't understand how serious the consequences can be if they post inappropriate content about themselves or others
• "screens act as a moral disconnect for many of our students" (p. 39) and normalizes behavior online that is mean and harassing to others.
• it becomes easier to 'break up' or deal with difficult situations online which has a negative impact on their ability to communicate
• relationships are built and friends are made online instead of in the real world
• having 200 - 500 online friends is really shifting the meaning of the word 'friend' as we know it

Are these concerns enough for us to close the doors on technology? Whether we like it or not folks, technology is here to stay. Farr ( 2009) argues that students already have access to technology in their homes and we shouldn't be forcing them into a time warp of no technology when they enter the hallways of our schools. Instead of fighting against certain technologies (yes, we are beyond PowerPoint!), educators should be teaching students to use technology in a safe and responsible manner. It isn't just teens and young adults using social networking tools either. Abram (2007) advises us to begin teaching online social literacy young as more and more elementary (and younger) aged children are engaged in online social networking with site like Webkinz and Club Penguin. FaceBook is one of the two most popular sites for grades 4 - 12 students (Fodeman & Monroe, 2009).

With any new technology comes fear (Farr reminds his readers of what happened when calculators were first introduced in schools). He believes our problem with these technologies is our fear of losing control in the classroom. Using technology doesn't mean having unrestricted access to it. We can promote the use of technology in ways that benefit our students' education by teaching them how to explore information and gain new knowledge. At the same time we can teach about the dangers as well by introducing protocols for safety online and 'netiquette' for proper behavior. Abram (2002) suggests we teach children early to use critical thinking when it comes to privacy and sharing their identities online by using scaffolding. We can build awareness of identity information beginning in kindergarten and early elementary when students are learning bits of information like their name, weight, height, etc. and what to share when and with whom.
Abram (2007) warns “schools that block social sites rather than taking advantage of a teachable moment are missing something” (p.3)...as we all know – kids don’t stop doing something just because we adults tell them to…they just take it underground where we can't see them doing it.
So we need to become comfortable as educators with social networking ourselves and see the value in using these tools if we are to help our students use them effectively for learning.

Becoming a Social Alchemist

The key in successfully using social networking tools in our teaching is to find the value in them at a time when teachers are still being warned of the dangers of using social networking sites themselves. According to Kist (2008), preservice teachers (most of whom are in their early twenties) are ignoring these warnings and continuing to use FaceBook, MySpace and blogging. They have found the value in these tools and use them to keep in touch with family and friends, organize events and plan their schedules, and meet others who have similar interests (through online groups). Perhaps we should start with our colleagues who are digital natives and have them share their 'magic' for turning 'lead into gold'.


If you jump too enthusiastically on the social networking bandwagon, Levit (2009) has some tips to deal with the overload:

1. Ask yourself why you joined each site - is there a real purpose to it or did you join just because someone asked you to be their 'friend'?
2. Consider what that purpose is - what do you value about that site? Limit your activity on that site to the purpose and avoid duplication.
3. Create boundaries between your social networks like using FaceBook for your family and friends and LinkedIn for business.
4. Communicate your plan - let people in your circle know what you are using each site for so you don't have to feel bad if you need to turn down a request to join your page.
5. Use your privacy settings so you don't overstep your boundaries.


Am I Feeling the Magic Yet? Hmmmm...I'm cracking a bit and seeing flecks of gold! I have had a FaceBook site for over a year. It all started out quite innocently as a quest for knowledge! A number of my colleagues from various organizations wanted to try an online book club for a professional book we wanted to read. A younger member of our group (one of those digital natives!) suggested we use FaceBook as it was a really easy way to do this. So...we all signed up (somewhat reluctantly). Okay...I never did read that book and no...FaceBook did not really work for us as our online bookclub (with my new knowledge, I am sure I could come up with a better alternative now!). However, I have used it for the usual reasons...finding old friends and maintaining contact with those who no longer are close enough to visit. I do enjoy reading the walls of friends (it is rather voyeuristic and funny, though harmless in content!) and I like to see the pictures people post. So, for me, it has turned into a very small slice of how I keep connected to some of my social network.

It does have its downside as well. I occasionally get friend requests that I do not want. I have had a request from a stranger in Brazil, students I have taught, and people with disabilities that I know through my contact with them in my professional life (I have chosen to ignore these requests). I also get requests to join causes, play games, birthday requests, smile requests....(again - ignore is my strategy). I also get friend suggestions from FaceBook (what???I don't even know these people!).

Have I seen any educational benefits to FaceBook? Well, I did join a group on FaceBook created by one of my classmates for this course. Unfortunately, I can't find the group on my page! Truthfully, I am not sure I would use this application in my work as an instructor. I prefer to keep my personal life somewhat separate from my professional life (though I do have colleagues on my FaceBook, but I consider them friends too). I don't see any feature on FaceBook that I could not get through another web 2.0 too. I find FaceBook a bit too casual, personal and intimate for it to be an effective teaching/learning medium.

I explored one more social networking tool to see if it would be a better choice in my work...and it was! I had heard a few positive things about Ning...so I checked it out. I found 2 ning groups that I joined right away. The first was Classroom 2.0 - a ning site for educators interested in web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. I don't have time right away, but I will joing the beginners group on that ning. I was thrilled to find the second ning group on person centered planning. I had actually come across this group accidentally a number of months ago and then forgot about it. When I started this course, I tried to find it, but couldn't remember if it was a blog, wiki, or something else. The opportunity to connect with and have a network of other professionals across North America who are all interested in this area is going to be amazing! I am looking forward to checking it out further. This is a ning I could also direct interested students to.

So...how will I use social networking tools with my students? I am not sure if I will. We use Blackboard at the college and have discussion boards for both first and second year students, so I am not sure there would be a desire to switch to something else for the social networking piece. I would consider using a ning for a group...but I am not familiar enough yet with the tool to know if it would be a better choice than a wiki...or is it just a different model of the same sort of application? One thing I have to seriously consider are the potential benefits to using social networking tools that students may already be comfortable with before I make any decisions to dismiss or try out a new tool. Will teaching on their turf motivate them to be more actively engaged in the learning process?

There are many tools available to us and I will need to sift through all my little pieces of lead before I decide which ones to turn to gold!

References

Abram, S. (2007). Scaffolding the new social literacies. Multimedia and Internet @ Schools. Mar/Apr 2008 issue. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from http://www.sirsidynix.com/Resources/Pdfs/Company/Abram/MMIS_23.pdf

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1. Retrieved July 31, 2009 from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Farr, F. (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 – 42.

Kist, W. (2008). “I gave up myspace for lent”: New teachers and social networking sites. Journal of Adolescence & Adult Literacy 52(3): 245-247.

Levit, A. (2009). How to: Deal with social networking overload Levit, A. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from http://mashable.com/2009/07/30/social-networking-overload/

Messing Around with Multimedia

Interested in making your own videos complete with music at the touch of a button? Want to tell a story digitally ? Better still…interested in getting students motivated to learn? Try multimedia sharing…its sure to peak some interest...and it's so much fun they won't even know they are learning!

Multimedia sharing is also know as mashups - described by McPherson (2008) as "applications [that] combine and integrate information from two or more sources into one new information form" (p.73). An example many of us are familiar with are Google Maps that have information from other data sources like web cams and photos.

In this blog I will explore two other multimedia tools that are gaining in popularity and have great potential for the classroom - Animoto and Voicethread.

Animoto

Animoto is an intuitive, free web 2.0 tool that produces "killer video" from your pictures..."fast, free, shockingly easy" (from their homepage). It was designed by film and television industry experts and publicly launched in August 2007. The results are quite stunning with visual effects that look like the music videos you would see on MTV.

The application does all the animation for you and if you don't like it, you can remix it. Since it is so easy to do with little skill on the part of the user, some people think it misses the boat on inspiring creativity and higher order thinking (Valenza, 2008). But for a fun and easy way to make videos online to share, it can't be beat. Animoto videos are great for grabbing attention, make effective public relations videos, can be used to capture an event or showcase student work.

The process of creating a video is a simple one:

1. select your images, from your computer or another location like Picasa on the web.
2. arrange your photos in the order you want, choosing some of them to be hightlighted in the video if you want. At this stage you can also add text.
3. select your music - your own or from the copyright free selections they have on the Animoto site.
4. click the finalize button.

After these steps are done, you can view your video and make changes if you want. With a simple click of the remix button, the program will provide you with a different arrangement. At this stage you can also choose to share your creation with others.

Some of the advantages of using Animoto with students are:

• it attract students because it is a fresh and fun application (much more so than PowerPoint) and engages them over time because it is easy to use with a minimal of frustration and each project is always unique
• good for auditory and visual learners
• provides access to Creative Commons audio and images
• in telling powerful stories, it helps move students literacy concepts beyond reading/writing

Of course, everything also comes with a few disadvantages and Animoto is no different:

• because it is web-based, it relies on a good connection and that isn't always available (as I have experienced in the last 2 days!)
• the application is still fairly new, so there isn't a lot of buzz out there on how it is being used in schools
• users are limited in how they can refine their video
• the free version of Animoto allows you to create videos that are a maximum of 30 seconds long (which is about 12 - 15 pictures).

And since it is rather addicting...I can see myself paying for the upgrade to full length videos. It is reasonably priced at $30 for a year. Educators can get a pro subscription for free by filling in a simple application.

Trying it Out. Animoto was easy to use, fast...hmmmm...I think you need a faster and more reliable internet connection than I currently have on my vacation! All-in-all it was an easy process...I was able to upload pictures from my Picasa, add text, change the order, choose music from the animoto collection and voila! A real cool little video! Now, trying to get it onto my blog was another issue. I was able to easily load it to my Facebook, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't get it embedded in my blog. Animoto has a simple process to do this...just copy the html code and paste...but it wouldn't work. Finally, I decided to export my video to my YouTube site and copy and paste the YouTube code into the blog.

So...here is my first attempt at creating a video, using the pictures I had posted on Picasa for our picture sharing blog.




Using Animoto in My Work. I can think of a few ways I could use Animoto in my work. I do think I have to be careful that I use it effectively and with discretion...only because I really liked using it and it would be easy to use it because it is fun, even if it isn't really adding to the learning. One of the assignments first year students have to do is a portfolio of themselves - who they are as a person...their likes, gifts, talents, etc. This is in preparation for being able to understand all of those facets in the people with disabilties they will eventually work with. Many of them already are using photos and making scrapbooks...Animoto would be a great way to complete this assignment...and it is always more powerful with music I think.

I could also create a video with pictures of people with disabilities - one of people actively engaged in their communities, and one of people in institutions (there is an old photo essay - Christmas in Purgatory - that I could use). These videos could be used to initiative a discussion around the feelings each of the videos envoked in them.

I could also use this in my work with our learning community. We put together a book a few years ago that told stories of people with disabilities in Edmonton - written by many local and well-know authors. With each story came a black and white photo of the subject of the story...it is a powerful collection that would be even more powerful in video form. I tried to import the pictures into my Picasa...but I could not get it figured out tonight. If I do, I may share it on my blog as the pictures are great.

This tool has many other applications in K - 12. For more ideas, visit the Classroom 2.0 ning. I could see using it to record a school trip to Paris, for a memento for students as well as for sharing with others.

Using Voicethread

Voicethread is a multimedia slideshow that can hold images, documents and videos that people can then comment on. Comments can be left in one of five ways: voice comments using a microphone or telephone, text, audio file or video. In the voicethreads I looked at, voice comments and text comments seem to be the most popular. With voicethread, students are able to hold asynchronistic discussions, guided by their teacher who can post a question to explore. At first glance, I was not sure about the usefulness of this tool, but after viewing a number of voice threads, I think it is another awesome tool that I need to explore more!

As with many of these web 2.0 tools, there are lots of personal uses as well as educational uses. I looked at a number of voicethreads where people used old family photos so family members could tell a story about the person/people. It is a good story telling tool. It is a great way to collect a group discussion among people from many walks of live all over the world. Again, as with any web 2.0 tool, it is important to make sure this tool is right for the project rather than being carried away by the bells and whistles of the tool. Voicethread is a tool that encourages collaboration, discussion and thoughtful reponses from students. As a teacher, it is important to carefully plan your voicethread to encourage this sort of resp0nse (Best Practices, Voicethread4education.wikispaces).

Just a few of the ways voicethread can be used in the classroom:

• debates
• creative storytelling
• visual literacy
• reflective practice
• critiques of artwork
• oral histories

According to Ferriter (in Weir, 2008), voicethreads can benefit students who may be too timid to speak out in class, but will actively participate in a voicethread. The asynchronistic nature allows students to take their time before responding. He also found that students liked the fact that there were more than one discussion going on that they could participate in - it didn't get boring.

Bomar (2009) found her students were comfortable with creating online content, but found it difficult to do so with an academic focus and tone. She used voicethread as a project in which she had the students doing research prior to reading a book that historically had not been well received in past. They all reported that they enjoyed the project, loved using voicethread...and...there were no complaints about reading the book!

Here is a short video on how voicethread could be used in the classroom.



Using Voicethread in the Edublogosphere




Using Voicethread in my Work. I can also see myself using voicethread in my work, particularly with distance students. There are a number of activities/assignments that could effectively fit into a voicethread, even for my inclass students. I could present different types of plans for people and have students comment on them. This example below is an activity I typically do in-class that I will try using voicethread.




So...my experience with multimedia ends for now...I have experienced all the glitches possible in doing today's blog...which has given me a renewed appreciation for a reliable computer with a reliable connection! Something to keep in mind when using these tools with our students!

References

Bomar, S.. (2009). A pre-reading voicethread: Death comes for the archbishop. Knowledge Quest, 37(4): 26-27. Retrieved July 29, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals.

McPherson, K.. (2008). mashing literacy. Teacher Librarian, 35(5), 73-75. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals

Valenza, J. (2008). Announcing: animoto for education. School Library Journal. Retrieved July 29, 2009 from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/1560024356.html

Weir, L. (2008). VoiceThread extends the classroom with interactive multimedia albums. Edutopia. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/voicethread-interactive-multimedia-albums