Learning Web 2.0

Reflection

2008-07-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

For our final project, Michael, Kate and I, as School Media Specialists, decided to create a wiki to serve as a forum for the online book club of students at Sunnydale High School called The Readers Among Us. For this project our group selected a wiki, podcasts and a poll as our three technological components. The wiki serves as an effective tool for the creation of our online book clubs. By using a wiki, the book club participants are able to create an additional page for each new book that they read and would like to post for discussion. Each page has discussion tabs that allow readers to easily post reviews and discussion questions about the book. The wiki also allows users to embed podcasts, Photo Story projects, video and other media to enhance booktalking, learning about authors and communication. Podcasts allow creators to effectively broadcast to listeners. The podcasts on the wiki include a booktalk and discussion questions to help and encourage responses from members. The poll allows us to determine what genres are being read most and apply this information in the classroom. We can make displays of particular books and book genres in the library and suggest books to students based on what they have written in their reviews on the wiki.
The relatively new phenomena of wired children presents educators with new challenges and exciting potential uses. First and foremost teacher librarians must teach children to use technology safely and effectively. As educators we must stay abreast of developing and emerging technologies and applicably implement them in the classroom. These tools are those which children will be required to have experience using upon entering the workforce. Ignoring the transition to electronic educational tools would be a disservice to children and only leave them in the dark. Additionally, most children are already using these technologies in their personal lives. Social networking websites like myspace and facebook are popular among the high school sect and those even younger. Although these sites may not be viewed as important learning tools by their parents and citizens who are generally concerned about the welfare of children, these same tools have many educational uses in the classroom. Collaborative tools like wikis, blogs and the like foster group learning and peer to peer communication. These tools also ‘break down the walls’ of the school and enable collaboration with students all over the world. When I was in the third grade I had a pen pal in Hawaii. I vividly recall how this experience put the size of the world into perspective. It also gave me the opportunity to communicate with someone my own age but with a very different life experience than myself. Although she was American, my penpal was in a foreign geographic location, and she was native Hawaiian- a very different culture from the suburban experience that I had growing up. These technologies take this idea to a whole new level. Students can now email or IM their ‘pen’ pals are work collaboratively on electronic projects with them.
There were few technological problems faced while working on this project. As part of this project I would have liked to include a Photo Story project. Unfortuantely, the Photo Story software is not compatible with my MacBook. I opted to create a podcast in lieu of finding a way around this technicality.
Our group collaborated very well. We used email liberally. With careful planning the day of the assignment- that was all the communication that was required to complete this project. My responsibilities included the Awards page and the A Corner of the Universe pages of the wiki.

Podcasting in Libraries Episode 1: Curricular Activities

2008-07-10T11:41:00.001-07:00

Podcasting

2008-07-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

We spent the morning creating podcasts about podcasts in the school environment. Today I worked with Michael and ours was about how use podcasting with certain curricular activities. Right now everyone is a little stressed trying to upload their podcasts. Ok we'll see if this works:

Wikis

2008-07-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

We set up wikis yesterday. Kate, Michael and I were a group. We made a wiki featuring resources for researching the American Revolution. It was a lot like creating a website, or what I remember from using Composer in library school. It was pretty fun and I can see the potential for using them in learning environments.

Social Networking

2008-07-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

There are so many social networks-it's hard to choose which to join. A long time Friendster member, its a great way to stay in touch and meet people. This morning I was introduced to TeacherLibrarianNet- a Ning (new vocabulary word) that supports school librarians, fostering the sharing of ideas and collaboration. I also explored LibraryThing. LibraryThing allows you to set up a profile and organize personal libraries. There are groups that you can join and booktalk with other members. Another social networking tool that can foster collaboration is Twitter. Kind of like instant messaging meets blogging, Twitter can supply lots of useful hints and tips.

Joining a network

2008-07-09T07:55:00.001-07:00

View my page on TeacherLibrarianNetwork

Del.icio.us

2008-07-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Del.icio.us is a great tool for bookmarking sites. I'm looking forward to spending some time exploring this great resource.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2008-07-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Started to play around with flickr today. There is a lot to learn about the organization of images and the flickr tools. There is so much potential for incorporating these utilities in the classroom. It is too bad that they must be blocked in some schools. Perhaps there will eventually (soon) be modules designed for kids specifically for educational purposes. I' d like to see a kid myspace too.

What are little boys made of?

2008-07-08T08:28:00.001-07:00

Flashy froggy
Originally uploaded by zenera

I told my son Jack that we could dig a pond in the backyard this year. It is late in the season for tadpoles, but perhaps we could adopt ones that are in this stage of development (-->). Hopefully we can find some time for that project during this busy summer! Over the weekend we visited friends in rural Pennsylvania. Both Jack, 8 and Charlie, 6 were in their glory finding tadpoles, newts, fish, toads, frogs and bugs, bugs, bugs!

Response to: Weblogs in Education

2008-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

The short film "Weblogs in Education" provides feedback from teachers, administrators, parents and students in Hunterdon Central High School where blogging was included in the curriculum. From the perspectives of all involved blogs served as a powerful learning tool. Teachers were proud that students were able to keep up with assignments by posting on the class's blog. One student felt more responsible knowing that he no longer had an excuse for missing assignments, as they could easily be completed online. Another student expressed pride in knowing that what she wrote in her class blog entries could be read by people worldwide. A parent felt that she was able to be more involved in her child's education since she was able to track the the blog and add comments to blog entries. It is a wonderful thing that these experiences have been so positive and that educators understand the importance of experimenting with and utilizing new technologies in the classroom.

Techie Kids

2008-07-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 technologies enable dynamic methods of information exchange. Kids have already been using these technologies for some time, in the form of social networking sites and the like. Libraries provide a platform in which to present these technologies as tools as opposed to toys. The use of these technologies requires that children become active learners, a stance that has been increasingly supported by the children and educators alike. Web 2.o provides a conversation as opposed to a lecture, as in the traditional educational model. It encourages: collaboration, self confidence, creating a community, expression through various media, and learning through interaction with peers.