Welcome to my presentation on the educational benefits of Web 2.0. In order to conserve a little bit of “teacher talking time” today, I thought that I would incorporate my blog into the presentation. Through this site, you can find links and examples of some of the Web 2.0 applications that I’ll be discussing during my time here.
I’d like to keep the focus of the presentation on this site and encourage you to read through what I’ve posted and offer your comments on anything that catches your eye. Over the course of the afternoon, I’d like to see some discussion take place on how to implement some of these technologies in our classrooms. So please, feel free to use my site as a forum for your comments. Just click on the comments tag at the bottom of my post to write your thoughts.
Purpose
The purpose of today’s presentation is to introduce you to many of the online tools available for your classroom. In the past, I’ve done presentations where I’ve guided other teachers through creating a blogsite or a wiki, but that’s not really my goal today. One thing that I’ve discovered is that these projects take a bit of planning. Just making a wiki or a blog without any plan can be a frustrating experience. So my goal today is to show you some resources and allow you the chance to come up with ideas on how to use them. If, during the course of the class, you would like to get started on one of these projects, feel free. But please let us know through the comments section what your ideas are…and how you plan to implement them.
Reasoning
The Internet community is undergoing a change. Surfing the web once entailed passively reading and consuming the information that was available. Today’s savvy websurfer is not only a consumer, but a contributor. Our students are adapting to this new socially driven web. In my classes, it is the rare student that isn’t on Myspace or Facebook or hasn’t visited Youtube or Flickr. As Will Richardson said in his book, they are “digital natives.” In many cases, as their teachers, we are “digital immigrants.” We’re trying to keep up with all these changes when we’ve just finished learning the previous ones. But we have to keep up. We even have to innovate sometimes. And we most definitely have to understand this technology so that we can teach our students how to use it safely and responsibly.
I hope you enjoy the presentation. Please leave any comments or suggestions for how I can improve it. You may download the powerpoint portion of this presentation here. Thanks!
Yeah, that was a terrible pun in the title, and I do apologize for it.
If you’ve ever been to Wikipedia, you have a pretty good idea what a Wiki is. At its most basic level, a Wiki is a collaborative website that anyone can edit. Now editing can be restricted to registered users or approved authors, but the principle is still the same. If two heads are better than one, than 6 million heads are better than one.
One of the key elements present in all of Web 2.0 is the idea of collaboration. No application puts this principle to the forefront like a Wiki. When using a Wiki, the reader can become the critic, the editor, or even the new author with a few clicks of the mouse. The grand idea is that multiple people working together can create something better than a single author. One of the “backronyms” for Wiki is “What I Know Is…” You write what you know…someone else writes what he knows…I write what I know…and all of us are smarter because of it.
Wikis in the Wild
If browsing Wikipedia is your only connection to Wikis, then you may need to take a look at how people are using Wikis for all kinds of things. The Librarian Chick is one of my new favorite sites. It is a Wiki, collecting links to various resources all around the Internet that are useful in research, writing, and education. If you know of a site that could be added to her collection, feel free to do so. It is a Wiki…that’s the point. Another one of my favorites is from Will Richardson. He uses a Wiki to collect and organize as much information on the uses of Web 2.0 in education as he, and his readers can find. Maybe one day I’ll add my own blog to the list. Bud the Teacher also uses a Wiki to display his blogging rules and student resources.
I used a Wiki to set up an online textbook for my film class. It was a really promising idea, and making that textbook probably could have been the main focus of the course, but I didn’t use it as often as I would have liked. I was still able to get some really good material from my students on the lab days where we focused on the site.
Starting a Wiki
Like Blogs, there are many online resources available to start your Wiki. Some of the best include PBWiki, Wikispaces, and Wikia. Some of the sites are easier to get started with than others, but all are pretty self-explanatory.
Other Ways to Collaborate on the Web
One of my favorite new web applications are online office suites. Google and Zoho are two of the most popular providers of online office applications right now. Both allow for collaboration and full integration with Microsoft Office files. Zoho has a few more options, including a notetaking application, and an online powerpoint application. All of these can be open to collaboration with the public or to private users.
My Wife Eve uses Zoho Show to archive her Powerpoint lectures on her websites for her students to review. Zoho provides a stripped down, easily accessed version of her Powerpoint slides that is much easier than converting a presentation into a webpage.
At my school, Kris Turner and Amber Owen use Google Docs to enable peer revision of pieces of writing. This provides almost a virtual writer’s workshop…where students can edit, change, and comment on each other’s papers. All changes are tracked through their user accounts. If these students have a Google account for the documents, they can also integrate that account with their weblogs from Blogger.com, further expanding the online community.
Ideas
There are many ways to foster collaboration through online applications. How would you do it? What would you use? What could work in your classroom?
One of the most enjoyable class projects I did last year was in my Film Studies class. We had just finished a series of lessons on the principles of cinematography and editing, and I was looking for a way for my students to demonstrate what they had learned. I asked the class how many of them had digital cameras and about 7 or 8 hands rose around the room. So the next day, based on who had access to a camera, I assigned them into groups, gave them a digital camera and told them to make a movie, demonstrating what they knew about editing and cinematography. I didn’t want them to use digital video, just the still pictures option. This way, they could tell a story through editing techniques and visual language. I only gave the students a few days to finish this assignment. They took their pictures one day, and edited them together with Windows Movie Maker the next two days. And I told them that I would post some of the best on Youtube for the world to see.
I was honestly surprised with the results. Some groups took a more fun approach, others made serious pieces of art, some slacked off (typical seniors), but I think they all learned something with their videos. Here are a couple of the winners that were posted on Youtube. Each of these videos currently has over 400 views on Youtube…so they haven’t hit the big-time yet…but I’m sure it’ll happen soon. :)
So what does this have to do with you? Your classes aren’t studying film (maybe they are, I don’t know), and you can’t think of any reason to use technology like this in your classroom.
Well, I’m here to set you straight.
Establishing a multimedia presence on the Internet can be as simple and straightforward as writing a blog or publishing a webpage. Many of the tools you need are at your school, or easily acquired, and don’t even have a steep learning curve. If you can use a blog, you are not too far away from establishing your first Podcasts…or even Vodcasts.
How do I start?
The Equipment necessary to create a Podcast is minimal. You need a computer with an internet connection…a microphone…and that’s about it. To make a video, add a digital camera to the list (can be a still or digital video camera, doesn’t matter). For audio, you can use the free software Audacity on a Windows PC, or Garageband for a Mac. For video, you can use Windows Movie Maker for your PC or IMovie for your Mac. There a multiple “Howto” guides on the Web to help you get started. This is one of the best I’ve found.
Once you have your materials, begin!
What do I talk about?
Well, anything really. But it can’t hurt to look around and see what is out there. The Education Podcast Network is a great place to start to see how other educators are using podcasts in their classrooms. Look at LibriVox to see if your class would like to perform a Radio Style reading of a classic piece of literature. Take a course at UC Berkeley without leaving your office. Or spend some time browsing on Youtube, where I’ve seen reenactments of Twelve Angry Men, Macbeth, and Othello. While some of these options seem more performance-oriented than you may wish for, there are many other ways to use Podcasts in your classroom. You could provide recordings of your lectures on your website to students who miss classes or are on homebound or allow stage-shy students to give presentations through a video. Your options are wide-open.
If the idea of podcasting seems a little clearer to you now, what are some of your ideas? How could this be useful in your classroom?
I am probably more familiar with Blogs and RSS tools than other Web 2.0 applications. I use blogs pretty regularly in my classes for writing assignments, research, and portfolio-style projects. Writing this post and preparing this presentation is giving me a nice opportunity to reflect on some of the things I have done in my classroom and how I can continue to refine my methods.
So let’s begin, shall we?
Why use blogs?
My biggest reason for using blogs is the idea of an audience for student writing. My students simply write better when they understand that someone other than their teacher may be reading it. By posting their writing on blogs, students are publishing their work for a theoretical world-wide audience. Another reason is the collaborative nature of blogwriting. Through links, trackbacks, comments, and RSS feeds, students can create a virtual community in their blogs. This adds a strong social context to their writing. It is more realistic to students that their classmates will read and respond to what they wrote than the mostly theoretical worldwide community. So when they do get a comment from an outsider, it really adds a level of depth to the existing conversation. Like this example with a student taking a high school civics class…and his mature response to the comment by someone he doesn’t know.
A benefit for me as a teacher is the archiving capabilities of blog posts. I can look back and see which posts were made on which day without cluttering up my file cabinet. When my students are supposed to be writing a journal entry for each day of research, I can check my class RSS feed that day and see each entry as it is posted. (Sorry for only linking to an image, some schools block social networking sites, like blogs or RSS readers…here’s the real link).
What can I do with blogs?
Lots of things! There are a few methods for blogging with your class that you may want to start with.
The Corporate Blog
This is one website with multiple student authors. The teacher acts as an administrator, but each student has the ability to post to this one blog.
Individual Student Blogs
Each student publishes and customizes an individual weblog. The teacher may be added to the site as an administrator.
The Mother Blog
The teacher and each student sets up a blog. The teacher’s acts as sort of a highlight reel for the classroom. The teacher comments on and links to a few student posts each week. Students are encouraged to visit and comment on the teacher’s site. Each student site has a link on the teacher’s blog.
Practicalities
Amazingly enough, some school districts aren’t completely sold on the idea of social networking. To many people, social websites = Myspace. That simply isn’t the case. Not all blogsites are havens for online predators. Most unknown visitors to your students sites will be respectful and courteous. But there are steps you, as the teacher, can take to make your online experiment a safe one.
-Establish some ground rules. There are lots of examples online of other teachers who set up class blogging projects, and their rules are pretty easy to follow. Mine are included in my parent letter.
-Speaking of which…write home to the parents. Let them know that you are starting this online-oriented project. My letter spells out what we’ll be doing online and providing specific reasons behind it. You can use mine as a guide, or adapt to what suits your classroom and your students best.
-You may also need to convince your district that your project is worthwhile. Many schools block blogging sites, so you may need to get special permission to give your students access to the specific site you would like to use. I wrote a proposal to my district for my projects this year. You may take a look at it and use it if you need to for your own class projects.
Ideas
What are some of your ideas for using blogs in the classroom? I’ve used them for weekly reflections and writing assignments, research journals, portfolios, creative writing assignments, and presentations in my classes, but I’m only scratching the surface of ideas. What are some ways that blogs could be useful in your classroom? Please, leave a comment and respond!
Hi! Welcome to my Blog! My name is Scott Bevill. I'm an English grad student at Clemson University, and I'll be using this blog to write about some of my experiences from teaching, studying, and whatever else comes to mind. Thanks for stopping by!
