Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0

In the summer session of the ITS program as a part of our study of Activity Structures we created plans for the development of web pages that would be used to build a framework. This framework helps us to keep problems authentic and real, by providing contexts that are used by students to create meaning to their projects.

I developed a web 2.0 project but didn't have a clue how it would actually be built and utilized. Over the course of this final semester I have found a wiki would probably be the best tool for that project. The interactive elements that are a part of most wiki tools would complement this project perfectly. Teachers and students could add the hands on science experiments and start the discussion with ease.

This is not to say that the affordance of web 1.0 tools is low. There are many times when web 1.0 are the right fit. Just not for this project. The interactivity allows for a constantly changing library of content and development of new ideas, it makes the project dynamic and current.

Video Editing

Video editing is a powerful way to demonstrate an idea or an interpretation of a concept. But is the time needed to learn the tool worth it? I do not know. In the last couple of years I have attempted to use video editing in two different lessons. Both ended up taking significantly more time then expected and had mediocre results. The students were unable to make the kinds of content decisions needed to clearly define their ideas. They were not ready to demonstrate what they had learned in an creative way. Perhaps after several times using the video medium they may start to become efficient and competent with the tool. But in an my elementary classrooms with so little time and to much content, spending the time to get the students competent with this tool would limit the amount of content that can be covered.

If we can teach our students to think differently, to envision, plan, and encode their thoughts in ways that are not multiple choice then the time needed to teach video editing will be worth it. I believe there needs to be a lot of development of how students use information to make decisions before video editing can be a tool that is beneficial to the classroom. It is a great goal, and it may work in schools with the right culture. Unfortunately my school community is not ready, we can not create.

Thoughts, Processing, and the Tools we use.

This week the blog post is less specific and more open. I have always had difficulty with more open ended tasks. Even back in High School the research projects were always easier when we were given a topic but twice as difficult when the choice was open. I never really though about why, I just grumbled and went with it. Over the course of the last year and a half in the ITS program I have started to think about it more, not consciously but in the back of my mind. This morning as my kids were watching Croods I read an article through the Google Newsstand app on my phone. The article was from Business Insider and talked about how Steve Jobs viewed tools that enhanced what you can do. It made me think. Which made me think about Larry Cuban's book Oversold and Underused, computers and technology speed up what we can do. We are (sometimes) more efficient using technology but I rarely see anyone changing what they to because they can do different things when they have access to new technologies. Change is hard, change is risky, change takes time to learn, change involves making mistakes and mistakes adds time and more challenges. As teachers this is very hard to embrace, the education system is to high stakes and punishes mistakes and risk taking especially if they fail. This is dangerous to education and society as a whole, if we can't adapt and enhance ourselves with advancements in technology we are going to fall farther and farther behind. As my mother used to say when teaching me how to ski, "if your not falling your not learning."

Our children are growing up doing this, our schools and teachers must do it as well.

Kidblog continues

As I continue this experiment in getting kids to think about their math in text, I am seeing a few different reactions from the kids.  Unfortunately as time get tight it is hard to keep this in place, even though I think it is just as important as the Math games they are playing. 

The students are feeling slighted if we lose track of time and don't get to go to kidblog, they want to do this.  They have asked if they can go and work on the posts first so they have enough time to express themselves.  That was very exciting for me.  So far they have just responded to my posts and have not gotten to the posting of the own posts yet, at least not posting discussion type of posts. A few basic and irrelevant posts have popped up. I approve all the posts and comments as long as they are not derogatory or offensive, to act as a learning tool. But they are making progress towards developing discussion based posts and threads.  Most of the students excited about communicating in this form and I am hopeful that we will be able to sustain this project in a meaningful way. I have still not been able to get the 5th grade project started due to a lack in returned permission forms. It is a time to revisit our approach and get this started.

Social Networking, is there an educational value?

Social Networking, is there an educational value?

It depends on how it is used, but in general yes, there is an educational value to the networking aspect of social networking. Humans are social creatures, we learn together. Social networking is just another digital took that can help facilitate Vygotsky's social constructivism. I can say this with absolute confidence, social networking is good for students and adults. In the last 10 years I have been connected with social networks like MySpace, facebook, twitter, Google+, edmodo, and LINKEDin. Each was for a different purpose and that purpose is what has shaped my view on this topic. 

Twitter, was an exciting network to join. I joined it for the purpose of developing a PLN (professional learning network). I was extremely active there for almost a year before my interest faded. My purpose for joining Google+ was interest based, to make connections based on different interests. I am still extremely active there with 3 or 4 different interest bases, including my education circles. I learn new things from the people I follow there everyday. Edmodo is the network I want to talk about though. Teachers can create their own PLNs but students can network and communicate with each other in a restricted and controllable system. They can share ideas and have digital conversations. The network enables that conversation to take place anywhere anytime, and allows for processing and thinking opportunities for the students. Some of the most powerful learning opportunities I have seen in my school have been part of student to student conversations. The networking system is supplemented by the social media that is omnipresent in the networking environment, but that is not the only learning tool that is associated with social networking. Social networking is not only something that can stimulate learning, it is a tool that should not be ignored in a learning setting.

Podcasting, an early impression

I am not completely sure how I feel about podcasting. I don't really like it, but I do see potential and possibility in the application of a podcast. Maybe if I break down my feeling it will help me to come to some sort of feeling either way.

Pro Podcasting	Anti Podcasting
Ease of access from mobile devices Portable with out requiring a data connection Can be heard while doing other things Easily and quickly shared Requires a lot of design thought Creating podcasts requires DEAPR creating using multiple forms of literacy	Limited to audio only Just one form of literacy Requires a lot of work to sound right Information has to be delivered through a single sense Time can be wasted trying to "get it right" Nothing to distract from your voice Content can not be seen

After thinking about these and jotting them down, I am still not convinced either way. I am starting to lean more pro, but I need to see them in action to get a better feel and comfort utilizing podcasts in an elementary classroom.

Kidblog Day 2

Today was fun and draining in the blog world. I continued my 3rd grade I/E students. They were able to quickly get back in and navigate to the same post as yesterday. I had them commenting on my comments to them, so each student had a sub post attached to the main post. They refined their thinking and gave more explanation today. It was successful.

I also started the 5th grade project, we got off to a rocky start. We couldn't get into a lab so we grabbed the ipads and started the process. It was rocky, more rocky than the 3rd graders from the day before. Partly because I was working with 3 times as many 5th graders then 3rd, and partly because the group of 3rd graders were in an extension period and were more focused. The 5th graders had just come back from recess and were not focused. I had the same screen as they did on the board but they couldn't navigate the app well. 6 told me they didn't have it on their screens, even though it was in the very center of their screens. This was a good learning experience for this project. Next time we will start on the computer when the screens show where to go better.

KidBlog Day 1

The group of 5th graders I set up to work inside kidblog has not been able to get started. So far I have only gotten 1 permission slip back. However, I have had more success with a group of 3rd graders that I set accounts up for today. The group of students I took for an intervention/extension block this afternoon where online playing BigBrainz on the computers. BigBrainz is designed to help the students gain and retain math fluency with multiplication, division, and addition subtraction. It is really a great game for the students to play. It is really fun.

As the kids played the game, I set up the accounts in Kidblog and posted a blog post that I wanted them to respond to.

"Welcome to kidblog. This is an experiment to get you thinking about math in a different way. I want you to post a comment to this post. On the first line I want you to answer this question 9 x 9 =.Press Enter one time and explain how you answered this question. You can’t show your work so I want you to talk about your work. What steps and strategies did you use to solve the problem."

They had just finished playing the multiplication component of BigBrainz so I wanted to see if they were able to relate the skills learned to a different problem. It is important to note the this is only their second session with the game so none of them had reached the 9 facts yet. It was an interesting experiment. 3 of the 14 students correctly answered the question but only 2 of those students was able to write out the strategy they used. I responded back to each student with specific feed back about what they wrote. It was quite interesting to see them switch gears to from doing math to explaining math. Even with the time issue caused by it being the first time any of them had heard of the program or commenting online I think it was a successful experiment with mixing literacy forms. The 3rd graders really enjoyed it. Now to get the 5th grade classroom rolling. We are going to attempt a different introduction strategy in the next day or two.

Wiki Wiki What?

Wiki, walka , wikipedia, what?

What is a wiki?

As I have learned from Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for the Classrooms a wiki is a quick and easy web authoring tool that allows for peer review and correction.

As far as the classroom goes, wikis are an awesome yet underused learning tool. I have known what a wiki is for several years. Various wikis have helped me to solve lots of problems, I had even attempted to incorporate a wiki into my teaching once. It didn't work. I had never used the tool from the content creator side. So I didn't understand how to use it. This was before the the wysiwyg input method and I didn't have the time to learn how to use it. So I left it alone and didn't think about the classroom potentials until we started talking about it in ITIS.

And now.

Wow, it is amazing how far the technology has come in. Since we stated creating our ITSopedia page I have created 4 new wiki pages for a variety of goals. One will be used in a unit I will be teaching to a class of 2nd and 3rd grade students. We will be using it as the share  part of the unit. It will function like a destination report from a travel agency. However, unlike a journal, a wiki can function like an affinity space as more ideas arise and new thoughts develop the plans can be modified and adjusted to match the vision of the team and they can happen individually or with in the group.  With the added benefit of saving all the edits so they can be reviewed or reverted as needed. I don't know how it will go yet, but I am excited to try it! I am also thinking about how I can use the free wiki tools that are not filtered by our district filters to all students to have their own space to create and develop thoughts and projects. A research wiki would be a whole lot more interesting the view then a PowerPoint show, and they would get more valuable skills building a wiki site.

First impression of Blogging

My first thoughts at using a blog. I am not a great writer, in fact I am not a good writer. This has turned me off to the concept of blogging for a long time.

I have had a social media presence online with services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for a few years now, but I have not put myself out there in terms of delivering much content. I have mostly been a consumer of content.

As I have started investigating the use of Weblogs I have become intrigued as to the possibilities that exist for use in the classroom. The biggest thing that has stood out to me is the concept of reading more then you write. In order to be able to write well you need to read.  This sounds like DEAPR to me, Design, Encode, Assemble, Publish, and Refine. We have to develop an idea encode our thoughts into writing in order to assemble a coherent message that can be published and then revised.  You can't do that unless you able to digest and decode writings produced by others.  You need an example. By blogging we are doing this while working on improving literacy in written text, digital text, and possibly other medias like graphics, video, even oral. The possibilities are quite amazing yet extremely frightening.

This has caught my attention, along with the other obvious benefits like thoughtful analysis, synthesis of ideas, and purposeful writing. I searched online for possible school friendly blog hosting sites that were not blocked by district filters. Oddly enough Tumblr was not blocked, which was unexpected . I did eventually stumble across kidblog.com and set up a teacher account. I plan to set up a demo class and have found a teacher that is willing to allow me to give some of their students an opportunity to experience analytically thinking and purposeful writing in a weblog environment. It makes sense to me to attempt this experiment while we are working on it in class so that I can use the collective ideas of our cohort. I am excited about this possibility, even though I have some worry about how many of teachers will react to this suggestion. I will periodically report on how the experiment goes.

Introduction

My name is Kevin and I have started this blog as a part of my Integration of Technology into Schools graduate class.

I am an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher in Prince William County Schools in Virginia.  I taught 4th grade as a new teacher and have since been in the roll of a technology resource and coach for the teachers and students at my school.  I enjoy what I do, but I know I can do better.  So after 4 years as the ITRT I decided it was time to move forward and enhance my knowledge base and to acquire a new bag of tools.

As a part of this program we have learned about many different technology driven activities that can be used to help student become better users of information.  Better thinkers and doers, because they are taught how to understand the contexts what they are doing.  They are starting to link living and learning.  I firmly believe that one learns best by doing, and this program fully supports my teaching beliefs and philosophies.

In the last couple of years I have pushed my teachers to utilize blogging and digital journaling to reach their students and to start to bridge the gap between living outside of school and learning.  Some attempts have failed, but a few of my teachers have embraced the Edmodo platform and have used some of the more basic features to reach their students.  We have a long way to go, but I am confident we are moving in the right direction.