blogs & wikis their educational uses tim peters margie massey colorado state university - pueblo

Blogs & WikisTheir Educational Uses

Tim Peters

Margie MasseyColorado State University - Pueblo

Taken from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson

Blogs and Wikis – So?

We are entering a new interconnected, networked world where more and more people are gaining access to the Web and its continually growing body of knowledge. And access doesn’t just mean being able to read what’s there; it means being able to create and contribute content as well. At first blush, that may not seem like such a big deal, but it is a shift that requires us to think seriously and expansively about the way we currently teach students and deliver our curricula. Will Richardson

in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms


Our Goals

Understand the significance of these technologies for society and education

Challenge ourselves to think of the potential of these technologies in terms of pedagogy and curriculum

Develop the know-how to set up our own blog and wiki.


Impact of this new Web

The social connections that students are now making on the Web

The ability to share and contribute ideas and work

New expectations of collaboration The ability to extend the walls of the

classroom


Keeping Kids Safe

Ways to keep our kids safe Use these tools for your own

Professional Development


Hands on Workshop

Everyone will leave with their own blog and wiki


CPS Question

What level have you reached?

A. I’ve heard about blogs.

B. I’ve read a blog

C. I regularly read a blog

D. I’ve created a blog

E. I regularly update my own blog


The Read/Write Web

Tim Berners-Lee had a grand vision for the Internet when he began development of the WWW in 1989

“The original thing I wanted to do, was make it a collaborative medium, a place where we [could] all meet and read and write”


The Read/Write Web

1993: Mosaic Web- graphical interface Still mostly “reading”


The Read/Write Web

Today easy Internet Publishing Tools 53 million American adults (44% of adult

internet users) had used the Internet to publish their thoughts, respond to others, post pictures, share files, and otherwise contribute to the explosion of content online. Pew Internet and American Life Project


The Read/Write Web

At the beginning of 2006, almost 25 million blogs listed. As of today Technoratic.com

Adding 70,000 new blogs and a million weblog posts each day


The 2 way web has arrived


The New Read/Write Web

Creating content of all shapes and sizes is getting easier and easier

Increasing bandwidth and storage capacity


http://www.authorama.com/we-the-media-3.html

The people who’ll understand this best are probably just being born


What’s Changed?

Politics – Dean Campaign

World Events – First hand accounts Indian Ocean Tsunami Hurricane Katrina

Reporting Fact checking – Dan Rather Participatory Journalism

Northwest Voice New York Times Huffington Post

Businesses Ford, GM, Kodak, Microsoft


Hands on Activity Break

Take 15 minutes to explore the many uses of blogs

http://tieconference2006.blogspot.com/


CPS Question/Discussion

What did you think of the blogs you browsed?

A. No interest

B. Some interest (probably will never go back)

C. Some interest (I’ll probably go back and have a look someday)

D. Very interesting (I’ll definitely go back)


Blogs in Schools

“K-12 educators are just now beginning to contemplate in significant numbers the ways in which this new Internet can enhance their own practice and their students learning.”


The New Web

What needs to change about our curriculum when our students have the ability to reach audiences far beyond our classroom walls?

What changes must we make in our teaching as it becomes easier to bring primary sources to our students?

How do we rethink our ideas of literacy when we must prepare our students to become not only readers and writers, but editors and collaborators?


Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants Mark Prensky

“Today’s students, of almost any age, are far ahead of their teachers in computer literacy.

http://matthewbischoff.com/ http://www.dylanverdi.com/

81% of students in grades 7-12 have email accounts

75% have at least one IM screen name 97% believe technology use is important in

education Fastest growing age group for using the Internet is

2-5 years oldNetday Survey March 2005


Digital Immigrants Mark Prensky

The Web Browser is only 13 years old Some of us still carry accents

Print out their email Write checks to pay their bills Use phone books Don’t multitask well Order through catalogues


Natives vs. Immigrants

Read/Write web might widen the gap

“I make a basic distinction (one that I think is widening) between education and schooling: people, especially young people, continue to learn- and to adopt new media– but institutions, and those who run them, are much slower to change their ways”

Rheingold, 2004


Keeping Students Safe

More than … Not publishing student names and

pictures Not allowing students to access obscene

content Safety now about

Responsibility, appropriateness and common sense



WWW Overwhelming amount of inappropriate

content CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act)

Schools and libraries required to filter content Schools must monitor online activities of

minors



Inappropriate Content won’t go away Schools can go 2 directions

Block more and more content on the web Including appropriate sites

Teach students the skills they need to navigate the darker sides of the Web safely and effectively

Teachers of younger students should plan, test and limit the amount of freedom students have to surf



Publishing Protecting the privacy of students

Follow school policies Parental approval –

Sample letter Discuss with supervisors Discuss with students what should and should not be

online NO information on where they live, where they work and

other personal information that might identify them to potential predators.



Publishing Balancing the safety of the child with the

benefits that come with students taking ownership of the work. Who is the audience

The class, the entire Internet

What do you do with inappropriate comments



In your school what is the policy?

A. No teacher web publishing

B. Very limited ability to publish

C. No student pictures and/or student names

D. No restrictions


Weblogs

A Weblog is an easily created, easily updateable Website that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection.


Weblogs

Not built on static chunks of content

They are comprised of reflections and conversations that in many cases are updated every day

Blogs engage readers with ideas and questions and links. They ask readers to think and to respond. They demand interaction.


Publishing to the Web

Journaling vs. Blogging

Social tools vs. learning tools


Blogging in its truest form has a great deal of potential positive impact on students.

1. Promote critical and analytical thinking2. Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and

associational thinking3. Promote analogical thinking4. Be a powerful medium for increasing access and

exposure to quality information5. Combine the best of solitary reflection and social

interaction Fernette and Brock Eide’s


The Pedagogy of Weblogs

Constructivist activity Expand the walls of the classroom Archive the learning that teachers and

students do Democratic tool that supports different

learning styles Enhance the development of expertise Teach students our new literacies


A new writing genre

Connective writing A form that forces those who do it to read

carefully and critically, that demands clarity and cogency in its construction, that is done for a wide audience, and that links to the sources of the ideas expressed.


Connective Writing

Instead of assigning student to go write, we should assign them to go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means …because it is through quality linking…that one first comes in contact with the essential acts of blogging: close reading and interpretation. Blogging, at base, is writing down what you think when your read others. If you keep at it, others will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you’ll enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection. Ken Smith


Publishing to the Web


Scaffolding Blogging

How to introduce blogs Provide students or let students search

for interesting and relevant sites and teach them how to write about what they find useful at those sites

Primary sources: connect to authors, scientists, politicians

Become an “expert” about a topic, comparing information from different sites


Blogging across the curriculum

Pre-Cal 40S Bud’s Blog Experiment The Write Weblog


Weblogs in schools

Class Portal Online Filing Cabinet E-portfolio Collaborative Space School Website



Take 15 minutes to explore the educational blogs on




What did you think of the blogs you browsed?

A. Wouldn’t work in my school

B. Some potential, but I doubt I’ll try it myself

C. Looks good, and I’ll give it a try

D. Definitely, I’m in


Getting started

Read some blogs Write your own blog – model to your

students Millions of kids are already blogging, so

they certainly are enticed by the tool. But very few are using their sites as places of critical thinking and analytical writing and reflection


Step 1 in writing your own blog

Start small Add links, add annotated links with what

you think is important and meaningful As you get into a rhythm of posting, add

more depth Remember this is a learning tool, not a

place to air complaints. It will be part of your public record


Step 2

Use it as a class portal Homework assignments Links Don’t worry about using it for

collaborations and conversations


Step 3: adding students

Have students get use to using the blog for a portal

Add discussion questions Have students look at other blogs Set expectations on how they should

respond


Step 4: Students own blog

Make sure technology is comfortable Negotiate how much of their blog is

their own Student Safety

Students, parents, and administration are clear about the expectations and the reasoning behind it.

Permissions


Step 4: Students own blog

Teachers role is connector Assessment

Simply the number of posts or Evaluate on form and content


Using blogger.com

Sign up @ http://www.blogger.com Blogger for word tool Comment control

Settings Email comments

Students can post until teacher reads it Teacher has full access as administrator

Blog roll Pictures Remove Next blog


Wikis

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder


Wiki

Wiki-wiki – Hawaiian word for quick

First developed by Ward Cunningham in 1995


Wikis

Wikipedia WikiRecipes WikiTravel


Wikis in Schools

South African Curriculum High School Online Collaborative

Writing The Teacher’s Lounge ED280 Wiki



Take 15 minutes to explore wikis




What do you think of wikis in the classroom

A. No interest

B. Maybe but probably not

C. I’ll go back and try to get it going

D. It will happen


Activity

Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and create your own Blog

Go to http://www.seedwiki.com/ and create your own Wiki

On the presentation blog, post a comment with your blog and wiki address and any comments on how you think these tools can be used in the classroom


The content of this PowerPoint was take from the book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

blogs & wikis their educational uses tim peters margie massey colorado state university - pueblo

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