Collaborative Technologies and PLNs

New Literacies for the 21st Century Teacher

Laura Nicosia, PhDMontclair State University

English Department

Welcome to NJCTE @ MSU

Who is here today?K-5 Educator

6-8 Language Arts Educator

Secondary English Educator

Technology Coordinator

Supervisor & Administrator

Media Specialist

Higher Education Faculty

Please stand if you are:

Raise your hand if you use

Facebook/MySpace

Blogs

Linked-in

Microblogging Sites (Twitter/Plurk/Jaiku)

Second Life

Skype

Social Networking or Bookmarking sites (de.lici.ous/Stumbleupon/Furl/Flickr)

Wikis

Some sites I use regularly

Diigo

Google Docs

Ning

Plurk

Second Life

Slideshare

Twitter

Wikispaces

In today’s sessionI’ll introduce you to a few of my favorite collaborative sites.

DiigoGoogle Docs

NingWikis

Diigohttp://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvAkTuL

02A

With Diigo you can annotate & highlight articles as you read them. These notations will remain there now--and later. That’s pretty cool already. But...you can also SEND those articles as emails and/or as urls.

When you sign up with Diigo

you download a tool bar menu

You can bookmark textssave & organize them on a web-hosted site

Highlight & comment ON the text

Share the article with others--with your notes!

They share back

This is an effective tool for:

Writers

Researchers

Teachers

Students

How might YOU use such a tool?

Sometimes--you need to write

So, how could you go about doing

that?

with someone to collaborate on a report, a document or

an article.

I use Google Docs

Me

You

+

You’ll need to open a Google Account

Free

Easy

Loaded with functionality

Here’s your Google tool and menu bar

1. More

2. Google Books

3. Google Scholar

4. Google Documents

Create a new document with one clickShare it by inviting collaborators

Documents are stored on the web and appear as in “Page Layout”

This is a document I created for a summer NJCH Workshop

This is the Content Menu

It shows all items owned by or opened by me

It holds folders that I either create or upload

It indicates who I’m sharing documents with and how many documents for which we are collaborating.

Here’s a resource on “15 ways to Use Google Docs in Your

Class”, written by Tom Barrett: http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_8323t58h3ft

Sometimes, my colleagues and I want to upload videos,

collaborate and perhaps even have fun. What then?

Ning

With Ning you can:Upload profile pictures or avatars

Upload videos, documents or urls

Start & moderate discussion forums

Create groups

Create FAQ pages

Post & monitor blogs

Invite members

This is the site I created for our English Ed program

You invite people by email

You promote the site

Upload pictures from CCL sites

You can Delete your site

It’s easy to navigate and to manage:

Here’s my page I am the

Administrator & Creator of our network of over 150 members. I

communicate policies, job openings & events via

Ning.

My Methods of Teaching English students are using Ning for

“virtual fieldwork.”

My Methods classes are paired with 2 English classes at a public high school in Fredericksburg, VA.

They read the students’ writings (blogs, discussion forums & mini-essays) and leave feed-back.

They ask critical thinking questions and try to provoke the students to dig deeper for their responses.

They communicate with the classroom teacher—ask her questions and suggest resources for her to use.

These are the 2 sites my classes use:

My students read the HS students’ discussions

We respond with thoughtful questions or comments:

The teacher sets these reminder directions:

One of my graduate students responded with this thoughtful and constructive posting

My students offer “real time” responses

This pilot has been exciting!

It’s a work-in-progress & we intend to reflect and assess its benefits and

weaknesses at the end of the semester. I’ll keep you posted...

Sometimes, I want participants to be

site builders.

For instance, when I offer

Professional Development

courses & training,I usually

create a Wiki for

participants

Wikis

Here’s OUR wiki for this session:http://njctecollaborativetools.wikispaces.com/

Here’s what the Wiki looks like upon its creation:

First, you choose a name for your site.

Then you “Manage” your Wiki to personalize it

Invite Members

Change colors & images

Create your own icons

Create your page contents by this simple “Edit This Page” button. The act of

creating content on the page is a simple process of typing a Word document--as you

would with Word or Office

Creating content for your Wiki is EASY!

Here is the “Home” page

All you do is type...

Don’t forget to put “tags”

Members add content, too

Each member can add a “New Page” and “Edit Page” to contribute content

You can even include “Hot Links”

Use this button to insert a link

I want to insert a link to email me

What if you don’t like or want the changes

a member makes?

You can “revert” easily

Simply use this button to view recent changes, additions or modifications

Change using the Content Manager

Reject changes or revert to an earlier version

Participants can chat

using a basic and easy to

use Discussion

Board

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to some collaborative tools

Sites, urls & sources I used in this preso:

www.Diigo.com

www.flickr.com

www.google.com

www.ning.com

www.wikispaces.com

Here are sites you will enjoy exploring:

www.Plurk.com

www.Twitter.com

www.slideshare.com

www.teachertube.com

www.animoto.com

Thank you!Laura Nicosia, Phd

English DepartmentMontclair State University

nicosiala@mail.montclair.edu