Digg Attempt 1

I tried Digg yesterday. While I found some interesting bits of information, it felt very crowded with random, useless-to-me content. It was annoying to sift through the flotsam and jetsam of the internet, even though there were gems here and there. While I know that there have been some insightful observations about how this might work in the classroom, I'm not sure that I'm ready to figure yet, let alone teach, a system to filtering all of the vast quantities of information. Besides, if I find something useful, I have to save the link (which I already do) to show that content to the class, because it will be further (perhaps by quite a bit) down the page/site. Digg is still in its early days, so there is time to find uses for it, but I'm not ready to tackle this particular technology in my classroom. I might, however, show it to my Media Lit. students. :-)

WIkis in Education

I started using wikis last year, when I stole the idea of wiki book reports from SWC Geek Girl. You can see my ninth grade students' work (of the expected variety in quality) by visiting the AVHS-Omega-English wikispace. This individual/interlinked project went fairly well, while the tenth grade literary group discussion pages where less successful. A blog site would have been a better starting place for the group discussion project. Both sets (9th and 10th) linked their pages to the master index. My current twelfth graders are using a wiki page as a links bulletin board for their individual blogs. The set up was a bit rocky, but it's now helpful for finding each other's thoughts.

I still haven't figured out how to best show my students the ins and outs of the wiki. How much do I, as the teacher, show them versus just cutting them loose to figure it out on their own? I tried setting my senior loose, but they struggled with lost material due to overwriting each other. In the end, the content made it up for everyone to see, but I still feel that there is (as always) finessing to be done with the creation process.

Facebook...

As mentioned earlier, social networking and I aren't buddies. However, a friend shared this article with me recently. While I'm not sure that I like the idea personally, I am pleased to see that people are exploring positive ways to use Facebook (and similar sites) in the professional sphere. As a public site, it provides employers and potential employers with a lot of seemingly private information. Here is an opportunity to shift the "My boss fired me because of the pictures on my profile!" problems to "I got my dream job because of my ad!"

What next? :-)

Starred Items in Google Reader

As I've been looking at student work, I've found many blog posts that I want to highlight as examples of good work. I've "starred" several entries in each section, but didn't know what to do from there. So, I dug a bit deeper. It turns out that I have a public page that shows what I've starred. Check it out!

Advantage for students: Many of my young bloggers have asked about grading. "How long should the entry be?" "What will earn a good grade?" and so on... Now, students can see which blog entries caught my eye.

23 Things: #6

I've heard a lot of buzz about del.icio.us, an emerging Web 2.0 tool/site. As a conscientious objector to social networking, I find social bookmarking to also seem... uninteresting. On the one hand, knowledge is power (Thank you, Francis Bacon for a fantastic phrase!). The more sites that del.icio.us sends me to, the more knowledgeable I am. On the other hand, I am not keen on the larger, less-known world knowing which sites are "regulars" for me. One of my students raised this issue in his first class blog: the danger of expanding technology is the loss of true human contact. The generic, all-encompassing "we" would rather send a text than make a phone call. I can bookmark a page socially, rather than make direct contact with particular people.

On the other side, email could have the same fault found within it. Why call when I can email? Why write a letter when I can call? Why visit when I can write a letter? As we shrink the time it takes us to communicate across distances, are we expanding the gap between each other?

In other words, I'm not quite ready to step outside of my comfort zone and use del.icio.us. Perhaps I will try "digging" things (23 #7)... After all, my husband reads Digg.com every day and often tells me fascinating things....

Research Tracking Online

While waiting for a friend to arrive, I spent some time catching up on other teachers blogs. I found a great MLA format handout, which I'll modify a bit (it's a few years old) and use in my research unit. Then, Zotero caught my eye. I have not tried out this research tool; in fact, the link imbedded here is just to the blog (HuffEnglish) where I found out about the tool. However, my interest is piqued, especially in light of my focus on internet tools in my Media Lit. courses. Has anyone tried this tool out? If so, what did you like and dislike?

Google Reader

I started using RSS feeds about a year ago, as the Mail program on my Mac has a built in reader. I have a few friends who have blogs, so I keep track of their comments with via RSS. Another friend uses Google Reader, which I played with a little bit a while ago. Now, at the prompting of the 23 Things project, I've played around a bit more.

Google's applications are very helpful, but their directions are very unclear. I am excited about keeping tracks of blogs and other websites in one place. However, whenever I want to change, personalize, or explore a particular feature, I find it hard to figure out how to do so. I consider myself a fairly savvy technology user, but struggled with using Reader features that sounded cool.

I plan to follow my students' blogs via my Google Reader account. I'll keep each class's links in it's own folder, making tracking, grading and general usage easier. I will be able to see when they post and comment, without having to visit every one of the 170+ sites. I'm not sure that I want to require my students to use RSS feeds to follow each others blogs, but I may suggest it in class. I think that it would be neat for a Social Studies class to use a reader to follow specific news sites. Perhaps they could compare The New York Times and CNN online, in order to look for the particular biases present in the news.

An Academic Adventure

Exciting news! After hearing about my Web 2.0 classroom adventures, a friend pointed me to a learning community that is exploring this very topic. SWC 23 is a local group that will spend nine weeks working on the different aspects of modern, internet-based communication. In light of my last post, concerning my media classes, this seems like a perfect opportunity for me. Let the adventure begin!

Media Lit.

My Media Literature classes are going to journal online this semester. While writing with pen and paper is very valuable, so is mastering the art of communicating online. Therefore, each student will keep a blog.

To those in my courses (and others who have educational projects), remember to leave out personal information, like first names and hometowns. Even saying the name of a school creates a potential security and safety issue in our modern era. While we want to trust the world, we must be cautious about how much we reveal to the global audience of blog.

On the other hand, blogging is an opprotunity to sound out ideas on a much larger scale than ever before. Put your best “foot” forward, express your ideas, and respond to the thoughts of others.