It sounds like many of you are having a hard time building a PLN on Plurk and/or Twitter. Please remember, it takes time!
I suggest you check out the following video and links to help you get started.
How 2(.0) – Your Guide to web 2.0 and How it Can Work for You
Building a PLN One Tweet at a Time
Twittering, Not Frittering: Professional Development in 140 Characters
Building a PLN: Not Just Another Acronym
Good luck building your PLN!
– Jamie
Ok, I just completed my Learning/Technology Fair Project. I chose to begin a classroom blog as another way to share information about what we are doing in first grade with the rest of the world. I decided to record my students reading their constellation stories with my Flip video recorder. It is very easy to use. I then uploaded the videos with the Flip software. In order to load the videos to teachertube, I had to first save them to a file on my desktop. If I uploaded to youtube, I could have done it directly. So, teachertube had one extra step which was fine once I figured it out. Then I loaded the videos from teachertube to my blog by the html. It was a little time consuming, but now that I know how to do it it should be much faster next time. It was definitely a great learning experience and feel that I am just touching the surface of how a blog can become an integral part of classroom communication and learning tool. If you would like to see my blog it is wcmlyons.edublogs.org
Well, after playing around with Diigo for a little while, I found it to be much more friendly than Delicious. I love the highlighting and notes for bookmarking. As someone who is online surfing for information on a broad band of topics, I think this is a great feature. I look forward to exploiting it more, and growing my own list of resources!
I have been using Delicious (lmiller2) for about 2 years and have loved being able to access my favorite sites (both professional and personal) from any computer. I decided to check out Diigo and just setup an account (lmiller2). Currently, I have only bookmarked a few sites – I would like this to be a bit more organized than my delicious account. I am in the process of thinking how I would best like to tag things – especially sites to be used to enhance math instruction for my 3rd – 5th graders (grade level or by topic).
Diigo appears to have some of the characteristics of social networking – not sure I have time to comment on another site. (Currently have a Facebook account and am plurking.) Two features that I think I will find useful are the ability to highlight and to post notes about the article for future reference. I’ve decided to use Diigo for the next couple of weeks and then decide which I prefer and best meets my needs. Regardless of which I choose, I will definitely continue to be a social bookmarker!
Since Socrates instructed his pupils in seeking answers we as a society have given our students the tools to seek answers. Many times they may not “own” the information but at least they are looking for the answers. Social networking can be a powerful tool that allows the students to take greater ownership of their learning, just what we want them to do. Sure getting by Bess and the other gatekeepers is a pain, though the kids know how, I just get annoyed that the blocking seems to be very dodgy in some places.
The issue that I face as an instructor is to find the time for my own educational social networking. Sure I have 2 blogs, a Facebook page, and am on twitter, but I can’t really say that I am involved in any of them because I have gotten into so many things at school and with State Ed, at least I keep my web-page up to date. If only I could drop something.
Someday it won’t be a matter of making time because it will be essential to have to actually do it or the students will be left wondering why we are not giving using the tools that that they are.
I really like this blog post, “Using Google Docs to record, improve, and increase feedback.”
Feedback throughout the writing process is so important for our students. Google docs allows us to “chime” in at any time and keep up with student work. I love that we can follow a student from start to finish online, without having to print each draft.
After reading an article from SMARTtech, our group discussed the ideas of social networking and using the Internet in the classroom. This is crucially important for preparing our students for the future. The following questions came about.
HOW CAN WE ACCOMPLISH THE FOLLOWING IN THE CLASSROOM?
It’s been almost a month since our first WC! meeting of the 2008-2009 school year. I’m excited, energized, and ready to learn with all of the new participants. At our first meeting, we discussed the article, “What a Difference a Century Makes!”, WC! expectations, staff guidelines for district-owned laptops, and Google Docs. We learned how to use Google Docs and how easily it can be used with students. It was interesting to note how many student excuses (regarding homework) we can extinguish with the use of Google Docs; no more lost disks, broken printers, stolen papers, etc.
I just returned from Skyping with Carol Fox’s 3rd grade class and another class in Tennesse (thanks to Cindy Brock!). It was such an awesome experience to see the students connect with one another over sports, days off, playground, math, spelling tests, etc.
Thanks to Cindy and Carol for help coordinating! I think we have all the kinks worked out with our Asus eeePC — it should be smooth sailing from here!
I have been spending time with Carol Fox in the Elementary School “playing” with Skype. We have successfully used two to connect with a video conference. Once we realized the potential, we posted a request on both of our twitter networks (http://www.twitter.com/jamielpeters & http://www.twitter.com/carolfox) looking for other schools to Skype with. We have had three replies! Carol will start skyping with another school in Tennessee this week!
PhotoStory 3 | WCS Technology Integration
Well, its taken me a while to get back here, but after many forgotten passwords I’ve decided to give it another go round. First, its been quite the few months of exploring, playing, and learning about web 2.0, et al, through WC!. I truly appreciate this sometimes frustrating but mostly enjoyable opportunity for not only professional developement, but also personal developement. Where I am now with web 2.0 tools is light years beyond where I might have been through casual osmosis of interesting and perhaps relevant technology. I have made a personal investment to learn through play and experimentation. Perhaps not as much as I would have liked, but certainly more than others have been able to do. My tech learning is still in its infancy.
One of the rewarding experiences has been Twitter, a micro-bloging social network site. As a Twitteratus, one of the few Twitterati in the WCSD, I follow regular updates by Will Richardson, and occasionally read his blog. I first met Will at one of our Superintendent’s days. I, like many others, enjoy his insight and provocative, relevant thinking. It was through a link on Twitter that I read his entry “21st Century Skills for Educators”, posted on March 9. Evidently, it was a pretty impassioned rant having generated over 100 comments and almost 40 other blogs about it. Here is Will’s blog: http://weblogg-ed.com/
I think we’ve heard it before, but Will articulates it so perfectly: faculty and administrators should use and model the use of Web 2.0 tools if they expect students to use them too. Fair enough. How much of a learning curve ought there be before one starts to model? Do I know enough now? Why am I fearful, or at least not confident, to engage my students? Web 2.0 could really be a transformative pedagogy. Instead of subscribing to the banking theory of education, I should just jump in and become a co-learner, and co-teacher, with my students (Freire, 1970).
How about co-learning and co-teaching with my peers while on the learning curve? Instead of just the WC! group, why not open up this blog site to the rest of the district? The last post here was three months ago. Not much use; not much to model. What if everyone in the district had a browser that opened to GoogleReader?
One of the subsequent blog entries generated from Will’s post was Britt Watwoods “Learning in a Flat World”. http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/2008/03/12/wills-hot-button/
He talks about the tension, I might call it stress, between the technology side and the people side of a journey into Web 2.0. It does take some internalization and loads of personal investment to begin using these tools when the average teacher is being pulled in multiple directions by muliple commitments and responsibilities. He suggests the need for those of us in the first Web 2.0 wave to assist our peers in visualizing the possibilities of the power embodied in these 21st century tools- co-teachers and co-learners in transformative pedagogy.
I was checking out a “new web 2.0″ tool, Scribd.com and found this really great document explaining Web 2.0. Check it out and let me know what think! Do you think you could find scribd.com useful in your classroom?
If you’re on a site, and want to subscribe to its associated RSS feed, just look for something that looks like one of the icons below!
Still confused about blogs, Google Reader, and RSS? This video should help clear up a few things!
http://youtube.com/v/0klgLsSxGsU
This is a great YouTube video defining Web 2.0!
Go to www.YouTube.com and search for Web 2.0…The Machine Is Us/ing Us”.
What a visual explanation! Enjoy!
How is Web 2.0 different from Web 1.0? Describe how you might use some of the Web 2.0 tools in your classroom (social bookmarking, Flickr, You Tube, etc.)?
Logistically, how might I utilize Web 2.o in my classroom, such as blogging with my students and conferencing/chatting with other classrooms around the world?
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