Blogs

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Blogs WikisTheir Educational Uses

• Tim Peters
• Margie Massey
• Colorado State University - Pueblo

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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 doesnt just mean
  being able to read whats 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

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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.

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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

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Keeping Kids Safe

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

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Hands on Workshop

• Everyone will leave with their own blog and wiki

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CPS Question

• What level have you reached?
• Ive heard about blogs.
• Ive read a blog
• I regularly read a blog
• Ive created a blog
• I regularly update my own blog

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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

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The Read/Write Web

• 1993 Mosaic Web- graphical interface
• Still mostly reading

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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

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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

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The 2 way web has arrived
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The New Read/Write Web

• Creating content of all shapes and sizes is
  getting easier and easier
• Increasing bandwidth and storage capacity

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The people wholl understand this best are
probably just being born
http//www.authorama.com/we-the-media-3.html
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Whats 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

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Hands on Activity Break

• Take 15 minutes to explore the many uses of blogs
• http//tieconference2006.blogspot.com/

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CPS Question/Discussion

• What did you think of the blogs you browsed?
• No interest
• Some interest (probably will never go back)
• Some interest (Ill probably go back and have a
  look someday)
• Very interesting (Ill definitely go back)

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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.

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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?

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Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants Mark
Prensky

• Todays 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 old
• Netday Survey March 2005

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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
• Dont multitask well
• Order through catalogues

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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

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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

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Keeping Students Safe

• 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

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Keeping Students Safe

• Inappropriate Content wont 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

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Keeping Students Safe

• 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.

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Keeping Students Safe

• 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

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CPS Question/Discussion

• In your school what is the policy?
• No teacher web publishing
• Very limited ability to publish
• No student pictures and/or student names
• No restrictions

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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.

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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.

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Publishing to the Web

• Journaling vs. Blogging
• Social tools vs. learning tools

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• Blogging in its truest form has a great deal of
  potential positive impact on students.
• Promote critical and analytical thinking
• Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive,
  and associational thinking
• Promote analogical thinking
• Be a powerful medium for increasing access and
  exposure to quality information
• Combine the best of solitary reflection and
  social interaction Fernette and Brock Eides

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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

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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.

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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
  linkingthat 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 youll
  enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of
  human connection. Ken Smith

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Publishing to the Web
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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

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Blogging across the curriculum

• Pre-Cal 40S
• Buds Blog Experiment
• The Write Weblog

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Weblogs in schools

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

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Hands on Activity Break

• Take 15 minutes to explore the educational blogs
  on
• http//tieconference2006.blogspot.com/

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CPS Question/Discussion

• What did you think of the blogs you browsed?
• Wouldnt work in my school
• Some potential, but I doubt Ill try it myself
• Looks good, and Ill give it a try
• Definitely, Im in

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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

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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

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Step 2

• Use it as a class portal
• Homework assignments
• Links
• Dont worry about using it for collaborations and
  conversations

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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

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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

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Step 4 Students own blog

• Teachers role is connector
• Assessment
• Simply the number of posts or
• Evaluate on form and content

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Using blogger.com

• Sign up _at_ 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

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Wikis

• Imagine a world in which every single person on
  the planet is given free access to the sum of all
  human knowledge. Thats what were doing.
• Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder

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Wiki

• Wiki-wiki Hawaiian word for quick
• First developed by Ward Cunningham in 1995

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Wikis

• Wikipedia
• WikiRecipes
• WikiTravel

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Wikis in Schools

• South African Curriculum
• High School Online Collaborative Writing
• The Teachers Lounge
• ED280 Wiki

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Hands on Activity Break

• Take 15 minutes to explore wikis
• http//tieconference2006.blogspot.com/

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CPS Question/Discussion

• What do you think of wikis in the classroom
• No interest
• Maybe but probably not
• Ill go back and try to get it going
• It will happen

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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

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• 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.