Blogs, Forums, Wikis

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Blogs, Forums, Wikis

• Writing and Collaboration Across the Curriculum
  with E-Communications Tools

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MySpace.Com

• Your students one-stop e-communications source!

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Huh?!!

• Heres why kids love it
• It connects people across space - its truly
  international!
• It connects people across time people can
  access it from anywhere, and do so at all times
  day and night.
• It provides a forum for participants to celebrate
  who they are, in a place where others can easily
  find and read it.
• Because of this and other reasons, it is highly
  motivating for students!
• Needless to say, since its also a place for a
  lot of inappropriate and risky behavior issues,
  DONT USE IT!

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Why should I care? (the lessons of MySpace.com)

• Across Distance
• Communication and Collaboration (inter-district,
  inter-state, international)
• Connect student-student, student-teacher,
  student-stakeholder, student-expert,
  student-tutor
• Across Time
• Extending the classroom
• Providing motivated writing as homework that
  students will actually do!
• Technology Standards
• Our responsibility to teach responsible use of
  online tools!
• Internet Safety
• Tools they will use in the workplace and in
  higher education
• ISTE/NETS (http//www.iste.org/nets/)
• Side benefits for the teacher
• Archiving
• Ease of assessment
• Instant, anywhere access (no papers to drag
  home!)

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Doing What

• Writing
• Personal Writing (journaling, diaries)
• Transactive Writing (presentation, persuasive)
• Talking
• Collaborative writing/Peer Conferencing
• Correspondence
• project development
• in short, anywhere writing and communication
  apply

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Where

• Lab
• Good news everybody does the same thing
• Bad news mimics ordinary discourse, ignores best
  practice
• Classroom Computers
• Good news modeling best technology practice,
  anytime/anywhere use
• Bad news Where are the computers?
• ESS/Library
• Good news outside of class access
• Bad news limited time
• Home
• Good news Outside of class access
• Bad news too many students have no outside access

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The Tools - Email

• In Kentucky, student email access is the standard
  for 4th-12th grade students
• Best use
• when treated as a tool in support of other
  activities
• 1-1 communication
• Worst use
• Unmonitored discourse
• Formats
• LISTSERV (archives possible)
• Distribution list (no archives)
• One-to-many newsletters communications (more
  later)
• YahooGroups (http//groups.yahoo.com/),
  GoogleGroups (http//groups-beta.google.com/)

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The Tools - Forums

• Members-only threaded discussion
• More labor-intensive than email, but much more
  secure
• Best use
• Open discourse across time and distance
• Worst use
• Writing of large pieces (especially those
  benefiting from word-processing-line formatting)
• Its viewed by high schoolers as kid stuff

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The Tools - Forums
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The Tools - Blogs

• Personal journals with interconnection and
  commenting
• Best use
• diary-style personal writing with peer and
  teacher comments
• Collaborative writing, peer review
• Worst use
• Chat!

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The Point usage stats

• 1,200 registered users contributing to over 2,000
  blogs
• Up to 200 logins per day
• Up to 150 postings per day
• Unmeasured public views

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Blog Topic

• What barriers do you see with your district for
  e-communications with students?

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The Tools - Wikis

• WIKIs community-generated websites (see
  http//c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors for the
  original, Wikipedia at http//en.wikipedia.org/wik
  i/Wiki for a definition)
• Group research and writing projects true
  collaborative thinking!
• Instant and organic web structure development

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The Tools Other Stuff

• Podcasts (see http//epnweb.org/ for examples)
• Injects images and other media into blogging
• Its richer
• Picture Blogging (http//www.flickr.com)

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Putting It All Together Content
Management/Courseware

• Combines online discourse with other workflow
  supports, in a user-friendly environment
• Document sharing
• Scheduling
• Resource management
• Surveying and other interactive content

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Where?

• The best platforms for you and your students, in
  order of preference
• Host it yourself with free or inexpensive
  software
• Forums Snitz
• Blogs Moveable Type
• Wikis ???
• Content Management Moodle, Sharepoint
• Use/collaborate with other districts resources,
  or education-specific resources
• Forums Fayette County Forums (http//teach.fcps.n
  et/forum)
• Blogs Blogmeister (http//classblogmeister.com/),
  The Point (https//edtech.fcps.net/blog/)
• Wikis http//www.wikispaces.com/
• Content Management NiceNet (http//www.nicenet.or
  g)

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Whereand other stuff

• The best platforms for you and your students, in
  order of preference (continued)
• Use free open sources
• Forums Too many to mention
• Blogs Blogger (http//www.blogger.com)
• Security
• Make sure you know who folks are (if you are
  inside a safe district-hosted spot, its easy)
• Require approval, or reduce visibility
• Dont allow ANY personal information be posted
  publicly!

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Your one-stop for e-communications

• Jeffrey L. Jones, District Technology Resource
  Teacher
• jjones_at_fayette.k12.ky.us
• http//teach.fcps.net/trt15/
• http//www.emck.net
• Member EDTECH LISTSERV (moderator), WWWEDU,
  TappedIn, LearningTimes, Blogger, The Point,
  Fayette County Forums, KYTRT, KYTLEAD, KTDTC, and
  several forums on programming and electronic
  music.
• Almost all the capabilities discussed here are
  available as free downloadable software, for
  hosting on your school or district web servers.
  If you need a recommendation, send me an email
  with your specifications and web server platform.