PLN

I really started developing a personal learning network (PLN) for the first time in this class. Before, I just sort of arbitrarily gathered information. As a result, my information was often disorganized and I was unable to find certain things. I ended up having to start from square one quite often.

Although creating a website is maybe one of the easier things to do through a site like Weebly or Google, it's one of the things that I'm most excited about. I had tried to make a website two years ago for my class, but I found it really difficult. I was using Dreamweaver, which was nice because I didn't need to know any type of coding. However, it was still a pain because whenever I would edit the site, I would have to save it and sent it to my librarian. Then, she would have to publish the new site. It just got to be too much. I've already started making my new website through Weebly (www.MrsSnydersVirtualClassroom.weebly.com) . I only have the basics down because I want to ask my students what they'd like from a class webpage. It's so easy that I'll be able to update things almost daily if I want.

Related to website creation, I look forward to using blogs more. I think that writing a blog strictly for school (parents and students) would really open up communication with parents. I often wish there were ways for me to keep in touch with more parents about all the cool things we're doing in class. It's been frustrating in the past that I only get to really talk about my classroom happenings at parent-teacher conferences. Additionally, I think there is a lot of room to incorporate student blogs into my classes. I plan on starting by implementing my unit technology plan that requires students to create blogs for their independent reading novels. Later, I think I could use blogs in a lot of different ways.

I think that wikis definitely have possibilities for the classroom. However, I really need to spend more time looking at the wiki and figuring out how it could be used effectively in my classes.

I'm also excited about using Diigo for my students' research papers next year. I think that using the social bookmarks with highlighting features will be a really nice way to incorporate technology, have students collaborate in a meaningful way, and still work on the reading skills (like summarizing) that I really value.

I'm also going to work on using Del.icio.us more. After learning about social bookmarking (which, like so many other things in this class, I had never heard of), making a "favorites" list on an personal computer seems cumbersome and archaic.

Before entering this class I though Twitter was a waste of time. To be perfectly honest, I still don't like it. I can only see it being helpful for emergency situations or quick reminders to students about upcoming tests and assignments. Overall, I still believe that Twitter is a waste of time for me. Because tweets have to be so short, I think that it's impossible for anything over Twitter to be personal. Additionally, I think a lot of tweets that I've looked at are egocentric. I guess I can't really see the difference between Twitter and status updates on Facebook. Furthermore, I don't like the design of Twitter. I don't like logging-in and just seeing this myriad of people's thoughts. (The only tweets I liked reading were actually from a magazine called "Simple." I did like getting helpful little hints about organization. Conversely, news tweets wasted my time. Why log-in to Twitter to read a news tweet only to have to click on a link to read the actual article? Why not just go to the news source first like I usually do?)

I also don't really understand the point of the virtual reality type sites online. I tried really hard to think of how I would use it in class, but I couldn't come up with anything. They felt like games to pique student interest, but when all's said and done, I think they just take more time away from student learning.

del.icio.us

I think that del.icio.us has a lot of potential uses that I didn’t fully tap into yet.

As I get more into the tool, I’ll probably go back and add some more tags to some of my links. I found myself often using the tags recommended. Additionally, I often used really broad tags, like “education.” I’m not sure yet if broader tags are better than narrower ones. I can see the advantages of both. By searching for a broad tag, I’m able to get a lot of results and find some really unique things. But, by doing so, I end up having to sort through a lot of results. Conversely, narrower tags would help me find something precise, but I ran into problems with this. I ended up not getting many results and having to start a search over. I keep using “education” as a tag. I think, though, that the tag needs to be more specific to help other users out.

I tried to add some annotations to my links. Rather than summarizing the site, I often tried to tell a viewer what s/he could expect. For example, I might say something like, “This is a great resource for teaching literature. There are multiple sample activities and lessons for hundreds of different texts.”

I can see myself using Diigo, rather than del.icio.us, with students. I really like all of the extra tools that Diigo has. I plan on using/teaching the highlighting and summarizing tools with students. Additionally, they’ll need help with tagging articles that they find for their individual lists. (I’m thinking of using Diigo for a research assignment so students can share sources.) I think the best way to teach students how to tag (better than I’ve been doing!) is to get them to think of broad categories and then narrow categories for their tags. For example, if a student tags an article about using solar power to power a vehicle, we could talk about a hierarchy of categories to describe the subject. Example: Science, climate change, alternative energy sources, and solar power would all be appropriate tags- starting out broad, and then narrowing in.

As I’m still on maternity leave, I haven’t been as active with this tool as I think I’ll eventually become. For one, I really like the idea of being able to utilize my “favorites” from multiple computers. Second, I think that sharing bookmarks will come in handy when I’m teaching my history classes. I’m always digging through things to find really great, interesting websites for the students. Ideally, I’ll be able to find other American history teachers on del.icio.us and we can share our resources.

Transcendentalists on Twitter?

I just got my Twitter account. *sigh*

I really never thought I would use Twitter, and I have to admit that I'm pretty skeptical.

The irony of the timing here is simply wonderful though: before working on this week's homework for my grad class, I was actually revising an American history unit on the transcendentalist movement in the U.S.

I read "Why I Went to the Woods" (a chapter from Thoreau's Walden) and then proceeded to set up a Twitter account.

Can transcendentalist beliefs coexist in the age of Twitter?

I really believe in a lot of Thoreau's main arguments in Walden. I even have an assignment where I ask my kids to try to modify their lives for a weekend and live more like Thoreau. This past fall, most kids decided to try to live without their cell phones and avoid Facebook. We spent a lot of time discussing/debating what Thoreau and Emerson would have thought about things like Facebook status updates and Twitter. All the students pretty much came to the same conclusion that I did: he'd think we were wasting our time and not really enjoying life.

Thoreau spends a lot of time making the case that we should abandon all things that are trivial. For those unfamiliar with his works, he even urges people to stop reading the newspaper. His rationale is that if you've read about one murder or one war, you don't need to read about another: you get the concept. If the news is happening far away and won't impact you, why bother reading it? Likewise, why read celebrity gossip? It doesn't affect you!

I'm left wondering about how to teach this unit. What if I really embrace Twitter, a tool that seems to go against everything the transcendentalists stood for and would stand for today? Will that mean I can't make the case to my students to embrace his ideas?

I suppose only time will tell. Perhaps I'll discover very profound tweets and the two will mesh perfectly!

Curriculum

Currently, our school is working on updating/changing the curriculum for every single course. We started this during the fall of 2010, and all courses are expected to have updated curriculum by May 2012.

Interestingly enough, our administrators haven't mentioned anything about incorporating technology goals in content area curriculum. Consequently, it seems like it is our (the educators') responsibility to be aware of the different technology standards that are recommended and incorporate them on our own.

I wonder, though, without being exposed to these goals in this course and being asked to think about them, would I have known to do so on my own?

I like to think yes, but the truth is (I think) that we as educators sort of pick and choose which educational topics we explore and focus on throughout the year. We all have so much work to do in our classrooms, that we can't keep up with everything.

How then, can we make sure that all students really do learn what people like Alan November and David Warlick suggest?

How I'll use it: I definitely plan on using Weebly right away next year. I plan on using the summer to really think about what I want to include on the website and then revealing it to parents at our autumn open house. Weebly also allows the use of a classroom blog. I think I'll start by having this be an elective blog, but later turning it into a requirement. (I plan on having students use the blog as a forum to respond to literature that we're reading in class and to make suggestions to their peers about books they're reading on their own.)

Diigo and Delicious

When I first started playing around with Delicious, I started thinking about ways I could use it in the classroom. I initially didn't think it would be all that useful for me personally, but I'm quickly discovering that I was wrong.

I didn't think that I necessarily needed to have access to my bookmarks from other computers. I typically do all of my work on my iMac in my house's office. When I need to use the internet for school work, lesson planning, etc., I'm almost always at home. I don't have much prep time at school where I could actually sit down and explore things.

However, Delicious came in really handy this morning. My new twins were kind of fussy so I wanted to sit up with them in the nursery while they were alternating between who wanted to sleep and who wanted to fuss. At first I just sort of sat there thinking about how I wish I had my iPod charged to listen too. Then, I remembered Delicious. I could grab my husband's laptop and sit in the nursery doing all of the work I wanted to because I had shared bookmarks. This is also true for GoogleDocs (which I'm actually using more right now than Delicious).

Earlier I talked about how I thought I really liked BuddyMarks for the classroom. After exploring Diigo, though, I think I'd much rather use Diigo in the classroom. In my estimation, Diigo allows for students to do more of the "learning" that I want them to be doing. Although I like and appreciate technology, I believe there has to be value in using that technology in the classroom. I don't like using technology as a gimmick to make something seem "cool" or "fun."

I really like that Diigo lets students highlight and annotate: two reading comprehension strategies that my students use every single time they read something for my class.

The annotation feature is my favorite for a couple of reasons. First, summarizing is really difficult for students. I think they need all the practice they can get in this valuable tool. By using a site like Diigo, students get to use the technology they're comfortable with while still practicing a skill I want them to learn. Second, my capstone project has to do with the benefits of summarizing on comprehension of non-fiction texts. Potentially, I could somehow use Diigo as part of my future experiment and research.

BuddyMarks

It seems like a lot of us having been trying to wrap our heads around how to successfully use wikis in the classroom setting. Although the purpose of wikis in my classroom remains a little foggy, I think I'm really going to embrace social bookmarking.

In my district, the students' first REALLY big research project/paper comes in 9th grade. Usually we pick two to three topics that the kids get to choose from. (Possibly climate change, mandatory community service, benefits of a certain program in school, etc.) In groups, we work together to find relevant, reliable sources. Sometimes this is really hard online because students are prone to doing a google search and then believing that the first site to come up MUST be the best, most accurate site out there.

In this class, we could all use social bookmarking to help each other. I believe that students would be more likely to really look at the criteria for "What makes a source 'good'?" if they were only responsible for finding three or four. If everyone in a group found three sources, by the end of the week kids could have access (through their BuddyMarks account) to over thirty sources.

I had twins a month ago, so I'm still home on maternity leave. My sub is going to start the research unit in three weeks. I'm really going to try to explore and learn more about social bookmarking. My hope is that when I meet with her next week I'll be able to make this suggestion to her and show her how to use some of these tools.

Any other thoughts on using this in an English classroom?

Fear not!

Confession: I had never heard about Google Docs before.

Confession: When I read that we had to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with Google Docs I felt overwhelmed. How could I learn all these new programs in less than a week?

Realization: Google Docs are truly user-friendly! AND they make A LOT of sense. I'll definitely use them now that I've located this free, on-line storage and collaboration space.

In terms of using Google Docs in school, the first thing I thought about was student writing. My kids write papers all the time. I'm constantly running into the same two problems when working with kids in the lab. 1)Students don't have flash drives and need me to log-on as an administrator, locate their file from thousands of others that they and their fellow peers have named as something as generic as "English paper", and then email it to their home address. 2)Students come in on day 2 or 3 of writing in the lab and say, "I can't work on it here. I added stuff at home and don't want to redo any of that.

If kids used Google Docs on a regular basis, this would NEVER be a problem.

What is a problem, though, is getting kids access to this. Gmail is blocked at my school. The school doesn't want kids to have access to any type of personal email account. How can we get around this? How can we let kids use various Google Apps like Reader and Docs while still keeping kids on task doing what we want them to do?

Here's the only solution I came up with:

Perhaps for each student I created a gmail account and password. They would be generic like "MrsSnydersClass001@gmail.com". I'd generate passwords and tell kids that I needed to be able to have access to their accounts. I could say that because I created the accounts and knew passwords, they were technically "my" accounts that they were "borrowing." Consequently, they shouldn't use them for personal issues. (Of course this lends itself to kids feeling like they're not trusted, and maybe authentic learning is diminished.)

Any other ideas on how to get this to work for the kids?

Wikis?

I'm still wrapping my head around wikis. As a couple of other students pointed out, I think that the wiki could be a great way for teachers to work on collaborating. I see this working mostly, for me at least, on a smaller scale. I can see working with my department on something. It's harder for me to figure out how to get involved with a wiki that has contributors from all over. Perhaps I'll stumble upon a really great wiki and suddenly "get it."

I've been spending some time searching for wikis about teenagers' reading comprehension and strategies to increase comprehension. I haven't found anything really great yet. I'm hoping to find a spot where teachers from all over discuss problems that they've encountered and what has worked for them.

Until then...the most interesting and relevant wiki I came across had to do with teaching social studies. There was also a lot of information about how Social Studies will soon have Common Core Standards, the way English and math now do in Wisconsin (and a myriad of other states).

The Core Standards put a lot of emphasis on literacy being taught in the content area classrooms. This is really important to me. As someone who teachers language arts and history, I've always believed that it's not "just" the English teacher's responsibility to make sure kids can read. Furthermore, my capstone project has to do with non-fiction reading strategies in the content area classroom. So, this wiki (which can be found at: http://mcdsocst.wikispaces.com/) caught my attention.

I can't tell right now if a lot of other people are contributing or if it's just the author mainly. Although it's set up as a wiki, if no one joins, is it really a wiki? Or just a fancier blog?

Blog Uses

Last week I mentioned how I tried to start a blog last year. Every year at my school teachers are asked to focus on at least one technology goal. I created a blog with the thought that I could post a lot of information on it for students and parents. No one followed and I abandoned the site by the end of October.

I realize now where I went wrong.

Blogs aren't effective if they're being used in a way that transmits information in just one direction. That's where I failed. I thought a blog would be a good tool for me to get information to others. I didn't think about how the blog could be used to get information TO me FROM students and parents.

Re-thinking blogs over the past couple of weeks has given me some new ideas for how to use this tool in the classroom.

For my American history classroom, I can see blogs as a real asset in a couple of different ways. I start a lot of my classes with little thinking/writing prompts and sometimes end with a writing prompt for an exit ticket. Some of my kids have a difficult time completing this task in class. A blog would be a good place for me to post a discussion question or "critical thinking" question. Kids could have a set amount of time (maybe overnight, maybe a week) to respond to a comment and to others' comments. In this setting, the blog could possibly work the way discussion forums work.

I could also see the blog being an effective place to share news stories. Each week my students are encouraged to follow the latest news, to find a piece of positive news, and to find a piece of "weird" news. I ask for volunteers to share this information in class. With the blog, students could post the links directly.

I would like to use the blog for my English classes, as well. I can see the blog being a place to review books and share ideas about books. It would also be a place where I could elaborate on assignments and kids could bounce ideas off of each other.

Blogs to Follow

I've picked three blogs to start following.

The first blog is Edublogger. It can be found at: http://theedublogger.com/. This blog looks really interesting to me because it seems to touch on one of my expectations of this class. The blog seems to offer ways to set up and manage blogs for students to use.

I'm also going to look at a blog devoted to reviewing adolescent literature. One of the courses I teach is eighth-grade English. I'm constantly trying to stay a bit ahead of the kids in what's going to be the "next big thing." This site looks as though it will help! http://adlitreviews.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Another course that I teach is American history to tenth-grade students. I found a blog that's written by an American history teacher. He offers up a lot of useful "tricks of the trade." What drew me in to this blog was how creative some of his ideas were. For example, he shows Civil War battle highlights in just a few slides; he also identified a website where kids can make digital cartoons to help them remember key facts. http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/

Great Expectations

Before taking this class's introductory survey, I would have labeled myself as someone who was pretty computer savvy. At the school where I work I'm the go-to person for help with most of the computer issues that our teachers have. However, I now realize that there are A LOT of tech tools available to me that I'm not only not using, but that I also don't know anything about.

First and foremost, I'd like to learn what all of the different tools do. Secondly, I'd like to consider real applications for a lot of these tools.

I'd like to work on using a blog effectively. A couple years ago I set up a blog where I planned on posting homework assignments and hints, book reviews, helpful links to projects, and news for parents. I stopped working on that blog when, after a full month, no one had viewed it. (I sent the address out to parents in my "Welcome Back" letter at the beginning of the year.)

I also want to learn how to set up some sort of discussion forum (maybe it would just be a modified blog...) for students. I think that a lot of students who are shy in class would feel empowered to voice their ideas if they could do so online.