“The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank.” Dr. George Sheehan

2.0 does 26.2


In seven days I will be running the California International Marathon. For every serious long distance runner, the dream of achieving a fast enough marathon time to qualify ( I need 4:05) and be able to participate in the prestigious Boston Marathon, is everything. Boston is on my life list and it seriously needs a nice big check mark. Anyone else have a similar goal?

I’m not genetically blessed with athletic genes. My father is the most incredible bowler who leaves his name and high scores immortalized on plaques in every bowling alley where he’s ever played. My sister won the 100-yard dash on Sports Day wearing an arm cast. Me? Well I have hips, heavy bones, no natural talent, absolutely no fast-twitch muscle fibres, and I’m also getting older at an alarming pace. But I like running. It clears my brain, helps me think creatively and gives me plenty of time for contemplation. And I love the challenge of running 26.2 miles.

The running gods are not kind. I’ve endured a 50 mph headwind/sandstorm at the Las Vegas Marathon, a hailstorm in Vancouver, an autumn gale in Victoria, broke one foot falling off a sidewalk and the other when I was bowled over in an exercise class. (I know, pretty stupid!) I’ve still run 15 marathons – all of them too slow for Boston. Darn!

But this year feels different. I’m not hoping. I’m not wishing. I’m putting in a determined effort by training hard, eating properly, stretching, doing my track workouts and tempo runs, getting up early to weight train, asking experts for advice and doing lots of reading on the subject. My times keep improving and I’m daring to dream that Sacramento will be my day.

What it All Means?

When I’m running, I find my mind clears. I do my best thinking and come up with neat ideas, a result my husband hates because neat ideas usually involve more work on his part. Lucky for him, this week I had just read “What it All Means” from Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms before I hit the nearby trails for a 13-miler. So with Richardson’s “What all this means?” swirling in my head instead of potential renovation plans, I ran through the autumn leaves, and did some reflecting about why I decided to learn more about Web 2.0 in the first place. My reasons: A – As a secondary Teacher Librarian it was my role to get my staff and students using Web 2.0. B – I wanted to improve my own facility with technology and stop being scared by it, and C – I was tired of not knowing what the heck was going on with technology. I'm sure others in this Web 2.0 course had similar goals.

I remember in the interview for my education leave from the District, I was asked how I would use technology in the library setting. I explained that I really did not know which uses were applicable but was determined to find out through my university coursework. From Teacher Librarian magazine I knew that other teacher librarians were doing amazing things integrating technology – using Web 2.0 tools I couldn't pronounce (what's a why-kee?) much less understand. Acquiring greater fluency with information knowledge and technology tools was the first goal I set for myself. Then I would cast a wider net to include my school. In any case, I had established a personal vision and “began this journey with the end in mind", as motivational speaker Steven Covey recommends.

In the concluding chapter of his book, Richardson offers a quote by Thomas Friedman, which encapsulates current trends in technology and offers a mission statement for my vision:

“We are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools of the world together.”

Teaching as a connecting and collaborative process is a concept that speaks directly to my role as a teacher librarian. The time is perfect for me to work as an agent for change with students and staff. To convey the literacy skills necessary for success in this new technology-based learning environment is “a huge shift” in my own interpretation of teacher librarianship and frankly, a very daunting prospect. But then so is 26.2 miles and I can do this. It all starts with an action plan broken into manageable, achievable chunks. Investigating Web 2.0 applications is the first step I’ve taken towards gathering the skills I need to teach the new literacies.

The Starting Line - Blogging

So here I am again. How I will I begin to use technology, specifically Web 2.0, in the library setting? To extend my running metaphor, I am going back to the starting line and look at my first entry into the Web 2.0 world – blogs. Future education trends demand that teachers adjust the way we teach students, and blogs can help us with these changes. Richardson lists blogs first in his 2.0 arsenal with good reason. Extremely versatile, they may be used for instruction across the curriculum, professional development, portfolio building, repositories of information, collaboration, and promoting information literacy. I guess you could call blogs a one-stop shopping mall of possibilities. In his video “Perspectives on Classroom Blogging", Wesley Fryer calls blogging the “cornerstone piece of literacy learning in our classrooms.”

Richardson outlines ten “big shifts” or attitude changes necessary to support the new literacies on pages 131 – 136 of his book. As I read through these “big shifts” concepts I thought that blogs would be a great starting point because they could be used to promote each one of these ideas.

• Share open content.
• Offer full intellectual access, 24/7 learning with access to many teachers.
• Facilitate the social and collaborative connection.
• Allow for conversations.
• Help students to find information.
• Encourage critical reading.
• Provide a vehicle for managing information.
• Write critically.
• Create shared resources.
• Add student knowledge to the wider learning community.

I'd be interested in knowing if you agree with my choice of blogs as a starting point.

The Race Strategy

So if my plan is to use blogs as the tools to create a change in my secondary school, I will need to start with baby steps. Introducing a new idea to one or two teachers, “converting” them, and then building upon this success, is an approach that has always worked well for me. Teachers are responsible for so many daily tasks and encouraging them to find the time to explore a new approach requires encouragement, genuine offers of help and a certain amount of subterfuge. If you can illustrate ways in which a change can ease teacher work – such as saving time, helping to achieve objectives or motivating students - then teachers will usually “buy in”. And once you’ve got teachers comfortable integrating technology into their lessons, they will begin to promote it in lesson and assignment design and in informal chats with colleagues.

In the video (thanks, April!) “Web 2.0 and Your Own Learning and Development” Stephen Downes talks about the push/pull effect of interaction when learning. He encourages new learners to retrieve ( pull) information themselves as opposed to having someone overwhelm by force-feeding information (push). It is important to keep this good advice in mind. I must be cautious about overwhelming the students or the staff with new information. I have to motivate them to want to learn more through sharing examples, offering collaborative assistance, encouragement and praise for their success. I also have to keep in mind that I can tap into the support of the wider teaching community. I can connect interested staff to other teachers, such as Jill Robbins “Blogging a Portal to the Future” which provides a great collection of information and resources about blogging, perfect for new bloggers to explore. WebTools4U2Use was a particularly valuable resource for me to use as I was learning about Web 2.0. I need to revisit my own learning journey and select a few quality resources to share and, at the same time, move beyond blogging to sneakily introduce wikis, video resources, virtual learning sites, podcasts and other tools.

As teacher librarian there are many other ways to encourage change at a practical level. When teachers book their classes into the library I can offer to set up a blogs for the unit topics that lists links to online research resources. As interest grows I could build on this success by introducing class wikis as a more collaborative venture. I could develop a Library wiki or website to house unit lists for different subject and grade areas. Additional resources such as bibliography help, note taking forms, essay guidelines, Delicious tags and such could also be archived on this for easy online access. Establishing a virtual library presence is an important part of this journey toward new literacies. Did anyone follow a similar path and can offer sage advice?

Fill out the Entry Blank and Enter the Race

As I write this, I realize that the time has come for me to stop jogging along. I need to fill in the entry blank to the race, to make the serious commitment to get the job done, like I’ve done with my marathon training to prepare for this upcoming Sacramento race. It’s time to figure out a clear step-by-step action plan, beginning with integrating blogging into the library research model and moving towards a vibrant library community with staff and students incorporating Web 2.0 tools seamlessly into their learning styles.

I won’t be able to achieve my vision alone. The support of other stakeholders such as the librarian technician, administration, technology teachers, teachers, support staff and students is a necessary element for lasting change. A great beginning point would be to present my vision to the entire staff by focusing on the “why” reasons for change. Showing a motivational video such as "A Vision of K-12 Students Today" would be a perfect way to initiation discussion.

I also need to make students aware that I am available as a practical resource. I’ve discovered that helping individual students is a sure-fire method of getting any message out into the mainstream. Above all, I have to model the approach to learning which I want my students and staff to adopt. I have taken this coursework and learned so much about Web 2.0 but my journey has only just begun. I need to be self-directive and, as Stephen Downes describes it, make myself the centre of an incredible network environment. Through repeated exposure and constant daily contact with the stream of information, I will be able to continue my own learning and remain a valuable guide and mentor to others.

This week I read Karl Fisch’s “Is It Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?” winner of Edublog’s Most Influential Post of 2007. Fisch’s post is well worth visiting and reading in its entirety but this portion spoke to me as it summarized the path I’m following.

“In order to teach it, we have to do it. How can we teach this to kids, how can we model it, if we aren’t literate ourselves? You need to experience this, you need to explore right along with your students. You need to experience the tools they’ll be using in the 21st century, developing your own networks in parallel with your students. You need to demonstrate continual learning, lifelong learning – for your students, or you will continue to teach your students how to be successful in an age that no longer exists.”

My exact plan for transforming the way our school perceives education is still a work in progress but I now have the beginnings of a rough plan in place. The task ahead seems less overwhelming and I’m not alone as I can tap into the expertise of others in the learning community, ask for help (any suggestions?), do further research and refine my plans. By the time I return from my leave in September, I will be ready to step up to the starting line and begin this different kind of marathon. Wish me luck!

"You have to think that you can't quit." -Abe Wintraub, 90, marathoner

Blogging

This has been one of the most difficult posts to write because I’m sitting here, one confused and muddled mess. Last week’s ELearning discussion about blogging voice, Richardson’s Chapter 9 words on what everything means, our new ELearning assessment of our blogging journey and my own research into the topic of blogging have all morphed into one big morass of information, reflections and contemplation. When I reread my almost finished blog post I realized that the trends of technology and how blogging fits into this grand scheme seemed a topic which demanded more introspection and was therefore better suited the next blog entry of “What’s Next” . So I’ve abandoned all my work (don’t panic it will be recycled somehow) and am starting once again.

Somewhere in my research about blogging, I came across the comment that one should just write quickly and let your true voice speak. Here goes…

When I began blogging I was totally baffled by this process. Why our instructor would want us to post our personal reflections on the internet for everyone to read was a terrifying thought to me. It ranked right up there with nude sunbathing. Sorry for that image, but I really did a lot of hyperventilating over putting my first words out there for others to read. First only my instructor answered and then others responded and validated my words. Then I found myself using my blog as a repository of important links and a record of my learning to revisit. As the weeks have gone by and my comfort level with blogging has developed, I’ve now gotten to the point where I’m thinking that my URL of “Internetangst” no longer describes my feelings towards this Web 2.0 tool. I imagine that others reading my words may have had similar experiences when first introduced to blogging. Am I right?

Why blog?

Time to revisit Chapter 2 of Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, the impetus for this whole adventure. It’s interesting that Richardson listed blogs as the first of his powerful web tools. It certainly is one of the easiest tools to use and when I look back from today’s vantage point, setting it up was really not difficult at all, it was more the anxiety of breaking down my own deeply-seated fear of technology. Blogs can be a repository of information, a journal record of reflection or instruction or a way of showcasing knowledge for others to easily access. Richardson calls them websites and considers them very much a “collaborative space”. In my other courses, colleagues have effectively used blogs as a way to share visual seminars with others. I also find myself considering them another source of information and insight when I research. However, I find blogs to be more of a personally directed medium, rather than a wiki that can be developed into a more collaboratively constructed site(see below for more on blogs vs. wikis). I realize that the invitation to dialogue with others is very much a part of why blogging is gaining popularity. The social aspect of sharing with others and collaborating ideas is a big draw. However, a blog post can also be a personal reflection and therefore its writer exercises a certain amount of creative control. In any case, blogs are an effective Web 2.0 tool, which truly speak to the Read/Write nature of 2.0, can be used by anyone, for any topic. Because of their versatility, I agree with Richardson's decision that they deserve first place recognition. Is there a tool which offers as many possibilities?

Blog Potentials

Richardson also describes the potential of weblogs in schools and this is something that I have certainly thought a lot about but haven’t really seriously explored in the practical sense. I would very much like to use a blog as a teaching tool but know that I need to look at even more examples, start small with one class and gain further confidence in this area before going full tilt on introducing this tool to my staff. One idea I have going through my mind is a project on Revolutions one of our high school teachers does. Right now we are providing photocopies of the information on various countries and the history of change and revolutions that have occurred. This translates into a lot of reading and processing for students to do in our library research blocks and they usually end up photocopying it and taking papers home. I’m considering changing this project’s design to create a portal to archive this information and make it more readily available from school or home computers. The teacher and I (and potentially students) could then post new information we discover on the topic of revolutions. Ideally we could transform this assignment into a paperless one and introduce students to another use for blogs. On the other hand, my photocopier is a great source of library funding...

This brings me to another consideration, the use of tags and a search bar. This is on my list of “things to explore and do when I have a spare moment". I know there must be a way to build a search tool into a blog so that previous posts can be retrieved using folksonomies (gotta love that word) as I see some blog sites using a search bar feature. If a blog is going to be considered a filing cabinet of sorts then it must have a way to easily retrieve the information without scrolling through a backlog of posts. I have recently been reading many top-notch graphic novels reviews from comic enthusiasts trying to gather information to support purchasing a collection of titles. Through Google I was able to locate these informative blogs but I was frustrated that once I found a well-written, respected reviewer and discovered that I couldn’t navigate through the blog easily to locate additional reviews I was looking for without retreating to Google and repeating the process.

I once dismissed blogs as invalid search result responses during web searching. Now I have come to realize that blogs are useful sources of information and have an advantage in that they go beyond the facts and offer interpretations, opinions and sometimes opposing viewpoints. However, I am particular about the weblog sites I consider reading. A quick scan for the style and quality of writing, helps me to determine if this is a source that I would consider reading more in-depth. I have begun to bookmark some of my favourite sites for future reference and even added one to my RSS feed. Using these blogs demonstrates the power of the social nature of the blog. I can benefit from the opinions of others and appreciate their thoughts through leaving a response on their blogsite. I must admit that leaving comments is something I haven't always been doing. I am trying to behave more responsibly and become a better contributor to this whole blogging community by taking a few minutes to respond in turn. It's certainly very validating for me when I receive a response. (Translation: Why not write me a little something if you are reading this?)

My Blogging Type

Just for fun I visited Typeanalyzer and had my blog posts analyzed according to the Myers Brigg inventory. According to the results I am an ISTP - The Mechanic whose attributes are as follows:

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been accessed on my perceptions and decision making according to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (a little Wikipedia explanation if you don't know what this is) but I dove into an old curriculum course and dusted off my results from over 25 years ago and apparently I was Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving so the blog results are about a 50% match. Of course, I could have changed but I have no intentions of driving a race car in the near future and my husband will attest to the fact that I’m the most unmechanical person around. He should know as he’s an Automotive shop teacher.

Last Thoughts

When I compared my blogging growth to the indicators Richardson has listed on page 31 I realized that I have made considerable growth in my blogging abilities. According to the criteria I have moved from simple blogging to real blogging. However, I have a way to go before I will be adept enough to consider myself a complex blogger. I shall, however, continue to blog beyond this course because I recognize the potential for this Web 2.0 tool. I need to become more skilled and thoroughly explore blogging by reading and responding and writing and reflecting and learning and this can only happen through much practice and increased fluency with the medium. If anyone reading this post has specific advice they wish to offer me to help guide this process, I welcome your suggestions or comments.

Blogs vs Wikis

Just for fun I came across a neat video (thanks, Lesley) about the differences between blogs and wikis using the classic JFK vs. Nixon presidential debate as a forum for comparison. I’ve inserted it here because I found it entertaining, a good example of what one can do with technology and also because I’m so excited that I actually can do amazing things like inserting video, images, podcasts, various applications and add-ons into my blogs with a certain level of ease. Yup, it's been a long slow process but my blogging skills are steadily improving.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsFU3sAlPx4

I don't go looking for hill, but when I come to one, I run it. - Jack Mahurin

This week’s focus of RSS Feeds and blog aggregators was definitely a tough uphill learning experience which required slow step-by-step direction. I relied heavily upon Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, stopping to practise each step on my computer through Google Reader, and then recording my learning for this blog before moving to the next section of the book and repeating the entire process. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but I REALLY like Blogs, Wikis, etc. It’s written at just my level and breaks down the Web 2.0 applications into simple steps so I understand what I’m doing and am usually quite successful by following the instructions.

I now know that RSS means Real Simple Syndication. Richardson certainly feels strongly about the importance of RSS Feeds calling it “The Killer App for Educators” and commenting, “I think it’s the one technology that you should start using today, right, now this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it.” (p.71) I’m sold, Will, this is just what I want to learn – technology that will make a difference for the students in my high school.

Richardson suggested setting up a feed aggregator through Google Reader. Fortunately I’d already set up my Google Reader account when we established our blogs in September and so I already was receiving the RSS feeds for a number of subscriptions. Richardson suggests no more than 10 feeds and to get into the habit of checking daily. Oops! I have less than 10 but I haven’t been able to read them regularly. This information overload stuff reminds me of the 200+ emails I was dealing with not long ago. But I managed to clean the emails up so here goes…

I read some of the RSS feeds I’d been neglecting - I had 81 to read! Some examples of incoming goodies:

• From the CommonCraft feed I watched Google Reader in Plain English which was just perfect as I’d forgotten how to subscribe and so it was a timely little review.
• Caught up with several blogs I’ve been following and posted comments to the authors.
• Read the latest on Graphic Novel reviews from School Library Journal.
• Listened. to part of a podcast of The Loop from Nike site interview with elite runner Alan Webb. Neat that podcasts can be directed also through feeds.
• Read a Joyce Valenza article about the Wikipedia Encyclopedia for use in schools and forwarded it to my teacher librarian colleagues in an email.

At this point I have a lot of questions. As I skim through the feeds that have come in some have potential, some aren’t interesting and some I’d like to read more carefully later. Also once you’ve skimmed through the list (love the way the counter dropped down from 81 as I scrolled through) then can you ever retrieve these articles again? How do I organize these sites and articles? How do I keep them for later retrieval? How do I add more feeds and get rid of the boring ones?

On page 75, sure enough, Richardson explains how to remove and add subscriptions so I tested this on 24 hours in Pictures which was on my list. Although each day brought great photos, I have no time to look at them so I practised by removing this subscription using the feed settings feature.

Next, I tried the add subscription button to look for information about Watchmen, which was the topic of my comic-to-film wiki project for my Graphics Novel course. I am keen to keep up with what is happening with the movie and the upcoming court case regarding its release so I added it to my list. A whole list of possible feeds came up and so I followed Richardson’s advice to check them out first before subscribing. I skimmed the URLs and opened several sites until I came up with the best one for my purposes – the official Warner Brothers Watchmen site. This site releases a monthly video journal about the movie so now these will come in automatically without me having to remember and then search for them. I love the idea that using Google Gears will allow me to save feeds with their complete articles, read them on my laptop at the cabin (no electricity) and then Gears will “synch up all of [my] actions” when I revisit my feeds.
Back to Richardson’s textbook, he goes on to describe what to do to organize the RSS feeds.
I went through some of the items in Richardson’s Weblogg-ed blog, which is in my subscription feeds, skimmed several articles and tagged them. They surfaced below my subscription list and were immediately retrieved when I clicked on them. When I edited the tags to consolidate items into one folder, the original titles wouldn’t disappear so I have to figure this out. I did star several feed articles to mark them as ones to read later on. This is like marking email as unread to gain your attention.

Back to the book, Richardson began to explore ways that teachers can use and promote RSS feeds with students. As a teacher librarian, I can see that I have my work cut out for me trying to pass this knowledge onto the students – in fact it seems almost overwhelming at this point. How do I start? With play and practice, of course, but then what? I take heart from reading a blog entry by the Webfooted Booklady whose entire blog seems to be a testimony to exploring one application after another. Her entry for November 14 tells about trying iMovie with a class even though she wasn’t that familiar with the program and learning together with the students. I have to let go of this assumption that one needs to be a total expert in order to share technology with others and to not worry about doing things perfectly.

Back to Google Readers, I tried the RSS Feeds for News Searches and after trying several topics and getting no results, I tried Vimy Ridge and received 213 hits for the dates I’d set. I recall trying to help students search for research information on homelessness in the Vancouver area and being frustrated with the lack of useful results from online searching and databases. This RSS feed is quite the thing! I could easily have found information for student’s queries using this method. Of course, the question of authority comes up because not all of these Vimy articles might be the best reference sources to use. Blogs can offer the benefit of different viewpoints but may voice more opinions than facts so students may need direction in this regard. Most of the feeds I received from my Vimy search were from Canadian newspapers and magazines. I did find several broadcasts such as one from CTV that could be played as a video. What a great option for students with learning difficulties. Also if the computer has a read-aloud feature then they could hear the highlighted text they have located through feeds, or rather, which the feeds have located for them.

I am amazed that the RSS feed will even search through Google websites with Googlealerts.com. I also had heard nothing about vanity feeds before and how you can figure out who is blogging about you. I wonder if this is how Will Richardson discovered several other course members and then made a response on their blog. Gee, I could be next!

Onto page 82…almost done…With all the amazing information coming in through a RSS aggregate it is important to have a way of bringing it altogether and sharing it with students and teachers. I really like the idea of collecting web information all in one place as a constantly updating source of information for students to use and also being able to do it outside one’s own personal reader, as Richardson suggests. However, I didn’t understand what Pageflakes was so I visited their home page and Wikipedia to discover that Pageflakes is a start page which can be organized into tabs to display different types of information. Looking at Richardson’s sample Pageflakes also helped and it would appear that Pageflakes is similiar to what I used to call a jump page created with lists of links. I’m quite excited about exploring Pageflakes and practicing setting up some samples for topics often covered in library research. I like the idea that the students can also contribute to the development of Pageflakes. I’m curious as to whether one sets up a Pageflake site for each subject or if they can all be organized in one place.

So, it looks like Richardson is correct that RSS feeds are a real “killer app” with a ton of application to educators. Not only can they help teachers become more organized and informed but also they have terrific potential for revolutionizing the way students research with feeds that deliver information directly to the researcher. Now I have some Pageflakes exploration homework to do and I also have to make it a habit to check my Google Reader on a daily basis. I think I’ll stick a post-it note on my computer.

Sport, like all life, is about taking risk.” - Sir Roger Bannister

Social Networking. I must say that I have been dreading this topic. I’m certainly an extrovert and love to meet people but doing so online through the medium of Facebook or MySpace is just too overwhelming and beyond my zone of comfort. I am so relieved that my Web 2.0 course instructor offered the adverse types like me an option so that we can experience social networking in “our own little space”. Dipping our toes into the water, and taking that risk.

Concerns and Advice. Perhaps my aversion comes from the fact that I’ve read a few negative articles in newspapers and magazines about the dangers of social networking. Several young teachers in a nearby district had their personal sites accessed and shared with students – an event which landed them in major hot water. Our District, after several events of cyberbullying, has chosen to block Facebook. In a way, this was a relief to me as students in the library for study blocks would often not study at all but spend the majority of their time accessing and developing their sites or sharing things with fellow students, until the noise level became disruptive. Teacher librarians hate to play the heavies and go around saying “No Facebook” and enforcing the administration’s policies regarding computer use so this took the onus off me and put it on the shoulders of the District. Of course after this summer’s Intellectual Freedom course, I was torn because I understood from my coursework that limiting access was really not the solution. Instead, teacher librarians should be helping students to become more aware of ways to use social networking sites responsibly and safely.

Doug Johnson, in his Blue Skunk blog talks about Social networking and needing to give a talk to administrators about social networking. Good for these principals for being open-minded enough to seek counsel from someone with Doug’s knowledge before making a knee-jerk decision. Doug mentions that students spend a lot of time with technology that they don’t really understand. “They use Facebook because it’s the thing to do, just like they used MySpace because it used to be the thing to do. Do we really need to teach them the correct or useful way to use social networking sites, or do we give them a better understanding of the positives and negatives of this type of service?” I would answer that we should openly 'address the elephant in the room' and talk about the social networking sites when opportunities arise as these are an important part of our students’ identities and they need to understand how to make wise decisions in their use.

Doug Johnson also wrote an article for Education World called Seven Things All Adults Should Know About MySpace. New thoughts I took away from this article:

1. Social networking is enormously popular with young adults. Over 60% of students are social content users – that’s huge – it’s obviously an important part of their lives.

2. Friends are probably just that. That teens seldom turn down friend requests in the interest of inclusiveness, thus the large # of friendships.

3. Blocking sites at school won't keep kids away from MySpace. When students are forced to work around proxy servers, etc. they come to regard school as irrelevant to their lives.

4. Some degree of danger does exist for MySpace users. Need for caution about personal information as predators do use these sites.

5. Young people need to understand that material posted on the Internet is public and might have unintended implications. I loved the comment on a poster from this site: A poster (Good Signs) produced by Minnesota State University, Mankato, asks students "Who might see your online profile?" and goes on to list: Your friends, Random students, Professors, Employers, Your coach, Campus Security, Law enforcement, Sex offenders, Residential Life Staff, University Judicial Board, Parents, and Grandma.

6. Teachers might want to check to see if they have had a MySpace account created for them. Good tip – I did. Fortunately, I don’t have a site. Do you?

7. MySpace and social networking have value. Discusses making and trying on an identity. “They are about all the same things that have existed for hundreds of years, hidden in notebooks and scribbled on bathroom walls and whispered over telephones. The content of MySpace.com bears discussion, not obstruction.”

Facebook. However, I did “check out” Facebook so I had a better understanding of what it looked like and how it operated. My daughter Andrea gave me an hour-long tour through her well-developed site and I can now appreciate why she spends so much time on Facebook and has embraced it as an important component of her social life. She has posted photos in folders from various trips to share, has established a profile which is interesting but doesn’t provide personal information, and she has quite a list of friends who have varying degrees of access on both a wide or individual scale, and, as she says, “Facebook is a way of keeping in touch with people that I might not otherwise have kept in touch with”. Recently my daughter received a position at Whistler and has been hunting for a place to stay. She tried every avenue available: property managers, newspaper and online classified ads, Chamber of Commerce, calling friends, etc. When she changed her Facebook message to a plea for help finding accommodations in Whistler, the responses immediately started rolling in with her Facebook friends rallying around to offer leads and suggestions. Another useful feature of Facebook.

Library Social Networks. Now for my first personal venture into Social Networking, I signed up for Library 20 Ning. I filled out my profile, pasted in a photo and became Member 3508 of Library 2.0. I gave the Ning a good going over:

Checked out my Page. Wow! Looks good. Nice glasses.

Snooped through the site.

Told to post an introduction so I did. Here’s mine...

“Hello, Everyone, My name is Joanie Proske and I am the Teacher Librarian at a ridiculously large Gr. 8 to 12 High School in Langley, B.C. Well, actually, I am on education leave from my position to work on my Masters in Teacher Librarianship through the University of Alberta. I'm doing my coursework by Distance Education, which has really tested my computer skills, but it's all good! One of my courses is about Web 2.0 Technology and I am stunned by how much I have learned in the last two months and humbled by how much more I need to learn. I'm looking forward to joining this social network and continuing to learn about Web 2.0 from a community of like-minded individuals.”

I checked through the profiles to see who were members. I found a Professor Emeritus from U of New York, a MLS who works independently as a consultant to Health care industry as a researcher, student librarians, and a librarian of a small rural library. I typed in every librarian “whose who” name I knew but no one seemed to be a member. Hmmmm. Wonder why?

Where did the listed members come from? I was astounded to see the locations that really reflected the reach of this social community: South Africa, Belgium, US, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria, Australia, Slovakia, Portugal, Palestine, Costa Rica, New Zealand…

I moved on to check out the blogs by reading the first paragraph and then continuing on if interested…

Checked out groups and found 4 pages of forums and groups such as European librarians, business librarians, Medical and Health Science libraries, Distance/Off-Campus Library Services, New Librarians, Elementary Librarians, Public Librarians, Dewey VS LC, Teen Services, Archivists, School Libraries (looked at this one). There were some crazy ones too: Silly Librarians against Dull Dewey LADD, Creative Librarians, Librarian by Day Bad Karaoke by Night, Vegan Vegetarian Librarians.

I looked at a sample question asked about school library websites. The responses were indeed a treasure trove of ideas on good sites, recommended website providers, things to include, the need to add a visitor counter to the website, etc.

Read a question about noise level and posted a comment back– my first foray into being a contributing member!

Used the search bar to check for different topics no luck – tried Webcomics – VoiceThreads – Wikis – Wikipedia and then began to wonder if this was the best forum. After a week as a member I haven’t seen any real action on this site – no friend invites – no responses to questions – I decided to see if something better existed. If you’re going to be a member of a social network then there has to be some communication back and forth to create the “social” component!

TeacherLibrarianNing. In frustration, I emailed my IT guru Lesley Edwards in North Vancouver asking for her advice on a better social networking site and then waited for her response. Lesley suggested joining the TeacherLibrarianNing set up by Joyce Valenza at which I did and I am now member #2198 (see image above).

It was ridiculously easy to join this social forum, and a lot of fun. I spent a entire morning going through the site reading the different forum comments and even answering a couple: one from a new employee who needed ideas to decorate a book display, another from a teacher librarian wondering how to sort through donated books. I read through other questions that led me to new practical ideas, such as this one about collection development: “Put out a survey to your teachers and ask about how they have used the collection in the past and having them suggest which areas they would like to see more materials. Zoomerang.com has free surveys that you can create. Then email the link to your staff.”

And then there was the response to the question of what would you tell a new teacher librarian about collection development in one sentence. My favourite response was, "It's not YOUR collection; it's your STUDENT'S collection." This site was certainly much more lively than the other ning.

I bravely posted a forum question “Which is your favourite Web 2.0 Add-on which you would recommend Teacher Librarians add to their computer?” to see what responses I might get before our next discussion. A neat feature is that you can set up the site for responses to be emailed to you and then close them down when you no longer wish to follow the thread.

Looked through the 2 pages of groups for TeacherLibrarianNing and decided to join the High School TeacherLibrarian group with 232 members. Posted my intro and read about Twilight fan parties, public/school partnerships and wiki subject headings. I started to get lots of invites and little welcomes and comments and friend invites. Wow! Things are happening! I like the way that invites come to my email so you don’t have to check constantly yourself. I already had five friends by the end of day one! That’s it – I’m giving up on the other social networking site.

As for my question about favourite add-ons I’ve already got seven responses:

“On my Mac I have buttons for adding an RSS feed, and bookmarking using delicious and/or diigo, and Awesome Highlighter. Love Firefox!”

“I love Freescreencast.com (http://www.freescreencast.com) and Glogster (http://www.glogster.com). I'm also using Smilebox (http://www.smilebox.com) quite a bit. I'm in love with so many Web 2.0 applications! You might want to take a look at my new wiki http://www.ladigitalimmigrants.wikispaces.com.” can't live without my del.icio.us and Google Reader RSS feeds.

“ I can't live without my del.icio.us and Google Reader RSS feeds.”

Nings. In the TeacherLibrarianNing site, I noticed that Joyce Valenza suggests that others start their own ning. I hadn’t heard of the term nings until I looked into these two library social networking sites so I checked out Wikipedia which defines a ning as “an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks.” In our course Trailfire the NCTE Inbox blog entry “Social networking: the Ning’s the Thing article” asks us to examine our own social networks and to recognize that nings are the online equivalent to these. (Other than my teaching connections, my running group would be my biggest social network or my face-to-face ning.)

Educational Uses. How can a teacher use a Ning social network? The NCTE article listed some great ideas which I think would be great ways to incorporate Nings into the school environment:

* Set up discussion forums based on literature circles, peer writing groups, different class periods, and so forth.
* Create groups based on student interests—book clubs, favorite genres, other content areas.
* Upload alternative book reports created as podcasts, videos, or photos.
* Ask students to write their reading logs or journals online, using their own personal blogs.
* Post information for students and their families in a shared space.

The advantages I can see of using a Ning over something like Facebook or MySpace is that as administrator you have control of removing any inappropriate or off-topic discussions but yet the group can establish their own forums and discussions and exercise creative scope. In one blog entry I read about about nings are being blocked in various school districts and a reader responded by suggesting using a Moodle which gives the teacher full control “over content, posts, and membership.” It is interesting that whatever new form of Web 2.0 technology is introduced in schools, examples of inappropriate usage seem to govern its removal from the toolkit of applications available for students to use. More reason for teachers to become more knowledgeable about Web 2.0 so they can introduce the correct ways to use technology and demonstrate ways it can be used to enhance and enrich the curriculum.

Final Thoughts. As for me, well I'm hooked on TeacherLibrarianNing and am checking it daily to learn more about my profession and to scaffold on the shared knowledge of my peers. I've taken the plunge into Social Networking...well I'm at least in the water up to my knees!

The Proskes

A marathon is like life with its ups and downs, but once you've done it you feel that you can do anything.

Voicethreads. Okay, here we go…I can do this…another amazing app brought to you by Joanne and her weekly Web 2.0 blog topic…first stop Commoncraft! Yikes, this time there’s no Commoncraft video – no Lee to explain things to me In Plain English.

Oh well, no worries, Joanne said just to explore VoiceThreads. Since I have absolutely no idea what Voicethreads is let’s start with the Wikipedia definition and see if we can learn more beyond the fact that it’s a multimedia sharing site. OMG, there’s no entry for VoiceThreads in Wikipedia. Well, that will probably soon be remedied by some enterprising soul, but not me…

Don’t panic. Richardson will probably explain what it is. What! No VoiceThreads in the index. This Web 2.0 tool must be something very new and exciting.

Curses! Joanne, you have me trained to rely on these sources and none of them helped me at all. Never mind, I’ll simply type in VoiceThreads under Google and voila – 16,000 entries later…just kidding…

Actually I used my newfound Reading on the internet” skills (good old Discussion topic #4 came in handy) to skim through some of the URL descriptions searching for key phrases to narrow down my search. As I synthesized my findings it began to become clear that VoiceThreads is a Web 2.0 multimedia application with definite uses in the classroom. Asking myself questions (like any good internet reader should) I wondered how this application could be useful to teachers. I just had to stop and quickly check out a few sites (to check for understanding) and ended up at Colette Cassinelli’s Voicethread 4 Education an amazingly useful wiki at http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/ (Gotta love those wikis!)

Colette defined VoiceThreads in just the simple terms I needed as my first frame of reference:
In case you are unfamiliar with what we are talking about - a VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.

Probably going on and exploring her wiki in depth wasn’t the most logical move but I figured until I have an inkling on how I’m possibly going to use this application why bother fully learning how to use it. I remember reading somewhere that teachers shouldn’t get too excited and caught up in the thrill of designing projects to fit the technology, that we should always remain cognizant of how we can make the new technology work meet our instructional needs…that’s my reasoning, in any case.

Colette’s wonderful site is an example of using a wiki to catalogue and collect information which I bookmarked for future reference. It features a collection of practical examples and ideas for educators. Some possible uses for VoiceThreads included: use for debates, creative or digital storytelling with the tag team wrestling approach with students listening to the story and then adding on their bit and then passing on the story to others in the class, collaborating with others on projects, language labs with students repeating and responding to voice examples, field trip scrapbooks, art gallery sessions, use as a class prewriting strategy (like a web), making and sharing prereading predictions about a novel, writing and sharing poetry, recording oral histories, sharing ways to solve math problems, creating tours of the school, recording interviews on a cell phone and then downloading.

A couple of ideas which did not personally appeal to me was using VoiceThreads as an assessment tool with the teacher’s comments on little Johnny’s project recorded to be shared with parents (no way, Jose, that’s a setup for a nasty phone call) or using it as a way for others to critique classmate’s artwork. I think that it takes a lot of maturity and guidance for students to critique – period – never mind having their comments available to be played over and over and dissected. Go ahead and quote “use in assessment” if you were trying to get funding for VoiceThreads but I would be cautious in its use for this purpose. I also noticed that other suggestions for using VoiceThread’s uses were connected to other Web 2.0 applications such as embedding into Google Earth (lost me on this one!) and Gabcast (something I have never heard of before but could possibly have saved me hours of time producing a podcast I now discover from checking out its website).

With an idea about its uses in mind I headed to the official VoiceThreads site (hit #1) to check out what it offered.

Much, much later…

Wow! I’ve spent some serious time exploring this website and checking the tutorials, reading the FAQs, listening to sample VoiceThreads the help area (always useful to anticipate problems before they occur. Some interesting thoughts that occurred to me during this whole process:

1. I have all the tools I need, ready to go in my MacBook Pro laptop and I could do this today.
2. What an amazing tool to use in the library (or a classroom) and it would appear I can connect it to my Library website – ahhh the possibilities for book reviews, library tours, FAQ sessions, instructional how-to’s…
3. I can use VoiceThreads with my new school laptop to demo information technology I want to teach or replay VoiceThreads I have made or collected from other sources, I can circle URLs and walk students through an internet lesson so easily, once I’ve got the hang of this application.
4. This could be even more fun than a wiki!
5. The information students put on the VoiceThread account is safely stored and can be retrieved from an archive.
6. The moderation feature lets you share student work in a new forum.
7. Man, this is a neat application. There are so many subject areas where it can be used – ESL, Language Arts, French, Math, Socials, Science…
8. Voicethreads can be used for collaborative purposes and even allow connections to classrooms in another area of the world.
9. No more messy collecting of email accounts to get students involved.
10. Wait! Does it cost money to join? It says $1 a student a year, then $10 a month. What is it free? I’m confused.

Okay, I’ve spent all this time exploring the ins and outs of something, which I thought involved an expensive sign-up fee and now it would appear it is free to educators and I could have been taking a more practical approach and learning how to use it. Stupid…stupid…stupid…I've emailed my request to join VoiceThreads but no answer is returned so it must be caught in my school email SPAM filter. I’ve fired off an email to retrieve it on Monday and then will continue to explore VoiceThreads.

On a more personal note, learning VoiceThreads would be a wonderful incentive for me to explore the Webcam on my new laptop. Yesterday we organized getting a laptop with a Webcam feature for my father to from his hospital room. I am very motivated to figure out this new application so that I can communicate with him on a daily basis. I shall post my Voicethread effort once I can get myself officially registered as a user. Stay tuned…

My Watchmen wiki is all done! This time I learned how to establish links between pages, manipulate the placement of images and now feel very comfortable with this Web 2.0 app. It's at www.Watchmen.wikispaces.com