Web 2.0 And its concomitant...Library2.0...........hereafter, L2.0 (pronounced “Library 2 Oh”) and WEBSITES!!

You thought Primary Sources and Gov Docs were overwhelming---wait until you start exploring these!

Table of Contents

Introduction

Managing Change

Wikis

Blogs

Podcasts

Websites

Assignment Option #1

Assignment Option #2

(10 frustrating minutes trying to figure out why these last two won’t hyperlink correctly...a task I do all the time....that’s all I’m willing to put into it. Sorry)

Introduction

 

It’s new. It’s important. And we need to be conversant regarding it’s constantly changing/growing aspects. But the first question here is how much time do you have and, from my point of view, how do you identify what you absolutely NEED and what you can get along without? But let’s jump in.

 

This article is referred to so often, I’m finding it boring. But you should be aware of it and I found many students last semester to whom it offered new insights. Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” On the Horizon, NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001 http://pre2005.flexiblelearning.net.au/projects/resources/Digital_Natives_Digital_Immigrants.pdf Link through Google Scholar.

 

Guiding Questions:

1. How have the significant technology innovations of the past ten years effected the students we teach?

2. In order to be effective teachers, is it necessary for us to change the way we teach our students, either pedagogically or technically?

3. What broad issues of special concern or interest to LMS and ITS people, for example, student safety, management of information, outreach to teachers, are inherent in all of the new technologies?

 

The difference here is that this is what computers (and MP3 players and Blackberries and cell phones... and... and) are REALLYused for. No one...and I mean no one, except teachers really use all these resources for education. Nope. I’ll remind you of that valiant prediction when TV first arrived,...... the potential for education!..... and now what do we get?...$20,000 Sweet Sixteen parties...Girls Gone Wild and South Park (which, in its outrageousness I actually love.)

So if they (and I mean our students, our audience) don’t use all these new technologies for education, what do they use them for? It’s all about connecting, in one way or another, to the virtual communities that are the direct result of the explosion of miniaturized devices, broadband connections, digitized video, handheld cameras and telephones and, in one sense the more sophisticated (more about that later) users of younger ages. Is it just our shallow culture? Nope, it’s international. Fifteen years ago in Japan I watched the (then) much more wired kids with cell phones glued to their ears and virtual communities in full swing. The first airport in which I had the unpleasant experience of standing in a line in which everyone (but me) was talking on their cell phones was in Thailand. In Mexico this winter, young fishermen, street hawkers, waiters and taxi drivers were all on their phones and the internet was available in every tiny village. Within the international community it is almost unavoidable and becoming ever more accessible. Why? As you explore these areas that’s one of the things I want you to be thinking about. There are a lot of ideas and MIT’s Media Lab was among the first to try to explore and understand what was happening. I saw a really interesting presentation years ago pointing out that if you’re the ONLY poetic goth in your small Kansas farming community high school that the idea that you could reach out to a whole community of people like you would be powerful.

 

Let’s start with, what else, a YouTube film. It’s been mentioned several times already and you should know there are also TeacherTube and SchoolTube. You can view it in a Full Screen version by clicking the little box in the lower right of the TV/PPT sort of image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

 

And a different perspective http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704/social-networking How does this 2007 view work with what you see around you?

 

Is it real? Is it happening? You bet. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/barackobama?ref=s Want to be his new friend???

 

I use this set of resources all the time, for everything. Here’s a link to the Web 2.0 pages.

http://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/resf/web2.html

 

How Do We Manage Change as Part of a Personal Professional Development Plan?

 

This is REALLY what this topic is about. Do we welcome change and evaluate how it can fit into an educationally sound and even, exciting, school atmosphere? How do we maintain our own current information? How do we share it with colleagues and students? There’s so much to all this. Below are some ways to continue your educational plan.

 

It may have started at the UMich conference that listed 13 things to do to explore L 2.0. Since then a lot of work has been done using the 15 minutes a day or 23 things or 45 things formats. These are all structures that purport to allow very busy people to continuously learn new things and keep up with important changes. Happily some of this has been pulled together.

 

You already know that a wiki is a program that allows multiple contributors to a document. Here it’s structured to provide you with a class (hey, that means I don’t have to develop this)

 

Here’s an outline of the 15 minutes a day strategy. http://www.sirsidynix.com/Resources/Pdfs/Company/Abram/IOColumn_56.pdf

 

Teachers/Librarians on line

http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

 

LibX (Firefox extension) has its own home site

http://www.libx.org/

 

 

But Web 2.0 is a lot more than just the big three. It’s a lot about new ideas of software sharing, away from proprietary, toward web-based. And the tools are already out there and ready for you to use. People are finding these tools really useful in schools. Think of how they can change cooperation, collaboration and student work.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

 

Google may have led the way, but it’s only one possibility

https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=writely&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2F&followup=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2F&ltmpl=homepage&rm=false

 

There’s Online Office http://www.zoho.com/ and Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/ and Thinkfree http://www.thinkfree.com/ among others.

 

And when you’re overwhelmed with various file extensions, there’s Zamzar to let you translate them all http://www.zamzar.com/ and Cute PDF http://www.cutepdf.com/ What’s the trend? Toward free, online software. This will have a tremendous effect on schools in their technology interfaces in years to come and you need to keep up with it all and be familiar with what’s happening.

 

 

Training for us...Get your RSS feeds in order http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2175271 -- sign up for a class, http://www.w3schools.com/ -- read the weekly school news http://www.eschoolnews.com/ or http://www.ncrel.org/tech/index.html and in general jump in. http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/resources-for-high-school-technology-and-computer-science-students.html

 

And we need, as users of the internet sources, to be aware of what’s happening in the Information/Creative Commons movement. This includes some new ideas about copyright, use and ownership of work, http://creativecommons.org/ including a search engine devoted to finding useable materials http://search.creativecommons.org/. And of course, the ideas surrounding library spaces as Information Commons.

 

For those of you who are intrigued by this new paradigm (in other words, the rest of you don’t have to read these) here are a couple of interesting and informative links.

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB7102g.pdf

http://www.newamerica.net/files/archive/Pub_File_866_1.pdf

http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/InformationCommons.pdf

 

There is some interesting work being done in recognizing the gain from structured sharing (not LOSS of ownership...a tag often attached to Commons licensing) that helps us understand that university tenure review committees must begin to recognize internet publishing AS publishing and that citation must change to recognize original production/ownership as opposed to controlled printing/distribution. It’s a changing world but one we need to be aware of and it can effect what we choose to use.

http://opensourceresources.wikispaces.com/

Let’s start with the three most used and accessible tools -- wikis, blogs and podcasts.

 

First, an investigation of each. By the end of this you should be familiar enough with these to both use and produce them yourselves. If you want to know what librarians and technology folks are doing—they’re online. They’re writing blogs and producing wikis and connecting to their school colleagues and students in an Web2.0/L2.0 world! Do a simple search for any educational topic you’re interested in – e. g. mathematics education blogs (Google, 431,000 results) – and you’ll find your colleagues. There’s a link farther down to Edublogs in particular.

 

Recommended text: Will Richardson, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin, 2006. Extremely accessible and really smart educationally. Consider purchasing and/or reading this book. He provides such sound educational reasons to use Web 2.0 tools that he’d convince anyone!

TOC

WIKIS

 

Wikis in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

Lindsay Grant, Using wikis in schools: a case study, May 2006. http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/discussion_papers/Wikis_in_Schools.pdf 2006 but still good. As we now know, tech is NOT zooming through the schools and almost everyone is playing catch-up in some form or another.

 

Collaborating with Colleagues in Cyberspace. By: Ropog, Martina M.. Adult Basic Education & Literacy Journal, Fall 2007, Vol. 1 Issue 3, p169-171, 3p; (AN 27634359) This link will take you to Salem’s log-in screen of course.

Added

Really complete set of links to wikis in education http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/ict/wikiedu/

 

Wetpaint’s wikis in education site (actually you could have found this using the previous site) http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/?t=anon Wetpaint is one of the free wiki hosting sites.

 

10 Best practices for Wikis in education

http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/10-best-practices-for-using-wikis-in-education/

 

Wiki tools:

Do a Google search or use my favorite PBWiki http://www.pbwiki.com Like most folks, once I find a tool that suits my needs, I tend to stop constantly looking for replacements. PBWiki isn’t the only hosting site but it’s a good one. And settling for one of these without continuing to search for others is a normal (and pretty efficient) strategy. I probably wouldn’t switch unless I somehow became aware of some particular tool or advantage in another.

 

Wiki Spaces -- both free and paid plans. There are more of course, and new ones always cropping up. What are your standards? Management? controlled membership? Ease of use? http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/ict/wikihosts/

TOC

BLOGS

 

Blogs in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

And you might just say...I wonder...and yes, there’s a Twitter in Plain English and.....

 

Who blogs?Personality predictors of blogging. By: Guadagno, Rosanna E.; Okdie, Bradley M.; Eno, Cassie A.. Computers in Human Behavior, Sep2008, Vol. 24 Issue 5, p1993-2004, 12p; DOI:10.1016/j.chb.2007.09.001; ( AN 32843456)

 

THE RA TOOL KIT. By: Wyatt, Neal. Library Journal, 6/15/2008, Vol. 133 Issue 11, p42-45, 4p, 6 color; (AN 32661498) In case you don’t know, RA is a function of librarians...Readers’ Advisory.

 

Diary of a blog: listening to kids in an elementary school library. By: Cowan, Janie. Teacher Librarian, Jun2008, Vol. 35 Issue 5, p20-26, 7p; (AN 32753567)

 

Blog tools:

Edublogs http://edublogs.org/

Wordpress http://wordpress.org/ Audio/video instructional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWYi4_COZMU

Blogger http://www.blogger.com Audio/video instructional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY

Classpress $24.95 per year http://www.classpress.com/?gclid=CKnSpsneqJQCFR0ZagodMUsvtg When you pay, what do you get? Sometimes by paying you end up with more control so you can try to balance that out with the actual cost.

 

http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/blogger.html And this is a good source, as they say, for “News, Techniques and Theories of Effective Use of Technology in Education”

 

How about Integrating Middle School Technology? http://integratingmiddleschooltechnology.blogspot.com/

 

And Boston is right around the corner! http://bostonpublic.blogspot.com/

 

http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1055

A librarian I spoke to recently used a blog as a research tool with kids. It sounded fabulous. As usual, wise and effective use of this tool is only limited by our imagination and how much we can steal from other smart people.

 

What are other school librarians doing? Check out some of the blogs...

http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=School_libraries I’m not sure why it strikes me as funny that this is a wiki about blogs.

 

http://librariansindex.blogspot.com/

Index to blogs run by librarians (not only from schools)

 

Another list of blogs...this one’s kind of fun because it’s international.

http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html

 

I use this site as a “fair warning”....so this poor, innocent, sincere, librarian (I assume) starts a weblog http://lovelibraries.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-many-ways-can-school-librarian.html

and then watch what happens at the comments section as you continue scanning responses. It’s, as far as I’m concerned, terrifying! So if you blog, you’d better control and read constantly and filter and....and....

 

And if I budget time to read one blog, it’s always Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search...and here’s a link to her thoughts about school librarians and blogs. Joyce recently stopped posting to her original blog and has committed to this one at SLJ.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334.html

 

And from PC Magazine (are you able to find the text amid the ads and (what I call) distractors? Buried in there is a review of blog tools.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1400319,00.asp

 

Should I even mention ning?

TOC

MP3/PODCASTS

 

Caveat: To create voice-audio files, it is necessary to purchase/own a microphone. The Logitech premium USB headset 350 is one of many possible kinds. It runs approximately $35 and includes a digitizing microphone, comfortable ear pads and ease of use. Users of the files will not need this equipment but you need it to record.

Kimberly M. Donnelly and Zane L. Berge, Podcasting: Co-opting MP3 Players for Education and Training Purposes http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall2006/donnelly93.htm

Podcasting in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-MSL42NV3c

 

The Education Podcast network. Don’t forget your ITunes has a whole education section too.

http://epnweb.org/

 

Guide to everything you need to know

http://www.poducateme.com/guide/

 

Podcasts in the classroom

http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/podcasts/

 

Apple computers,http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/index.php Some of you folks who’ve really enjoyed latching on to your musical learning self might want to note especially the Learning Math with Music section. http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=10668

 

How to use Audacity to create MP3 files http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/

 

Free download of Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Free download of Wavpad http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/

Additional free digital/sound editors list http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/audioeditors.shtml

 

WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE?

I find this site TOO much, almost overwhelming, but I’ll throw it in here at the end in case you’re searching for ideas. http://www.go2web20.net/ For any application or product you see here, there will be training materials, articles about uses etc. and if you have something you want to use instead of the big 3....feel free. I find it interesting that this site has had to add classifications as the .Web 2.0 apps grew

 

TOC

School and Library Web Sites

 

Why? Why do we put the time and effort into producing these? Well, the truth is, generally, some message appeared somewhere from the Superintendent.....shouldn’t we have a website? Most of them consist of bus routes, snow closing dates and contact information. Which is too bad. What potential! So—the disconnect between what they are and what they could be is enormous. We won’t even mention how often your cruise all OVER the d__ed things trying to find a phone number or an e-mail for staff.

 

Susan Simon, who taught at Barnstable Middle School said, years ago, the website for HER class was a resource for her students, homework help, posted assignments, support, readings, GOOD web sites, ...and she developed that page. It was the home page of the computers in her classroom and she suggested parents bookmark it. What if every teacher did that?

 

This is the Cullen Library site: http://www.peabody.k12.ma.us/higgins/cullen/index.htm. In a school with 1200 kids, is the effort to set up a good web page one of the best ways to connect?

 

Jamie McKenzie

http://www.fno.org/webdesign.html

 

Creating school web sites

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic61.htm

 

Want to look at a bunch?

http://www.doe.state.in.us/htmls/k12.html

 

Bellingham (which is where Jamie McKenzie worked for years) is exemplary in some ways.

http://www.bham.wednet.edu/

 

What about the library? Virtual Reference http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/09-01/notebook.asp and should the school web page (probably designed and maintained in general by the ITS department) include other resources?

Best practices http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/969

 

And with our sophisticated thinking...I wonder?...yes..there’s a Webquest! http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/evallib.html This webquest is dated 2007 by the way but I tried a random bunch of links and they were working.

Assignment Option #1

 

 

The assignment is to actually USE one of these lovely Web or Library 2.0 products and then provide all of us with access to it. So set up a blog (perhaps one that is a Readers’ Advisory or offers teacher resources, or covers materials from this course), make a podcast, develop a wiki. Set up a Flickr site with pictures that apply to an educational setting (famous buildings in Washington, DC) or use ANY Web 2.0/L 2.0 technology and demonstrate to us a solid, smart educational use for it.

 

This is an assignment that will be published to give everyone access to it and a part of doing the assignment is providing explicit information about HOW to access your product. In order to do this right, you need to tell us if we need to join anything (and what the process is for that) as well as issue invitations if that’s necessary. I find it’s helpful if I sign up for a new free e-mail account and see if I can actually enter the site I’m hoping other people will access. This is a good way to make sure that any barriers, like membership, or passwords is taken care of before you submit it.

 

I expect a Word or RTF document attached in the Assignment area and that you will include the link to your product as well as all pertinent access information in word processed format. Your product itself will be judged on the usual basics. Is it well-written, insightful, smart, and a solid educational application? Additionally, your actual demonstration of mastery of the tool and how you provide access to others (in this case your colleagues but in a school setting, this might include students and you may set your product up for a student audience) will be an added piece of the grading.

Assignment Option #2

Develop a PLAN for a web site.

You’re not actually required to develop a hosted site, learn to write Java or html, manage a server, do FTPs—that all shows up in other courses in the programs eventually—but here, it’s about making executive decisions. In other words, you have to do the intellectual process which should precede the development of the page.

 

1. Decide what your role is (Librarian, ITS, Classroom, Nurse Instructor, other) and specifically tell me it.

 

2. Decide if you are planning a single page--with all the logical and design considerations that implies. If you think you might have multiple pages, (Home Page: Link labeled CLASSROOM PAGES: Following pages, separate page for each classroom teacher.) do follow through on telling me what those following pages will contain.

 

3. Prioritize that list. What is the MOST important? What will you make the biggest, locate the most centrally etc.

 

4. For each item you name (e.g. Link to the local Public Library) tell WHY it’s there and why it’s as important as it is. ( The school has strong connections to the Public Library and kids are encouraged to use it as an after-school-hours digital resource. We teach them to search/request material in the public library consortium)

 

5. Also be sure to designate whether the link/site/subject you say you want on your web page will require maintenance (daily, weekly, once a semester check, etc.).

 

6. Do tell me, as an imagined visual part of the plan, how large each item would be and where it would be placed on the page. Would it have borders, colors, flashing images, sound...whatever. You can do this visually (see note below) or simply tell me.

 

As you look over a variety of web pages (libraries for LMS students and whole school sites for ITS students) think—is this useful? necessary? important? What’s the PURPOSE of this link?

 

I will always lean toward a page that weights itself toward education over public relations but recognizing that websites are often about PR is also important. If you can get yourself into a visual mode, feel free to actually lay out (you don’t have to write the html, you can just use Word with text boxes, or Autoshapes) how you’d organize it.