BP5.2_2009102_Web2.0#2

http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/

ProProfs Flashcards site is extraordinarily easy to use. Teachers are able to create flashcards online with text and pictures. When creating a flashcard set, the user inputs tags so that others may find the set and so that similar sets of flashcards can be aggregated. The sets can also be password protected if the user decides not to share with others. Users may also search for flashcards made by other users based on category (such as Arts, Math & Science, Education & Exams, etc.). Flashcards can be viewed online at the site. Alternatively, users may embed the flashcards into their own site or have students subscribe to a RSS feed. Users may also print or download the flashcards for later use.

The site includes links to other ProProfs sites, such as Quiz School, where teachers can make or find online quizzes (there’s even a quiz to test your knowledge of Web 2.0: http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=Do-you-think-you-know-web-20-1), and Brain Games, where teachers can make or find games such as word searches that include their class vocabulary.

Another unique aspect of this site is the ability to blog about flashcards, school, or whatever else comes to mind. Popular topics include technology certification exams (such as Microsoft certification) and technical issues. Just as with any other blog, others can comment to help one another or offer their take on a given subject.

Although flashcards are not generally thought of as an astounding piece of technology, I believe that having students create flashcards for one another can be a valuable tool for both the student creating the card and the student using the card for review. One cannot make a flashcard without knowing the answer. The creator of the flashcard will then know the types of material that they personally need to study on occasions where a quiz is necessary (or for state exams). Interactive flashcards may also be useful for low-level learners who need extra time with material.

ProProfs.com (2009). http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/

BP5.1_2009102_Web2.0#1

www.voicethread.com is a site where people can communicate in various ways, including images, documents, video, and voice. Voicethread documented itself as “…a place for creating and collaborating on digital stories and documentaries, practicing and documenting language skills” (VoiceThread, 2009). People may add audio, pictures, and video to their projects. Students may even add digital drawings (“doodling”) to their projects. Also, VoiceThread supports Microsoft Office applications and pdf documents. If students are not able to contribute their own photos or video, they may import images and video from Flickr, Facebook, or other web-based sites (VoiceThread, 2009).

VoiceThread has addressed the education world by offering a special place for K-12 happenings at ed.voicethread.com. The ability to collaborate will alleviate many issues when students are working to create a digital story or similar project. Students would be able to divide up research tasks and work on separate computers. Currently, when students in my class are collaborating on a project, they must have 1-2 students researching on a computer and 1-2 students creating the PowerPoint. Students can also export their creations so that they may present their projects for classmates. Another advantage to exporting and downloading projects is that teachers may collect projects to add to student e-portfolios. Additionally, teachers may use presentations as a way to document the class progress over time, or as a way to provide information in a quick, concise, and easy way for the students to understand. Assessment is also taken into considerationon ed.voicethread.com. Students can either provide feedback for one another, or, if the teacher unlocks the site, members of the public can comment on the presentation. Feedback can be done in several different ways – by phone (VOIP), by webcam, by audio clip, by typing a comment, or file upload. Users can even re-record, re-write, or delete comments they’ve made.

Personally, this will solve many issues for my classes and I am excited to use it in the near future. Educause (2009) stated: “In providing a simple venue for sharing, creating, and assessing media projects, such applications may promote greater digital literacy and greater enthusiasm for multimedia creation.” I believe it will make a great impact on student collaboration, in that students can truly have equal contribution in an easier way. I am also interested to see if students are able to make more meaningful projects based on the fact that they can use web resources easily and can use many more functions than a general PowerPoint.

Click OK, then it should play

References

Educause (2009, June). 7 things you should know about… voicethread. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7050.pdf

VoiceThread (2009). Retrieved from http://voicethread.com/#home.b409.i848804

iGoogle Screen Captures

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AR/CBL

BP4_2009101_SocialBookmarking

Out With the Old, In With the New

From the teacher’s perspective, social bookmarking can save time and keep one extraordinarily organized. Whereas “regular” bookmarks allow one to organize by single file folders, social bookmarking creates a web-like cross-referencing system through tagging so that a teacher may see the variety of uses for each site. Jackson (2009) noted an example where a particular website would be of interest for two different purposes – the study of alliteration and the study of Langston Hughes. Social bookmarking adds another dose of “Web 2.0-ism” by allowing users to explore the bookmarks of others with the same tags.

A more abstract reason for using social bookmarking in education was offered by Educause (2005): “Activities like social bookmarking give users the opportunity to express differing perspectives on information and resources through informal organizational structures.” Because everyone will tag differently based on his or her opinions, the task of research changes with social bookmarking; instead of searching for a single word, the researcher may be asked to think of the “big picture”, where identifying common themes can help the learner build connections to real-life (or in their mind). An exercise might be to use www.wordle.net to create a word cloud about their research. This forces the student to use the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (and it looks really cool too!).

Finally, certain social bookmarking sites, such Diigo (formerly www.furl.net), archive all sites that are bookmarked (Hargadon, 2007). Anyone who has done ongoing research has had the unpleasant reminder that the Web is always changing, and that includes even the best of one’s research pages. This archiving service can be very valuable for teachers who have found an extraordinary resource that they want to share with students or for students who are more visual in learning. Furthermore, Diigo allows the user to write sticky notes and highlight material. This could be beneficial in several ways, including sharing information in group settings or guiding students who need additional help.

On a personal level, I am excited to encourage students and colleagues to use social bookmarking as a tool in our district. I feel that it will significantly increase the effectiveness of student research and will encourage them to think about researching differently.

References

Educause (2005, May). 7 things you should know about… social

bookmarking. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/

library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Hargadon, S. (2007). Best of social bookmarking. School Library Journal.

53(12). 20. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Jackson, L. (2009). Sites to see: Social bookmarking. Retrieved from

http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml

Pictures courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

BP3_2009101_RSSfeeds

I love reading articles about new ideas in music education and technology in education. So not only is the Google Reader ideal, it may err on the side of dangerous for me. I’ve already subscribed to six feeds, and I sense more are calling me…:

1. Education Week: Technology

This journal often has fascinating articles about incorporating technology into the classroom. Education Week is a respected publication and it will help keep me up to date on how technology affects learning.

2. Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog (Amy M Burns)

This blog is written and maintained by Amy M. Burns, who is always at the forefront of music education technology. I often check her site for new ideas of software to use, and now it will come to me instead! Woo hoo!

3. International Journal of Music Education

I wanted to include a feed of a more traditional music education journal. I am always interested to read about studies happening around the world.

4. MENC General Music

MENC is one of the leading music education journals in the country. I was happy to find that I could subscribe directly to the area of music ed that applies to my teaching.

5. Music, Technology and Education: Mustech.net

This is another music education/technology site that I would visit from time to time to learn about new programs and ideas. It is maintained by Dr. Joseph Pisano, professor at Grove City Community College (PA).

6. Teaching Hacks.com

This site offers the latest in incorporating Web 2.0 into the classroom and its effectiveness with student learning. This site is new to me and I am hoping that it will bring new ideas.

BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching

“[In using PLEs, it can be possible that]…teaching is less a matter of data transmission and more a collaborative exercise in collection, orchestration, remixing, and integration of data into knowledge building. The goal for the student shifts from a need to collect information to a need to draw connections from it – to acquire it, disseminate it, and collaborate in its use.” (Educause, 2009).

Finding The Significance Of It All–

Like Wesch (2008) I also find myself questioning the significance of teaching certain concepts in my classroom. Even when I am able to connect it to “real-life” situations or current music, students still sometimes complain that the material is irrelevant to their lives. Although I can sometimes chalk this up to them being hormonal creatures of the 12- and 13- year old variety, I can’t help but think that they might be right. For example, Ragtime music, believe it or not, is responsible for many ideas we hear in rock and hip hop music today. But really, when was the last time I sat down to “enjoy” some Scott Joplin or Ernest Hogan as it relate to popular music? Therein lies the dilemma of whether students really know what they need to learn (or at least be exposed to) or whether teachers should force bits of information that they deem somewhat worthwhile down their students proverbial throats.

PLEs address much of the R2D2 model we learned about last month, where students are able to Reflect (blog), Read (RSS), Display (like Flickr in the Educause article), and potentially Do (depending on the simulations, etc. available). These ideas also tie into the theory of Multiple Intelligences, where students have a variety of stimuli from which to choose the style of learning they wish to use. It would be great for auditory and possibly musical learners to choose an RSS feed that will give them information that is useful to their learning while visual learners might subscribe to a timeline or an educational YouTube channel. However, I don’t seem many schools being open to these types of websites for student use based on the comments of my classmates in previous Wimbas. Moreover, as the Educause article suggested, I am not sure that many students know how they learn best, but I agree that the use of PLEs may help students assess their needs as learners.

Wesch’s article applied directly to Brain-Based Learning. Students would be self-motivated by incorporating their own values. Students would have plenty of opportunities for pre-exposure, whether through RSS feeds or reading a peer’s blog or other resources. Because students would be mainly in charge of their PLE, they would have the freedom to switch things up (novelty) as necessary. This would also circle back around to motivation.

Although I am enjoying Full Sail’s CMS set up, I am not sure that it is the answer for all students. There is still the potential “What do I need to do to pass this assignment” question rather than “What can I learn from this assignment?” I do believe, however, that the organizational aspect of the system is helpful to most (if not all) students.

If self-generating questions equal self-generated learning, how can we use technology to inspire curiosity? If we offer students outlets to explore subjects on their own terms, will they learn concepts that will benefit them later in life? (You know, since that’s the point of school anyway.) [side note: Wow, this sounds like an intriguing CBL project. I wish I would’ve been prompted to think about this a couple of months ago! Thanks for helping me question, Rena!]

Overall, I think that 21^st century learners can use the abundance of information available online in a more effective manner than teachers are currently allowing. I also believe that when students are engaged in something they are passionate about, they learn on a deeper level and are more likely to 1. retain and 2. apply their knowledge at a later time. PLEs, with guidance and some structure, may be the answer to fostering these types of engagement in learning. I would like to think that as students age, they would have the opportunity to contribute more media and literature for younger students to utilize.

Educause Learning Initiative (2009, May). 7 things you should know about... personal learning environments. Retrieved

from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7049.pdf

Wesch, M. (2008). Anti-teaching: Confronting the crisis of significance. Canadian Education Association. 48(2). 4-7.

Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/6358393/AntiTeaching-Confronting-the-Crisis-of-Significance.

BP1_2009101_EducationalUsesForBlogs

"I think it’s the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing..."

—Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student (Downes, 2004)

Conveniently enough, I have been doing a bit of research on blogging because my AR project is dealing with how blogs affect student collaboration and student progress in learning. So far, the best article I’ve found was by Zawilinski (2009) and dealt with how to use blogs to promote higher-order thinking. Zawilinski noted that blogging “forces students to go through Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking” (p.3). Although journaling may provide similar opportunities for higher-order thinking, the fact that blogging incorporates open discussion sets it apart.

A concept I hadn’t considered much is the fact that blogging asks the blogger to write for a “world” audience. This may foster new attitudes about writing, as the student is no longer writing solely for the teacher’s eyes (Downes, 2004).

I am excited to see the growth in communication between students through blogging. Emotional growth is often a neglected part of traditional schooling, and technology (prior to Web. 2.0) often gets a bad wrap for isolating the user. Downes interviewed teachers at a Canadian school who have used blogging in their classes. One teacher stated “The students get to know each other better by visiting and reading blogs from other students. They discover, in a non-threatening way, their similarities and differences” (2004). I also appreciate that blogging allows students of both inter- and intrapersonal natures to state their opinions and share their work on the same stage. As one teacher noted, “It puts students in a situation of equity" (Downes, 2004).

I was surprised to read that Professor Richard Long of St. Louis Community College stated that assigned blogging (where there is a prompt) is “contrived” (Downes, 2004). While I understand the concept of freedom in blogging, at what point do we leave our students stranded without structure if we do not offer prompts? Sadly, I don’t believe that most of my school’s population has been taught to think well enough on their own to blog without prompts. Unfortunately, I also don’t believe that we are alone in this. Would Long find it more acceptable to offer a prompt for lower-level students while still allowing higher-level thinkers to write without prompts? I agree with Downes that group blogging is, in essence, a conversation, and I am excited to see the development of my students’ growth through conversation. This concept of growth-by-conversation is also demonstrated by Solomon & Schrum (2007) in the Class Blogmeister tutorial (chart, p. 203).

If we as teachers are charged with the accountability to teach young people to think, it seems only right to put the learning back into the students hands (or in the case of blogging, fingertips) and encourage them to write and connect with one another.

Downes, S. (2004). EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5): 14–26. Retrieved September

29, 2009 from www.educause.edu.

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. International

Eugene, OR: Society for Technology in Education.

Zawilinski, L. (2009, May 1). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote

Higher Order Thinking. Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661. (ERIC Document

Reproduction Service No. EJ839762) Retrieved September 22, 2009, from

ERIC database.