What is it about Web 2.0 that I like? That is an interesting question that I tried to answer today when mowing my lawn today (I don’t know why). I thought about the interactivity of the tools but I’m not thrilled about handheld devices that are interactive. I thought about the laziness time-saving ability of RSS but I have that with digest versions of listservs that I belong to (yes, they still serve a function). After some time I think I came up with my answer: structure. Every Web 2.0 tool has a structure that it works within but it is still customizable for the user (mashups)
If you think about the different tools you understand where I’m going. Del.icio.us allows me to store my bookmarks in a web based manner but I can the structure allows me to look up my bookmarks as well as other based on tags. This way I don’t have to remember what exactly the site was about but use the keyword tags. Flickr works the same way. Wikis allow me to work collaboratively on a web based project but the end user is not stuck with seeing the final product. The user can use the structure of wikis to look at previous versions and make comparisons between versions. Blogs allow people to carry on a conversation or evolution of a concept through the comments. The user is not limited to a static page which presents I version of the conversation.
Are Web 2.0 tools perfect? No, but these tools are starting to change the culture of conversation which is a good thing.
Last summer I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point“. I would consider this book a must read, on the same level as “The World Is Flat”. The basic premise of the book is that there is some point or influence that takes a movement or trend and turns it into a phenomenon. Since reading the book I’ve wondered when will Web 2.0 reach the tipping point in education. There are so many people who speak about the wonderful things that Web 2.0 tools have done for the classrooms but the concept is still very foreign to the mainstream education. The mainstream still seems to lump Web 2.0 and MySpace together as being one in the same which is very far from the truth.
I recently read Jeff Utecht’spost at the Thinking Stick. He talked about the fact we may be measuring the wrong generation when it comes to Web 2.0 tools. His assertion is that we need to make sure as many children know how to use this type of technology so they can function in a flat world. I hadn’t thought about it in that way but it makes sense. The tipping point is going to come from the next generation not from mine or the ones before me.
Does this mean we forget about my generation or the ones before me? Absolutely not, we need to spend the time but we don’t need to focus the time solely here. By changing the perspective of the problem a solution seems to be in sight. Now it is up to us to do the best we can in becoming the mavens to make the largest impact we can on influencing the tipping point of Web 2.0 tools in education.
Let the collaboration start! David, Matt, and I have started our collaborative wiki assignment for a class I’m taking. Getting the initial idea going and framework was no problem. Murphy’s Law kicked in when I was trying to invite people to collaborate. It took over 24 hours and actually it took a forward of CC invite before it worked. I hope anyone else who is using Wetpaint hasn’t run into that problem! :(
The theme of the project is “A Web 2.0 Primer for Newbies“. Our hope is to have this wiki serve as a reference that could be shared with teachers new to Web 2.0 and want to learn more so they can integrate it into their classroom. I invite everyone to check it out and contribute their own thoughts and ideas.
2 years ago we had Rupert Murdoch’s company bought MySpace for $700+ million, now we have Disney purchasing Club Penguin. This may not sound that earth shattering but this could be a big deal in social networking. Children seem to go through a sequence (Webkinz -> Club Penguin -> MySpace or Facebook) in the social networking world.
This is a logical purchase for Disney as they have resurrected their notoriety from kiddie cartoon channel to pre-teen/teen market with shows like Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Hannah Montana, and Cory in the House and movies like High School Musical and Cheetah Girls. Can you tell I have a child in that target market? Now Disney can merge that reputation in an existing social networking giant, Club Penguin, and produce a virtual DisneyWorld for the little penguins.
For those of you who are not familiar with Club Penguin. Club Penguin allows their users to create a profile and avatar. Their penguin goes around playing games and interacting with other penguins, under supervision to promote safety. Users create buddy lists and arrange gatherings trying to collect coins (not exactly a message we want to get across to children in my humble opinion). There are sites out there telling users how to hack the system to get more coins (Do you see potential danger there?).
I wonder if this virtual world will turn as commerical as other places like MySpace and Second Life. With cross promotion my world is going flooded with Club Penguin references. Oh joy!
Last night I had the privilege to get a tour within Second Life from Kevin Jarrett (aka KJ Dax). He showed us a couple of places within Second Life. Even though we fell out of the sky while riding Kevin’s magic carpet I had a good time. Second Life is something that I’ve been curious about and dabbled in but there isn’t enough time in the day to balance another life. I’m going to try to carve a little more time this year as more and more educational events are going on that would help me grow as a professional.
The whole concept of virtual learning environments is starting to take off. Kevin got to spend quite a bit of time last school exploring Second Life and their educational impact. More and more entities have started to realize that this is the future and want to get in on the ground floor. Students can use Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) to take advantage of offerings that might not occur at their school for whatever reason. VLEs offer a different style of education than one can get using Blackboard, Moodle, or any other Content Management System (CMS). CMS seem to offer a single direction in communication. I’m currently taking a course using Blackboard and I’m not sure if I miss the face-to-face communication or interactivity that Web 2.0 tools take on. VLEs seem to offer the bridge between those two styles of e-learning.
I don’t believe that Second Life is in a final form to be the cat’s meow. I don’t like the fact that Linden Labs seems to be profiting from all of the commercialization within Second Life. Ideally the VLE should be based on an open source project so that it can be customized to meet specific needs that groups may have. I would hope that a voice integration is built in, like a merging with a VoIP product. For all I know these components may be in the works and that is why I’m not abandoning this use of technology.
Today I surprised my wife and got her a Nintendo DS web browser to thank her for her support this summer while dealing with my accident. Earlier in the week I had watched a session for the K12 Online Conference from Steve Dembo called Mobile Learning. Steve mentioned that in Japan children were using Nintendo DS’s as a wifi web browser and he stated that is was coming to the states in 2007. After the session was over I did a Google search and found out that it was available. I went down to BestBuy and purchased a card about the size of normal GameBoy Advance cartridge. In a short amount of time my wife (not me) got the machine up and running. She let me borrow it for a couple of minutes to put it through the paces. Here are some pictures for your review…
I’ve try to give you some different things to look at: Picture 1-Gmail Picture 2-My School’s Website Picture 3-Wikipedia entry on the State of Maine Picture 4-Showing the Keyboard Picture 5-flickr pictures. The browser is an open-source title called Opera. I’ve haven’t tried it on a desktop but it resized things on a mobile device pretty well.
For about $30 you can turn a personal entertainment device into a personal web device. Will it be useful as a 1-to-1 solution? NO, but if you need something to look up this better than nothing. The speed wasn’t too bad either.
Who knew a disruptive device could be this educational?
Miguel Guhlin found this video and I thought it makes a powerful statement about using podcasts as a professional development tool. Watch it here
I truly feel that podcasts are an easy way for teachers to develop new skills, hone established one, or just find out what other professionals in education are doing. I was doing that when Bob Sprankle was doing his Room 208. He was giving me ideas of how to incorporate blogging and podcasting into the classroom. Social Studies teachers have no excuses as each of the nightly news from the networks are podcasted, as well as Meet the Press and Face the Nation (talk about current events on demand). Apple Computer, through iTunes, has made it so easy to get to podcasts.
If you haven’t tried listening to podcasts what are you waiting for (you don’t need an iPod).
We needs to give our students true ownership of their work. This method would give validation to students that their work has importance to it. This is definitely something my staff will be seeing this fall.
Let me start off by saying that this section of George Siemens‘ book “Knowing Knowledge” was a very technical, philosophically approach to Knowledge and Connectivism. I avoided philosophy in college until the last possible moment so this blog entry is not some of my best work…(I know excuses excuses)
“The more we desire knowledge for our intended purposes, the more inclined we are to filter and select based on our goals. The story of knowledge becomes more about us and less about letting knowledge speak for itself.” George Siemens’ Knowing Knowledge (50).
Isn’t this the truth, in our adult lives we seem to specialize in our desire for knowledge. When we specialize we can get tunnel vision and ignore knowledge that might enrich us in what we’re trying to accomplish. As David Warlick stated in his keynote of the K12 Online Conference, “we need to take the side trips.” When we take these side trips often times the end result is better.
Knowledge is based on how well we can relate new information to prior experiences and information. When we encounter new information it is about the connections we make and how we sync that information based on our knowledge. The stronger the connections we have to those prior experiences and information the stronger the change the information will stick and turn into knowledge.
“Knowledge will be less of a product, and more of a process” Siemens (55). In today’s world of information overload we need to be able to organize the information so we can translate information into knowledge. Web 2.0 tools have a common feature to many of them, a RSS feed. Those RSS feeds are aggregated and allow me as well as others to organize the chaos of information contained in blogs, wikis, and other forms of information within our personal learning environments into a network that can be processed, internalized, filtered, and connected to create knowledge. This doesn’t work for everyone but it works for me because my time is spent of processing, internalizing, filtering, and connecting instead of going out to find the information.
About Me: I am the technology teacher/integrator at the Mildred L. Day School in Arundel, ME. Technology is a passion of mine since I was in junior high in the 80's taking a fortran course through my math teacher's account at USM. Outside of work I am a husband, father of 2 girls, and rabid Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots fan. When I have free time I would like to golfing (despite the short season).
