I Think, Therefore I Blog

Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud. -Andrew Sullivan

Blogs have taken off as one of the most popular mediums on the internet. Over 180 million people have blogged, and two new blogs are coming into existence every second (Richardson, 2010, p. 19). But why? What is the power of the blog?



Seth Godin is a famed blogger and marketing guru. Although the above exchange was captured at a seminar about entrepreneurship, Godin's comments about blogging ring true no matter what the occupation of the writer.

"What matters," he says, "is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you are going to say." Later he states that with blogging we "force [ourselves] to become part of the conversation." His comments get to the heart of the questions I have regularly asked myself with this blog: What is the purpose of my post? What can I connect my ideas to? How can I make this post relevant to today's conversation about education?

Blogging taps into higher-level thinking, which is why it makes such an outstanding project to do with our students. Think about all the skills being engaged at once: planning, writing, researching, linking, synthesizing, critiquing, commenting and responding. When you look at Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, this chart shows blogging at the top:
Will Richardson (2010) points out that true blogging doesn't happen instantaneously; it is a progression from something simple like journaling to something more complex that involves articulating one's understanding of content through links and interaction with your blogging audience (p. 31). It's taken me over two months to start to feel comfortable with the blogging process. It evolves slowly, with patience and self-discipline. It is the process of blogging and the benefits that come as a result that I'm excited to share with students.

References

Fisher, M. (2009, February 27). Digital Bloom's Visual [web log post]. Retrieved from http://digigogy.blogspot.com/2009/02/digital-blooms-visual.html

Innerpreneur. (2009, April 18). Seth Godin and Tom Peters on blogging [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=livzJTIWlmY

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousands Oaks, CA: Corwin

A little Housekeeping with Google Reader

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. --Hans Hoffman

As the fall semester draws to a close, I decided to review my use of Google Reader and do a long overdue clean-up.

I went through all my subscriptions in my Teacher-Librarian folder and deleted a few feeds that are either inactive or that, when I reviewed the blog and checked my "trends", I found I wasn't ever reading. Next, I renamed the remaining blogs according to author. I have always found it disorienting to read a blog only knowing it's title rather than the author. Here is my newly renovated folder:

Going through and visiting these blogs one by one was a good way to catch up on a few things I've missed and it reminded me of why I'm reading these blogs to begin with! Here, I found a great check list helping kids to conduct research (Diigo bookmark!) and here I found some useful information on a plug-in called Google Cloud Connect which may finally help me overcome the home vs work document disconnect!

Which blogs do you regularly follow for education/library? I'd like to know what I'm missing out on!

References

Jones, L. (2011, November 6). Deconstructing research [web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.shelfconsumed.com/2011/11/deconstructing-research.html

Whisen, G. (2011, July 9). Google cloud connect [web log post]. Retrieved from http://ideaconnect.edublogs.org/2011/07/09/google-cloud-connect/

Current Events #10: Accessibility of Education

Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university. --Bill Gates, 2010

There have been exciting developments this week in the area of online learning resources. Recently, the Khan Academy revealed that they are receiving 39 million pageviews per month. This site of free video lessons mostly in the area of secondary math and science now has more that 2700 videos available for free viewing. This article provides some fascinating information on how the Khan Academy got started.

In other online developments, Stanford is offering ten new, entirely free, online courses. In the fall, one of their free courses saw an astounding 58,000 enrollments! These new courses offer a combination of video lectures, quizzes, assignments, exams, discussion forum, feedback and accomplishment certificates.

The high-quality resources being developed online are a testament to the increasing importance of emphasizing digital literacy with our K-12 students.

References:

Barseghian, T. (2011, November 18). The Khan Academy opens its virtual doors - carefully [web log post]. Retrieved from http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/11/the-khan-academy-opens-its-virtual-doors-carefully/

Ferenstein, G. (2011, February 16). How Bill Gates' favourite teacher wants to disrupt education. Fast company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1728471/change-generation-bill-gates-favorite-teacher-wants-to-disrupt-education

Open Culture. (2011, November 18). Stanford opens ten new online courses. Retrieved from http://www.openculture.com/2011/11/seven_new_stanford_courses.html

Rao, L. (2011, November 4). The O'Sullivan Foundation grants $5M to online learning platform Khan Academy. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/04/the-osullivan-foundation-grants-5m-to-online-learning-platform-khan-academy/

My First Prezi...Check!

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. --Jonathan Swift

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Last night, I took the plunge and sat down after the kids were in bed to create my first Prezi. I felt like a toddler taking her first steps as I first stumbled around with the canvas, text tool and "zebra". After about half an hour of perplexed fiddling and referring back to the cheat sheets, I eventually got the hang of it and my presentation started to 'flow'. Drum roll, please:

Exploration of Web 2.0 on Prezi

What helped:

• Adding elements/text off to the side of the canvas, and then dragging them into place (rather than trying to position them correctly to start with)
• Using the 'frame' tool to group items together
• Trying to minimize motion sickness by limiting the zoom in/zoom out
• Using the 'path' tool at a distance show more than one element at a time
  

What hindered:

• Accidently grabbing the 'resize' tool rather than the 'move' tool
• Accidently grabbing one element rather than a frame
• Not having the 'path' tool cooperate with where I wanted it to go
• I just couldn't figure out the 'hidden frame' tool - it wasn't hidden and it didn't group!

The Verdict:

I will certainly use Prezi as a teaching tool. It is appealing because allows students to process information in non-linear fashion by emphasizing connections and the big picture. This post at the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo states that "like a concept map, a Prezi presentation has the potential to help students understand the context or system in which something has meaning -- and context, as the image to the right perhaps demonstrates (roll your cursor over it) -- is sometimes highly revealing." I also like that Prezi is in the cloud and I can easily embed it in moodle or a class blog.

Prezi is a tool I would use for student projects from middle school up. I am sure kids would be engaged by its creative potential, although some patience would be needed to learn how to use it: "Designing a Prezi presentation is conceptually more challenging than PowerPoint because it lends itself to more complex arrangements of ideas, images, and facts." (Centre for Teaching Excellence, n.d.) Solution: Provide an option to use either Prezi or Powerpoint in order to meet the learning styles of all students.

References:

Centre for Teaching Excellence. (n.d.) Prezi. Retrieved from http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_with_technology/netsavvy/prezi.html

Tell Your Story in a Compelling Way

Using PowerPoint is like having a loaded AK-47 on the table: You can do very bad things with it. --Peter Norvig, Google Director of Research



The above video reminded me of my prior life as a conference/event planner, during which I sat through dozens of scientific presentations featuring Powerpoints so filled with bullet points, text and charts that I had to quietly sneak out of the room to get some air.

The point? Those of us who regularly give presentations need to keep on our toes. There is an art to giving a good presentation, and thanks to Prezi, it is now easier to entertain and inform at the same time.

To prepare for the week ahead, I spent some time tonight going over the tutorials provided at the Prezi website. The videos were short and clear, and I like the way the "Learn" area at Prezi also provides cheat sheets that I can quickly refer back to when I'm in the midst of creating. This Prezi created by founder Adam Somlai-Fischer gave me a lot to think about for the presentation I am about to start:

Copy of How to create a great prezi on Prezi

Of course, PowerPoint is not the only presentation tool with detractors. Prezi also has its fair share of critics. This blog post features a Twitter conversation between librarians with some complaining that Prezi makes them feel physically ill. Clearly, too much zooming and animation has its drawbacks, particularly for those prone to motion sickness. PF Anderson finishes the blog with the conclusion that a good Prezi is "especially special" but "if you aren’t a Prezi wizard, maybe you should stick to Powerpoint."

Am I up to the task?

References

Anderson, P. (2011, February 4). Pondering Prezi [web log post]. Retrieved from http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/pondering-prezi/

Estabanb. (2010, March 16). Stop! You're killing me with Powerpoint [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JU48-FVqvQ

Somlai-Fischer, A. (2011, October 11). How to create a great prezi. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/recyyolzxm3e/how-to-create-a-great-prezi/

Sixty Minutes on Twitter

The secret to making progress is to get started. --Mark Twain

Back when I was designing my inquiry proposal, I came across some research that shows educators are using Twitter for three main purposes: 1) to stay current, 2) to network and 3) to participate in conference backchannel (Gerstein, 2011). For the past six weeks, I've jumped into the Twitter stream to try it out and I've blogged about what I've learned here and here.

This morning I did a little experiment. I loaded up Tweetdeck and gave an hour of my undivided attention to it. I organized Tweetdeck into 6 columns (all that would fit onto my screen): #tldl, #edtech, #sschat, #engchat, #bced, #edchat. What evolved in 60 minutes on Twitter?

To stay current (press the EASY button):

• connected to exciting developments at the Khan Academy
• found a link to an excellent resource on teaching digital citizenship
• discovered a new Web 2.0 tool to create personal magazines
• read an article about how to encourage technophobic teachers
  
• was reminded to get out and vote in the Civic elections today
  

To network (press the MORE DIFFICULT button)

• responded to a science teacher in Texas who blogged about Diigo
• tweeted about a post at Culture of Yes about meaningful integration of technology
  
• retweeted four posts I found useful
  

To backchannel at conferences (press the IMPOSSIBLE AT THE MOMENT button)

I have noticed in the past that traffic to my blog has increased when I tweet about it; however, creating a dialogue / collaborative niche in Twitter has proven somewhat elusive to me. I have chatted back and forth with a few people, but establishing an ongoing network is a work-in-progress.

Curiously, just as I was writing this blog, "timbuckteeth" (a.k.a Steve Wheeler) tweeted out a post to a new model for developing a PLN. This post discusses Joyce Seitzinger's idea that Twitter will not be successful if the "user does not follow or is not followed by enough other subscribers to enable the benefits of the network effect." Bingo! Clearly, the challenge (or opportunity) ahead is to build a broader network of like-minded teachers/PLNers who are ready to jump into the fray with their ideas and questions.

Are you on Twitter? Who do you follow?

References

Barseghian, T. (2011, November 18). The Khan Academy opens its virtual doors - carefully [web log post]. Retrieved from http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/11/the-khan-academy-opens-its-virtual-doors-carefully/

Common Sense Media. (2011). Digital literacy and citizenship curriculum for grades 9-12. Retrieved from http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum/9-12

Gerstein, J. (2011). The use of twitter for professional growth and development. International Journal on ELearning, 10(3), 273-276. Retrieved October 1, 2011, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 2431456601).

Kennedy, C. (2011, November 18). Preparing and supporting teachers to integrate technology in the classroom [web log post]. Retrieved from http://cultureofyes.ca/2011/11/18/preparing-and-supporting-teachers-to-integrate-technology-in-the-classroom/

Kesler, C. (2011, November 19). Diigo is a great tool for teachers [web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.teachersneedtech.com/2011/11/19/diigo-is-a-great-tool-for-teachers/

Stansbury, M. (2011, November 18). Ten way to change the minds of tech-reluctant staff [web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/11/18/10-ways-to-change-the-minds-of-tech-reluctant-staff/

Wheeler, S. (2011, November 19) Tools of the trade [web log post]. Retrieved from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/11/tools-of-trade.html

Current Events #9: A Day in Pictures

"No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline. --Kofi Annan

This post from Free Technology for Teachers inspired me to rethink the opening of my Social Studies and Civics classes. On many occasions, I have used a news clip to start my lesson, but what if every class started with a photo taken in the past 24 hours? What a conversation starter!

Richard Bryne (at Free Technology) uses BBC's In Pictures, but another excellent resource is the blog, The Big Picture, which posts amazing (although sometimes disturbing) imagery of what is in the news. You can use Google Reader to subscribe to both resources.

Connecting with current events visually brings the stories alive, leads students to ask questions, and puts global citizenship at the forefront of the classroom--a great way to make Social Studies meaningful.

References

BBC. (2011, November 18). Day in pictures: 18 November 2011. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15791213

Byrne, R. (2011, November 18). Using pictures for current events [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/11/using-pictures-for-current-events.html

Nelson, P., Turner, L., & Young. L. (2011, November 15). Dangerous work: "the mine" in Guatemala City [web log post]. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/11/dangerous_work_the_mine_in_gua.html