Teach students how to blog - they'll thank you for it.

Would you expect a student to read Shakespeare before teaching them to read? No.

Would you expect a student to solve an equation before teaching them how to count? No.

Would you expect a student to analyze a country's undemocratic government before teaching them about democracy? No.

Would you expect a student to write an essay before teaching them how to write? No.

So, how can we expect a student to create a meaningful, purposeful and authentic blog without first teaching them how to blog?

21st century students are the pioneers of technology, Anne Mirtschin argues on her educational technology blog. Never again will a group of students be at the forefront of such change. Therefore, as educators we must guide and nurture students towards being responsible digital citizens. How do we do this? By explicitly teaching students the hows, the whys, the whats of online behaviour of course!

A senior student was applying for university in the United States. Coming from a rural village in Nepal, she clearly couldn't afford to pay for a university education in the States, so she applied for some scholarships. Having observed her online presence from a distance, the school counselor suggested that she might like to Google herself, as the scholarship providers surely would. Shock. Horror. The first three pages of Google were her ask.fm profile, her FaceBook profile, her Twitter feed, her Tumblr profile and so on and so on. This student wasn't lucky enough to be taught how to be a responsible digital citizen and how to leave a positive digital footprint. Not only were her different social media profiles open for all to see, but the content surely wasn't the image she wanted to project of herself. She immediately either deleted these accounts or changed the privacy settings and thanked the counselor profusely. Had one of her teachers (science, English, maths, computer science - it doesn't matter) taught her how to behave appropriately online, she wouldn't have had to learn this valuable lesson about cyberspace.

Teachers often bemoan the lack of hours in the day. Oh, if only we could have a 26 hour day, they say. Only 181 direct teaching days this year? But how on earth am I going to cover all of the skills and content these students need?! What? Now you want me to give up precious class time to teach students how to blog? Actually, yes.

Explicitly teaching a student how to blog involves more than just how to set up a blogger account, how to create a new post, how to comment on others' posts etc... So much more. It improves writing skills, persuasion, arguing, questioning, reflection and proofreading, so it really is worth incorporating it into class time.

Having trouble engaging students in your persuasive writing unit?
No problem! Blogging is your answer.


Are your students proofreading skills lackluster?
No problem! Blogging is your answer.
When the audience increases from one to thousands, it suddenly seems more important to make sure they're/their/there are spelt correctly.

Do your students see reflection as challenging or, even worse, pointless?
No problem! Blogging is your answer.
Reflection becomes embedded when students can share their work easily with parents, teachers and one another. Comments spark natural reflection.

Do your students struggle with debating respectfully?
No problem! Blogging is your answer.
If a teacher takes class time to teach students how to comment respectfully, even if it is disagreeing with the bloggers argument, students will become skillful (and respectful) commenters.

So, teachers, I implore you to take the time in class to teach your students how to blog. Not only will it improve engagement, writing and arguing skills, but it will teach them the life-long skill of being a responsible digital citizen. They'll thank you for it.


Works cited:
http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/keeping-students-cybersafe/

The World is At Our Fingertips

At the beginning of this school year, I learnt excitedly (keyword) from my daughter first, and later in the upcoming Weekly School Newsletter, that all Grade 5 students would be getting their own laptops! Also, at Elementary level, it is mandatory for the homeroom teacher to attend all IT (Information Technology) classes along with their students. Each student, teacher, and parent have to sign the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which highlights responsible use of the Internet, citing resources other than those originally posted, and respectful online behavior to an internal and global audience. Signed and dated.

This is an authentic document by the school. We have been signing this for the past 3 years. The school preaches, practices, and adheres to technology and its uses to resonate its 5 CORE values - Integrity, Compassion, Excellence, Respect, and Responsibilty - all merging to inspire each student to be 'a passionate learner' (taken from part of American School of Dubai Mission statement).

I can vouch from my own daughter's change in behavior toward a more independent, resilient, experimental, and mature approach to the positive, powerful, meaningful, and connected use of all the tools that have come her way: Last year the school hosted their own Google Summit. It was open to public. My daughter was representing Voicethread. She had her presentation to go, excited voices surrounding a unit of discussion, comments, instant teacher feedback - an ongoing dialogue that was captured and featured.

Diigo has indeed created a location that safely allows for information to be archived, bookmarked, annotated, shared for any kind of research or collaborative purposes. Its features have only sprouted from what was, by us, comfortably used and done - underlining in pencil, jotting quick sidenotes, making 'dog ears' in case there wasn't a bookmark around, and cutting and gluing pictures. If these earlier procedures are able to be reproduced in order for us to be more efficient so that room can be further made for future creativity and strides... then it is one that has supported and enhanced our ongoing learning community.

For this to trickle successfully into the classroom, a school preps itself, its teachers, the students, and the parents to support student learning. Acknowledging/addressing the technological strides 'out there' and bringing it 'in house' completely resonates with Sarah's thoughts in her post, "I predict that the educator groups in this Community will change research I do for my own professional development."

It is a concerted effort. The constance of CHANGE and the VARIETY within our teaching and learning community make it imperative that a shared and viable vision is at the end of the rainbow.

Supporting Learning in the classroom - Do Voicethread and Diigo do this?

For me, the discussion question that Kevin posted is key: "Write a post in our shiny new shared classroom blog about using Diigo to support learning in your classroom".

There are so many new types of technology that I meet on a daily or weekly basis (Voicethread, Google Hangout, Diigo, Diigo Groups, Blogger, Linoit from this course alone...), it is tempting to try them all out as soon as possible and let your students be the guinea pigs. What works? What doesn't? What's fun? What engages them? And it's easy to forget what our focus should always be: Which technology(ies) allows you to support learning in the classroom?

Voicethread

As an ESOL teacher, I can confidently argue that Voicethread (VT) does support learning in the classroom. My students need practice in the art of discussion, questioning, listening and self-assessment and I believe VT allows for this.

Discussion

As previously mentioned by all four of us, VT is the ideal technology tool for allowing every student to play a role in discussions. While typical discussion behaviours are evident in classroom discussions (Silent Suki, Ridiculous Rashad...), they may be less obvious in online discussions as everyone has their one spot for talking, with the confidence that they won't be interrupted. Furthermore, students that don't participate often may have the confidence, in private and with the time to prepare, to shine.

Questioning

If teachers set the expectation that students should listen to each others' posts and question them, then VT is an ideal technological tool to improve student questioning. All too often questioning is seen as the teacher's job and responsibility, but it is an important skill that students should acquire. With explicit teaching and practice, VT may be the appropriate environment to improve this skill.

Listening

Often we see that students lack listening skills. Whether they are quite clearly not focusing on what others are saying, or that they are focusing but only because they're waiting for the chance to add their thoughts, listening is a skill that needs to be explicitly taught. VT would allow teachers to assess students' listening skills (have they added 'pushback' comments? have the responded to comments that others have made about their discussion point?); focus on this in class by replaying the VT discussion and discussing; by explicitly teaching; and finally by assessing the listening skills learnt.

Self-assessment

In the ESOL classroom, using VT to self-assess is, in my opinion, the main advantage. Students can record themselves, listen back, assess themselves against a fluency rubric and re-record. This activity could be used throughout the year, to show growth to both the teacher and the student.

Diigo

Why did I create a Diigo account back in January, use it for a few days and then forget about it? Who knows!!?? I guess I didn't fully understand what it could do, maybe I was a little intimidated about a new (to me) technology...Anyway, this weekend I collated the hundreds of bookmarks on my four devices and added them to Diigo. Wherever I go, whatever device I am working on...they'll be there! Simple but life-changing.

Highlighting and Sticky notes (Annotation Practice)

One of the best features of Diigo, in my opinion, for supporting learning in the classroom is the highlighting and sticky notes feature. Both features can be used by teachers to draw students' attention to certain parts and, like the example from Paulo's article "Using Diigo to organize the Web for your Class", using sticky notes to set assignments within articles. I appreciate this function because it not only makes students' focus on certain sections of an article, but it also shows students authentic ways to use the software. I like the example that Kevin gave during our Google Hangout from the ESOL teacher at his school. She uses Diigo for students to highlight difficult or unknown words and use sticky notes to ask questions. These questions and queries can then be reviewed in class. If the article is a part of a group, students can use different highlighting colours to show which word belongs to which student, and they may even be able to answer each others' questions.

Diigo Groups

Joint first for best feature is: Diigo Groups. The fact that the teacher can create groups for separate classes, in which articles are shared with others makes for an excellent collaboration tool. Students can learn from each others' research, articles and annotations to develop their understanding of a topic. It is also clear if certain students are relying on their peers to do the research for them, as they won't have bookmarked any articles. Furthermore, it is a handy tool for teachers to bookmark a list of relevant articles for a topic or a theme, all in the same place. I would argue that Professional Development is another path for supporting learning in the classroom. The different discussion groups that I'm involved with at school (supporting students in services, assessment, PBL...) could all use Diigo groups to share research/articles and collaborate with thoughts and arguments. Definitely something I will use in school.

Final Thoughts...

The Diigo Community was a feature I hadn't explored previously. I predict that the educator groups in this Community will change research I do for my own professional development. When I was researching for Diigo articles, I came across some really interesting articles (some Diigo related and some not), bookmarked them, annotated a few and easily shared them with colleagues in my department and school.

To finish, both VoiceThread and Diigo can be used to support learning in the classroom. VoiceThread ensures collaboration and an improvement in listening and pronunciation skills, as well as self-assessment. Diigo is an efficient way to share research and annotate. I hope to use both authentically in my classroom.

Technology - What's the Hold Up?

Without a doubt, there are many great resources at our fingertips. Thanks Kevin for introducing some very useful tools to us. From Google Cirles to Voicethread, our options are truly endless.

I am fortunate to be at a school that has plenty of tech resources. We have multi-user WordPress sites for teachers to have an online presence; Moodle; Apple Remote Desktop for observing and interacting with students; PowerSchool for grading, commenting, and taking attendance; ManageBack for IB classes; a multitude of online subscriptions and services, etc. Being a 1to 1 laptop school, technology truly becomes more of a second nature thing instead of something pushed. I find that typing is really no longer taught. The students just know how.  If classes want to use GarageBand or iMove - well, the students just know how. Even softwares such as Adobe Photoshop, well students simply know the basics are are able to use it when properly guided.

I am curious how many of you feel that tech is becoming easier and easier to use. So what's the hold up? Being a tech coordinator for my campus, while I see teachers using technology everyday, there is still a level of pressure, anxiety, and sense of obligation. I think it's important for us to have a balance and really understand when it's beneficial for us to use modern technology in the classroom.

Let us not forget, a text book and a pencil was at one time as innovative as using an iPad in a classroom. I don't know if any of us feel pressure to use a pencil anymore. Textbooks... well that's also pretty standard and expected. However, you bring an iPad cart into the room and the teacher can't help but feel overwhelmed.

One thought I have is that technology is to make our lives simpler and easier. The problem is that the more we make like "convenient" the more we expect ourselves, or are expected, to fill up our free time with more. This doesn't necessarily leave our lives simpler or easier but busier than ever.

Well, where do you all sit with this? Does technology inspire you or overwhelm you? Is it easy for you to integrate these new and useful tools into your room or simply want to take a time machine back into the stone ages?

Welcome to the Learning with Web 2.0 Tools Course

Dear Blogger,
Welcome to the course blog for Teaching and Learning with web 2.0 tools.  You are here to help us learn from each other using this public writing forum. A blog is just a place to write online that others may or may not see.  But the verb to blog has, some argue, a meaning all its own among writing genres.