Off to the Moon I Go

Picture yourself all suited up in your space survival suit. You have your oxygen, your pockets are full of supplies, food, etc., and you know the procedures to follow to be safe in outer space. You are on your way to explore the greatest thing possible. Exploring the world, the depths of cyberspace that is. Are you feeling prepared? There is no turning back now. The world is yours to explore, participate in, gather samples, share results, and teach others of your findings. That's a fairly heavy weight on your shoulders - but I have confidence you can do it. Let get to it. (Photo-Courtesy Dave Cross)


Cyber Exploration in Three Parts - Blogs, Pro-D, RSS

A very brief description of blogs is that the name stems from 'weblog' and the entries are posted in reverse chronological order. They can be used to stay in touch with parents, students, and staff as a communication tool. Blogs can also be used as a learning tool as collaboration can occur with the addition of posted comments. There will be two provisions of blogs applied here - one will have the focus of a classroom and the other the school library. This will be followed by the application of professional development and continue with the relevance of RSS. In these last two discussions, both will consider the classroom perspective as well the use for teachers.

Blogs in the Classroom

The access to information out there is phenomenal. I can only just barely touch the surface in this post. By offering places to direct your attention, I hope to assist in sending you in the right direction. In referring to 50 Useful Blogging Tools for Teachers by Teaching Tips.com, there is a huge gambit of information to draw from. Some of the topics range from: who to publish with, tools for teachers, general tools for assistance, a section on Internet safety, and getting students involved. With these guidelines as tools, it sets the foundation from where to begin.

Once the initial blog has been set up, some specific examples on how to incorporate them into the curriculum are offered next. On John Norton's blog, Middle School Diaries, he lists a number of Middle School Blogs to refer to. All subject areas are covered from humanities, languages, math, etc. Some great ideas are presented that can be adapted to suit your particular needs. I know these are just a couple of places to start, but it's getting started that's important here.

Blogs in the Library

As a central location in a school, a blog is the perfect avenue to dispense information. In Schwartz's, Blogs for Libraries, he suggests there are 6 reasons to have a library blog. These concepts include: writing a blog keeps you current, blogs are advocacy tools, blogs build community, your library is unique, do it for you, and it's easy - no excuses. I like the value in doing it for yourself because you know you want to - you don't need any other reason than it's the right thing to do for value sake. It is beneficial for you to keep track of resources, share happenings and connect with others. Use the tools shared to make your work go faster. One possible solution is 20 Simple Productivity Tools for Bloggers by Barb Dybwad. The keyboard shortcuts are a quick and easy time saving measure. Make that blog enticing by adding visuals. Suggestions galore are offered at 26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog. One of the items covered is the creative commons aspect of available uses of images, which is a gem to find.

As with anything, there are ups and downs to using any specific application. The following ideas are offered from Educause's 7 things you should know about blogs. The ups of blogs include: reflecting about classes, staying current with events, conducting research, disseminating information, attaching RSS feeds, sharing and collaborating with students and staff, and offering discussion forums. The downs include: they have opinion based content, information is not verified, posts can be deleted, and frequency of posting can be time consuming. Can blogs be used for professional development? You bet they can.

Pro-D

There are multiple opportunities available in cyberspace, we just have to tap into them. Whether these are for personal, professional growth or for staff development, there are plenty prospects to follow. Here are a few suggestions although I know there are many more possibilities.

In researching this, I came across some free online courses to assist with continuing professional development. This information is from iLibrarian and is sourced from BestCollegesOnline.com with the compilation by Sarah Russel. It offers 50 Excellent Open Courses for Techie Librarians. Some of the options include: information and research, technology and education. Yes this is controversial because if we teach online, we will no longer have the need for school buildings - yet with the funding shortages do we have a choice? You have to do what works best for your situation.

When offering suggestions for staff pro-d, here's a list of links passed along from Cool Cat on a site called Making Teachers Nerdy titled Educational Blogs You Should Be Investigating. The site breaks the subject matter into grade specific areas. Food for though is always welcome as one idea can grow into another.

As I focus on the middle school venue, I found some sources that I could apply. I looked to John Norton for assistance. What, free webinars? Sign me up. I was informed by Middle Web of Free Webinars from Middle School Portal where sessions will take place on Elluminate over the course of the school year. We just had a fabulous session with Mack Male, so I am sold on this approach. These sessions allow us to stay connected, share and learn over the long haul, as they are on-going. I could put on mini sessions during the year to those interested in the school and district. Great concept - I'm glad I found it or rather it found me - on to RSS.

RSS

Have you ever tracked a parcel through a courier or Canada Post online? Then you've used an RSS feed. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) collects information from computer to computer and sends it to an aggregator or feed collector. This data is then sent to one place as a time saving measure for you. In a Power Point from Edna.edu.au, RSS for Schools An Introduction, it offers a visual representation of RSS through an introduction, history as well as examples. Although I read a number of articles around the topic of RSS - they really said the same thing. "RSS makes it easy to quickly scan condensed ...structured information with...dated topic materials" published online (Wu & Li, 2007). This gift is something I wish I had discovered long ago. It is the future coming to us.

How can one use this free service? One of Web 2.0's gurus addresses it quite nicely. Will Richardson's ABC's of RSS, lists 4 main reasons for using RSS feeds: to collect student blogs, for specific topic research, to target searching and for bookmarking. No that's succinct. There are others who also have valuable thoughts.

Here are some specific examples of how to incorporate RSS feeds into your classroom. In Traci Gardner's, RSS: Bringing What's New to You, she offers some practical ideas. These include: follow a favourite author, follow news headlines, subscribe to author's blogs and see if there are any new books coming out, set up homework blogs to hand work in, use Amazon for specific topics ie teen fiction to get a list of new books on favourite topics and authors, use the public library for writing activities where students write to each other's blogs, have a class blog students can submit to, research projects can direct the searches on recent articles, and professionally you join associations or groups. And these are just a few of the possibilities out there. Whether it's directly used in the classroom or for background knowledge, RSS had a lot to offer.

Other than in the class, how can educators use this service? Linda Joseph suggests in E-News Updates that there are a number of magazines worthy of subscribing to. A few suggestions are: education Week, Edutopia and From Now On..., etc. I will also add Time and Mcleans to the list. In Quentin D'Souza's RSS Ideas for Educators, this 35 page document offers tons of suggestions. Some I have picked out include: community building with sharing learning objects, pro-d with audio and video capabilities, productivity tools with collaborating on documents, research tools with searching newsgroups, and loads of other extras including accessing classified. This is a great resource to refer to.

As educators we seem to always be behind the times when it comes to technology. It seems nothing has changed if you follow this recent article from August 6, 2009 from the Guardian posted by Stephen's Lighthouse - The article by Richard Wray and Sam Jones is called It's SO over: cool cyberkids abandon social networking sites. In the article, as the adults join these social networking sites, the youth 15-24 yr olds are dropping out. If it is cool for the adults - it's not cool for us anymore, the teens claim. There was a drop in usage to only 50%. Twitter was cited as being fazing out with this younger set. A very interesting audio feed - have a listen. The theory is that the future seems to be heading towards more online video and audio use. For us today, RSS is known to provide current up-to-date events. How would this information have been realized before RSS feeds? It certainly wouldn't be as immediate.

What might be some of the pros and cons of using RSS? Some of the benefits of RSS include: omitting spam because email addresses are not required and therefore advertising doesn't get sent either - that in itself is awesome:) When you want current information, updates on topics, or see new posts to blogs or websites - they come directly to you. We used to think Google had all the latest information - that now seems outdated when you consider RSS feeds.

The downside sees to be in the initial set up. There really is tons of information out there - so where do you go? Some time is required to set up which feeds you request, but once that is done initially (of course it will change over time), you can sit back and let the information come to you. You need to be careful in what you subscribe to because you can easily be overwhelmed with the information coming in.

Here's an example of finding some interesting statistics but they are not really applicable to my specific situation. In an Aug 7, 2009 post by Stephen Abram, he offers some informative statistics in Online Trends. My focus is geared toward youth, so the adult statistics are not as applicable but nevertheless the graph is quite interesting for you visual learners - check it out.

Let the RSS Cyber Exploration Begin

I need an aggregator and a reader to bring my RSS feeds to one location for timely updates. With 21 choices of web based options to choose from RSS Publish your Feed in 8 easy steps. I'll look into this in more detail as time permits. I found a great Creative Commons visual from Flickr on RSS Diagram from Travelin' Librarian and incorporated it into my blog. Visuals, audio, and videos are great additions anytime they can be used - they are strong contributors to the learning scheme.

Overall, RSS has been a very beneficial, time saving tool to use to have the latest developments 'magically' presented - cool:) By incorporating RSS feeds into blogs and wikis, using them for professional development in sharing and collaborating, and keeping up to date personally, it has added a huge importance to our lives. Having worked through this exercise, I am so excited. I feel like the world has just opened up to new levels not explored before. I feel fortunate to have been part of this journey and look forward to travelling beyond into the next dimension. The sky is the limit.

Sources

Cold, S. Jeff. (2006, January). Using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to Enhance Student Research. ACM SIGITE Newsletter, Vol. 3(1). Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/m7p4bo

Joseph, Linda C. (2007, July). E-News Updates. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 14(4), 21-24. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1323966231). http://tinyurl.com/ntgmq9

Wu, Wendy and Li, Jie. (2007, Spring). RSS Made Easy: A Basic Guide for Librarians. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, Vol 26(1). Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/ktuwkq