What's that Smell?

Take a deep breath - do you smell that? - a fresh cut lawn, the fragrant flowers in bloom, it's a beautiful day. There's freshness in the air, it must be from the light rain we had last night. It's a pretty idyllic picture. We are fortunate to live in a society where this is the norm. There is an abundance of absolute quality around us. And it's not just in the physical sense; it's in virtual space too.

Just as the grass continues to grow, the Internet also continues to expand - but at a much quicker pace. We can't possibly sit back and hope that the technological advancements of the Internet are going to fade - we need to be pro-active - even if it does seem like we're late bloomers. It's better to get started and be part of the game, than to stick our head in the ground and pretend it's not happening. Even the web is changing from the way we know it. In Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, he talks about a shift in the way we think about the Web. It is no longer a distributor of information but an interactive web also known as the Read/Write Web (p.129).

He suggests that currently there are ten shifts in online technological developments. First, the open-source-type classroom allows for education to happen at any time. Then, accessibility can occur with many teachers so learning can take place 24/7 allowing for connections with primary sources like authors, historians and researchers. Following that is the continuation of gaining knowledge - knowledge is not finite. How we teach takes on a different perspective, as we learn from discovery and conversation, not strictly from lecture. Then there's the part of the exploration to know where to find reliable sources. Now we have to be critical readers of the information that is presented - filtering for quality. What do we do with all this information? We can use the Web as the collection base; that way it is accessible wherever there is an Internet connection. Also, we need to make retention memorable through a multimedia approach. It's about understanding, creating, communicating and sharing with the large audience of the digital world. And lastly, it's about contributing and collaborating with others; the strength in numbers is phenomenal (pp.129-136). This change from passive gatherers to active searchers should be addressed to educators so they can contribute to the information continuum with our youth.

How will I apply this new developing technology with my staff? I will divide it into two segments - one for my staff/district development and one for my students. I will approach my new principal with the proposal to have a place at each staff meeting to implement a topic of Web 2.0 technology. I'm pretty confident it will be a go ahead because I already have a place on the agenda for the library - it will now become technology.

Before I continue, let me put you in the right frame of mind. You have been called to a staff meeting. The room is full of 85 colleagues at your school. Your previous principal was the technology expert in the school and he has since moved on. The technology role will now fall onto your shoulders - are you up for the challenge?

I am and I'm excited about it too:) I attend every monthly staff meeting and will suggest to my new administrator, that I present a Tech Tip segment at the meetings. The overview of the topics at the beginning of the year will guide the staff in the direction of where we will go. I will include: video clips, hand-on examples to try out and offer support for staff to work through the trial and error process. I will also suggest online interactions to assist in collaborating with others. I will be able to share what I have learned, open up the dialogue for collaboration, and offer opportunities to practise and share these new technologies with staff and students.

How can I engage my staff to try this new Web 2.0 world? Wait a minute; they're not going to know what Web 2.0 is. A brief overview from Wikipedia. Web 2.0, states that it is the second generation of web development and web design that facilitates information sharing and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Some examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies (tags).

Now, I need to engage my audience - I've got it - a pop quiz. I'm going to put 10 terms up for you to match with definitions to see what you know about the online world of teens today. By posting this quiz for the staff to answer these quick questions, it will show what they know about the digital age. The quiz comes from Michele Gorman from an article called Do You Speak Digital? Understanding today's teens is a lot of work - but it's worth it. There are 10 questions to match up with the following terms: spawn, avatar, skin, YouTube, blog, mod, IM, wiki, PSP, and mashup. Don't worry, we'll go over the answers.

Now that I have their attention, I'll bring their thoughts back to the articles I emailed/posted online in the staff memo. (Note: In advance of the staff meeting, I will provide on-line, copies of articles for them to have a look at. They may or may not read the articles before the staff meeting, so I'll highlight some key ideas from the articles for them at the meeting).

In the article Footprints in the Digital Age by Richardson, "a recent National School Boards Association survey (2007) announced that upward of 80 percent of young people who are online are networking and that 70 percent of them are regularly discussing education-related topics." The article continues, our students are doing all sorts of things online that we are not teaching them about. "By and large, they do all this creating, publishing, and learning on their own, outside school, because when they enter the classroom", the lights are turned off. That's a pretty strong statement that needs addressing.

This becomes the challenge, "figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow [with] the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely"(Richardson, 2009). What I would like to do is offer some opportunities to the staff and students around technology to assist in the understanding the Web 2.0 world we live in.

Have a look at this short YouTube video Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch



I know, you're asking yourself How am I going to apply this in my already jam packed full courses? This sounds great in theory but I wanted to share some examples of effective practise actually working in schools. I went to NeverEnding Search by Valenza to search out some answers. On her blog, Help me? Share effective practice in school library sites, she asked for input from schools who participate in Web 2.0 to showcase their capabilities at a conference. These are some samples showing their concepts.

Upper School Library
Barb Jansen writes - The assignment pages have links for the students after the
instruction is done. The teachers introduce the topic and task and the librarian teaches and reviewing any skills the students need to access and use the info sources and communicate their results. I also assess any of the products resulting from my instruction such as bibliographies, notes, web evaluations, presentations (the teacher assesses the content). The assignment pages (wikis and webpages) offer rubrics, examples, and anything else students my need for further reference.

Walkerton Middle School
Gina Webster writes - We focus on integrating media and technology across the
curriculum. From the media site you can access our collaboration wikis, which we use as a planning tool when we develop interdisciplinary units with teacher teams.
The Book Nook Blog link houses book review blog entries written by students and staff members at our school. We've also been focusing on using digital storytelling/podcasting, problem based learning, and blogging as products to promote research and critical content reading skills.

PA Young Adult Readers Choice
This blog was created using the multimedia program Shelfari.
From this blog was a wiki link titled PA Young Adult This document was produced using a spreadsheet from Google Doc - yet another amazing tool to utilize.

These are just a few examples of collaboration at work. As you can see there are multiple Web 2.0 uses in place ranging from wikis, blogs, multimedia sharing, community spreadsheets, podcasts and videos. I can only hope to instill a desire for my staff to climb onboard and try some of these exciting opportunities using technology.

In the article posted on Richardson's blog weblogg-ed called The Shifts, he talks about making changes in education to better equip our students for the on-line world they are growing up in. As teachers, we want to be able to teach our students to "acquire expertise, act ethically, display creativity, respect diversity, and synthesize and make sense of information". This is not a 'fix them in this year' concept - it takes time, but the shift needs to start happening now. By the way, I have his book Blogs, Wiki, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, to lend out. It's straight forward, easy to read, understandable and applicable.

Here's a short video compelling us to take action. This clip is from Richardson's Etech presentation from 2007 from Columbus, Ohio.



This is how I foresee our staff development taking place. At the first staff meeting of the year, I will provide an overview with background information. At subsequent staff meetings, I will give a short presentation to provide an overview of each of the topics. There will be the ten staff meetings throughout the year. I will present the topic of the month to address the technology approaches in our school. Support will be offered through once a week update sessions held after school. I will offer pro-d during the week after school - Wed or Thurs depending on what works best for staff, about the related topic. These sessions will allow for questions to be answered, practice to take place, and examples to be shared.

Here's an overview of what the year-long Tech Tip sessions will look like. The topics will cover: Web searches, blogs, photosharing including plagiarism and creative commons copyright, videosharing, social bookmarking, virtual libraries, wikis, multimedia sharing, social networking sites, and RSS.

How will I deliver these mini sessions at the staff meeting? Using a constructivist approach, I'll include a hands-on approach. By practicing what I teach, I'll use a wiki of course. Here's the link to the wiki. As the wiki is under development, it allows for an interactive approach. (More detail to follow).

Here's my challenge to the staff - take one of these ideas, concepts, tools and work with it - in the class, at home, or with your students. If you can apply at least one of these Web 2.0 tools, my goal will be accomplished. If you take these tools and apply them to the life-long learning we all strive to be a part of - then your empowerment will be the reward. I encourage you to take a part in this new technological entity that we work with everyday.

Tech Tip Sessions

The background and overview have been presented to the staff already at the first staff meeting of the year. During each staff meeting thereafter will be an overview of the Web 2.0 technology that will be the focus for the month. These overviews will provide some background information, ie blog post, video, etc and continue with the appropriate wiki page to access to share the process to follow for the topic. In the next couple of days after the staff meeting, I will provide the Tech Tip sessions. Once a week for the remainder of the month, I will provide a support session. This is what the regular Tech Tip sessions will look like.

Format
- background information - article, blog, video, etc.
- Wiki page with links presented.
- Hands-on activity
- Q & A and collaboration

Are you ready to Blog?

Here's the session on blogs.

The research backs our digital youth today. In a three year collaborative Digital Youth Research project, the summary showed how "social network and video-sharing sites, online games, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture". I know that doesn't come as a surprise, as we see these devices at school everyday. What we didn't know is that "the digital world is creating new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of self-expression." These avenues are providing social outlets, self-directed learning and independence. Key findings are that friends, interests, and peer based self-directed learning is happening online. Therefore, as educators, we should facilitate our youth by engaging them in this digital media in an educational venue. By being able to relate to them, make connections, share something new with them, it will only deepen their learning experiences. Here's the summary of the project. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Research.

How can we begin this age of transformation in the world of the Internet to connect with our students and their digital existence? I'd like to start with blogs. It's easily implemented and can be used collaboratively by teacher and students. It's part of the
wiki I created for the DMS Staff Development.

Blogs - How you teach about blogs without having a blog as an example? You can't, so I created a school library blog to work through with the staff at our training sessions. It's part of the DMS Staff Development wiki (follow link on sidebar under Wikis-I can't seem to get the link to work in this window:(), but if you're interested in seeing the initial stages of the blog - here's the blog. Please have a look.

On the wiki, please work through the intro, articles, video clips, and the initial examples before beginning your own blog. Refer to the many examples for ideas too.

Once this initial tutorial is conducted, there will be multiple follow up sessions provided for the month. I will suggest that any blogs that are created be made available for collaboration with others so the true interactive web can be experienced. The remaining sessions are listed below and will follow a similar format.

Other Tech Tip Sessions

These sessions are under construction, but some general information is provided in case you wanted to get a grasp of what the concepts are. Please have a look.

Web searches

Photosharing

Videosharing

Social bookmarking

Wikis

Multimedia sharing

Social networking

RSS

Still not sure where to start? I will make suggestions for different teachers. There are many options for each discipline. Whether you teach: humanities - character development, Languages - practice sections, Grade 7 classes - all subjects can have a link, Math - with links to 'help' sections, Science - labs on YouTube, or the School Newsletter created online, there are plenty of opportunities to try blogs out. In case you've made it this far without choosing any links, give this one a try. It's directly related to our middle school situation and it has many links to specific examples that can be viewed, commented on and added to Online Teacher Resource. What are you waiting for - come on in and get your feet wet.

Our students live in the digital world. How much time do you think they spend online? We need to join in to make connections with our students. It is one step towards closing the digital divide. It will become as easy as checking your e-mail at the beginning of the day. Staff Memos come to us online, attendance is done online - why not have our students participate in class activities online - I think you might be surprised how easy it can be. It can save marking time because you are responding to your students online. Your students can learn from one another - you know how important that is for them. Parents will love the interaction they can watch - they won't necessarily be able to comment - you set it up how you want it.

This is a multifaceted approach. The parents have access because these tools are web based. I will present sessions within the district. The teachers have exposure with students. The connection of this transition with the students is two-fold; it's with the teachers and also through me in the library. I will also share these Web 2.0 experiences with the students. I can do this with both the students in my classes as well as the whole school body as I can teach mini lessons throughout the year. The student approach will be similar to the staff sessions, granted they will have more guided hands-on opportunities than the teachers.

Student Front

One of my teaching blocks consists of teaching grade sevens computers which runs over an eight week period of time. My intro will start with an overview of some of the things we'll be covering. Followed by the teaching pedagogy. I will briefly go over what the topics are and cover what the tools look like. The sessions will include the following topics: Web searches, blogs - create a class blog to contribute to, photosharing - from the web as we can't download anything from the Internet at school, plagiarism and creative commons copyright will also be discussed, videosharing - animoto, smilebox, etc and use back doors to access YouTube, social bookmarking - I'll focus on delicious, virtual libraries - drawing attention to some that are available, wikis - background and share examples let students explore - create wikis in small groups and see how far they take it, time permitting, and lastly with RSS, this tool will be something they can use forever - I can't say enough about how great it is.. The student classroom program will have a similar look and feel, although it will be geared for student collaboration.

Implications for Teaching and Learning with Adults

I have experienced incorporating a number of web 2.0 tools in this one contribution. I have used: wiki, blog delicious, RSS, and video sharing together in this creation. I am no expert, but I have enjoyed the possibilities. There are a lot of examples of uses, multiple purposes, and tremendous opportunities to explore at everyone's comfort level. With the ease of setting up blogs, wiki, and adding links, etc., I am confident we will have more technology abounding in our school this coming year. But that's not to say it will not be an easy task.

As Richardson states in Blogs, Wiki, Podcasts, "most curriculum is taught from a textbook with a few added resources copied from various sources thrown in." He continues with "there were newspapers and magazines, and there were books in the school...library", but students are not willing to put the time in to search put that information.(p.131). This is my school exactly - so as you can see I have a steep hill to climb. One day, I had a teacher come to me and say 'why are the students always drawn to the computers instead of looking through the books in the library?' The students are the digital natives and we need to join their request to have more technology available at their fingertips. With this teacher seeing the effect computers have on students, I might suggest he be my first convert.

As the technology guide in the school, I will encourage all staff who have created blogs, to allow me to link to them on the school's website, actually, it's a blog, so we can create links quite easily. This will allow us to showcase our work and parents will be able to access to the great things we are doing in our school. I will also suggest that I link these blogs to the library blog as direct curricular connections. It about open communication as it shows the students the value of having an online voice.

Now that the introduction has been conducted, and the first session on blogging has been experienced, we can continue through the wiki onto other Web 2.0 tools. Remember that this is not a finite approach. Each component builds upon another. We work through the tools, revamp them, share them, collaborate on them, learn from them and apply them with our students. These are wonderful times ahead of us - don't be shy - jump right in - you might find that you like it and that it's fun:)

Sources

Boyd, Danah. et all. (2008, Nov). Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Research. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/lwhp6o

Byrne, Richard. (2009, Aug). Lesson plans for teaching Web search strategies http://tinyurl.com/qxsdj7

Gorman, Michele. Do You Speak Digital? Understanding today's teens is a lot of work - but it's worth it. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/m7nkz3

Richardson, Will. (2009). Blogs, Wiki, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press, California.

Richardson, Will. (2009, Apr).The Shifts. Retrieved from
http://weblogg-ed.com/category/the-shifts/

Richardson, Will. (2008, November). Footprints in the Digital Age. Educational Leadership, Vol 66 (3). Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/nuyc5m

Valenza, Joyce. (2008, July). Help me? Share effective practice in school library sites. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/1370029537.html#comments