#wikis and other web 2.0 tools that can support your wiki

Chapter 7 of Stephanie Sandifer's book Wikis for School Leaders is all about how other common web 2.0 tools can be used to help support your school's wiki.  The first thing that they suggested to use to help support and make your wiki easier to use were all things Google (as Dr. Krug would approve of).  She mentioned how easy it was to have multiple people work on one document and also just that it was sometimes more user friendly for people who aren't very good with wikis to just put something in a google document and put that in the wiki.  They also mentioned that if you were to use something such as a google presentation you could embed it into the wiki or in serval wikis and then when you edit the original it will automatically update the versions embedded in the wikis.  It is super easy to use for effective collaboration on a variety of projects.  They also mentioned subscribing to RSS feeds and blogs that can help make your wiki more up to date and efficient.  For those that are really up to date with their technology use the author of the book even suggested things like following other educators on twitter who would be able to provide you with links to helpful resources and give input on ideas.  This chapter was essentially saying that a wiki is meant to be expanded and connected to other forms of web 2.0 which will help it run better and more efficiently.  I personally found this chapter to be helpful because I'm more familiar with the way to implement and use most of the web 2.0 tools that they mentioned it just seemed easier and less intimidating for me to think about implementing in my own classroom one day or even help start it's use in my future school.  Overall this book had a lot of good ideas and it was easy to follow and gain a lot of information from.

If you build it, they will collaborate.... or maybe they won't?

*This blog entry is in response to chapter 5, "How?- Making It Work in Your Organization", from the book Wikis for School Leaders by Stephanie D. Sandifer

Building a wiki is just the first part of integrating it's use in your classroom.  You have to actually teach people how to use it and have an effective way of teaching people about it.  In terms of getting people to use the wiki that you have created and embrace the technology presented to them can be a daunting task because you have a wide variety of technological backgrounds and it is hard to make sure that they all can understand and embrace it.  This chapter had a list of do and don'ts for organizing your wiki and I found a lot of the things mentioned very helpful.  They mentioned how important it is to allow access to the wiki outside of school or district intranet, i.e. make it so people can use it even when they're not at school.  They also suggested allowing small groups of people to create their own wiki so they can play around with it and become more comfortable on using wikis and in turn help teach others about how useful they can be.  Be sure that when people have successes in using wikis or learning about wikis that you reward them in some way or highlight their extra effort, don't let participation or learning go unnoticed.  Let the people who you are trying to get to use the wiki work together and give feedback on things that they like or that could be improved.  Also be willing to go the extra mile and really teach those users who may be digital immigrants about all the things they need to know to help them be a better wiki user.  You also need to be sure that you don't take the experience of some users for granted.  Don't abuse your resources and also don't expect that just because your users may be tech savvy on some subjects that they will grasp this new technology.  Be patient with your users and be sure that the guidelines you set for this wiki are not too restrictive the people using the wiki need to be able to use it effectively and not have a million restrictions holding them back.
I think the biggest thing that I learned in this chapter is that to make a wiki be an effective tool you need to have a clear, well-defined vision before you present to the people you want to use it.  If you don't have a clear vision they can't have one either.  Also you need to be sure that you have workshops or step-by-step instructions available to give out to those people who may not be as technologically savvy but are willing to try.  Make it as easy as possible for people to learn and become involved in the use of wiki as possible, the easier it is the more people will be willing to give it a try.

When in Doubt Wiki.

I recently read the fourth chapter in the book Wikis for School Leaders by Stephanie Sandifer.  This chapter was all about when and where to use a wiki in the context of leadership and specifically in a school setting.  One of the first things that she said was that Wikis should never contain personal information or important data about the teachers or students.  It is important to realize that wikis like other things on the internet can never really be 100 percent secure especially when you  have a large amount of people who have access to various wikis that you may be using.  They also suggested that wikis be used as a sort of memo instead of using meetings to get information out to certain people, they said that wikis would be better used for instead of meeting time when people could be getting work or other things done.  Following suit with using wikis as a form of memos they also suggested simply embedding a link to the wiki with daily updates instead of attaching word documents or pdf files that get bulky and can clog up a person's email.  This is a more simple solution to keeping computers running more efficiently and it makes it more likely that everyone will look at the information trying to be conveyed.
 
They also used this chapter to talk about how wikis can be used as a form of professional development.  They not only allow the users to create personal profiles where their employers can look and use the information displayed on that page to create teams to work on certain projects or see who is more involved in the workplace and who may not be as involved.  Along with that they mentioned using wikis for PLCs (Professional Learning Communities).  Wikis can be used as a way for professionals to communicate with one another especially when their may not be another teacher who works in their speciality area at that school, it allows teachers to communicate with in a district.  They also can be used for storing lesson plans and sharing curriculum mapping ideas with other teachers.  Basically wikis allow educators to share information more effectively and efficiently than something like email would do.

Why use a Wiki?

In the third chapter of her book Stephanie presents the reader with information and examples as to why they should use a wiki and how they can be helpful in ones classroom.  She talks about how the way that we communicate with each other has changed and that we need to embrace this change and accept all the things that come with this change.  She also points out the inefficiency that can cripple some school systems because they don't have one uniform place where people can go to find information or to communicate with one another.  They included a chart in this chapter that kind of laid out the characteristics and structures of this system and how it could really be beneficial to people who decided to adapt the system of wikis.  It also gave examples in this chapter that showed how the uses of wikis helped to completely change a school systems forms of communication.  One of the most useful features that I noticed in this chapter is that it included a picture that showed the difference between using wikis and using email as a form of communication among people.  It just kind of reinforced the idea that when you are using email it is easy to leave people out of the loop and for different drafts of the same document to be floating around because certain people have only edited certain parts.  Where as when you use a wiki everyone has access to read and edit the same document when it is in one place and you don't have different versions floating around because one person edits it and then it is the same spot, you don't have to worry about someone only getting half of the message.  She also ends this chapter with some reflection questions to really help you think about how this chapter has helped shift your thinking on wikis.  I think the biggest thing that I got from the chapter is how much more efficient you can be when you are using a wiki, everything is in one online place that you don't have to worry about it getting lost on your computer or forgetting the paper that has all of your information.  The efficiency of it all is what really impressed me about the way they presented the wikis.

was there life before wikis?

The next few posts that I complete will come from the book Wikis for School Leaders by Stephanie Sandifer.  Hopefully through exploring this book I will learn how I can use wikis more effectively in a classroom setting and I can apply these skills to my future classroom.  The first chapter in her book just talks about life before wikis and kind of points out some of the ways that we used to organize and keep information that may seem a little outdated.  She basically wants educators to think about if they are really achieving in terms of "educating all people".  Is there a better way than how we used to do things?  What could be more useful than having binders of paper that you barely open and could spend hours looking through to find one specific paper?  The main intent of her message was to push people to openly embrace using the wikis and internet.  With all this talk of collaboration and sharing are we really doing just that or are we all talk and no action?  To have effective systems we have to be aware of the complexity that actually makes up these systems and just understand them more deeply.  With our learning about wikis and how they are set up and the way that school systems utilize them or don't utilize them we can come to appreciate them more deeply and may one day be able to use them in our own classroom.  So I guess for me I start this book hoping that I can understand this more complex system of how these internet hot spots work.  And hopefully by the end of this book I will have an idea of how I could execute this in my own classroom and maybe even help my future school system understand the value behind using wikis and other similar technologies in my own classroom.  This first chapter was really short and brief, but it did a good job building up my anticipation for what I will read in the rest of the book.

Sustaining your Wiki

The chapter I looked at today talked about how to sustain your wiki once you have created it for a class.  I think that this is a very practical thing to talk about especially for teachers because often times we can get that initial drive needed to create something online, but once it is time for us to actually go about managing it's upkeep it is a completely different story.  In this chapter the author also included a table and a rubric of sort that helps educators not only evaluate the level of their wiki, but also what it's use will be.  The author also includes different facts or indicators of various levels and it provides you with ideas of how to become better or gain more skills in the art of maintaining a wiki or broader your wikis use.  I think that this book would be a great resource for me to use as someone who enjoys the uses and ways technologies can be utilized in your classroom, but I am not the most technologically savvy person and I'm not one who will really go out and look for ways to become better at utilizing it.  I know that this book and rubric would be something very helpful in helping me become a more effective utilizer of the technologies that are available. 
It is clear to me that the author of this book took time to actually develop their ideas and that is a mark of someone who knows what they're talking about.  I think it is great that they have this resource available for teachers to use and it would be something that I would very highly recommend for people who want to become better at using wikis, but who may not necessarily have the time to do the research and dive deeper into the subject matter on their own time.

This was done from Ch.6 in the book Wikis for School Leaders by Stephanie D. Sandifer

Wikis

Today I read a chapter that talks about what wikis are and the two different types of wikis that can be used.  Wikis are websites that can be edited by a large number of people who do not need to know html code to edit them.  Some wikis are very popular and get a lot of traffic which is both a good and bad thing.  It's good to have a lot of traffic because you have a lot of people collaborating and you can even have experts add their information to the specific wiki so that everyone can benefit from it.  But at the same time you can also have people post false information on wikis just because they have the power and freedom to do such a thing. 
One type of wiki that people use is that of a public wiki. Public wikis would be websites such as wikipedia.  These wikis use crowd sourcing on a large and public scale for people to communicate with each other.  Public wikis are generally the ones that are more likely to have misinformation or misuse of the website occur on them.  The second type of wiki is that of an enterprise wiki.  These types of wikis are more restricted and have more of a management feature on them.  These have much more restrictions on access, control, and the number of people who are allowed to participate on them. 
As far as being able to use wikis in the classroom I think that they could be great tools to teach about how easy it is to find false information on a wikisite and on the web in general especially with older elementary school students.  You also have the chance to use this tool inside of you classroom to help show the collaborative process and allow for people to see the process you went through to get to a decision.  If you are not sure of the use of wikis you can find almost all of the features that you have on wikis available through googledocs or other google features.  Don't limit your creativity as a teacher, because your creativity will be a spring board for your students.

*All of this information is a reflection to chapter 2 in the book Wikis for School Leaders by Stephanie D. Sandifer

Leaving Good Blog Comments

I read a chapter from the book Teaching the iGeneration and I focused in on the section that was about leaving good blog comments.  This talked about the features of good blogs one of those features being an interactive blog.  It is important that you use the internet to not only communicate with others, but also to accept their feedback.  This chapter also talked about how to gather the appropriate information needed to leave a good quality blog comment.  You must have facts, make connections, ask questions, and give opinions.  Having all of these features will allow you to craft an acceptable and good use blog comment.  I think that the two charts that this book provides you with how to gather your thoughts and then how to craft your comments would be helpful to providing your students with a good rubric and good guideline for not only responding to blogs, but it would also help them think about how to create effective and useful blogs that are easy for others to interactive and respond with.  This would be a great thing to go over in an upper elementary school classroom as well as middle and high school classrooms.  It would be an easy and effective way to have your students discuss important issues and then allow for other opinions and viewpoints to be raised that would cause them to think more about the issues at hand.  I found this small section of this book very helpful and I am sure that there are more effective and useful tools that you could find inside of this book that would help you to reach your students in a more efficient and effective way.

Using Online Portfolios to Publish Student Work

Today I looked in the book about teaching with Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, and More.  It is about how these online features can help extend student learning.  In chapter 8 this author talks specifically about the use of E-portfolios.  This is similar to when we created our portfolios for our Senior year of undergraduate work that encompassed all of our work we had completed on the program in the 4 previous years.  It was our way of showing that we had completed the necessary requirements to graduate and that we had a firm grip on the skills we had been taught over the past four years.  It was a summative assessment and a collection of all the work that we thought was our best quality and everything that we could collect to show mastery.  There are two types of online portfolios that you can use in your classroom.  The first of which is called a working portfolio this type of portfolio is used for the student to add work as it is completed and also reflect back on work that they have completed.  They can also use a presentation portfolio which is used to show an audience and showcase ones work, it has less of a reflective element and more of a showcasing component.  This chapter just made me think about how you can use portfolios for more than just art class, it will allow you to stretch your children and push them.  Online portfolios are good because they make sure that you have integrated technology at earlier times in your classroom so that you have the appropriate material necessary to add into your portfolios.  These allow your students to have a structured creativity that will let them showcase portions of their best work and allow them to feel pride in what they have done.

The Writing is on the Screen: Social Networking is Here to Stay

The title of this blog post is the title of the chapter that I recently read from a book titled The Socially Networked Classroom.  This chapter dealt with bringing up questions and ideas that you may face in your classroom in terms of how social networking will play into your instruction.  The author states in the first chapter that he believes this book would be best utilized by teachers who are dealing with 5 graders all the way through adults.  This idea just plays on the fact that sometimes there is an age where it can be too dangerous or risky to have children involved with all that comes along with being a part of a social network.  Teachers should not be afraid of using social networks in their classrooms and as a way to have the children engaged and to help them learn, but it is also important to make sure that you use discretion and you don't expose children to something that powerful and far reaching before they are ready for it.  The author says that they will use real life examples to help explain the application to various classrooms.  I think that will make it less likely to see over-whelming to teachers who may not be familiar with how to make things fit the context of their own classroom.  In terms of using this technology in my own classroom I'm not sure how much I would be able to integrate social networking in the younger grades, but it doesn't mean that sometime in the next five years it won't be relevant.  The biggest concern with introducing this technology to your students is that you don't want them to lose to much of that innocence at a young age, how do you keep them young without keeping them sheltered?  I guess it will be a game of balance and just realizing that social networking is going to be around so you shouldn't try and fight it and run away from it, but rather show students how it can be more than just a communication tool, but also that it can be a valuable learning tool. 

Technology Director

Today we had Adam Hotchkiss who is the Technical Director at the Christian Academy of Knoxville.  He gave an overview of his responsibilities in new technology and how he has had a role in transforming  how the technology works in that school.  The leadership is crucial in planing for the long term use of your technology that you have decided to integrate into your school.  He also touched on the vision that you need to have as a technology coordinator and director and how will this technology impact your students down the road and also how does your vision compare to the school's mission.  Technology is more like the tool that supports education it is not an end all or a saving grace for the educational system.  You need to have a critical eye and an open mind when you are looking at new technology and how you can best serve the population of your school.  Being aware of the technology is important during this process, but you also have to be open to new and different resources.  Budgeting is a difficult process when you are in the role of the technology director because technology changes so quickly, prices fluctuate, and school budgets are tight.  You also need to be sure you remember the little things add up so be sure to set aside funds for the infrastructure and things that go into supporting the technology which you are buying as well as having alternatives funds to test out new technologies that are coming about.  After you have gotten the technology in place have a plan of how you want to educate your staff on how it works.  One idea is to have the teachers come in for an initial class and training and then you allow them to work with it for a few weeks before having them come back in for a question and answer system as well as going in a little more depth on the product.  I think the biggest thing that I gained from his presentation is the idea that with technology integration in the schools you need to keep in mind you can't change the whole technological framework of your schools in one swoop.  It is a constant reworking and integration of new technologies and resources so you have to be able to have a keen eye open for what would work and just be critical and real about how the technologies will actually be used in your schools.  I appreciated his viewpoint and what he had to say on his role at this school.

The Role of a Technology Coordinator

Today we listend to a talk by Polly Brake who is the Technology Coordinator at Grace Christian Academy.  She talked about not only how she came to be in this position, but also some of the challenges that she has faced since starting there.  I think that one of the most challenging issues that you will find when you are in this role is that of getting people to be as excited about technology as you are.  Teachers have a million things on their plates and even though technology can help ease the amount of work they have to do, it can be initially overwhelming to try and put one more thing on their plate.  So your biggest challenge is to help teachers see the opportunities and how things will just fall into place if they are disciplined at first and take a little bit of time to try and learn the new technologies.  Also I think you could take from her talk the importance of having one unified type of technology throughout the school it makes it easier for you as the technology coordinator to help them, but it also allows for teachers to help one another learn how to better navigate and figure out the technology together.  She just kept showing how important it is for you to be proactive and to stay positive even when you don't get a very good initial response from your teachers.  You have to be persistent and try different things, work closely with those who are on board with you and don't get discouraged.  This may be a role that puts you in charge of a lot of different aspects in terms of technology, but you just have to face each challenge with a can do attitude and be ready for what each day holds.

Tracking US Trends in Technology Use

Today I read an article that is related to chapter 4 of the Williamson text.  This article specifically tracked the trends of how technology is used across the United States.  It focused a lot of the disconnect among states and the fact that many states don't measure up to parameters set before them.  A majority of the 50 states failed to meet the expectations placed in front of them and there are very few that meet the expectations in an exceptional manner.  That being said states are trying to improve and work on using the technology to the best of their abilities, but it takes a lot of work.  There are already a million different things that teachers need to fit into a single day and a single lesson and to expect them to get a grip on new technologies is a lot of initial work, yes it pays off, but it is a lot on the teacher at the beginning.  That is why having people who are technology specialists is important it is nice to have those people who can walk teachers through what they need to be doing and ways to improve their classroom instruction through the use of technology.  States are trying to improve on their low scores and improve education, but it is not as easy as it may seem.  Besides having funding for the equipment needed they must also have skilled and trained professionals who can proficiently and effectively use the technology at their hand.  This article mainly focused on how states are trying to improve and some steps that may help them in this process.

Students Use of the Internet

I recently read another chapter from Aimee M. Bissonette's book Cyber Law: Maximizing Safety and Minimizing Risk in Classrooms.  This chapter talked about how students use the internet and it focused a lot on the ways that schools can be implicated in a students negative use of the internet and technology.  One of the issues that was talked about a lot during this chapter was the right of free speech.  Free Speech is one of those issues that easier for the schools to combat when something happens on school grounds, but outside of school grounds it seems like a loophole for people to not be held accountable for their actions.  Even in the past 30 years technology has drastically shifted and a lot of our communication is done in a non-verbal manner and that can be just as disruptive, if not even more, to the students in the classroom and to the people who are affected by the things that are posted and said over the internet.
One way for schools to protect themselves from issues such as this is by creating a policy that provides coverage for incidents or that limits the access which students have to various social medias.  But how is a school supposed to be responsible for actions that happen off-campus?  If a student posts something while off of school grounds that is disruptive to the learning process then they can still be dealt with in the same fashion, but it is harder to control.  I think more than what the schools can control it is also just as much the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their students are appropriately using the technology that they have been given and that they don't abuse the freedom that comes with internet access.  Schools have a big job and it is hard for them to do everything without outside support.

Cyber Law: Cyberbullying

I just read the first chapter of Aimee Bissonette's book Cyber Law: Maximizing Safety and Minimizing Risk in Classrooms.  This first chapter focused specifically on cyberbullying and how schools should respond and get involved in fixing this problem.  I found this chapter very interesting and I really enjoyed it.  I think one of the things that caught me most off guard is that fact that the school's often get put in a hard position.  They walk this fine line between being responsible to respond to the situation, but they have to be careful to not overstep their boundaries and their role.  Not overstepping someone's right to free speech is something that they need to be very cautious of.  The book says the best way for a school to avoid being put in this sticky situation is to create a cyberbullying policy, specifically one that is very clear in it's expectations and specific in the consequences.  Policies of these sorts are a great defense mechanism for schools so that they don't get caught off guard and so students know that they aren't alone if they are the one being bullied.

There was one part in this chapter that I thought summed everything up well.  On page 11 the author says, "policy alone does not teach students to think about the impact of their actions; nor does it engage them in dialogue about how they can address the challenges that new technologies bring, in an informed, thoughtful and coherent manner.  Schools need to supplement cyberbullying policies with educational efforts."  This just helps to remind you that having a rule will not fix the problem, but rather teaching students actions have consequences and that we are all human is what will make a difference in combating this issue.

social networks not just for the young anymore

With the growth of social networks, there has been a change in the demographic who uses social networks to communicate.  There has been an increase in the number of middle age and older adults who have begun to use social networks.  This is not only because they are easy to use and navigate, but also because they want to be connected to old friends just as much as  young people do.  The article that I read mentioned that this is still a phenomenon for young people, but it also is not exclusive to that demographic.  I guess this is true because social networks help people do what they most desire, and that is to be connected to one another.  People feel special when they get to talk to someone who they haven't talked to in months and it is nice to see that someone sent you a message just to say hello.  Yeah it may seem a little weird when you see your grandma on facebook, but why shouldn't she be able to use a social networking site.  I don't think that there is any fear about social networking sites being taken over by an older age bracket, but I think that it is safe to say that there may emerge social networks specifically geared toward an older generation.  The appeal of social networks is that they give people a chance to just show the world the person they want to be, wether it is an accurate depiction of that person or not is a completely different question, but it is the freedom that people crave.  Here is a link to the article I read if you would like to read more about it http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1079/social-networks-grow

Cell Phones: How Young is too Young?

I got my first cell phone when I was 14, a freshman in High School.  I started playing on a school sports team and my parents wanted a way to stay in touch in after practices, or just so they could reach me if something happened.  I remember it was cool to have a phone, but it wasn't something that I used a whole lot, I had it when I wanted to talk to one of my friends or if I needed to call my parents, but for the most part it wasn't a necessary addition to my life.  Since then though it's hard for me to leave my phone at home or not to know where it is because it has become something where I am afraid I will miss out on what is happening if I leave my phone behind.  I have become accustom to being connected at all times that is hard when I need to disconnect and take a break from it.

I just read an article that talked about how cell phones are becoming a must-have item for tweens and younger.  This is something that really boggles my mind.  I can't seem to wrap my mind around why a 7 year old would need a cell phone.  Yes they may think that cell phones are cool because they see their parents or older siblings with one, but at the same time 7 year olds have existed without cell phones for quite a long time and they can continue to do so.  First of all I don't think 7 year olds should be in a situation where they aren't with an adult who can be contacted, they shouldn't need a phone of their own because they should be with someone who is older and responsible enough to have a phone so that they can be contacted.  Secondly it seems wasteful to me that children are being given such expensive toys that are not getting that much use.  When most people had landlines, it didn't seem critical that young children had their own phone lines, so why should it be any different now.  I understand that we live in a technologically advancing world, but it doesn't mean that the youngest members of our society need to be constantly connected.  I know that my views may change over time as technology advances, but as for now I don't think that children under about 13 need cell phones.  Children always want to grow up as fast as possible, but that doesn't mean that we have to let them do so, it is our job to help them not get ahead of themselves and simply be children.

Here is an article I found at the end of chapter 2 of Brooks-Young's book.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/26/Business/Must_have_for_tweens_.shtml

Why wear your heart on your sleeve, when you can wear it on your blog

I recently read this article on USA Today's website.  This article was talking about social networks and how they have shaped the way that people communicate with one another.  This one focused specifically on the boom in internet blogging.  It talked about how blogs had in a way replaced the paper and pen diaries that many people kept, these online blogs have turned into a way for teens to write about their day, their thoughts and communicate with their friends.  This article was mentioned at the end of chapter 7 in Brooks-Young's book, which was on creating content, more specifically writing online.  I found this article kind of interesting despite the fact that it is about 6 years old.  This allowed me to think about how our use of the internet has changed in the last 6 years and it made me question if these things have become more prominent in our society.

This article also made me think about blogging from two different perspectives, that of a teacher and that of a teenager who was using sites mentioned in the article when it was written.  From a person who used sites such as myspace, looking back I can see how it becomes easy to put your whole life on display for the whole world because it feels as if only your close friends will be the ones who care enough to look at the information that you are posting online.  It becomes easy to rant about the things bothering you or post the exciting things that are happening in your life because you want to tell everyone about it instantly.  You want to share things with your friends who are near and far because they are your friends and that's what you do.  It is easy to get caught up in the desire for everyone in your life to know the important details that you forget, that people not in your life have access to things you put online as well. But from a teacher's perspective you want to keep your students safe, you don't want to expose them to anything that could cause them harm.  It is our job to teach our students how to responsibly use the internet but that doesn't always ensure that they will use the internet properly.  It is easy to get caught up in the moment and put something up online that you shouldn't.  I think from a teacher's perspective that is where google docs and other things like that come in useful because it allows students to put stuff online but the teacher can better monitor what they students are doing and posting online.  They have freedom but it's controlled freedom, kind of the best of both worlds.

Do we really know the facts about social networking?

Chapter 5 in Brooks-Young was all about social networks.  It brought up the potentially good uses as well as the negative uses of social networks, this is something that is worth knowing about because as the years go on we become more and more connected by social networks and it is important to understand them.  As with almost anything on the internet you can never be 100% sure of anything accuracy.  I know that some sites are more reliable than others, but as a general rule, people can post misleading information online and share it with the whole world.  This is especially true in regards to social networks.  The thing about social networking sites is that you can in a way be anyone that you want to be and most people would not know any different.  This ability to mask your true identity has created a problem with underage children being solicited in an unwanted way.  They become more vulnerable to adults who lie or even other teenagers who can say whatever they like without  them seeing any consequences for their actions.

I just read an article that was talking about how people often quote the statistic that 1 in 7 children have been sexually solicited online.  But does that statistic actually reflect the truth or is it just an exaggeration of the truth.  The  article I was reading seemed to think that this was an exaggeration of things.  It may be misleading of the data to say that 1 in 7 children has been sexually solicited online, it goes on to say that often times the encounters are very minor and are from other teenagers.  I'm not sure if that make things any better, but it does help to put the information into perspective for you, it can be easy to let your imagination run wild with a statistic, but it is important for us to be well informed members of our society.  I did find it comforting that one of the points that this article made was that most people were able to report the incidents in an effective and easy way.  Here is a link to the article if you want to read it for yourself: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/1in7Youth.pdf.

As with all things social networks have a positive and a negative side to the, but it is also important to seek the truth when you are online and to be smart about who you share your information with and what you make accessible on the internet.  If you take the necessary precautions and think about what you are putting up for the world to see social networks can be a great way to stay connected to people.

Core Knowledge or 21st Century Skills. What do your students need?

I recently read an article on that was talking about the push for students to develop their 21st century skills. It mentioned that at least 10 states had adopted what they called p21 into their curriculum and standards.  P21 stands for Partnership for 21st Century Skills, this Arizona based group that sees the need to not only develop knowledge, but also skills.  They want students to be prepared not only cognitively for the challenges that they will face but also to prepare them for the skills that they will be expected to know and use in the workplace.  As with all things though there is a group of educators who oppose this movement and are in favor of Common Core.  They want their students to have "a full core curriculum."  This group speaks about how those students who are economically disadvantaged will not benefit as much from P21 skills because they are not going to have as many resources available to them at home so they will fall behind.  As with most articles it doesn't offer up a solution to the readers but rather it gives you some information and leaves the decision making up to you.

This article did make me consider what is important to incorporate into your classroom and what skills do your students need to be successful in school and then after school.  Is it more important to focus on the technological skills and the learning they can bring or should you focus on the standards that you are forced to meet?  Is there a way to incorporate the two and make learning more meaningful and deeper?  From what I gathered in chapter one of the Brooks-Young book and then from this article was that teaching your students 21st century skills will help them to be that more engaged and better equipped student.  Personally I think you need to make sure you that you have a balance between the old and the new.  You also have to know your students and know what kind of things will be helpful for them to know how to use and which won't be as helpful.  My hope is that as a teacher I will be able to learn that balance and not only teach my students the standards that are important for them to learn but also that I will be able to teach them the skills that will be important for them to use later in their lives.  If you would like to read this article please click here.

Where is your citizenship?

This chapter in Brooks-Young talked about our digital citizenship which basically deals with the fact that we are part of a bigger community when we put information online we become part of a global network, wether we want to or not.  So it talks about some of the issues that have come up with this digital citizenship.  One thing they talked about in great detail is your privacy, the fact that unless you take precautions you never know who is going to be looking at the things that you post online.  They also talked about how once something is on the internet you can never really get rid of it, it always exists out there in some form, and so it has this way of letting the past come back to haunt you.  This chapter seemed to focus on how it is the responsibility of adults to model to students an ethical and responsible approach to using the internet, but often times the adults are just as bad as students.  We forget that even though the internet allows us to keep in touch with people who are far away it also allows other people to learn about us, such as potential employers and they will make a judgement about you based on what they see online.  This chapter also talked about copyright information and how it is important for us a digital citizen to use the information we have in a responsible and ethical way.  We need to remind ourselves and our students that everything out on the internet isn't for our taking and we need to respect the rights of others online.

As far as the issue of sexting goes I think it is important for teachers and parents alike to model and talk about responsible ways to use technology.  I think often times people forget about the potential consequences of their actions and then they ending up getting themselves in a big mess.  Trying to be proactive is the ideal approach to a situation like this, but I think if you face this issue in your school you'll have use judgement and time to come to the appropriate and best solution.  I am not sure what I think the appropriate solution is, but I think often times that charging someone with a felony over this may be a little much especially if they are younger students who have their whole lives in front of them.  This is definitely a touchy issue and is one that is growing, but until I am faced with a situation where I have to deal with it I'm not sure I could tell you what the best course of action is.

Brownies?

I recently created a website dealing with one of my favorite things in the world, brownies.  Please feel free to take a look around it and become inspired to eat. http://jmcounts.webs.com/index.htm

A picture says a 1,000 words. The impact of images in the classroom.

In this chapter Brooks-Young they talked about the way that images are used and mostly about how the internet has revolutionized the way that images are shared.  The availability of the technology needed to take pictures and make movies has changed drastically over the past twenty years and it is much easier for people to get their hands on cameras and camcorders.  But with the greater access to this kind of technology you also see a rise in the misuse of this kind of technology, because with every good development that comes you also get a negative side effect.  I know personally I have used the internet to look at pictures or find pictures for projects and presentations.  It makes not only finding pictures easy, but it also makes finding video clips easy.  I know if I am working on a project I will often see if there is a video I can include in my project that will help to emphasize my point or to better help explain whatever it may be that I am talking about.  Things like youtube and google make it easy to find a video or picture for almost any occasion you can think of.  Also with the rise of social networks like facebook and myspace there has been a rise in online photo albums.  Websites like those help you to make your pictures available to all of your friends with a few simple clicks of the mouse.  Aside from pictures and videos that go up on social network sites you can also go to pages like flickr and photobucket and have more pictures then you ever imagined all at your fingertips.  

As well as viewing images and videos online I have also uploaded videos and pictures to the internet.  Most of the videos that I have uploaded have been for school use and to make them easily viewable I placed them on Youtube so that I could retrieve them from any place that had internet access.  I have also used social networking sites to upload photos so that I could share them with friends.  These are great resources to use, but it is important to think carefully about what you post online because you never know who may end up viewing your pictures and videos.  

After taking some time to research creative commons I have learned that it is a type of alternative the strict copyrights that are available.  It was created by people who hoped that the internet could be this place where the resources could be shared and more available to people around the world.  This does not give someone full rights to another persons work, but it allows for people to work with their images without requesting direct permission from the owners.  It was started as a way to open doors and possibilities for people all around the world.

are blogs, wikis, and microblogs #creativewriting?

This chapter talked about the way that our writing and communication has changed over the past few years.  The rise of blogs, microblogs, and wikis is easy to see all around us.  Personally I have had the experience of using a blog on blogger as well as having a twitter, a form of microblogging.  My experience with blogger has been very limited.  I created one a couple of years ago, but rarely posted on it and it still sits idly waiting for me to write in it, I think the thing that has kept me from writing in it is this need I feel to make whatever I write on there funny and captivating.  I felt this bigger pressure to make whatever I was writing meaningful because you never knew who could be looking at your blog.  I know logically that my blog is just this tiny part of the internet, but I couldn't shake the fact that someone I didn't know would end up reading it and be a little less than impressed.  But another part of me loved how I could simply just use it like an online journal or a place to put all of my thoughts down and know that they would in a way be preserved.  And I think that using blogs as a place to let students express themselves through creative writing could be very helpful, but I also think that these suggestions are more useful for an older set of students.  A second grade class may not get as much out of writing a blog as a middle or high school student would.  If you were to set up a blog where students were given a grade for their ability to recap the past weeks events in that class you are not only having them think about what they've learned, but also giving them freedom to recap the week as they think best fit.

As far as my experience with twitter goes I used it at first as a way to keep up with what was happening in other people lives.  It was a way of feeling connected to people who were far away, like a way for me to share in special moment with them or laugh with them from miles away.  I still don't use twitter very regularly, but I like the way that it allows you to share little moments of your day with other people.  It is like you get a chance to let people be in that one moment with you even when they're not there in person.  As far as it's use in the classroom I like the idea of having students post comments or questions about a lesson while it's happening.  I saw this used at a church before as a way for people to ask questions as the church was going over some very sensitive and touchy subjects that people might have been to embarrassed to ask about in person.  The disadvantage was that the person speaking in this case the preacher was sometimes caught off guard by some of the questions, but that was a risk they were willing to take.  This technology I also see being more useful with middle or high schoolers because they are immersed in technology.  With younger children technology like this has more risks and you must be more cautious when making it available to them.

Wikis are one thing that i have not had a lot of experience with, but I like the idea of using them as a way to communicate between school and home.  Communicating with your parents and students outside the classroom is very important and anything that can make it easier should be welcomed with open arms.

Gaming

This chapter talked about gaming and it's place in the classroom.  In this chapter they talked about the use of mini-games and complex games, they noted that most of the games used in a classroom are mini-games.  This is because complex games are classified as games that take more than 20 hours to complete, and as a teacher 20 hours is a lot of time especially when you have standards and objectives to meet.  Teachers often feel as if they are in a time crunch and so it can be kind of overwhelming to commit so much of your time to something like gaming.  Also many teachers are not big gamers or haven't had a lot of experience playing with various games so they don't necessarily understand the things that can be gained by using games.  Personally I have played very few complex games because I would much rather do something that won't require a lot of time to figure out or get through, I like having results almost immediately or being able to figure out what is going on.  So for me the thought of having to dedicate so much time to something like one game seems vastly unappealing.  But when you look at the numbers a lot of kids game and want to see more games incorporated into the classroom and many teachers are willing to incorporate games into their curriculum they just don't know how to.

Personally I think that there is value in using games to help extend learning.  Every student learns differently and I think many of the students would benefit from simulation games or games where you have to put yourself in someone else's shoes, this allows students to learn by doing.  They not only get to be in control of what they are doing, but often they can see consequences to their actions and this helps them to learn and relate to what they are learning about.  Knowing your students will help you to know which kind of games will work best for them or if gaming will help them learn at all.  As far as having children create their own games I think there is great value in this, because it causes the children to develop complex systems and they get to harness their creativity in a constructive way.  It also allows the students to work on their communication skills and learn how to look at their work with a critical eye.  They will learn the value of revising their work and will probably gain more from an activity like creating their own game than you will at first imagine.  Allowing children to own something always helps them to not only work harder, but also gives them pride in a job well done.

What Kind of World are You Living in?

The chapter in Brooks-Young's book today was over Virtual Worlds.  I have not really had much experience with virtual worlds and as I was reading this chapter I was trying to think back and think about why virtual worlds are as big as they are.  I think at one point in my life I had a neopet, which was like a free virtual pet that you could get stuff for.  I never really wanted to use it to interact with others online and I never did any of the things that you had to pay for, but I remember thinking that it was cool that I had my very own pet of sorts.  It was exciting knowing that when I got online something would be there waiting for me to play with it, and also knowing that it was like this imaginary pet that I could play with.  I think I discovered this when I was around 9 or 10, but I also remember quickly losing interest with it and then never going back to play with it.  Virtual worlds are okay for a short time, but I think at least in my case I get bored with them, because I want to do things bigger than what is happening on my computer screen.

As far as utilizing virtual worlds in a classroom setting, I'm not too convinced of the benefits of using them.  I think that some children like having a way to escape and become whoever they want to be in a virtual world, but I think that can also be a dangerous thing.  I do like the idea where they can share written work like poetry on a website, without actually having to let people know who they are, that allows them to not feel as exposed to those around.  Also I think that the online safety skills that the children can gain as the teacher prepares them for something like an online world are valuable, but I am just not convinced that it is something I see extending the learning from the classroom.  I guess without taking time to explore virtual worlds I will not really know, but as of right now I'm not really sure that this technology will have a place in my classroom especially if I end up working with younger children.

lions and tigers and social networks, oh my.

Since the mid nineties the impact of social networks has grown and has shaped the way that people communicate with one another and really the way people communicate.  If you were to say that social networking has not changed the way that people communicate with one another you would be lying to yourself.  One of the first social networking websites that I ever used was myspace.  I got a myspace while I was in high school and I used it to talk to my friends, listen to music, and stay in touch with people who i didn't get to see very often.  I remember that my friends and I would have conversations about something that we saw on myspace and it was a place where lots of information was displayed at your fingertips.  It was almost like a very superficial way of getting to know someone you could see what they put on their myspace and then normally you would make assumptions about that person.  At the time when myspace was really popular with my age group was when facebook started to become popular among college students.  I remember my brother coming home from college on one of his breaks and telling me that I needed to get a facebook because it was so cool, but I responded with what's facebook I have myspace.  I think I eventually made one that laid dormant until sometime during my senior year of college.  Once I got to college myspace was beginning to be less exciting and facebook was what everyone was using to communicate.  And even since I started college in 2007 social networking has exploded.  Almost everyone you meet has a facebook or twitter or a blog or some other way of expressing their opinion on the internet.  We live in a world of smart phones where social networks are literally at your fingertips most of the day.  I think social networks are so appealing because they let people express their opinion in 160 characters or less.  Social networks are also so appealing because they can help you feel connected to people that are hundreds or sometimes even thousands of miles away.  You can talk to someone around the world, from the comfort of your own home, while you talk to your friend down the street at the same time.  Social networking allows people to feel like they are a part of something more and I think that's a big basis of their appeal.

As far as using social networking in the classroom I think it becomes a little harder to think of ways to use it.  I think one way that social networking could be used in the classroom is to set up a sort of twitter account where students could post questions throughout the day or night and they could receive help or kind of give the teacher feedback.  The book also mentions doing something where you teach the students what kind of things are appropriate to put onto social networking sites and then have them create a site that meets a rubric.  I think that not only helps them to become smarter internet users, but helps them realize that not everything in their lives needs to be broadcasted for the whole world to see.

To Netbook or not to Netbook? That is the question.

In the fourth chapter of their book Brooks-Young talks about Netbooks.  If you are unfamiliar with these devices a netbook is a small-size, lightweight mobile computing device designed to easily access the Internet using a built in wireless capability.  This technology was introduced about 3 or 4 years ago and they were a hot item, mostly because of it's small price tag and portability.  The original concept was so that computers would be accessible and made durable enough for children to use.  The simplicity and smallness of the design made children a perfect consumer group for this product, but it quickly turned into an item that adults were interested in as well.  These computers are designed to do simple word processing and internet browsing.  Some of the complaints that have come up by older consumers were the fact that the screen is too small and that the keyboard is not large enough so typing can be difficult.

Thinking to classroom use, while I like the idea that the size and price make them great for elementary school students, I am not convinced that they are reliable enough to be worth the fee you pay initially.  I wonder if there limited capabilities may not be worth the one-to-one computing abilities.  Being able to load software onto a computer helps to make it more conducive to learning and enrich the learning of your students.  Depending on your environment the netbooks might be a great resource especially if you were in a poorer country overseas, that kind of technology could be more than they would have access to otherwise.  But if I was given the choice I would prefer that my students have access to some sort of tablet in the classroom.  A tablet such as an iPad allows the teacher or student to download applications that could be very helpful in enriching learning and also allow for internet browsing.  It is not necessarily the most efficient for typing or doing reports, but there are ways to work around that.  Simply having a system that is efficient even when not connected to the internet because of the applications that are on it, far outweighs the netbook which is to be used simply for internet browsing and word processing.

MP3 are you for me?

This chapter in Brooks-Young book deals with the use of MP3 players in the classroom.  I would like to address some of the pros and cons to using MP3 players in the classroom.  One of the cons of using this is in your classroom is that you can't always control what students have on their personal MP3 players and you may run into students who don't have MP3 players.  Also in terms of technological capabilities most other forms of technology can do all the same things that MP3 players to do, so if you were looking into buying a classroom set of something you might not want to invest in something like this.  But thinking about the way that MP3 players could be useful in the classroom one must consider the portability of something like an MP3 player.  They are easy to cary around and their cost makes them a very realistic option for most classrooms.  Also there is a variety of applications that can now be added to many MP3 players that allow them to be tied into classroom actions very easily.  If a teacher wanted to create an audio file and send it out to the students the MP3 player would be a great way to do that.  You could even include a lesson in your class that allows you to record a set of directions and then have your students listen to the directions and complete actions depending on what they hear.

In trying to explore the existing file links in the book I found that quite a few of them were not very helpful because the site had moved or the link had changed.  Also some of them were a little harder to navigate than others such as the wikimedia commons site had a lot of information, but it could be a little overwhelming at times because you did have so much information to look through. I found that podcasts on itunes were the easiest ones to look through.  The information is pretty easy to go through and it is well organized.

I really liked the idea that they had about using MP3 players and podcasts in your classrooms to help students learn a language.  I think this a great application because it allows the students to listen to a native speaker and then repeat what they have just heard.  It allows them to go at their own pace and review the things that they need to review and move past the things that they don't necessarily need to focus on.

In terms of how much i'll use the information from this chapter in my future classroom, I think I will definitely use podcasts as an educational addition.  If you know where to look you can find author interviews or explanations of certain issues that you may be discussing in your classroom.  Also since I may be teaching in an ESL classroom I think it would be great to use to bring language to your students in a real way since you can't be with each student individually at the same time.  It will allow to have authentic language when you can't model it for them.  Also I think it would be a great way to bring different cultural experiences into your classroom and help your students to have a more global mindedness.  I'm not necessarily sold on the idea of MP3 players in the classroom, but I do really like the audio aspect that it adds into your classroom.

Cell Phones Friend or Foe?

In chapter 2 of our book it talks about cell phones and if they have a place in the classroom.  One of the statistics that I found the most surprising was the one that said only 23% of students believe that their schools are doing a good job of preparing them for today's workplace (page 19).  Less than 1/4 of the students that leave our schools feel prepared for the world ahead of them, not only that, but the workplaces feel as if the recent graduates are prepared for the demands of the workplace as well.  Both of those are hard pills to swallow especially when I am one of those people who is getting ready to enter the workplace.  This fact brings up concern that maybe I am not ready for what is ahead of me.  But as I sit here and type this blog I am surrounded by a group of high school students who in the last two minutes have talked about something they saw on Facebook and have tried desperately to find phone service so they can send a text message or two.  We live in a world where we have endless technology available at our fingertips and it seems like it would be unwise of us to use this resource that we have been given.
Now all these resources must be used responsibly and we must be in charge of teaching our students how to use them in an appropriate it way.  One sentence in particular says, "educators recognize the need to lay some ground rules before launching activities supported by cell phone use.  They also understand that doing this preliminary work teaches valuable workplace skills in digital literacy and etiquette," (page 18).  And i think that statement helps me to put the use of cellphones in the classroom into perspective.  As with anything you do in your classroom making sure you teach your students how to use the resources responsibly and that they know there are appropriate and inappropriate uses for the technology that they are working with.  If you never express your expectations of use to your students how can they live up to them?
Cell phones have gotten a bad reputation at schools, but I think that given the right setting they can be helpful tools inside of a classroom.  The idea that I really appreciated from this chapter was having the students use their cell phone cameras on a field trip to document different parts of it and then to upload those pictures onto a flickr or some type of other online photo album where the whole class can have their photos in one spot.  Including cell phones in the classroom is a subject that springs a lot of debate, but I think as the years go on it will become more common in the classroom.

We Are Living in a Material World, but am I a 21st Century Girl?

In chapter one Brooks-Young says "Being confident that educators can prepare students for this new world is based on the assumption that they have some idea of what to prepare them for," (page 5).  Stop.  Sit.  Think about that for a second.  Educators have a lot of pressure put onto them to prepare children for the world which they will encounter, but educators can only educate their students to the extent to which they themselves have been educated.  This requires that teachers be continual learners.

As teachers it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that your students may sometimes be smarter than you.  And knowing that a second seven year old can navigate their way around an iPhone better than I can is not always the best way to boost your confidence in your ability to use technology, but that is the reality of the world in which we live.  Our world is changing and we are becoming more and more dependent on technology to make us more efficient and connected to one another.  The skills needed to survive in this ever-evolving technology savvy world are referred to as 21st century skills.  As teachers we need to not be afraid of the changes that technology will bring into our classroom and we need to remember that as teachers we have made a commitment to be life long learners.

I will admit that sometimes the dependency we have on technology makes me nervous, because despite the endless doors it opens, it also constricts us.  By that I mean that we become so dependent on technology that when it is taken away we don't know how to function.  And while 21st century skills are so important for our students and ourselves it can be scary to commit fully to them.  I love the idea of using Skype to connect with classrooms around the world and the wealth of information that is at your fingertips.  But I fear what happens when the internet at your school crashes and you have to change a whole lesson in the blink of an eye.  In this 21st century world the key is balance, and knowing how to use the old with the new.  It's being able to incorporate a youtube video into your lesson about volcanoes or using a social network forum for your students to post questions about homework or that day's lesson. The 21st century skills that we will implement in our classrooms will change the classroom into one unlike the classrooms we once sat in, but it will allow us to better meet the needs of our students and to help them be better prepared to communicate in the world in which they live.