At the beginning of this course, when we were just starting to discuss what qualities distinguish 21rst Century teaching and learning from what has come before, we read an article about learning "peripherally" as part of a "community of learners", where you can begin to learn the skills and norms of particular sites / groups / etc. and contribute "real" things even before becoming an "expert". (Here's a link to the notes and responses that I wrote about that article at the time.) At the time, I found these ideas interesting but didn't really "get" them emotionally.
As the course went on, at times I felt very frustrated about the amount of time that it was taking to begin to learn the various tools we were being introduced to. At one particularly low point for me mid-way through this course, I had reached such a level of frustration that I wasn't even really seeing what was on the pages in front of me, any more! At the next class session we did that inner circle / outer circle activity where we were sharing ideas for our projects, and while talking with Patrick I asked him how to add a new page to a wiki. (This turns out to be trivially easy to do, but like I said, I had become so frustrated by then that I'd really lost sight of any sense that I could figure such things out on my own!)
That one bit of assistance was enough to get me going again, though, and since then my confidence has just grown and grown as I've used my class wiki for several "real", meaningful projects with my class (especially our Marionette Myths projects and our Reader's Choice book), and taught myself the skills I needed along the way in order to do so.
Over the past week, I've been working feverishly to manage a project where my students were writing, editing, and illustrating a "Reader's Choice" book about the 1970's on our class wiki. At the same time, I've been trying to get examples of student work uploaded to other parts of the wiki. I've had to learn lots of new tools (both online tools and software that I hadn't previously even known was on our home computer) in order to do this, and I've done so entirely by experimenting, looking for buttons (for things like making links) that looked similar to those on other platforms that I now know, and reading online documentation (FAQ's and other Help pages). Unlike when I started this course, I've had no qualms about joining new sites online in order to use these tools. It feels wonderful to be able to gain new online skills so quickly and confidently!
A month or two ago, I was talking with another classmate, Suzanne, as she gave me a ride home from class. That was at another point when I had grown somewhat frustrated with the need to teach myself so many new skills so quickly. Suzanne commented that she thought that learning to do that was a big part of Dennis' goal for participants in this course. It took me a while to come to share her confidence and enthusiasm about this sort of learning, but after the past week or two of working at a sort of crazy pace on a really exciting classroom project (using our class wiki and many new online and software tools to have my students write the Reader's Choice book and fill it with lots of their illustrations, links, embedded pictures, etc.) for a 1970's assembly that my principal organized, I think I finally really "get" it. I've actually found it very exciting to learn this latest batch of new tools and skills so quickly and so independently, and I've loved seeing my students' enthusiastic response to the oppotunities that it opens up, in turn, for them. I finally feel that I both can and will continue to learn and use lots of new web 2.0 tools after this course ends.
Here are some of the tools (both online sites and software) and skills that I've taught myself just in the past two weeks (and mostly in the past week):
www.mind42.com, for my Summary of Personal Learning
www.YouTube.com (Including learning what formats are acceptable for uploading videos, and what software might convert the formats for me, and what glitches to watch out for in that software.)
Windows Movie Maker (which I used on my home computer to convert .AVI files to .wmv format in order to upload them to YouTube)
How to download pictures and videos from my husband's camera to our home computer -- I hadn't even known how to do that, before!
www.Flickr.com, and how to search it for pictures that have a Creative Commons license.
www.wallwisher.com (which I learned about from a k12online talk, recommended to our building Principal last week for a need that he had, and then used with my class yesterday to write poetry together)
www.slideshare.com (For uploading a PowerPoint -- and I also spent time searching online documentation to find out why it would upload my own PowerPoint just fine but not one that one of my students had made -- It turns out that it can't handle the particular types of images that my student used. So then I spent some more time searching for a tool that could handle her images, and I found a couple, but unfortunately they would have been expensive to buy.)
www.XTraNormal.com (OK, that one was a couple of weeks ago.)
www.makebeliefscomix.com
Promethean Planet (for my other course)
www.mathplayground.com (Just a site I found for my math teaching, not really a "tool" -- but very useful!)
www.prezi.com (I ran out of time before managing to complete the little presentation that I had started -- but, at least I know how to use this tool, now.)
(There are probably others, but those are the ones I remember or have written down!)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Finding my usernames and useful sites
This is a note to myself that if I forget my userids for various sites, I can find them at www.docs.google.com. My google ID is my _w email account.
Experimenting with how to make a link in the body of a blog post
I've linked some of my post titles to the sites or articles they refer to, but I haven't tried that in the body of the post, and I've been wondering how to. I think I see a similar symbol to the paperclip-like one used on wikis, though! Let's try it. I want to link to one of my earlier posts, on social learning communities. Let's try it here.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Writing in the 21rst Century -- NCTE web site and PDF
The other Session 7 readings:
The National Council of Teachers of English website discusses the importance of validating all of the different types of writing that students do both in and out of class. At the same time, one article talks about "writing about literature" as an excellent way to foster deep reading and analytical thought, even though that sort of reading might seem to have limited practical applications at first.
PDF:
Historical background: Reading, historically in our culture, has "warm fuzzy" associations to communal activities such as church services. Also, reading was a way that the government could influence people (or so the article asserts). Writing, on the other hand, was associated with hard work, "episodes of despair", testing, etc. Through writing the common person might ASSERT control rather than BEING controlled, so the powers-that-be had less of an incentive to make sure everyone learned to write well.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, the "writing process" model came to have a big influence on writing instruction, with mostly positive results.
The invention of the personal computer added some other dimensions, such as being able to explore how visual and verbal elements of a piece work together.
21rst Century writing is EVERYWHERE, and a big part of the appeal may be just the sense of participation. Writing and reading on sites such as Facebook may be providing an electronic "commons", much like the village green of yore, and in ways that work to overcome the social isolation that Robert Putnam described in _Bowling Alone_. [What about those of us who don't WANT to replace our face-to-face communities with electronic ones, though?]
Right now could be called an "Age of Composition", where people learn to write partly through an "extracurricular social co-apprenticeship". (This is like what we talked about early in the course -- learning by playing on the edges of a community of practice, at first, and then building skills and an awareness of norms while gradually diving in more and more.)
Two interesting examples: (1) A teenager in Florida sent out email and photos of her neighbors, some disabled, trapped in their trailer park homes after a hurricane came through. All were rescued from the rising waters. (2) 30,000 high school students organized over Facebook to write "THIS IS SPARTA" or "THIS IS MADNESS" in cross-outs on their AP tests, worked into their answers in clever ways -- thus managing to relate to the graders (some of whom were amused) as human beings, not just as graders.
Summary: Seek a new theory of teaching writing; validate all of the various types of writing that people do; etc.
The National Council of Teachers of English website discusses the importance of validating all of the different types of writing that students do both in and out of class. At the same time, one article talks about "writing about literature" as an excellent way to foster deep reading and analytical thought, even though that sort of reading might seem to have limited practical applications at first.
PDF:
Historical background: Reading, historically in our culture, has "warm fuzzy" associations to communal activities such as church services. Also, reading was a way that the government could influence people (or so the article asserts). Writing, on the other hand, was associated with hard work, "episodes of despair", testing, etc. Through writing the common person might ASSERT control rather than BEING controlled, so the powers-that-be had less of an incentive to make sure everyone learned to write well.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, the "writing process" model came to have a big influence on writing instruction, with mostly positive results.
The invention of the personal computer added some other dimensions, such as being able to explore how visual and verbal elements of a piece work together.
21rst Century writing is EVERYWHERE, and a big part of the appeal may be just the sense of participation. Writing and reading on sites such as Facebook may be providing an electronic "commons", much like the village green of yore, and in ways that work to overcome the social isolation that Robert Putnam described in _Bowling Alone_. [What about those of us who don't WANT to replace our face-to-face communities with electronic ones, though?]
Right now could be called an "Age of Composition", where people learn to write partly through an "extracurricular social co-apprenticeship". (This is like what we talked about early in the course -- learning by playing on the edges of a community of practice, at first, and then building skills and an awareness of norms while gradually diving in more and more.)
Two interesting examples: (1) A teenager in Florida sent out email and photos of her neighbors, some disabled, trapped in their trailer park homes after a hurricane came through. All were rescued from the rising waters. (2) 30,000 high school students organized over Facebook to write "THIS IS SPARTA" or "THIS IS MADNESS" in cross-outs on their AP tests, worked into their answers in clever ways -- thus managing to relate to the graders (some of whom were amused) as human beings, not just as graders.
Summary: Seek a new theory of teaching writing; validate all of the various types of writing that people do; etc.
Fair Use: Notes on the report "The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education"
These are notes from the Session 7 reading on interpreting the doctrine of "fair use". The main point seems to be that the broadness and flexibility of the fair use doctrine are good things that work to the advantage of educators, and that should give educators a lot of confidence in being permitted to use materials for educational purposes.
The article includes five main principles:
(1) It's fine to use copyrighted materials to teach the techniques of media literacy (such as analyzing the form and content of different genres, looking at historical context and effects, etc.). Use only as much of the work as necessary, whether that means an excerpt or the whole thing. Give the source. Try to keep uninvolved third parties from downloading it.
(2) I don't quite understand this one, but basically they seem to be saying that it's OK to use copyrighted materials in lesson plan materials, much as above. Include educational goals, etc.
(3) Again, this is kind of confusing, but it seems to be saying that some sharing of illustrative materials at conferences, etc. is OK, but if you're trying to "promote" (Do they mean market?) your curriculum work, you should get all the proper permissions for anything you wish to include. Also, any license agreed to by a school district will be binding, even if it impinges upon the usual fair use guidelines.
(4) This is the one that I have been wondering most about: When is it OK for students to use excerpts of copyrighted materials in their own creative work. The answer is easier to understand than for #2 and #3, but it's more complicated and requires more situation-by-situation analysis than I had hoped. The report says that it's fine for students to use parts of copyrighted works in order to comment upon them, analyze them, etc., but NOT just to "create a mood", add interest to something they are creating, etc. This seems very "fuzzy" to me, as a guideline. . . The report also says that just giving proper attribution does not automatically make a use OK. . . . I think part of my concern is that I teach relatively young students. They're just starting to be metacognitive about WHY they choose particular resources. If my students can label the mood they want to create and find something to help them do that, I think that's a great first step. I'm not sure how much further I'd expect them to go, in analyzing how they're using the material. . . . One thing I like, here, is that the article says that incorporating bits of copyrighted material should not substitute for students' own creative work.
(5) If students are distributing their creative works more publicly than just within a classroom or school -- for example, if they're posting the projects on the Internet -- then fair use will be less of a protection. It is good to model for students the process of deciding which sorts of materials need which sorts of permissions.
The article also tries to debunk certain "myths" about fair use. For example, it says that the fair use doctrine is purposefully broad, and this "vagueness" shouldn't scare people off. However, "rules of thumb" such as "It's OK to use 10 seconds of a video clip" are not really true; fair use has to evaluated on a case-by-case basis, for the educational merits of the use.
"Transformativeness" is a key value in fair use law. However, this does not have to mean writing critiques or parodies; it just means using the material in a new way in a new context -- for example, to make an instructional point. Transformativeness is actually MORE important than non-commercialness, which is neither always necessary nor automatically sufficient to qualify for fair use protection.
A bunch of legal experts were advisors on this report.
The article includes five main principles:
(1) It's fine to use copyrighted materials to teach the techniques of media literacy (such as analyzing the form and content of different genres, looking at historical context and effects, etc.). Use only as much of the work as necessary, whether that means an excerpt or the whole thing. Give the source. Try to keep uninvolved third parties from downloading it.
(2) I don't quite understand this one, but basically they seem to be saying that it's OK to use copyrighted materials in lesson plan materials, much as above. Include educational goals, etc.
(3) Again, this is kind of confusing, but it seems to be saying that some sharing of illustrative materials at conferences, etc. is OK, but if you're trying to "promote" (Do they mean market?) your curriculum work, you should get all the proper permissions for anything you wish to include. Also, any license agreed to by a school district will be binding, even if it impinges upon the usual fair use guidelines.
(4) This is the one that I have been wondering most about: When is it OK for students to use excerpts of copyrighted materials in their own creative work. The answer is easier to understand than for #2 and #3, but it's more complicated and requires more situation-by-situation analysis than I had hoped. The report says that it's fine for students to use parts of copyrighted works in order to comment upon them, analyze them, etc., but NOT just to "create a mood", add interest to something they are creating, etc. This seems very "fuzzy" to me, as a guideline. . . The report also says that just giving proper attribution does not automatically make a use OK. . . . I think part of my concern is that I teach relatively young students. They're just starting to be metacognitive about WHY they choose particular resources. If my students can label the mood they want to create and find something to help them do that, I think that's a great first step. I'm not sure how much further I'd expect them to go, in analyzing how they're using the material. . . . One thing I like, here, is that the article says that incorporating bits of copyrighted material should not substitute for students' own creative work.
(5) If students are distributing their creative works more publicly than just within a classroom or school -- for example, if they're posting the projects on the Internet -- then fair use will be less of a protection. It is good to model for students the process of deciding which sorts of materials need which sorts of permissions.
The article also tries to debunk certain "myths" about fair use. For example, it says that the fair use doctrine is purposefully broad, and this "vagueness" shouldn't scare people off. However, "rules of thumb" such as "It's OK to use 10 seconds of a video clip" are not really true; fair use has to evaluated on a case-by-case basis, for the educational merits of the use.
"Transformativeness" is a key value in fair use law. However, this does not have to mean writing critiques or parodies; it just means using the material in a new way in a new context -- for example, to make an instructional point. Transformativeness is actually MORE important than non-commercialness, which is neither always necessary nor automatically sufficient to qualify for fair use protection.
A bunch of legal experts were advisors on this report.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
"Pay Attention" video for Joe's course
I just watched the "Pay Attention" video on U-Tube for Joe Ahern's course that is about to start on integrating technology. Some facts it asserts:
By the time they graduate from college, today's students will have spent. . .
10,000 hours playing video games
10,000 hours on cellphones
20,000 hours watching T.V.
(Actually, if this data is correct, it's interesting to me that the tv time is only half the video game time.)
Kids and teens, the video says, spend an average or 2.75 hours / wk. on home computers.
70% of 4-6-year-olds in the US have used a computer. (This does not seem surprising, since one experience at a daycare, preschool, or public library could presumably count for this.)
The author of this video equates all of this to "richness", which I don't necessarily agree with. There IS an interesting quote from a high school senior, "When I go to school, I have to 'power down'."
A study has found that students commonly ask only one question every ten hours in school -- yikes! (I'm not sure what grade level this was.)
Only 28% of 12th-graders surveyed believe schoolwork is interesting.
At the end is a link that I have not had a chance to explore yet, for more info.:
www.t4.jordandistrict.org
This video did give some sources for it's information, but not, if I remember correctly, for all of it.
I'm tagging this post for the 3cs course even though I watched it for Joe's course, since it is relevant to both.
By the time they graduate from college, today's students will have spent. . .
10,000 hours playing video games
10,000 hours on cellphones
20,000 hours watching T.V.
(Actually, if this data is correct, it's interesting to me that the tv time is only half the video game time.)
Kids and teens, the video says, spend an average or 2.75 hours / wk. on home computers.
70% of 4-6-year-olds in the US have used a computer. (This does not seem surprising, since one experience at a daycare, preschool, or public library could presumably count for this.)
The author of this video equates all of this to "richness", which I don't necessarily agree with. There IS an interesting quote from a high school senior, "When I go to school, I have to 'power down'."
A study has found that students commonly ask only one question every ten hours in school -- yikes! (I'm not sure what grade level this was.)
Only 28% of 12th-graders surveyed believe schoolwork is interesting.
At the end is a link that I have not had a chance to explore yet, for more info.:
www.t4.jordandistrict.org
This video did give some sources for it's information, but not, if I remember correctly, for all of it.
I'm tagging this post for the 3cs course even though I watched it for Joe's course, since it is relevant to both.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Online k12 conf. talk -- "Keeping the LIteracy in 21rst Century Literacies
Keeping the Literacy in 21rst Century Literacy
by Drew Schrader
Intent: Introductory strategies for addressing traditional literacy goals in high school, while using web 2.0 tools to foster student engagement. Aimed at "busy teachers".
Diigo for social bookmarking
Screentoaster for easy screen capture [Cool, I've been wondering how to do screen captures!]Prezi
Think alouds (to model metacognition strategies for reading) -- Using Screentoaster -- Easy to use at Screentoaster.com; nothing to download -- Runs online -- Just create an account and then click "Start recording". Can include voice and video. Can upload to Utube, or screentoaster can host on their own site, or you can download as a .mov file and use on your own computer.
Annotated text (to help students pick out important information by highlighting it, or to draw their attention to a particular text feature by using sticky notes) -- Use Diigo, then send students the link. [I'm still slightly confused about Diigo -- once one person highlights the article, will a random person who accesses that article on the open Internet see the highlighted version, or the original version? I assume the original version, but is that correct?]
Mind-mapping -- To plan / brainstorm and then organize ideas for writing -- Use Prezi -- He says students have found it intuitive and seem to like using it. [I'll have to try it again. The first time, I somehow made my whole presentation shrink to a tiny size, and then I couldn't figure out how to undo that!]
Too easy to "put neat tools ahead of good practice", rushing out to try a new tool with your class without really having a significant learning goal in mind for it. [I'm so glad he's addressing that; that seems like a big danger to me!]
He highly recommends the book _I Read it but I Don't Get It_ by Chris Giovanni (sp.??) for working with adolescents on reading issues. The reading theory in his talk is heavily influenced by this book.
by Drew Schrader
Intent: Introductory strategies for addressing traditional literacy goals in high school, while using web 2.0 tools to foster student engagement. Aimed at "busy teachers".
Diigo for social bookmarking
Screentoaster for easy screen capture [Cool, I've been wondering how to do screen captures!]Prezi
Think alouds (to model metacognition strategies for reading) -- Using Screentoaster -- Easy to use at Screentoaster.com; nothing to download -- Runs online -- Just create an account and then click "Start recording". Can include voice and video. Can upload to Utube, or screentoaster can host on their own site, or you can download as a .mov file and use on your own computer.
Annotated text (to help students pick out important information by highlighting it, or to draw their attention to a particular text feature by using sticky notes) -- Use Diigo, then send students the link. [I'm still slightly confused about Diigo -- once one person highlights the article, will a random person who accesses that article on the open Internet see the highlighted version, or the original version? I assume the original version, but is that correct?]
Mind-mapping -- To plan / brainstorm and then organize ideas for writing -- Use Prezi -- He says students have found it intuitive and seem to like using it. [I'll have to try it again. The first time, I somehow made my whole presentation shrink to a tiny size, and then I couldn't figure out how to undo that!]
Too easy to "put neat tools ahead of good practice", rushing out to try a new tool with your class without really having a significant learning goal in mind for it. [I'm so glad he's addressing that; that seems like a big danger to me!]
He highly recommends the book _I Read it but I Don't Get It_ by Chris Giovanni (sp.??) for working with adolescents on reading issues. The reading theory in his talk is heavily influenced by this book.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Following a Tweet link -- Custom Search Engines and Clipnotes
I followed one of Dennis' Tweets to this link:
http://mrgsclassroomreflections.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/trying-to-reinvent-the-wheel/
It's a blog post by a teacher of students with learning disabilities and emotional behavioral disabilities, who has experimented with creating a custom search engine, and using some tools that allow you to clip and present short bits of text, for his students because their own "filters" aren't that good due to their disabilities. I wonder whether these tools would also be good for elementary aged students, since their judgement also isn't always that good (due simply to their ages).
http://mrgsclassroomreflections.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/trying-to-reinvent-the-wheel/
It's a blog post by a teacher of students with learning disabilities and emotional behavioral disabilities, who has experimented with creating a custom search engine, and using some tools that allow you to clip and present short bits of text, for his students because their own "filters" aren't that good due to their disabilities. I wonder whether these tools would also be good for elementary aged students, since their judgement also isn't always that good (due simply to their ages).
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Example projects I like (briefer)
I was in the middle of writing this post, and I had saved periodically, but somehow I closed that window without saying "Publish", and now I can't find my saved stuff! Very disappointing! My original post had all sorts of annotations, but now I'm just going to try to paste in a couple of the links if I remember which ones they were:
http://mrkelln.wordpress.com/
I really like the informal tone ("you guys") of this blog, where a middle school teacher writes to his students about projects they are doing that integrate curriculum with having students use lots of cool digital creativity tools.
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=162321
Cool PictureTrail stuff documenting classroom activities
http://rrfournier.wikispaces.com/
Useful information that staff need at certain times every year.
(Hey, the earlier draft just came up, and I posted it. Very strange.)
http://mrkelln.wordpress.com/
I really like the informal tone ("you guys") of this blog, where a middle school teacher writes to his students about projects they are doing that integrate curriculum with having students use lots of cool digital creativity tools.
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=162321
Cool PictureTrail stuff documenting classroom activities
http://rrfournier.wikispaces.com/
Useful information that staff need at certain times every year.
(Hey, the earlier draft just came up, and I posted it. Very strange.)
Example projects that I like
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=162321
Third-grade teacher's class blog, with PictureTrail stuff.
http://mrkelln.wordpress.com/
A middle school teacher writes TO and about his classes. He's experimenting with incorporating lots of new technology (Moodle for science lessons, Voicethread, etc.) in ways that the students learn the technology and use it themselves for projects. I like the informal tone of his posts to his students -- "you guys", etc. Interesting and kind of inspiring site.
http://msgee.edublogs.org/
An interesting example of using a class blog to motivate students. The teacher posted about reading strategies she was teaching, and her third-graders posted about their implementation of those strategies.
http://math8geometry.wikispaces.com/
Eighth-graders each made one page of a geometry wiki. Each page teaches one concept well. Interesting, and I bet the kids enjoyed doing it, but I bet they learned more about making a wiki page than about geometry overall from this project. Fun and a good way to learn technology, but not necessarily an efficient way to learn the geometry itself.
Third-grade teacher's class blog, with PictureTrail stuff.
http://mrkelln.wordpress.com/
A middle school teacher writes TO and about his classes. He's experimenting with incorporating lots of new technology (Moodle for science lessons, Voicethread, etc.) in ways that the students learn the technology and use it themselves for projects. I like the informal tone of his posts to his students -- "you guys", etc. Interesting and kind of inspiring site.
http://msgee.edublogs.org/
An interesting example of using a class blog to motivate students. The teacher posted about reading strategies she was teaching, and her third-graders posted about their implementation of those strategies.
http://math8geometry.wikispaces.com/
Eighth-graders each made one page of a geometry wiki. Each page teaches one concept well. Interesting, and I bet the kids enjoyed doing it, but I bet they learned more about making a wiki page than about geometry overall from this project. Fun and a good way to learn technology, but not necessarily an efficient way to learn the geometry itself.
PictureTrail
The graphic (picture cube thing) that I just mentioned is apparently called PictureTrail. It takes lots of forms, not just a cube.
Cool picture cube graphic
Often I find the idea of including graphics more overwhelming than enticing, but this blog
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=162321
(which was one of the example projects that Dennis gave us links to) has one that even I really like -- a rotating picture cube thing. Cool!
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=162321
(which was one of the example projects that Dennis gave us links to) has one that even I really like -- a rotating picture cube thing. Cool!
Why I take notes on some of the articles here
I really like reading articles this way: I have the article open in one window on one side of my screen, and my blog open in another window on the other side. I read a little bit, then take notes and / or comment, then read some more, etc. -- Just like teaching "active reading" strategies to students, I feel like I get a lot more out of the articles, this way.
I certainly don't do this for every article -- that would take forever. And, right at the moment my wrists, shoulders, and fingers are starting to hurt -- NOT GOOD! So, it's just about time to stop taking notes, for tonight, even if I keep on reading. I really do like reading online this way, though.
I certainly don't do this for every article -- that would take forever. And, right at the moment my wrists, shoulders, and fingers are starting to hurt -- NOT GOOD! So, it's just about time to stop taking notes, for tonight, even if I keep on reading. I really do like reading online this way, though.
Why creativity and information literacy together?
Why was Session 4 on both Creativity AND Information Literacy? These seem like very different topics. Right now it is the information literacy stuff that interests me the most. So much of web 2.0 "creativitiy" seems to involve pictures, movies, or sound -- I am more interested in text.
Social network for teachers using web 2.0 resources
This site
http://www.classroom20.com/
is a social network for those interested in using web 2.0 resources in schools. I don't currently feel like I have time for an online social network. I doubt that this is the most efficient way to learn, even though it says it strives to be beginner-friendly. It might be good for being inspired -- maybe I'll join it later if I do my creative sharing project on project-based learning. (Or, maybe not.)
http://www.classroom20.com/
is a social network for those interested in using web 2.0 resources in schools. I don't currently feel like I have time for an online social network. I doubt that this is the most efficient way to learn, even though it says it strives to be beginner-friendly. It might be good for being inspired -- maybe I'll join it later if I do my creative sharing project on project-based learning. (Or, maybe not.)
Classroom 2.0 site for live shows to learn about web 2.0
This site
http://live.classroom20.com/
has hour-long live web learning shows about topics involving using web 2.0 resources. I'm not sure I'm ready to devote an hour at a time at home in such a structured way, yet -- that is, I often spend many hours at a time at home on this course, but I kind of like being free to jump from one thing to another at my own pace.
Maybe I'll try it out in the summer.
http://live.classroom20.com/
has hour-long live web learning shows about topics involving using web 2.0 resources. I'm not sure I'm ready to devote an hour at a time at home in such a structured way, yet -- that is, I often spend many hours at a time at home on this course, but I kind of like being free to jump from one thing to another at my own pace.
Maybe I'll try it out in the summer.
Blog on helping elementary students develop their search skills
I followed a link from
http://21cif.com/
to a blog post about ways to provide elementary students with search experiences that are well suited to helping them develop their skills. It's at
http://internetsearchchallenge.blogspot.com/2009/10/for-elementary-students-challenge-is.html
One big challenge for younger students is vocabulary. On average there are 5 words to describe an object or action, so it's common not to initially think of the same one that the author used. Younger students may have trouble thinking of lots of synonyms. Also, 2-word searches are much more effective than one-word searches, but can also lead you astray faster if you don't pick the "right" two words.
Older students often don't try looking for different keywords either, though.
You can create a "stocked pond" for kids to practice in using Nettrekker.com or creating a custom search engine. They will have an "authentic" search experience with a high likelihood of success.
http://21cif.com/
to a blog post about ways to provide elementary students with search experiences that are well suited to helping them develop their skills. It's at
http://internetsearchchallenge.blogspot.com/2009/10/for-elementary-students-challenge-is.html
One big challenge for younger students is vocabulary. On average there are 5 words to describe an object or action, so it's common not to initially think of the same one that the author used. Younger students may have trouble thinking of lots of synonyms. Also, 2-word searches are much more effective than one-word searches, but can also lead you astray faster if you don't pick the "right" two words.
Older students often don't try looking for different keywords either, though.
You can create a "stocked pond" for kids to practice in using Nettrekker.com or creating a custom search engine. They will have an "authentic" search experience with a high likelihood of success.
Comments on 21rst Century Info. Fluency Home Page
I'm reading the article from Session 4 entitled "21rst Century Information Fluency". It' s partly an advertisement for a self-paced online course on finding online information. It only costs $29 and sounds really good! I might try it at some point. (Is this the same as the "Investigative Searching 20/10" course that the article mentions? It cites statistics that in just 8 hours or so, participants noticeably improved (statistically significant changes) their ability to locate information online. Cool!
http://21cif.com/
You can preview the course by logging in as "guest". I'll do that when I'm not so tired.
I followed a link to a blog post about ways to provide elementary students with search experiences that are well suited to helping them develop their skills. I think I'll put this in a new blog entry, though.
http://21cif.com/
You can preview the course by logging in as "guest". I'll do that when I'm not so tired.
I followed a link to a blog post about ways to provide elementary students with search experiences that are well suited to helping them develop their skills. I think I'll put this in a new blog entry, though.
Comments on 21rst Century Info. Fluency / Illinois Math and Science Academy
This is a link to a very highly reviewed site full of resources to help students and teachers get better at online research. [Added later: OK, I've read some of the articles, now. This is a GREAT site for personal and teacher background information about information literacy on the internet, starting with pretty basic stuff! There are probably also useful student things, here, but so far I LOVE the teacher information! It's so clear, readable, and well-organized! And, hallelulah, the part that I started reading is a really good match to what I currently know and want to learn. Yay!!] Here's the link:
http://www.21cif.imsa.edu/rkit/newRkit/gettingstarted.html
It has a new address, 21cif.imsa.edu = 21cif.com, because it's become a private project.
There are some free "kits". (The kits seem to be fully available online, and consist of related sets of teacher articles, student activities, etc.) For example, I looked at the first one, "Getting Started". It looks at how to avoid getting out-of-date information (I think), searching vs. browsing, etc. It includes six model lessons (grades 3-12) that have been transformed ("easily", they say -- But I'm not clear on why we should assume that digital is better) into digital lessons. There are some challenges that I think are meant to be fun ways that students or teachers can test their developing search skills.
OK, these topics look WAY COOL! I wonder if I can delve more deeply into these and then use them in one of my final projects. (Right now I'm at least as interested in developing my OWN teaching skills as my students'!)
I read the linked article on browsing a live page vs. searching a cache. I'm tired and not catching everything right now. One thing I understood was that each search engine's crawler visits pages on a different schedule. The blurb about the page refers to the cache, but the title link at the top is to the live site. The live site might no longer be presenting the information in the blurb -- you might have to browse around the site to find it. Sometimes if a web address changes, the major search engines can lose their links to their archived copies. Sometimes a broader database such as archive.org, or a more specific one such as mathforum.org, can maintain those cached pages for much longer.
I read the linked article on browsing vs. searching. Browsing means clicking links from page to page. It's slow, "primitive', and speculative. Both skill (scanning and choosing keywords) and luck are involved. (This makes me feel better. I occasionally enjoy browsing -- when I'm not looking for particular information but rather just pursuing interesting threads for the fun of it. What helps is rich content in an area I'm interested in, links that aren't broken, and no particular time pressure or need for an actual product or specific answer. Examples include the Holocaust course that I took from Facing History and Ourselves a couple of years ago {"Enjoy" doesn't fit the type of content in this case, but I did find it deeply involving and never begrudged the hours and hours that I spent following links and reading well beyond the course requirements}, and also the evening that I spent following links about project-based learning earlier in this current course. . . . On the other hand, when I am trying to find particular information, especially if there's any time pressure, browsing feels very slow and time-consuming -- like I'm being sucked into a great big black hole without really understanding how. This article helps to make that feeling make sense.)
Oh, I think I understand: When you do a search in a search engine, the search engine is ALWAYS relying upon its archived pages for what results to return to you. For breaking news, it will take a while for the archiving crawlers to come across the relevant articles.
Google is a database. (You know, I never thought of it that way. I just thought of it as a search engine. It's a database; that's why you can use the Google search box to locate specific live pages.)
There's a reference to a Deep Web search. I think that means that you try to dive deep, not wide, by typing in a fairly simple search term and then continuing your search using one of the sites that comes up as your new "base". . . . Later, one of these articles says that Deep Web searching means looking for information that will be in a different database than the one you start out in.
Having a good vocabulary is useful for browsing because the author's words may often be different or more general than the keyword that you first think of.
The article says that browsing may require a lot of backing out of deadends, which "requires patience, persistence, and time." This is part of what frustrates me when i'm actually looking for the answer to a specific question or for specific kinds of information.
The article describes the "typical search experience" as querying a search engine, then choosing among the results and clicking the title links to go to the live pages. That's what I've almost always done. However, the linked article "Cache Advantage" lists some really intriguing advantages to clicking on the link to the CACHED (archived) page, instead: the link will never be broken (Yay!!), the page retrieved will definitely match the snippet description, and the keywords that match the query will be highlighted (which can be helpful for younger students who aren't very good at scanning large blocks of text, yet). . . . Cool; I never thought of these advantages! And, earlier it implied that many sites are crawled quite frequently, so I don't think the information would be very out-of-date.
Some search engines: Google, Yahoo, Ask, JSTOR and the WayBackMachine.
This article http://www.21cif.imsa.edu/rkitp/newRkit/databases/search_archive.html also contains some basic practice activities for students about searching caches.
The query site:animal.discovery.com meerkat "uses a special operator to search only animal.discovery.com for occurrences of meerkat".
OK, next I want to read one of their articles on queries. It will have to wait, though, because I need to "pull back a couple of levels" and check out some other areas from last session's readings. I have enjoyed this browsing so far tonight, though. I LOVE this site, and can't wait to learn more from it!!
http://www.21cif.imsa.edu/rkit/newRkit/gettingstarted.html
It has a new address, 21cif.imsa.edu = 21cif.com, because it's become a private project.
There are some free "kits". (The kits seem to be fully available online, and consist of related sets of teacher articles, student activities, etc.) For example, I looked at the first one, "Getting Started". It looks at how to avoid getting out-of-date information (I think), searching vs. browsing, etc. It includes six model lessons (grades 3-12) that have been transformed ("easily", they say -- But I'm not clear on why we should assume that digital is better) into digital lessons. There are some challenges that I think are meant to be fun ways that students or teachers can test their developing search skills.
OK, these topics look WAY COOL! I wonder if I can delve more deeply into these and then use them in one of my final projects. (Right now I'm at least as interested in developing my OWN teaching skills as my students'!)
I read the linked article on browsing a live page vs. searching a cache. I'm tired and not catching everything right now. One thing I understood was that each search engine's crawler visits pages on a different schedule. The blurb about the page refers to the cache, but the title link at the top is to the live site. The live site might no longer be presenting the information in the blurb -- you might have to browse around the site to find it. Sometimes if a web address changes, the major search engines can lose their links to their archived copies. Sometimes a broader database such as archive.org, or a more specific one such as mathforum.org, can maintain those cached pages for much longer.
I read the linked article on browsing vs. searching. Browsing means clicking links from page to page. It's slow, "primitive', and speculative. Both skill (scanning and choosing keywords) and luck are involved. (This makes me feel better. I occasionally enjoy browsing -- when I'm not looking for particular information but rather just pursuing interesting threads for the fun of it. What helps is rich content in an area I'm interested in, links that aren't broken, and no particular time pressure or need for an actual product or specific answer. Examples include the Holocaust course that I took from Facing History and Ourselves a couple of years ago {"Enjoy" doesn't fit the type of content in this case, but I did find it deeply involving and never begrudged the hours and hours that I spent following links and reading well beyond the course requirements}, and also the evening that I spent following links about project-based learning earlier in this current course. . . . On the other hand, when I am trying to find particular information, especially if there's any time pressure, browsing feels very slow and time-consuming -- like I'm being sucked into a great big black hole without really understanding how. This article helps to make that feeling make sense.)
Oh, I think I understand: When you do a search in a search engine, the search engine is ALWAYS relying upon its archived pages for what results to return to you. For breaking news, it will take a while for the archiving crawlers to come across the relevant articles.
Google is a database. (You know, I never thought of it that way. I just thought of it as a search engine. It's a database; that's why you can use the Google search box to locate specific live pages.)
There's a reference to a Deep Web search. I think that means that you try to dive deep, not wide, by typing in a fairly simple search term and then continuing your search using one of the sites that comes up as your new "base". . . . Later, one of these articles says that Deep Web searching means looking for information that will be in a different database than the one you start out in.
Having a good vocabulary is useful for browsing because the author's words may often be different or more general than the keyword that you first think of.
The article says that browsing may require a lot of backing out of deadends, which "requires patience, persistence, and time." This is part of what frustrates me when i'm actually looking for the answer to a specific question or for specific kinds of information.
The article describes the "typical search experience" as querying a search engine, then choosing among the results and clicking the title links to go to the live pages. That's what I've almost always done. However, the linked article "Cache Advantage" lists some really intriguing advantages to clicking on the link to the CACHED (archived) page, instead: the link will never be broken (Yay!!), the page retrieved will definitely match the snippet description, and the keywords that match the query will be highlighted (which can be helpful for younger students who aren't very good at scanning large blocks of text, yet). . . . Cool; I never thought of these advantages! And, earlier it implied that many sites are crawled quite frequently, so I don't think the information would be very out-of-date.
Some search engines: Google, Yahoo, Ask, JSTOR and the WayBackMachine.
This article http://www.21cif.imsa.edu/rkitp/newRkit/databases/search_archive.html also contains some basic practice activities for students about searching caches.
The query site:animal.discovery.com meerkat "uses a special operator to search only animal.discovery.com for occurrences of meerkat".
OK, next I want to read one of their articles on queries. It will have to wait, though, because I need to "pull back a couple of levels" and check out some other areas from last session's readings. I have enjoyed this browsing so far tonight, though. I LOVE this site, and can't wait to learn more from it!!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Notes and comments on Seymour Papert's article on educational games
This is from a link from Cluster 4-1 of Session 4.
One thing I wonder as I'm starting to read -- It's a 1998 article -- Haven't "educational games" changed a lot since then? (I'll have to check out the related presentation for more up-to-date info.)
"Shavian reversals—offspring that keep the bad features of each parent and lose the good ones" -- The idea is that this is all too common: Educational games that have the WORST features of both schooling and video games, instead of the BEST features of both.
"The result is shown in a rash of ads that go like this: "Our Software Is So Much Fun That The Kids Don't Even Know That They Are Learning" or "Our Games Make Math Easy." . . . What is best about the best games is that they draw kids into some very hard learning. Did you ever hear a game advertised as being easy? What is worst about school curriculum is the fragmentation of knowledge into little pieces. This is supposed to make learning easy, but often ends up depriving knowledge of personal meaning and making it boring." --> Summary: Kids like games that are challenging, not games that are easy. Kids dislike school not because it's easy, but because the fragmentation of learning into little tiny pieces makes it seem irrelevant and therefore boring. Too many "educational" games make learning fragmented and easy instead of cohesive and challenging!
In contrast, game designers' "livelihoods depend on millions of people being prepared to undertake the serious amount of learning needed to master a complex game. " He says that kids like learning that's challenging, as long as it's also highly engaging and the challenge has to do with solving a bigger problem that's interesting to them. [I get an image of those Dungeons and Dragons -style games where players are trying to find tools and clues to figure out how to get to the next level of the dungeon. Personally, though, I don't like games like this. . .]
[As I write this, Dennis is talking about Second Life being used to treat PTSD in returning veterans. That's really cool!]
www.papert.org/article... [Unfortunately the whole link isn't coming through.]
More, later.
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