Web 2.0 Free Ride?

In the early stages of web 2.0 a number of free resources were available to educators for a year or so and once teachers were hooked and dependent on them would begin charging a fee for the service. I was convinced this was their business strategy. Attain widespread adoption, get teachers dependent then charge for the service. For this reason I rarely recommended these tools because I felt they would be gone in a few months.

Over the last year or so I've become a little less skeptical and was hoping we were past this kind of tactic. Our current world wide financial crisis however may bring an end to our web 2.0 free ride.

Read this recent Generations YES Blog entry and let me know your thoughts. What's the possibility that the web 2.0 services we're enjoying will fade away because of a lack of funding?

Thing 9 - Wiki Sandbox

Having a Sandbox area to experiment with is an interesting way to approach learning about a wiki. It gives you a bit more freedom to experiment without the fear that you might be messing something up. Although you can always return a page to a previous state it seems to me that you are sharing a level of trust between the participants not to undo work you have already done. Sort of a weird feeling if you've been accustomed to creating in isolation. The directions-instructions for this assignment seem to be spread out all over the place. I think I spent three hours re-reading and going back over everything trying to make sure I had done everything I was supposed to do. ;-) I'm not sure I have any suggestions for simplifying but I might come up with something when my head stops spinning.

My wiki page is called Sandy - Seemed to be a theme of some sort going on.

Thing 8 - What is a Wiki?

How do we open our classrooms and move them beyond our four walls? How do we engage students outside the limited time we have them in class? How do we generate interest and enthusiasm for learning? Creating a classroom wiki would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Mr. Monson's Grade 5 Classroom Wiki: "Thousands Project" has a simply designed and appealing layout. His premise is to gather 1000 responses each month from a question he and his class posts. His October question has to do with ways to reduce trash waste and so far they have received 44 responses. Anyone in the world can post to their site. From the entries in the side bar it looks like he began this project in September 2007. It's a novel idea but I think it's lost it's steam. The longer it goes the fewer responses they seem to be getting. I don't see any collaboration taking place between the kids in his class. Just making lists of responses seems to be a limited use for a wiki. I would find a way for the kids to discuss and work collaboratively on the topics.

Flat Classroom Project 2007: This project uses both a wikispaces and Ning site to connect the learning together. A lot of thought and organization went into making this a collaborative video assignment that kids and classes from around the country joined in on. My only disappointment was in the quality of the projects the kids posted. It looked to me like the kids needed additional resources and lessons on how to tell a stories using video as the medium.

I enjoyed the Go West project with a third grade class gathering information about the Oregon Trail. It was a cute collaborative project for this third grade class. Only negative was the use of ClustrMaps to track Visitor locations to their site that at times covered some of their content.

I'm still knee deep in my first idea for a wiki. Technology Resources is a wiki that I began developing this past May. I currently have a team of about a dozen contributing information to this wiki. If you go there and don't find the answer to a question just let us know so we can fill in the gaps. My next project is to assist two other MISD groups create wikis to support their goals. We're in early discussions working to identify their needs.

Thing 7 - Commenting

Ok - I guess I've been the poster guy for Blog Lurking. I scan/read several hundred posts each day but have very rarely posted any kind of a comment. I started thinking about why because at this point it's become a habit.

My first thought was time - time is always an issue and not having enough of it will always be a reality. I really hate using this excuse though because I know it's really more a matter of priorities rather than a lack of time.

Fear of giving too much information away. Personal privacy and identity theft are real issues. I guess I'll just need to come up with a set of boundaries I can work and live within and try to be smart about it.

Fear of flame! Constructive criticism and a lively discussion working toward improvement I can get. You will however occasionally bump into a flame. Overall I see this kind of post much less often than I did a few years ago but because of the anonymous nature of the Internet some times you'll see blistering comments. Sure don't want to go there.

Setting my excuses and fears aside. The old adage "The more you put into something the more you'll get out of it" applies. Adding comments to a post builds connections with the other individuals "community" and increases your learning because of the thought and effort you put into your response.

Thing 6 - RSS Item of Interest

I discovered a post on dangerously irrelevant that send shivers down my back. It's the lament of a self proclaimed "technology-loving science educator" whose activities on the districts network have been restricted to the point of harming his effectiveness. It send shivers down my back because I worry that our teachers might have these same frustrations.

This teacher doesn't give any details or specifics so I can't speculate on what might have occurred but this topic is one that every district struggles with.

How do we as a district balance the scale between our need to maintain a secure and stable network against what our teachers need to create an interactive 21st century experience for their kids? How do we unblock the tools that the teachers and students need without allowing content that is inappropriate or that compromises the districts network by using too much bandwidth.

Unfortunately it often comes down to available district resources. How much bandwidth do we have available, how many computers, age of equipment, effectiveness and choices we've made in configuring our Internet filter, etc.

On the Around the Corner blog by Miguel Guhlin he gives some wonderful suggestions as to how this teacher might approach the district in regards to these issues. Miguel's response is definitely worth your time to read.

What are your thoughts? Are we as a district doing what we need to do to make sure our teachers have the tools they need or are we restricting our teachers ability to offer their students their best?

Thing 5 - RSS

An article I found that of interest is titled "Ten Technologies for a Tech-Savvy Teacher to Use in A Laptop/Tablet Classroom" at Technology & Learning. I was reading this article because it relates to the same topics as 23Things. The article is looking at the vast web2.0 resources teachers have available. When I read articles like this I'm always impressed by the number of new web tools or sites that I was unaware of. It is hard t keep up.

Well shoot - this article led me to another article called "Top 100 Educational Blogs" on the Online Education Database site. I have a lot more reading to do than I have time. Thank goodness for RSS readers that will allow me to skim and pick the things of interest.

For me an RSS reader or aggregator like Google Reader is a killer app that I can't adequately do my job without. It allows me to stay in touch with resources and leaders in Instructional Technology in a way that time would not permit without this kind of tool.

Thing 4 - Blogs in Education

I hadn't really spent much time thinking about it before but blogs allow a form of writing that would be hard to replicate using traditional tools. In most classrooms students submit writing assignments to a single evaluator which is graded, returned and discarded. It's a single static learning event designed to measure specific criteria at that point in time in the students life. For many students their only motivation is to receive the grade.

Posting to a blog becomes a learning process for the creator of the original post and for those that comment or contribute to the ideas being explored. Blogs become a conversation allowing the creator to learn by throwing their ideas onto a world stage were anyone can read and respond. It changes the writers attitudes and motivation for writing because their audience has changed and their writing becomes a living document allowing them to explore ideas indefinitely.

Take the EduBlog Insights (Anne Davis): A Rationale for Educational Blogging as an example. Anne Davis began this blog as a way of exploring this idea on January 17th 2007. To date she's received 82 responses spanning from that date to just a couple of days ago.
The learning and exploration of this topic continues.

So how do we get this tool infused into our classrooms? What does our school district need to do to support and promote the use of blogs?