Internet Project, Internet Workshop, Internet Inquiry, WebQuests...

While subbing today I finished reading about all the wonderful ways to incorporate technology into classrooms. I go back over my sub plans, which are based off of students completion of multiple worksheets, and try to envision how the Web based technologies that I just read about could be incorporated into this 7th and 8th grade English teachers lessons (due to the fact that my morning students were bored out of their mind with the worksheets). So here is what I took from the readings and also how I would use them in my own classroom...

Leu, Leu, and Coiro state that "It is important to understand that nearly every instructional activity you currently use in your classroom may also be used with the Internet" (2004, p. 106). This quote becomes more realistic to me with each new Web tool that I learn about. After I completed the assigned readings, I realized that this could be done with an activity as simple as the simplest Internet Workshop or as in depth as a year long Internet Inquiry with students from around the world. I really liked the concept of Internet Workshop because it seems as simple as finding computers with Internet access for your students to use (and I'm all about simplicity!). Anyways, one key aspect of this is bookmarking. Since I have already created a Delicious account, I could bookmark good sites that are related to the content of the unit. Literacy is involved with Internet Workshop because students are navigating through a website, completing an activity page (which requires students to answer OPEN ENDED questions), and sharing their discoveries and asking questions as a whole group at the end of the week or unit.

A second Web technology discussed in Leu, Leu, and Cairo's book was Internet Project. This type of technology involves "students and teachers communicating extensively about the topic that both classes are exploring" (2004, p. 116). In other words, students are able to compose a message and send it to another class of students, who read and compose their own message and send it back. The message can be about anything but Leu, Leu, and Cairo give the example of using this technology to share a morning message , which includes what students are doing in class and important events taking place. I like the idea of having a separate email account for this and giving a student the job of "Email Assistant". By switching jobs each week, every student would be able to "develop the new literacies of email" (Leu, Leu, and Cairo, 2004, p. 118). I research a few Internet Projects and found one that I thought was really fun and creative for students in primary grades to try out. The website is called Monster Exchange and it is designed to encourage reading and writing skills while integrating technology into the classroom.

 A student ends up drawing a monster and writing a description, emailing the description to a student from a different location, who then reads the description and tries to draw the same monster. The process enhances reading comprehension and writing skills along with computer literacies. Leu, Leu, and Coiro discuss a specific type of Internet Project called a Spontaneous Project. Spontaneous Projects are posted to the Internet by the teacher, who describes unit of study or a project that his or her class is working on. The teacher asks other teachers if they want to complete the same project so that their students can share results. Oz Projects is an example of a site where teachers can go to get their classes involved in such projects. Using an already existing Web tool is also what they suggest in the video clips on CTELL's website from the University of Connecticut. 

A third Web. 2.0 tool that Leu, Leu, and Coiro discussed is Internet Inquiry which requires students to 1) Develop a question, 2) Search for information online, 3)Evaluate the information they find, 4) Compose an answer/presentation to their question, and 5) Share the answer with others (2004, p. 123). Literacy is also involved with this type of technology because students are provided with the opportunity to read, evaluate, write, and discuss information within content areas.

The last tool that I learned about from Leu, Leu, and Coiro's chapter was WebQuests. I found that a useful website for finding quality WebQuests was WebQuest.org. This site provides you with sample WebQuests from grades K-12 and also a list of picture books based on the topic of your search. WebQuests usually include an introduction, a task definition, a description of the process, information resources, guidance in organizing the information, and a concluding activity. Sox and Rubinstein-Avila promote the use of WebQuests in their article "WebQuests for English-Language Learners: Essential Elements for Design", by stating that "Because of their flexibility, we contend that WebQuests have great potential for accommodating diverse learners-especially ELLs- while creating academically challenging activities that encourage the development of academic language development, Internet Inquiry, and critical and higher order reasoning" (2009, p. 39). Sox and Rubinstein-Avila suggest that teachers modify their WebQuests to better meet the needs of the diverse learners in their classrooms. For example; keep sentences short with simple tenses and direct commands; use pictures to accompany text; and provide links to key word definitions. Sox and Rubinstein-Avila provide tips for how teachers should make WebQuests and alter already made WebQuests; which include links, visual elements, clear instructions, and a connection to content standards. They state that "one of the greatest strengths of the WebQuest is that it can scaffold Internet searches for students, rendering their searches more efficient and effective" (2009, p. 47). Skylar, Higgins, and Boone also support the use of WebQuests in classrooms in their article, "Strategies for Adapting WebQuests for Students With Learning Disabilities", "Research suggests that students with disabilities who use technology are more highly motivated and complete more assignments when using the technology" (2007, p. 22). They also list several tips for creating WebQuests for students with LD; use study guides, create advanced organizers, use graphic organizers, develop a partial outline, provide a list of web sites, provide a list of vocabulary words and definitions, develop a hypertext list of questions, and create a study guide with exact instructions. I would definitely use Webquests in my own classroom and look to the Internet to find one relevant to the topic I am teaching. However, I would modify the WebQuest to meet the needs of my individual students. "Webquests provide a structured and guided learning activity for students to use as they conduct research in an online environment" (2007, 27).

PODCASTS and DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

Podcasts are a very new concept to me. I have heard of them but have never done any further research on them. After reading chapter 8 from Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, I began my search to get a better idea of what they are and how they can be used in classrooms. I started with one of his suggestions, the Radio Willow Web at Willowdale Elementary School in Nebraska. Once on the site, I was surprised to find that many teachers from each grade level contribute Podcasts!!! I feel like its usually hard to get all teachers on board with a new technology but teachers at Willowdale are really taking initiative and each contributing to their site. Teachers at Willowdale allow students to host the shows, which all have a different topic based on what the students are learning about. I listed to a podcast about matter, which was created by a fifth grade class. A podcast like this one is a great example of what can be done with students in school to motivate them. I love the idea of connecting the podcasts to the schools webpage and allowing parents and community members stay tuned in to what students are doing in school. Richardson says "podcasting is one of those technologies that can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be" (2010, p. 117). I feel that this is important to remember when getting involved with technology, such as podcasts, because the initial thought of having to use them may be overwhelming, especially on top of state curriculum requirements. I believe that the motivation factor that podcasts can bring to student learning would overall have very positive results.  

Podcasts can be used in any grade and can be based on any content area. Richardson gives us many examples of how Podcasts can be used in different subject areas (2010, p. 117):

• Social Studies: Oral histories, interviews, or reenactments
• Science: Narrate labs, dissections, or experiments
• Music: Weekly recitals, special events

Teachers can also use Podcasts to share daily lessons with absent students! The possibilities seem endless!!

I really liked the study done by Figg and McCartney about digital storytelling. I am a hands-on learner and like to express my work in a creative manner, making digital storytelling right up my alley. Not only did their study use a Web 2.0 technology, it also shows how this way of learning positively impacts children. Their study also makes the connection between technology and literacy in a way that children made improvements in their writing and technical skills. In their article, Figg and McCartney state, "Digital storytelling was selected as the activity that would promote the development of writing and language skills while allowing individual expression and creativity...(2010, p. 41). Digital storytelling was used to motivate students, through the use of computer technology, and also to provide students with real-world skills. The model that is provided within the article also "suggests that video creation skills can be taughtin a sequence that supports the writing process" (Figg and McCartney, 2010, p. 42). This pyramid shaped model takes you from a descriptive digital story, which is the first and simplest, to an interactive digital story, which is the most difficult story to create. The process of making digital stories includes many literacy processes, such as taking digital pictures, writing scripts with dialogs, interviewing family members, researching topics, and discussing the process with peers and teachers. Figg and McCartney included a statement from one of the researchers; "They are writing on a daily basis and don't even know it!"  (2010, p. 54). Along with the improvement of student writing skills, this study also shows a greater awareness of future educational opportunities for students.      

                                                        

WIKIS

Is Wikipedia reliable and should it be used in the classroom?

I started this blog with a question about Wikipedia because it is heavily debated whether or not teachers should allow students to use Wikipedia to research for classroom projects. Will Richardson would argue for the use of Wikipedia in classroom according to chapter 4 of his book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. In this chapter on wikis, he states, "Wikipedia is the poster child for the collaborative construction of knowledge and truth that the new, interactive Web facilitates" (Richardson, 2010, p. 57). Although Wikipedia can be seen as an unedited and unreliable source, Richardson states that, "there are vastly more editors who want to make it right than those who want to make it wrong" (2010, p. 56). I found it interesting how a UB professor actually tested Wikipedia's editors by placing errors throughout different pages and seeing how long it took for the errors to be corrected. The results were only a few hours, which proves that people who read and edit Wikipedia pages have a critical eye for erroneously placed information.

Richardson also urges teachers to try using wikis in their classroom and provides readers with multiple uses and advantages of wikis. Teachers can create Web-based wiki classroom sites that are password protected. This allows anyone with Internet access to read their wiki but only students within the class can edit the site. This eliminates the concern of outsiders vandalizing or erasing valuable content. Using a collaborative site teaches students how to publish content, how to use collaborative skills, how to negotiate with others, and it allows students to begin teaching each other. Two examples that Richardson gives about how to use wikis in the classroom are 1) creating a collaborative classroom text and 2) having students create or edit book entries (2010).

Editing a post on Wikipedia is also a way to introduce a class and get them excited about researching and/or using wikis. This is what Bud Hunt, co-author of "New Voices", did with his tenth grade students. They were learning about subcultures and Hunt used Wikipedia to research the term. As a result of his research, his class found the definition inadequate and so decided to collaboratively revise it (Hunt & Hunt, 2006). A wiki allowed for his class to publish their work in a meaningful way for a real life audience to read.

The wiki that I decided to research was mentioned in Richardson's chapter. The Flat Classroom project wiki was created by two classroom, one teacher from Georgia and one from Bangladesh. This wiki allows students in their classrooms to connect to each other and to students from different countries around the world. The site includes student narratives, essays, audio, video, and captions of the Flat Classroom Conferences, where students from different countries were brought in to meet face to face. The goal of Flat Classroom is stated on their wiki: Flat Classroom™ Projects

Goal: To create and maintain best global collaborative projects and collaborative work spaces for students and educators in and serving K-12 around the world while building bridges between Students, Educators, trainee teachers and Post Secondary Education Institutions.

Another benefit of wikis, that was not mentioned in the readings, is that because they are Web-based and allow students to navigate sites, they will better prepare high school students for the Web-based curriculum's they will face in college. As I looked at different wikis, it seemed to me that their layout is similar to college sites such as Blackboard or WebMail. If students have experience using wikis and navigating the Web, adjusting to a Web-based colleges will be that much easier.

A wiki that I have personally used is PBwiki. It was used for a college class where my classmates and I would post questions about a reading and then critique each others posts. We also published final projects on the site, which meant that we could view all the work and use each others ideas to benefit our own projects. However, we did not use the wiki to make a collaborative piece, which I would have liked more than the assignments we were given. My classmates and I also experienced the negative effects of the site when multiple users were editing. Wheeler, Yeomans, and Wheeler included a section on this in their article "The Good, the Bad and the Wiki". They state, "When students attempted to add to shared pages there was occasional conflict, and the software was unable to cope with the simultaneous posting" (2008, p. 992). The result of multi-use posting was one person got to stay on the site and keep their work while the other lost their work. It was very frustrating for some of my classmates but we quickly learned to draft our posts in a Word document and copy the text into the wiki.

Facebook in the classroom?!?!

Social Networking and Social Bookmarking

It was interesting that each of the readings for this weeks class featured different types of Web. 2.0 technologies, all based on social bookmarking and social networking. Christine Greenhow's article "Social Scholarship: Applying Social Networking Technologies to Research Practices" focused alot on a social bookmarking or "social bibliography" (as she called them) site called Diigo. I have never heard about Diigo before and so it was interesting to learn about the features of Diigo and how to apply them in the classroom. Diigo allows readers to highlight important text and even leave "Post-it" notes for private or public viewing. Teachers could use Diigo in their classrooms in a whole group or individual setting to research specific topics of interest.

From reading Will Richardson's book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms", I learned alot about a social "microblogging" webiste called Twitter. Twitter allows people to follow people and read their "updates" as to where they are, what their doing, their interests, and anything else people like to write about. Richardson's chapter 9 went into more details about a social networking site called Facebook. In his book, Richardson writes, "Learning has traditionally assumed a winner-take-all competitive form rather than a cooperative form. One cooperates in a classroom only if it maximizes narrow self-interest. Networked learning, in contrast, is commiteted to a vision of the social that stresses cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit, and social engagement" (p. 133). Networks like Myspace and Facebook are becoming more and more popular with students outside of school, which is why teachers should try to incorporate aspects of them within their own classrooms. If teachers do choose to use Facebook, for example, they can create a private group that only their class could view.

Using technology in the classroom allows students to have access to information that was once limited by books, magazines, and printed texts. It allows students to be creative and it may even motivate students by allowing them to complete assignments which showcase their strengths and skills. Web 2.0 technologies also promote literacy practice in every aspect of their use. Students have to use their literacies to navigate the web, to follow sites, to research topics, to share thoughts and "tweets", to leave "Post-its" on important text, and to simply communicate and colaborate on the Web.

This week I used Facebook and tried to find educational uses of Facebook. I used Facebook to form groups with my classmates to discuss assignments and also to communicate with people who I do not get to see everyday. I am interested in knowing other educational uses of Facebook because as of now, I mainly use it as a way to stay in touch with friends and family and not for educational purposes.