I’m experimenting with adding a caricature of myself. I’ve found it quite simple to add images to WordPress.com using HTML. It will be interesting to see what the students can do with the tools available to enhance their blogs. I’ve heard from other teachers that the students have acquired a great deal of knowledge from their “My Space” websites and other social networking sites. Learning to create a blog has been an enjoyable experience that will find it’s way into my teaching.
Most students have found inaccuracies or outdated material in an encyclopedia. Every librarian knows that it takes at least FIVE years for a new edition of a hard bound version of an encyclopedia to be published. The online versions of encyclopedias aren’t much better as they go through a similar review and editing process before publishing. The editors must find individuals with an expertise in a certain area to write an article, and then the article must go through the publishers rigorous review and editing process before the article is deemed worthy of publication in the esteemed encyclopedia.
Encyclopedia publishers also pick and choose topics for the encyclopedia. Students often go to an encyclopedia for information and do not find that particular subject or keyword covered in the encyclopedia. This is usually the case because the encylopedia is too limited in the amount of space used or too old to have the “latest and greatest” information (even online). This factor alone limits the usability of an encyclopedia to gain information. In the information age where the public has almost instantaneous access to information, an encyclopedia could be considered a dinosaur.
As a school librarian, I already know that the students go to Google or Wikipedia.com or other online services on the library computer before they go to a hard copy of an encyclopedia. I’ve been in school libraries where they have chosen not to order new editions of encyclopedias as they were already paying for an online service and the students didn’t use the hard bound copies of the encyclopedias anyway. At my current school, the only students that use the in-house encyclopedias are those that have been restricted from using the Internet for violating the “acceptable use policies” of the school district.
With this knowledge, where does Wikipedia.com fit into the future of information gathering? Having read _Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms_ by Will Richardson, it is clear that Wikis are the future of information gathering. Information articles are posted on Wikipedia.com and edited by the readers post haste. If there are inaccuracies, they are usually corrected within days, hours, or minutes. Furthermore, experts in fields are allowed access to Wikipedia articles, whereas articles in an encyclopedia are only accessed by those invited by the publishers.
There is one of two ways that encyclopedias are headed in the future: 1) they must become more wiki-like themselves, or 2) they must be revered as the final word or authoritative knowledge in which case, they may be dooming themselves to extinction.
One of the barriers for using general blogging tools is that of assuring the quality and appropriateness of student publishing. BlogMeister is a blogging tool that allows the teacher to evaluate, comment on, and publish student blog articles in a controlled environment. It is used to promote the communication skills of students. The teacher creates a blogging account for his/her own publishing and then creates accounts for the students to publish their blogs under the teacher’s supervision.
With BlogMeister, students can write their blogs over a period of time, but the blog is not published until the teacher has reviewed and approved the article. Students cannot directly publish their work. When the student indicates that his/her work is ready for publishing, the teacher is notified by e-mail that the student’s article is ready for comment. The teacher can then either publish the work or review and comment on the improvements the student can make to the article. The teacher comments suggesting further revision become a permanent part of the article for the student’s continued reading. Check Class BlogMeister for a simple explanation of BlogMeister.
A comparative review of blogging tools found some problems with BlogMeister. It does not have a WYSIWYG editor. It does not provide a photo or audio hosting service, causing the students and teachers to use outside hosting services.
A positive feature of BlogMeister is that it does put tag clouds (clusters of keywords) on the blog that are automatically extracted from blog text. The tag clouds are then linked to other teacher and student blogs on BlogMeister who use the same key words.
Blogs can be used to manage a classroom curriculum and communication. Blogs can be used to:
1. teach the student such skills as keyboarding
2. teach the student to journal
3. publish a current classroom newspaper with no delays
4. collaborate in literature circles
5. collaborate in a writing assignment
6. comment on newspaper articles or current events
7. solve the math problem of the day
8. have a class discussion
9. post texts for students to read, research, reflect, and then respond to
10. publish homework, reminders, and notices
11. publish ongoing teacher impressions about the context of what is being learned in the classroom
Just about anything that can be assigned in person by the teacher can be assigned on a blog.
The advantage of BlogMeister is that it allows the teacher to comply with CIPA while teaching the student appropriate ways to use the Internet for social networking.
I just had the opportunity to try social bookmarking. I signed up for _del.icio.us_. It was great. I took all the sites that I wanted bookmarked to read or refer to for my graduate class and added them to my post. This will be an invaluable tool now and in the future. I don’t know how many times that I’ve been at work and had something bookmarked on my computer at home and couldn’t get to it. Now I simply have to go to the web and there it is!
Another fantastic service is photo sharing. I signed up for _23_ and _Flickr_ to use with my blogs and other sites in the future. This is a convenient way to share photos with easy access to the user. I’m anxious to get started.
These tools, used through the Internet, take us away from static applications and allow us to produce work using the Internet.
I’ve been reading some recent articles on the Internet. It seems that individuals are beginning to question, “What is Web 2.0, really?” This is food for thought. Researchers are now getting on the bandwagon and throwing out the term for everything from the interactive web to education of students in the future to the future of marketing. This is just food for thought.
All forms of etiquette must be considered when blogging. If you’ve taught computer classes to students, you have probably gone through the standard protocol lessons on Netiquette: 1) don’t type in caps because it indicates shouting; 2) be careful how you word your writing as it may be offensive without the sender intending offense; 3) check your spelling and grammar as errors may make your writing unclear or nonsensical, etc. All of these apply to the blog as well. Of further note in our reading today, it was indicated that what you write on a blog may remain out in cyberspace forever even if you remove the blog. Therefore, you always need to be careful of your words. Basically, common sense dictates that we consider the extend of the readership when writing for the Internet. I’ve kept posted in my library a writing by an annoyomous author that showed up in Ann Lander’s advise column years ago:
Be careful of your thoughts for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions for you actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits for your habits become you character.
Be careful of your character for your character becomes you identity.
Anyone writing in a forum setting must be aware of how their writing will affect the reader.
For those of us who are school librarians, we know that we have the responsibility to insure student Internet safety CIPA for those working on computers within the library. This can be a huge task as we are usually managing ten other jobs at the same time, i.e. checking students out, recommending books, doing the endless paperwork required in the library, etc. I have a screen monitoring program, at my circulation desk. Although I can monitor the students screens using this program, I must constantly minimize the screen so that I can do my many other tasts requiring my computer. Our district is not flexible about the number of computers within the building per student. Therefore, I am not allowed a computer dedicated to screen monitoring alone. Sigh, I must deal with what I have.
Our school has a policy that, if the students are caught on game sites or other inappropriate sites, the student must suffer the consequences. Depending on the severity, the student offense is punishable by one week off the Internet for the first offense, two weeks off the Internet for the second offense, and the rest of the school year for the second offense. We have found that students have found back ways into the Internet through our online reference services within the library. We now have to ban them from the online services as well. I often feel more like a jailer than a librarian at the middle school.
At my previous school, I felt like we enabled the students to use the computer. At my new school, I feel like the IT department is “Big Brother.” They even monitor the staff’s use of the Internet. At times, they will go onto the staff member’s computer and even take it over. It’s repressing for the students and for the staff. I am of the opinion that with Web 2.0, we should be creating competent users of the computer and not students who find back ways around the system. I’ve actually learned many new ways to use the Internet from the students. If you make the Internet a “no-no”, they will take the challenge to countermand you at this age. Why not make the Internet the learning experience that it should be? If we as teachers and librarians don’t do so, then we are missing out on a great opportunity to expand a teachable moment.
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