Final Exam

Pi 2.0 has been a worthwhile course. I learned how to do things I had only heard about before. The most significant aspect for me was seeing how blogs, wikis, and del.icio.us sharing sites can connect people. I still have to think about how these tools can enhance my teaching. I have a broader classroom than most teachers, one that includes students, parents, and other teachers. My classroom can be as small as my office, as large as the Okefenokee Swamp. How the web technology fits into what I already do is what I am contemplating now. I feel that most good learning for adolescents happens in personal contacts, the teacher in the classroom, the advisor in a meeting, the friend helping learn a difficult subject. But the web opens others avenues for students. I think the challenge is still to create a situation where students want to learn, but I am now aware of more tools I can use.
The course itself was nicely laid out. The explorations, the challenges, and the blogs led me to learn things, apply things, and reflect on things. I liked the list of interesting sites we were given. I spent more time than I thought I would, and I still have concerns about how I can add a time consuming activity to an already full day. But I ended up satisfied that I now know a lot more than when I started

Task 12: Share What You Have Learned

I’m doing this course during the summer, so my opportunities for sharing are limited. While I could send my thoughts by email, I think it is much better to do it in person. So I’m going to write about what I will do.
First, I’m going to show Tiffany about RSS feeds to search for things I should know about. For a few days I reviewed the Alltop education feed (http://education.alltop.com/) but it ended up being too much irrelevant stuff. When I looked at my reader and saw dozens of articles in the education folder, I wanted to avoid looking at them. Even though it takes only 10 minutes or so to scan through the descriptions to find one or two articles that might be interesting, I did not “feel” like doing it. It is interesting how my feeling about use of time affects my willingness to use the web. This must be even more true for students. They will spend lots of time on Facebook because it does something for them, but they often “feel” much less like using a blog. So our task as teachers is to figure out how to make the blogs more interesting and important to learning. That leads to the second sharing I’m going to do. I will work with my partner for the Ethics course to choose ways to use our blog to make it more intrinsic to the course (some steps outlined in my blog about Task 11). The final action I will take next year involves using del.icio.us. There are many times during the year when a teacher or a parent asks me for information. In the past I’ve told them about books, web sites, or other resources that will help answer their questions. Now I can also show them how to find resources using del.icio.us.

Task 11: Use Your Tools

Since I do not teach a regular class, I’m in a somewhat different situation than most teachers. I do teach an Ethics section every year, so I’m thinking about how what I’ve learned in Pi 2.0 can apply there. We do have a blog (set up by Laura Magnanini). I posed some questions on it last year, and a few students replied, but we did not emphasize it much in class. I know from watching student behavior they considered the class blog as just another assignment, even though most were more proficient with using one than I was. Some teachers in other sections reported more success than I had, probably because their students felt it was more important. So I’m thinking about how I can make the blog more a part of what we do and discuss in class. I think they need to see it as something that helps them think about Ethics, not just something they have to do for the class. I’m planning to do the following this coming year.
• Introduce the blog the first or second day. Take some time in class to have everyone log on.
• Show (ActivBoard) the first question. Choose a question related to the beginning of the course. Choose a question where there is no right answer, but something everyone can reply to based on their thoughts.
• The day after the first blog question is assigned go over the responses (again using the ActivBoard) at the beginning of class. Use the responses as the starting point for discussion in class. This will reinforce the belief that the blog is important.
• Continue the process of posing questions, expecting responses, reviewing them the next day as the course progresses. This will mean having significant and stimulating questions available for each assignment.

I’ve also been thinking about how to use a wiki. The place the wiki can go beyond a blog is by making something a group effort rather than just individual reactions and thoughts. I’m going to think about some statements that the class can work on together to produce a single product. This will necessitate choosing something different from a blog question (where different opinions are valid and respected). I don’t yet have a starting statement for the Ethics class, though it may begin on a specific issue with something like “People should....” I’m open to suggestions from anyone who reads this blog and has ideas.

Task 10: Cool Tools II

I explored MixBook, a site for putting together photobooks. Looks easy, but the books are expensive, and shipping costs add even more. I also tried LetterPop, a site for creating newsletters. They have a free entry level (which includes ads). I created a newsletter for our upcoming family reunion. It was relatively easy though I had to experiment a bit to get the formatting right. I'll see how this newsletter was received by the family. We might want to pay $25 for a year's subscription and use it for our Bed and Breakfast. Both sites were set up to make creating pages simple and easy using templates. I've done things like this from scratch, so the ease of use was very nice. I would like to find a web site that is not so focused on photo albums but would allow me to easily create an online book with pages contributed by different family members. We collect stories every family reunion and put them together in a notebook we call Recollections. I'd like to find a way to do this online.

Task 9: Social Bookmarking

I explored two areas of interest outside of school. First I looked up “woodworking” bookmarks. I found some familiar sites, plus many I did not know about. I also checked out “bed and breakfast” sites. I found a listing of recipes under one site that is very extensive. When I have time, I will look further. Finally, I looked at one of the recent lists and found a great summary of valuable cheat sheets under “best web design tools.” I’ve avoided social networking sites like Facebook because I don’t need another way to spend time on the internet talking with people. However, using delicious to locate information seems to be easier than Google. It would be easy to get lost in looking up neat sites listed by other folks

Task 8: Working with wikis

Creating my wiki was easy (PaulHwiki). Once I was approved to join the pi20sandbox, I was able to create a page there. I visited pages of a few classmates and added to their lists--an interesting variety. I feel a beginning sense of the power of a jointly created and edited page. It is different from how I usually teach where the emphasis is on each student creating their own individual work. I think it will take a different kind of assignment to use a wiki for more than each student adding to a list. Intriguing to think about.

Task 7: What is a Wiki?

What impressed me the most about the wiki stories was the collaborative aspect. As teachers we try to build that into discussions, lab experiments, and class tone. But a wiki makes it the essence of the experience. Some of the wikis I looked at provided a way for students to add on to a group project. Jennifer Swift's Lit. Class provided a way for students to answer Jennifer's questions in a way that everyone could read and see each other's. Brian Smith's Env. Science Class allowed students to enter definitions, data, etc. into pages Brian set up. Carl's Current World Issues Class provided space for student reports that included photos and links. I also like the variety (including short videos) in Martha and Brian's Class Page, especially the section on "How to Win Friends. All of these seemed to involve more adding to a group effort rather than working toward a common product by editing. I was excited by the description by Vicki Davis Wiki Wiki Teaching. She created something that students then took a made their own. It got me thinking of how I could use a wiki as a collaborative effort. Some ideas that came to mind:
• study guide for a test
• what do you think will be on the test?
• most important issues
• what do you not understand
• a year-long (or month-long) question (when I was teaching Physics I once posed the question, "You are stopped at a red light. You look in the rear view mirror. Another car is speeding toward you from behind. A collision is inevitable. Considering only your personal safety, is it better to keep your foot on the brake or release the brake." Answering this question fully involves considering momentum, kinetic energy, forces, acceleration, and associated laws. I would like to try something like this to see if the class could come up with a single agreed upon answer.
I think that choosing a topic that is open-ended enough to go where students have needs and are interested is the trick.

Task 6: Cool Tools I

You gave us quite a variety of "cool tools." I checked out the following.
Teacher tube: some really nice history presentation videos from tryCicero.com (e.g., Lincoln reading the Gettysburg address and talking about it before he read it); it would take a while to search through some junk to find a few good ones.
Library thing: one think I do to relax is read (no TV), so this site was neat; I'm currently reading detective stories and law novels and I was able to find groups that were discussing authors I had not discovered
30 boxes: a neat online calendar; my wife and I have different calendars and different ways of remembering things we need to do--this calendar could be shared with both of us entering items and seeing where we need to coordinate things; I didn't sign up yet because I've got a little worry about security (e.g., putting "trip to Maine" on a calendar), so I've got to reassure myself that no one else could read it
Tada list: a list maker's dream, you can make lists of lists; but I already think in terms of lists and use my Daytimer (which I can carry everywhere) to keep track of what I have to do

I have a cartoon in my office showing Steve Jobs introducing the iPad saying, "It'll simplify a lot of tasks you never had to do before." I have some of the same feeling looking at these electronic tools. I have patterns and methods I have developed over many years that work for me. Something new has to be really time saving or really interesting to get my attention.

Task 5: Feed Your Reader

It feels a bit more comfortable today skimming through my reader. I like how they are marked as read even if I don't stop to look at the whole story. I did feel that I spent more time reading articles than I would have without the reader. I found some things I would not have seen in my regular skimming of the news. I'll keep doing this during the course to see if the extra time leads me to more understanding.

Task 4: RSS Feeds

As I was setting up my RSS feeds, I wondered where I was going to find the time to keep up with all of this information that will be pouring in. There seems to be a built in assumption that I'm going to spend part of my day searching for interesting articles to read on the Internet. I'll have to see if the time I spend scrolling through the feeds really yields useful information.

Task 3: Reading blogs

It still takes me a while to move around this blogging space. I found some very interesting blogs in this reading assignment. Patrick's blog, the 5th grader whose goal was to be promoted to 6th grade, was fascinating. He last posted in 2005, 5 years ago, so he is in High School now. It would be neat to know how he is doing. I also found the "Why I don't assign homework" blog challenging. Whether or not I agree with his thinking, it raises some important issues about use of time with students and how to convey a sense of interest in learning.
P.S. I pasted the links to these blogs in this paragraph. The instruction say to use "Permalink", but I'm not sure what that is. Hey, I just figured it out. There is a link feature in the header.

Task 2: Creating a blog

I was finally successful setting up this blog. I had problems signing up with Google because I had created an account a year ago but didn't remember the password. I finally figured out how to reset the password and the blog part was easy. It is frustrating when I know what I want to do but am not sure the precise steps or the exact format the computer requires. I suspect students have similar thoughts like, "It is frustrating when I know the material but am not sure the precise steps or the exact format the teacher requires."

Task 1: Introduction

I wrote the prior post a year ago when I started thinking about Web 2.0 ideas. Then I didn't have time to follow up. Now I’m trying again. The same questions are relevant. While working through the first Pi 2.0 lesson, I wondered how it would be to have an administrator blog available to HS teachers where I posed a question or identified an issue and invited responses. Sometimes things happen (e.g., an overdone prank, a disciplinary incident) where I spend a good part of a day or two having individual conversations filling folks in on what really happened (as opposed to what they have heard happened). I also worry about those who don’t come talk with me. A blog could also have a positive topic. I want to continue our discussion about emotions and learning, the one we started around the talk by Carol Ude. A blog may give many people a chance to respond and share and think about issues.

Last year's effort

2009: I’ve just finished viewing and reading the first assignment about Web 2.0. This is new stuff for me. How will I find the time to use it? What am I now doing that can be replaced by something better in 2.0? I still value conversations, discussions, and other face-to-face people interactions. How does that preference fit into what is possible in Web 2.0