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.