Blog #5 - Wikis

Aloha! I love the sea, I love the sand, I love the salty air and I LOVE relaxing on ‘island time!’ But what on earth does Hawaii have to do with web 2.0 technologies? One word should clarify things for you: “wiki.” Wiki? “Wiki” (pronounced [ˈwiki] or [ˈviki]) is a Hawaiian word for fast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). So what exactly is a wiki? According to Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/), the free encyclopedia, a wiki is “a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems” (Wikipedia – wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). Here is a checklist from Julia Davies and Guy Mercahant (2009, www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?vID=310264&vLang=E&vHR=1&vUR=2&vUUR=1) that further explains what a wiki is and how they function:
The text can be edited by anyone who is registered on the site
- Individuals who set up the site can set out specific rubric, guidelines and community values for others to follow
- Authorship is shared and distributed
- Editing discussions and histories can be archived and consulted
- Openness is valued
- Collaboration is valued and individualism is less valued
- Wikis are in a constant state of flux
- Text can easily incorporate links to other sites, to entries on its own site and to profiles of contributors
- Referencing is highly valued
- Incorporation of texts and items from other sites is endorsed – as long as legally adopted and sources are cited

Now, if you’re still confused, try visiting Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/). After all, it IS a wiki and while you’re there why don’t you try participating in the site?!? Of course, you could just follow me on my journey as I reflect on using Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/) and share how this web 2.0 technology has impacted me personally and professionally.

Reflections on learning to use Wikispaces

Wikispaces is another free web 2.0 technology that is fairly straightforward to use. Similar to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) the site takes you through a step-by-step process when you begin. This process is very helpful and it remains available for future reference. In particular, I found the “tours” (http://www.wikispaces.com/site/tour#introduction) to provide a clear visual of how to learn the basics. Although setting up my wiki - Where-We-Learn (http://where-we-learn.wikispaces.com/) - was easy, I did refer to the “tours” more than once. Within a couple of hours, I was able to create a wiki with multiple pages and tags; upload multiple items (a Pixton comic - http://www.pixton.com/, YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/ and survey - http://www.surveygizmo.com/); adjust the template and colour scheme; and confirm my privacy settings. Wikispaces is currently offering free wikis for educators, which are advertisement free and provide a secure environment for students. I signed up for this special service and was pleased to discover that I can easily have my students join without having them register with an e-mail address.

There are many useful and interesting features located in the “manage wiki” section that really allowed me to have control over my Wikispace. The “content” section allows you to organize your files, tags and pages, while the “people” section allows for the management of privacy and people. The “settings” area enables the user to manipulate the way a wiki looks and how it is presented via its domain name. The most appealing section is the “tools” area where you can get URLs for badges and attach the wiki to a blog. Within this section is the “wiki statistics” icon that provides nifty little graphs to show the number of views, edits, messages and other interesting information regarding a specific wiki. Although setting up my wiki was easy and there are a number of useful tools and features available, I’m not sure that I feel confident using this web 2.0 technology. I found the privacy settings (permissions) to be a bit confusing and even now am not entirely clear about what my students will and won’t be able to do. I’ve decided that I will carefully check this out once I set up my student accounts (which I’ll do in the next few days). Upon checking, I did confirm that my wiki is indeed private as you need to log in to access it. Within the last couple of days I have had the opportunity to participate on a few wikis and I found this experience motivating and simple to do. I also appreciated the e-mails that I received explaining that I’ve been invited to participate in a wiki and was given guidance (via the wiki tours) on how to go about this experience. By participating in other wikis I’ve realized that I will probably feel more confident as I spend additional time with this web 2.0 technology and am looking forward to collaborating with others via wikis.

Wikispaces – For my own Personal Learning

At this point I’m not sure if I will create a wiki for personal use, mainly because I’m not sure what it would be about or who my audience/participants would be. If I could convince my family and/or close friends to become more technologically savvy, perhaps I would feel more inclined to do so. I guess another way to go about this would be to locate some new friends via web 2.0 technologies, I heard from a little bird that Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) may be useful for this! In the meantime I am more than happy to contribute on other peoples’ wikis.

I really like the way wikis enable me to collaborate and allow for others to confirm or correct my information, as this helps to ensure that the information is accurate (Richardson, 2009 www.amazon.com/Blogs-Wikis-Podcasts-Powerful-Classrooms/dp/1412959721/ref=ed_oe_p). However, I must be honest and admit that prior to researching wikis for this blog, I did think that Wikipedia was not a reliable resource for information. It was through my research that I discovered just how reliable wiki information can be. Alex Halavais, a University of Buffalo professor, tested this theory via the Isuzu Experiment (http://alex.halavais.net/the-isuzu-experiment/) by creating 13 errors on various posts on Wikipedia and within a few hours all of the errors were corrected (Richardson, 2009). Another study by the Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_5786064) asked experts to review entries in their field of study and 4 out of 5 agreed that the Wikipedia entries were accurate, informative, and comprehensive (Richardson, 2009). I like that in the event someone comes along and ‘vandalizes’ a page, the wiki history function makes it easy revert the page back to its previous version. However, with many people using a site and their collaborative efforts there is less of a chance of inaccuracies in information (Richardson, 2009). Collaborating with others is often a win-win situation, so the next time I have something to contribute, I’ll be sure to add my ideas or make changes on a wiki. And who knows, perhaps one day I’ll be the organizer of my own personal wiki – just think of the things I will learn!

Wikispaces – for my Professional Learning

Aside from personal interest, business and education are the two environments that I feel would most benefit from the collaborative medium of wikis. Since I’m an educator and education is my business, I’m fairly certain that wikis would be really useful in my environment. The main focus in the school where I work is to ensure that students are engaged by enabling them to be capable, connected and contributing members of society. Wikis are an amazing web 2.0 technology that supports this initiative by providing a medium for this type of work. They also allow for differentiated instruction and may help English Language Learners use and become more familiar with the English language in a meaningful format.

Based on my own research and that of my students, it is safe to say that Wikipedia entries consistently come up in the top ten search results for just about any topic (Davis & Merchant, 2009). Thus, without even intentionally introducing wikis into the classroom they are already being used in educational environments, at least for gathering information. In order to effectively use wikis in the classroom educators are going to need to educate their students on how to constructively edit them, participate in discussions and ensure that they understand how to respect the intellectual property of others. Additionally, educators will need to select the level of privacy that is most appropriate for their situation. With this being said, there are millions of wonderfully educational ways that wikis can be used in the classroom. The ‘WikEd!’ wiki has a list of examples of how wikis can be used in a K-12 classroom, which includes science fair projects, literature circles, and student portfolios, and can be viewed at: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom. ‘Wikis In Education’ is a wiki with a comprehensive list of classroom wikis that provides the URL, grade level and a brief description on how the wiki is being used; check it out at: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Wikis+in+the+Classroom. If you like what you see, you may want to visit the ‘Wikis In Education’ home page (http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/) for links to pages that use wikis in more diverse ways, including teacher-peer wikis, global wikis, student created wikis, and group project wikis. There is some amazing collaborative work being done with wikis and it isn’t just for students, as educators are also using them to collaborate with fellow educators from around the world. Although educators share tips about using wikis in the classroom on the ‘Wikis In Education’ wiki, you may want to compare wiki programs at the http://www.wikimatrix.org/ site in order to choose the best program for you specific needs.

Here are some of the pros and cons regarding the use of wikis in the classroom:

Pros
Easy to create a wiki on Wikispaces
Excellent help section with “tours”
Able to adjust many of the settings
Interesting and useful “tools”
Other applications can easily be added to Wikispaces
Can stimulate higher order thinking skills
Encourages collaboration/networking
Connect/share with others locally or from around the world
Real audience
Cross-curricular
Allows for differentiated instruction
Creates excitement (engaged students)
Deepens understanding of a topic
Supports inclusive education
Can select level of privacy
Many websites where educators can collaborate with colleagues

Cons
Vandalism could be a problem
Inaccurate information is possible
Negative outcomes (e.g. embarrassment)
Privacy could be an issue
May not feel confident to use/share at first
Some people don’t view wikis as a reliable resource

I’m so thrilled about using wikis in my classroom that I’ve recently created a wiki for my students to use. With this wiki, I look forward to connecting with my students in the role of a facilitator in order to allow them to learn from one another, as much research has done in this area to show the benefits of this teaching style (www.education4skills.com/jtylee/teacher_as_facilitator.html). As soon as I’m able to book some computer time I’m going to have my students work on sharing what they’ve learned in our “Trees and Forests” science unit. You are welcome to visit our wiki (http://where-we-learn.wikispaces.com/), but I’m going to keep it in a protected mode (invited guests only, drop me a message if your interested) until we are more confident users. Wikis are another web 2.0 technology that prepare our 21st century learners for the collaborative environment that they will most likely work in (http://www.infotoday.com/Paris/Collaboration/).

Blog #4 - Podcasting

Have you ever wanted to work in the media industry? Perhaps you wanted to be a radio announcer or an anchor person on the news. Maybe you’re like me and rely on the industry for up-to-date news, but never considered tackling the job. Today’s post is about podcasting and this web 2.0 technology may be able to make your media dreams come true! Over the past week I have had the opportunity to create my first podcast using Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). Join me as I attempt to explain how it works and how it will impact me personally and professionally.

Reflections on learning to use Audacity

Audacity is a free audio recording program that you must download from the internet. It was easy for me to learn how to use it only because I had a professional show me! Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. This past week I went to a professional development workshop that dealt with using technology in the classroom. It was at this workshop that I was shown how to use Audacity and, to be more than honest, if I had to learn about this web 2.0 technology on my own I may still be sitting here trying to figure out where the record button is! The workshop instructor (who works in the media industry producing documentaries) took the participants through what he called the basic tools by showing us where they are located and what they are used for. It was then up to us to create an audio recording and add it to a 30 second video clip. This is much easier than it sounds (pun intended)! Let me share what I learned.

First off, it only takes a couple of minutes to download Audacity and you can begin using it right away. Simply agree to the terms and conditions and identify where you want your files to be saved. Once downloaded you will have a grey screen with a number of tools at the top. The main circular control buttons look similar to any other audio system, with the red circle being the record button. The lovely instructor failed to point this out and I spent a considerable amount of time wondering why the green arrow play button didn’t result in a recording – some of us are not as smart as others. Anyway, by simply pressing the record button, an audio track will appear and as long as there is somewhere for sound to be inputted into your computer, you should have an audio recording. The blue wiggly line is your audio track and it is under a meter measured in seconds, so you know how long it is. On the far right is an icon that looks like a curser, this is the selection tool that allows you to highlight parts of your track. Another tool in this area that you should become familiar with is the double arrow icon, or the time shift tool, which allows you to move your track along the meter. Toward the center of the page is the cut tool that has a scissor icon on it and it is used to cut or trim the audio track. Now I’m sure that the rest of the tools are beneficial, but to be blunt, I’m not a ‘music’ person and the rest of the information that the instructor shared with us went right over my head. I did get the general concept that they allowed you to alter your track in terms of volume, but with my basic understanding, I found it easier to just delete and try again. You will need to play around to find out how far you should be from the microphone. Therefore, I’ve only highlighted the tools that I actually used and that were relevant for my basic podcast production.

After you’ve made your audio recording you may want to use the selection tool followed by the cut tool to highlight and remove any distracting noises, long pauses, ums, etc. I found this to be easy to do. Similar to word documents, tracks are saved by going into “file” and selecting “save project as.” Up until this point I found Audacity easy (after a demonstration) and enjoyable to use. From here, however, things became a bit confusing. Audacity saves files as “.aup” files, which are not transferable to other programs. If you are planning on using the file elsewhere, you need to export it as an MP3 file. This is easy to do (located in the file section) and Audacity reminds you of this when you save. I e-mailed one of my files to myself at work as an .aup file only to find out that I couldn’t open it, even with Audacity. Thus, it is important to use the export as an MP3 file function. After you have this figured out your audio possibilities are only as endless as you make them.

Audacity – For my own Personal Learning

I’m not going to lie, unlike many of the other web 2.0 tools that I’ve been thrilled to learn about, podcasting did not create the same level of excitement. When reflecting on the root cause of this feeling I realized that it is because I associated podcasts with music and radio shows and I am not musically inclined in any way. To put this in perspective, not only am I lacking in the ability to play or read music, but I am a person who may know the words to many songs (yes, when I stop at lights people in other vehicles stare strangely at me) and yet never be able to identify the title of the song or the artist’s name. Just to clarify things even further this ‘ability’ also extends into the movie industry, as I can enjoy a move and the very next day not know the title or be able to identify the actors (however, I will remember the story line). Anyway, now that you’ve formed a picture of my true talents, you may start to see why podcasting didn’t strike a chord with me. Thus, I embarked on this journey at a slow pace and if it wasn’t for professional development opportunities, I may still be shuffling my feet. Fortunately, the workshop instructor demonstrated the basics and then let us play with Audacity. At the workshop my group had a gut-splitting hilarious time and I quickly realized that recording sound can be a lot of fun. Thus, I came rushing home to create my first official podcast. I read the story “A Kiwi Night Before Christmas” (http://www.iqtoys.co.nz/site/page=item/item=9943) and truly enjoyed myself. In fact, it was such an enjoyable experience, I proceeded to read the Clement C. Moore version of the story in another recording (http://www.christmas-tree.com/stories/nightbeforechristmas.html). You can listen to my podcast by clicking on this link: http://www.box.net/shared/1kfr8spx5u I discovered that it is fun to play with your voice and Audacity is simple to use. After recording the second version of the story I did realize that it is unfortunate that my audience couldn’t see the pictures, as this book was illustrated with modern images of a favourite classic by Richard Jesse Watson (http://www.harpercollins.com/book/index.aspx?isbn=9780060757410). However, upon further reflection, I also considered that by listening to a story it allows the reader to formulate their own images of the story. Hooray for creativity (remember I’m a teacher)! I think podcasting is here to stay for me; I love the idea of being able to record stories for my future children to listen to and I also like the idea of chatting at my computer, as it is much faster than typing when your really excited about sharing an idea quickly (maybe I’ll create my own radio show someday).

In addition to creating podcasts I also took the time to listen to a few (http://www.cbc.ca/spark/) and again I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Now I can’t believe I’m writing this, but Santa if you’re listening, I’d like an iPod for Christmas! Earlier today I was actually comparing the differences (and price) between an iPod and an iPod Touch (http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_ipod?afid=p219%7CGOCA&cid=OAS-CA-KWG). The main reason for this shift in thinking is that with a device that plays MP3 files I can use my RSS feeder to send the files to a handheld device that plays MP3 files (Will Richardson, 2009, chapter 8, http://www.amazon.com/Blogs-Wikis-Podcasts-Powerful-Classrooms/dp/1412959721/ref=ed_oe_p). This means that I can listen to podcasts whenever and wherever I like. Talk about convenience! And you never know, I just might find the time to create my own play list and gain some knowledge about the music industry! With web 2.0 technologies anything may be possible!?!

Audacity – for my Professional Learning

I am as excited about podcasting with my students as I am in my personal life. Digital storytelling is the first thing that comes to mind. Students can read stories, listen to stories, share stories that they have written, and this medium even allows for them to go a step further and explain their thoughts on the selection. Reading recovery teachers could really utilize this tool by allow students to practice their reading skills in a fun way that enables them to play back their reading and learn from their mistakes. Teachers who teach another language and/or who work with English Language Learners (ELLs) could use this tool to practice the oral aspects of language. All teachers will appreciate the way student work can be saved for assessment purposes. Podcasting is an excellent way to engage the learner in the language arts concept of voice in a meaningful setting with a real audience.

Another way of looking at the educational value in podcasting is the learning that surrounds the actual podcast. Students will have to prepare a topic, think about what they are going to say and consider their audience. This is a lot of learning packed into a web 2.0 tool and I haven’t even mentioned the networking aspect. Ok, so I just did. There are endless possibilities when it comes to having a student, class, or school podcast internet radio show (which can also be live). Students can reach a global audience and of course this means that others can reply to their program and help to create an on going conversation. Podcasting may also be a viable means of reaching parents in order to inform them of upcoming events and to allow their child to demonstrate their learning. I could use podcasting to connect with my students; I could even make podcasts of lessons and other pertinent information and share them with students, parents, colleagues, and even the greater community. The Education Podcast Network (http://epnweb.org/) is an excellent site to visit for information on podcasting and education-related shows and the Apple website (http://www.apple.com/education/) offers technical support as well as lesson plans. A post on Open Culture lists the top 25 educational podcasts on iTunes and you may be interested to know that teaching foreign languages, particularly Spanish, is one of the most popular activities (http://www.openculture.com/2008/02/the_top_25_educational_podcasts_on_itunes_.html). Another aspect of podcasting includes the use of video as well as audio, but since I’ve already written a post about YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/canadanz16), I’m going to move on.

Here are my pros and cons of podcasting:

Pros
Easy to create audio
Requires readily available (often built in) or inexpensive equipment
Caters to a variety of skill levels (depending on how technical you want to be)
Can stimulate higher order thinking skills
Bookmarks can be made public or private
Encourages collaboration/networking
Connect/share with others locally or from around the world
Provides opportunity for students to play with their “voice”
Real audience
Cross-curricular
Allows for differentiated instruction
Creates excitement (engaged students)
Deepens understanding of a topic
Creates a venue for students to critically examine society
Medium for students to reflect and create/discover their personal identity
Supports inclusive education
Can select level of privacy

Cons
Some programs may be technical (depending on how you use them)
Saving in the right format can be tricky
Negative outcomes (e.g. embarrassment)
Privacy could be an issue

I look forward to podcasting with my students and feel that this valuable and easy to use web 2.0 tool will benefit all of my students in many aspect of the curriculum. I think I’ll begin by sharing a digital story with them, after all, Halloween is fast approaching and I feel up to the challenge of adding spooky sound effects.

Blog #3 - Social Bookmarking

A website called Delicious?!? Yum, I’m thinking cupcakes, lots of beautifully decorated cupcakes. These mini cakes are all the rage and a Delicious website can only mean one thing – pictures, recipes, icing tips, and trading extravaganzas! Right?!? Wrong! This website, much to my dismay, has nothing to do with cupcakes or the culinary arts for that matter. Secretly (ok now not so secretly) I am disappointed, very, very disappointed. But alas – this website does have much to dish-up, in the form of social bookmarking. In fact it has even filled my appetite in terms of being an extremely useful web 2.0 technology. Follow this juicy post to find out what Delicious is about and how it can potentially fill ones personal and professional life with a dollop of icing on a little cake to share with one or two or over a hundred of your closest friends.

Reflections on Learning to Taste Something Delicious

Through casual conversations and the like, you’ve probably caught the pleasant aroma of names pertaining to social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Diigo, Reddit, Digg, and Furl, but you may not really know what they are or what they’re used for. Social Bookmarking sites allow the user to have an online storage site that saves links for future use, by using unique key words or ‘tags’ to describe the site and then categorize and organize them (Richardson, 2009 http://www.amazon.com/Blogs-Wikis-Podcasts-Powerful-Classrooms/dp/1412959721/ref=ed_oe_p). Similar to other web 2.0 dishes, social bookmarking sites also allow the user to share their bookmarks with others. According to eBizMBA (http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking-websites), Delicious (http://delicious.com/) is one of the most recognized flavours of the many social bookmarking sites. Like a favourite family recipe, Delicious is easy to join and has user-friendly steps that direct you to begin using the site to its maximum potential. In the time it takes to boil an egg, I was able to add 5 bookmarks, with scrumptious descriptions and tag words for each site. Bite into my first social bookmarking attempt at http://delicious.com/Canadanz to see my tastiest bookmarks.

There are many handy features that cater to a user’s Delicious experience. To begin with, bookmarks can be added to the site either by copying and pasting the URL or by adding and clicking on the icons that users have the option of attaching to their tool bar. Both methods introduce you to a screen where the URL is displayed along with the title of the site, a note section to remind yourself about any pertinent information pertaining to the site (limited to 1000 characters), an area for tags, the choice of making it public or private, and lastly a place to list users who you may want to send the site to. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perception, the note section can only be seen by the account holder. Users concoct their own list of tags to describe each bookmark and are provided with some guidance by Delicious, as they dish-up a list of popular tag words that other users have attached to the same site. These tags are then added to your personal list of tags where they are ranked in two ways – first with a top ten list of your most used tags and then alphabetically, with the number of times it has been used next to it. Tagging can become a bit of a problem when different users, each with their own perspective, place a spectrum of different tags to the same site – so users should take these tag labels with a grain of salt. To address this situation the term folksonomies was whipped up by Thomas Vander Wal to “describe the type of collaborative categorization that becomes possible when collective categories are created by the general population” (Haworth & Frank, 2008 http://design.test.olt.ubc.ca/Del.icio.us_and_Educational_Social_Bookmarking). Delicious makes it easy to search for sites that have a specific tag attached to them via URLs (just add your tag word to the end of the URL like this: http://delicious.com/tag/yourtagwordhere) or by clicking on the tag in the provided tag cloud.

Users’ bookmarks are organized according to the date they were added or alphabetically and can be displayed in three view formats: title, regular view and full view. All three views display the number of other users that have bookmarked the same site and the edit/delete options. Delicious also allows you to see the most popular bookmarks and the most recent bookmarks that people have added to the site, which aids in the ease of connecting with others. With the click of a mouse, users can add a user to their network and/or add them to their subscriptions, which is why this web 2.0 tool is easy to gorge yourself on.

Delicious – For my own Personal Learning Palate

Delicious is a web 2.0 technology that I plan on feasting on for as long as there is a buffet of websites available. In fact, Delicious is the answer to a little research problem that I’ve been having… let me explain! Have you ever been in a situation where you’re searching for something specific and in the process of looking for the information you follow link after link through a ridiculous number of websites? Then when you locate your tasty piece of information you realize that you’ve just seen a lot of other really appetizing information and now you have no idea how to efficiently find it again? Social bookmaking is the solution to this burning problem! With Delicious all I have to do is click on my bookmarking icon and save the link with delectable tags that will enable me to quickly access it when I need it. Although, I really enjoy the ability of saving my favourite websites in one location (I previously copied the link to a word document – stone age, I know), I’m not so sure the tagging system is the most efficient way to organize information. At present I have approximately 15 bookmarks and 80ish tag words and, even when compared to Will Richardson (http://delicious.com/willrich) who has over 2500 bookmarks and almost 700 tags, this is still a lot of tags. The situation that I’ve run into is two fold: First I didn’t realize that terms with two or more words are typically attached by an underscore, as in language_arts, and secondly when I began adding bookmarks I was conservative in the number of tags that I gave them. Now that I’m more experienced with Delicious, specifically with my networks and subscriptions, I realize that I may need to go back and edit my bookmarks from time-to-time to ensure that I’ve used the most appropriate tags, both for myself and for others to access them. This could be time consuming.

My favourite part of this Delicious meal is that I have a market full of potentially useful websites that people I trust have hand selected and in an almost infinite number of websites – this may direct me to the juiciest websites available. I also enjoy the option of using the RSS feed button for any of the tags that are of particular interest to me. On-the-other-hand, my biggest beef about Delicious is its appearance; it is not going to win an award for its mouth-watering presentation. Although it is uncluttered and free of advertising, the colours are drab and it doesn’t come across as flashy or as exciting as some of the other web 2.0 tools and I don’t feel as if my Delicious account is as personalized as I would like it to be. Considering the information overload that many people are suffering from, internet addiction has even become a recognized mental health issue (http://www.netaddiction.com/whatis.htm), Delicious may in fact be doing its users a favour. I’m fine with this, but still wish that it used its namesake in a more culinary expressive format… at least it would make me want to visit it more often! One other tiny complaint that I have is that the notes are only accessible to the user, when it may be beneficial to understand why my network friends thought a site was worthy of bookmarking. Regardless, I look forward to convincing my friends and family to set up an account, so that we can begin sharing websites of personal interest.

Delicious – for my Professional Learning Taste Buds

As I began to experience the exciting menu of web 2.0 technologies I briefly asked my colleagues if they were social bookmarking regulars. Amongst the many confused looking faces, I was lucky enough to find two teachers who were both Delicious users. When asked how they use their Delicious accounts, it was discovered that they learned about social bookmarking at the 2009 GETCA Teachers’ Convention (http://www.getca.com/) and primarily used them professionally. One of the teachers works with grade 3 and 4 students who have special needs and he found that Delicious helped his students who had difficulty accurately typing long URLs. Instead of deliberating over the exactness of a URL he simply has his students go to his Delicious home page and access the necessary sites from this one page. He also said that it prevented them from aimlessly searching on the internet, locating information that they generally had difficulty reading and prevented them from accessing inappropriate sites, as he could hand select sites that would meet their specific learning needs. Another way of using Delicious with our students would be to have a class account or individual accounts where the students would have the opportunity to share their bookmarks with each other. This could be a smash hit for collaborative projects (Richardson, 2009 http://www.amazon.com/Blogs-Wikis-Podcasts-Powerful-Classrooms/dp/1412959721/ref=ed_oe_p). Of course if you teach older students you may want to use your bookmarks (along with RSS feeds) to draw your students’ attention to class readings or the freshest sites (Hedreen, 2005 http://frequanq.blogspot.com/2005/02/social-bookmarking-in-education.html).

In addition to sharing our bookmarks with our students we can also dish them out to our colleagues. This may bubble-up into some of the following benefits, as suggested on the CR2.0 wiki (http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking):

• Network with other educators around the globe who share your interests.
  


• Create social bookmark accounts for your school's academic departments. Teachers within the department all contribute to the growing database of web resources.
  


• Contact other people for professional networking, based on their social bookmarks.
  


• Share bookmarks on research topics.
  


• Subscribe to someone's bookmarks via RSS feed and receive updates whenever they add new websites.
  


• Collaborate on projects with other schools, sharing bookmarks between all participating communities.

And of course this is not an exhaustive list!

Below you will find a smorgasbord of pros and cons for using Delicious in the classroom:

Pros
Bookmarks can be made public or private
Encourages collaboration/networking
Easy to use
Basic in appearance, not visually distracting
Connect/share with others locally or from around the world
Opportunity for critical thinking about the tagging folksonomy
Tags aid in organization and accessibility
Eliminates need for students to type long URLs
Provides pre-selected, meaningful and safe sites for students
May bring attention to useful websites that may otherwise have gone unnoticed
Storage for useful/meaningful websites, as opposed to always searching for them
Web savvy users may share higher quality websites (http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking)
Can be accessed on any computer

Cons
Tags may not be descriptive, consistent or carry the same meaning for every user
Can’t see other users notes for their bookmarks
Basic in appearance, could be too boring
Spammers and marketers using the tags to attract visitors to their websites (http://bookmarkdevil.com/socialbookmarking/)
Reduces student access to inappropriate websites

As an educator, I believe that social bookmarking delivers me another way to connect with my classroom of 21st century learners, through the sites that they may personally be interested in or those that they are using for their learning. Delicious will benefit my English language learners (ELLs) by directing their attention to specific websites selected for their individual needs, as opposed to letting them aimlessly surf the internet that may exceed their reading level. This is one tantalizing morsel of a web 2.0 technology that I plan on savouring for years to come both professionally and personally!