New tools workshop wiki

Joyce Valenza has done it again. This time she and David Warlick have created a vibrant and informative wiki that showcases new social media tools for learning.

Screen shot 2010-07-29 at 11.08.27 AM

With pages covering topics such as:

  • WallWisherIdeas
  • Backchannel
  • PlayaroundPage
  • What is 2.0?
  • Learning more
  • Fair Use and InfoEthics
  • Curriculum and Standards
  • Playing with images
  • Wikis
  • Blogs
  • Digital storytelling
  • Avatar Making
  • Podcasting
  • Video Tools
  • Writing Tools
  • Twitter
  • Nings, Social Networking, PLNs
  • Book Publishing
  • Social Bookmarking
  • Polling Quizzing tools
  • Interactive calendars
  • Personal information portals
  • Skype & Webinar Stuff
  • Search Tools
  • Assorted Widgets
  • Cartoon Generators
  • BackChannel and Chat
  • Map Apps
  • URL Shorteners
  • Media Literacy
  • On evaluating information
  • Game Generators
  • PowerPoint Reform Tools
  • Media parking lots
  • Feeds and aggregators
  • Miscellaneous other goodies
  • Mind Mapping, timelining, outlining, graphing, visualizing
  • Reading
  • ebook pathfinder
  • Screen Capture Apps
  • Interactive Whiteboards
  • iphoneapps
  • iPad
  • Privacy safety identity
  • To get you organized
  • Springfield Township High School Library
  • Teacher Tools

there is something for everyone interested in educational technology. As with any wiki, the New Tools Workshop wiki is a work in progress that will grow and evolve over time. Congratulations to Joyce and David on a wonderful site.

People still read, but now it’s social

When Apple’s Steve Jobs said in 2008 that “people don’t read anymore” there was an outcry from a range of people across the world. Jobs, was of course, decrying the Kindle eReader as a stand alone device and it would be interesting to know how many people who have purchased the iPad have done so primarily looking for an eReader.

A recent article in the New York Times, Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social takes a look at the phenomenon of social reading thanks to a number of eReaders enabling users to highlight and share passages in eBooks as well as being able to share thoughts and ideas via email, Twitter and blogs. Article author Steven Johnson says

Yes, we are reading slightly fewer long-form narratives and arguments than we did 50 years ago, though the Kindle and the iPad may well change that. Those are costs, to be sure. But what of the other side of the ledger? We are reading more text, writing far more often, than we were in the heyday of television.

And the speed with which we can follow the trail of an idea, or discover new perspectives on a problem, has increased by several orders of magnitude. We are marginally less focused, and exponentially more connected. That’s a bargain all of us should be happy to make.

The changes in the way we read are occurring rapidly. I’d like to know how many people across the globe who have purchased an iPad as a portable device rather than an eReader have downloaded (at least the free) books from the iBooks app. Will they read them? Perhaps. Would they have ever read them without such a device? I think not. The article is a brief one and well worth a read.

Spreading the word

Three new presentations on social media have become available in recent days and could be good to use for staff meetings or professional learning sessions to promote better understanding of social media and discussions on how it may enhance learning.

The first presentation is the recently released TED Talk by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, who “makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.”

The second presentation is a slideshare by Jane Hart on social learning.

The third presentation is a video that focuses on the ways social media has changed products, services and communication. (It is in no way an endorsement of students using Facebook, but an expose of how people are communicating.) “The Social Media Revolution 2 video is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.”

These presentations don’t have all the answers, but they should be conversation starters at school.

Social Media Reading List for School Leaders

Hans Mundahl is an American “educator working in experiential learning and technology”. He has developed a YouTube video and accompanying wikis to build a remarkable resource for developing social media learning in schools.

As his Social Medi Read List wiki explains,

The idea for this page is to build a ‘best of the web’ reading / watching list for school leadership regarding using social media for school advancement. Rather than talk about how great social media is we’re using social media to build this reading list. Articles will fall into one of these topic areas:

  • What is this stuff: Simple explanations for common social media tools
  • Making the Case: Does social media really matter?
  • iPhone: Making the case for bringing your message to hand held devices, in particular the iPhone.
  • Joys & Concerns: Case studies of successful and unsuccessful social media engagement.
  • Good Models: Effective blogging, tweeting, FB’ing school administrators.
  • Next Steps: What steps should schools be taking next?

Anyone who is interested in social media and wanting to introduce it to a wider range of teachers at their school will find the video and wiki useful, informative and persuasive. The wiki is a particularly good resource as all educators are invited to edit and add content to it.

Feature wiki – Our Lady of Mercy College Heidelberg – information wiki

Our Lady of Mercy College, Heidelberg, teacher librarian Michael Jongen was inspired to introduce social media tools into the school library after hearing Will Richardson at a School Library Association of Victoria professional development day in 2009. Michael explains:

I work at OLMC Library as a teacher librarian. As part of my Professional Learning Plan for 2009 I was asked by Tricia Sweeney, Head of Library, to look at Web 2.0 and its applications in teaching and learning.

In March 2009 I attended a SLAV conference entitled Perspectives on Learning featuring Will Richardsonfrom the United States.  Will is a leading educator in the understanding and implementation of Web 2.0 strategies in schools. He argues that

‘Learning in the 21st century is all about networks and the connections we can make to other learners and teachers both in our communities and around the globe. But being literate in this new learning environment requires more than knowing how to read and write, it requires us to edit, publish, collaborate, create and connect in the process of building our own personal learning spaces’

Inspired by Will I decided to blog and work with the teachers at my school and make them aware of Web 2.0 and its potential for learning.  I started a Library Web 2.0 Wiki page on the School Portal where I explored some of the issues, tools and personalities raised by him in his keynote address and in his featured workshop. I feel that my role has been to inform, collaborate and apply, and I looked at practical examples of how social media can be incorporated into assessment or used for communication.

OLMC wiki

Tricia and I had another discussion and we decided to set up an information wiki. With the new school year just starting we will promote the wiki through our Years 7 and 8 reading programmes.

The appraisal of my year’s self learning project was on using Web 2.0 in the classroom and it was agreed that my goal in 2010 is to work in the classroom with teachers and students more often by using practical web 2.0 applications in assessment and presentation.

It is wonderful to hear that the SLAV conference held less than a year ago has had such a positive and practical impact on Michael and Our Lady of Mercy College teachers and students. Congratulations and well done Michael. Thank you to Tricia for supporting his endeavours to introduce social media to the school.

The OLMC information wiki is the first of the resources that Michael has developed that Bright Ideas will feature. I’m sure we’ll all look forward to experiencing his other efforts.

Managing social media risks

This article, which was recently published by The Journal, is worth a read in relation to the social media risks to students. It may also be worth passing onto any staff who have an online profile.

Managing Social Media Risks

By Bridget McCrea 08 October 2009

Name an online social networking site, and there are liable to be thousands of teachers, administrators, and students using it connect with people. Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or one of the more “specialized” online venues, all are replete with individuals looking to tap into the growing social networking wave.

Like any new, uncharted innovation, online social networking comes with risks not associated with many “traditional” ways of connecting with people. Unintentionally offend someone in person at a bookstore, for example, and the repercussions are likely to be minimal. But post a photo that others deem “offensive” on your Facebook page, and you could risk alienating others and even setting yourself up for potential lawsuits.

In her recent report, “Risk Management and Social Media: A Paradigm Shift,” Maureen O’Neil, president of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), called social media tools like blogs, message boards, and social communities the “fastest growing segment” of Web content. “These forms of social networking upend the traditional form of top-down information dispersal because information freely flows in and out of an organization,” said O’Neil.

The problem is that social media can expose organizations to significant risk, not the least of which is serious reputation damage, said O’Neil. That’s because social media is still largely the “Wild Wild West” of the Internet: It’s widely used, yet there are technically no set rules attached to it in terms of conduct. The good news is that institutions can take an active approach to influence and counteract their schools, students and teachers that are portrayed on these social media sites.

“That requires businesses to create an Internet reputation risk management plan that addresses what visitors to your site express, what your employees share on other sites and most significantly what things are said about your organization on sites over which you have no direct control,” said O’Neil. She suggested organizations actively engage on social network venues to understand how reputation can be impacted by the interactions, and then gather information on the social media activities under consideration.

From there, assess the areas of vulnerability, create counteraction plans, and communicate them to employees. Dedicate at least one employee to the monitoring of your online reputation, remarked O’Neil, and build a process to identify new reputation risk elements as social media evolves.

“The risks organizations face as a result of participating in social media are real, but so too are the benefits,” she said. “Don’t let risk blind you from taking advantage of the transformational communication opportunities that arise from social media.”

For schools, the need for risk management is especially high because teachers, students, and administrators alike are enjoying the benefits of connecting with one another online. Whether administrators are posting information about a recent school event, teachers are bouncing ideas off of one another, or students are posting photos of their weekend events, all of the information being shared is available for anyone to see and comment on.

 

The single biggest risk in social media circles is undoubtedly the participant’s utter lack of control over where the information is going, how it will be posted, and who is going to be able to access it. To avoid potential problems in this area, pay particular attention to what pages that online information is linked to, what types of pages are attached to the information, and which photos are included.

Schools looking to beef up their social media risk management strategies can start by setting up guidelines around their employees’ and students’ use of sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, to name just a few. Stress the fact that, once posted online, comments and photos “never go away,” even if the individual poster deletes them.

Sarah Evans, an Internet marketing consultant and director of communications for Elgin Community Collegein Elgin, IL, said schools should pay particular attention to the feedback being posted about the institution and its students and teachers. Assign someone to “search” the various sites (for the school’s name, for example) on a regular basis to essentially “police” the institution’s brand and make sure it’s being represented properly in the social media.

“You want to make sure that you’re portraying the same experience online that you do when people enter your institution’s doors,” said Evans, who pointed out that all social media sites incorporate a “search” function that allows users to type in keywords and “see what people are talking about in real-time, online.”

Also check out exactly what the content looks like before exposing it to the rest of the world. (If one of your teachers has his or her own Facebook page, pull it up online and see what it looks like to others.) Pay attention not only to the teacher’s or student’s own comments and postings, but also to the feedback being posted by “friends” who are reading–and commenting on–those social networking activities.