Did I say I was done?

Okay, this will be my final post in this blog. It has run its course. (Literally. Only those of you in EDES 501 will get that one.)

I couldn't leave the issue of "use this Gmail method" hanging. I would be ignoring my responsibility as an educator. It is actually a hyperlink error in Edublogs' instructions for creating student blogs.

Wait a second...

I just tried it again and it worked! It isn't an error on Edublogs part, it is an error on my part! I am so embarrassed - what a classic PEBKAC error! You see, I usually open hyperlinks in new tabs. This helps me quickly navigate back and forth between web pages and it also helps me keep track of where I've come from. But this particular hyperlink isn't intended to open in a new tab. It's one of those windows within a window types, like this:

Sigh...and here Pam and I thought we were so clever. We found the alternate Gmail method instructions in the FAQ section of Edublogs' Premium Support. Yup, Premium. I upgraded to a Pro account. It was the only way I could create the student blogs.
I was somewhat misled by a quote from one of my textbooks, which claimed student blogs were free. Or at least that is what I interpreted from this plug for Edublogs: "Set up blogs for students even if they don't have e-mail accounts. It is free and comes with 100MB of free space with 20 MB in size for image uploads" (Berger & Trexler, p. 107, 2010). In fact, plenty has changed in terms of what Edublogs delivers its Free and Pro clients. On the left is a quick look at the difference between Edublogs Free and Edublogs Pro. To be honest, the promise of "Safe, secure, reliable and trusted by over a million users..." is worth the extra $40.00 for the upgrade. For classroom blogging, I want a platform that specializes in creating a superior and worry-free educational experience for teachers and students. I am impressed by the user interface. Although not easy, it is fairly logical if you have had some blogging experience.

I would not recommend this tool to a colleague new to blogs and blogging, unless she was willing to put in considerable time with my support and guidance. And by time I mean about four to five hours. I would expect it would take at least this long to introduce the platform, learn how to set up the student blogs with the appropriate settings for privacy and administration, and then play around with the features like the themes and widgets. Blogging with students is not a project to take on the night before introducing it into a unit of study. I recommend at least a week of prep blocks, after school hours, and even a few evenings, dedicated to playing around with the platform and preparing for the inevitable "what ifs?". For certain, blogging in the classroom is the most complex Web 2.0 area I have explored to date. I am really honoured that Pam asked for my help and I am looking forward to implementing all we have learned with the Grade 9 students in the new year!

A look back...

...to my first post shows the tools I intended to explore on this Web 2.0 journey. I am so thankful that this was my inquiry project, and that there was some flexibility in my tool choice. I had no idea that to reach my goal of proficiency in each chosen tool would require so much time! It didn't take me long to realize that my intentions were unattainable. There will be plenty of details provided in my final reflection, which I will publish as a page on this blog. For now, I am pleased to say that I have no regrets. The tools I chose have served me well and are welcome additions to my Teacher-Librarian toolkit.

This is Jessica Levitt signing off for real! Thank you for reading.

References
Berger, P. & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 

Battle of the Books

I have to credit two colleagues for showing me the value in podcasts. Firstly, Steve, our Information Technology teacher and my "office" mate (you have to see this combination of library workspace/home to 40 laptops/computer repair/circulation desk/weekly school newsletter publication hub to understand the need for quotations) steered me toward CBC's Canada Reads contest. I mean really, I call myself a Teacher-Librarian and I have hardly paid any attention to this annual battle of the books! Well, that's about to change. For those readers who may not be as tuned in to Canadiana as we all should be, this year's theme is non-fiction:

"We want stories. Books that are page-turners with captivating narratives, memorable characters and vivid prose. Books so riveting you forget they are non-fiction. Books that introduce readers to a brand new world and bring them wholly into it. While we love the work that Canadian essayists, academics, chefs, decorators and self-help gurus do, those books aren't quite right. We want the final five to have stories that captivate the country.

They also have to be in English, in print and Canadian"(CBC Radio-Canada, 2011, para 7).

The conversation then included Pam, one of our senior English teachers (faithful reader of this blog and Canadian author expert), and within minutes a promising unit took shape.

• The Grade 11s will be introduced to the Canada Reads contest and learn of past finalists and winners here.
• The Grade 11s will gather on November 23rd to hear the live reveal of the Top 5 titles and the celebrity panel.
• In some format, to be determined, the Grade 11s will read at least one of the five titles.
• They will listen to previous Canada Reads events found in the archives from 2002-2008, 2009, and 2010. (Finding these archived podcasts required quite the journey through the CBC website!)
• They will choose a book from the Top 5 titles that they want to defend as the non-fiction book that Canada must read. 
• Each student will prepare a passionate speech defending their chosen title, to be recorded as a podcast and shared publicly on the Internet.

I will put my new skills to the test in guiding the Grade 11 students through the podcasting experience. I will advise the students to use Garage Band to create their podcasts, as we have MacBooks available at school. I will explain to them how they can then upload their podcast to iTunes, as many of them have an account. From iTunes, they can upload their podcast to Podomatic, the free site I used to host my first podcast. From Podomatic, they can share their podcast by emailing a link or capturing the embed code to place it somewhere yet to be established.

I am really excited about sharing the podcasting experience with the Grade 11 students. I hope to encourage them to subscribe to a few RSS feeds for podcasts I will recommend in our podcasting workshops. I am impressed with the introduction to podcasts provided in iTunes. I have already set myself up with subscriptions to "Q" with Jian Ghomeshi and I am downloading TED Talks like crazy. My favourite to date has to be "Learning From a Barefoot Movement" by Bunker Roy.

Perhaps some of these students will join me for a piece of humble pie?

References
CBC Radio-Canada. (2011, September 27). Introducing Canada Reads: True Stories [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2011/09/introducing-canada-reads-true-stories.html

Outcomes tbd

When composing posts for my blog, I uphold the belief that it is "crucially important to be able to express oneself in writing using words" (Richardson, 2010, p. 153). Yet in my previous post I told a story with audio and digital photographs. The written word was secondary, even tertiary, to the story of my daughters' foray into sisterhood. In fact, if you ignore the captions, there were no words in the VoiceThread until my friend Bruce added some written commentary and I responded. (Thanks, Bruce!) Was the VoiceThread expressive? I would argue yes. Was it emotive? Judging by the feedback I received from my Mum and Dad and a couple of friends, who would not (could not?) comment directly on the VoiceThread - yes, it was. The digital story is an entirely separate entity from the written content of the post. The written segment sets up the expectation that a digital story is going to be told, but the digital story does not need the written introduction to exist - it tells its own tale.

So. . .

Is it equally important to be able to express oneself in a medium other than writing using words?

In British Columbia, the Ministry of Education Language Arts Integrated Resource Package (IRP) hints at a form of expression that differs from the written word in Grade Four. One of the prescribed learning outcomes states, "It is expected that students will create meaningful visual representations that communicate personal response, information, and ideas relevant to the topic" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2006, p. 70). However, a few pages later the features and conventions expected in said visual representations are listed, containing key words and phrases like: simple and compound sentences, paragraphs, noun-pronoun agreement, tenses, capitalization, commas, spelling, legible writing, spacing words (p. 72). That sounds like writing to me.

Richardson (2010) argues, one of the big shifts we, as educators, have to make in how we teach content and curriculum is that "writing is no longer limited to text" (p. 153). If this is true, then the BC Ministry of Education appears to be holding us back. Fortunately, by Grade Eight the expected features are far more open-ended: "It is expected that students will use and experiment with elements of form in writing and representing [emphasis added], appropriate to purpose and audience, to enhance meaning and artistry, including
– organization of ideas and information
– text features and visual/artistic devices" [emphasis added] (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 53).

Teachers cannot wait for the Ministry to catch curriculum up with Web 2.0 developments. Our Kindergarten students should be publishing their own VoiceThreads! I just might have to write up my own learning outcomes for digital story telling. . .

References
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2007). English Language Arts 8 to 12: Integrated Resource Package 2007. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2007ela_812.pdf
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2006). English Language Arts Kindergarten to Grade 7: Integrated Resource Package 2006. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2006ela_k7.pdf
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.