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. 

The future. . .

I made it!

My nine weeks of Web 2.0 exploration are complete.

I have forwarded my recommendation to my colleague, Pam, for her upcoming blogging adventure with the Grade 9s. The winner of the hotly contested Edublogs vs. 21Classes blog platform debate can be found here.

Pam and I are meeting tomorrow to create the student blogs with the Pro Account I purchased. It will be interesting to see how Edublogs works around the usual requirement for an active email account. In my initial attempts to set up the additional student blogs I see that an email account is "required", yet a few lines further down it instructs, "If your users do not have email addresses you can use this Gmail method to add your users!"So far, clicking on this Gmail method hyperlink takes me in a circle. Hmm! I will have to investigate this further. The details of this dilemma will not be known before this post's publication deadline - further evidence that a Web 2.0 exploration project never really ends!

This is Jessica Levitt, mum, wife, reader, tl, and BLOGGER signing off!

Breathing room

While learning about and using the Web 2.0 tools Diigo, Jing, VoiceThread, and Podomatic, I mainly explored how I could use these tools as a Teacher-Librarian. My focus has been mostly professional. With my attention now directed toward Goodreads, a tool intended SOLELY for book lovers, which teacher-librarians undoubtably are, I have yet to explore it for anything other than personal use. How ironic! To be honest, it feels like I am getting a little break from the self-imposed professional restrictions of my Web 2.0 exploration.

My exploration into Goodreads began with a casual inquiry directed toward my friend and colleague, Pam. As you will learn from the sidebar, Pam tends to "jump in with both feet", to quote an obscure blogger. I had mentioned GoodReads to her late in the morning, and sure enough, true to form, Pam returned to the library that same afternoon raving about the site. Here's how it works:

Goodreads is a free website for book lovers. Imagine it as a large library that you can wander through and see everyone's bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings. You can also post your own reviews and catalog what you have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future. Don’t stop there – join a discussion group, start a book club, contact an author, and even post your own writing (How it works, 2011, para 1).

Pam has this practice of recording every book she reads and writing her own reviews, for herself. Now she has discovered an online tool where she can publish her reviews for others to enjoy. And let me tell you, it is enjoyable! I've been stealing moments of time to check in with Goodreads: while my daughters are in the bath, while the perogies and sausages are cooking on the stovetop, while having lunch at school. It's addicting.

These are two of my favourite features:

1. "Most book recommendation websites work by listing random people’s reviews. On Goodreads, when a person adds a book to the site, all their friends can see what they thought of it. It’s common sense. People are more likely to get excited about a book their friend recommends than a suggestion from a stranger" (About Goodreads, 2011, para 3).
2. "We even created an amazing algorithm that looks at your books and ratings, and helps you find other books based on what fellow Goodreads members with similar tastes enjoyed" (About Goodreads, 2011, para 3).

The algorithm only works after you rate 20 books. I could hardly believe how quickly I rated more than 20 books. I chose to browse through the books Goodreads has categorized into lists, found via a hyperlink called Listopia. Two rows down is "Recommended Lists" and the sublist "Best for Book Clubs". Within seconds I had rated my required 20 books. I then clicked on "Recommendations" and was thrilled with the results of the "amazing algorithm". Several more clicks and I had an impressive "To Read" list. Bring on the Christmas and Hanukkah gifts!

Here is a look at my "Favourites Shelf":
There are different book covers available so you can specifically choose the edition you have read, which I really like. I do not like the new cover for Through Black Spruce at all, and was relieved to find the edition I had read. I preferred the uncle's narrative voice to the niece's, so this cover with the male figure appeals to me.

The series title comes up in parentheses after the book's title, and I learned that some books are part of multiple series! (These come up in separate parentheses.)

The number column represents the Goodreads readers' average rating out of  5. The orange stars are my rating, also out of 5.

I have discovered that I am not naturally social on Web 2.0 tools. I really have to force myself to seek "friends" out. I am not interested in actively following people in Diigo, and I am more of a lurker than a

contributor on Twitter.

I have one friend on Goodreads. . .

Here's my pathetic call for my bookloving friends to join me on Goodreads. . .

References
How it works. (2011). Goodreads Inc. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/about/how_it_works
About Goodreads. (2011). Goodreads Inc. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/about/us

Reflecting . . . and a bit of ranting (just a bit)

I am at the halfway point in my blogging project. On Friday, I received informal feedback from my professor on my blog to date. It was not great, but I am not surprised. I have deliberately neglected including certain aspects of the overall assignment criteria in this blog. Not because I am a rebel, although I can join a good cause in a heartbeat, but because I am struggling to find a space in my blog for the very things I do not like reading in others' blogs.

Bloggers lose my attention when their posts are lengthy and when they descend into the how tos of a task, with those awful "and then, and then, and then" that I tried to beat out of my Grade 6 and 7 students when I was a classroom teacher. (Not beat in a violent sense, more in a repeated reminder sense.)

If I want "how to" instruction, I'll watch a step by step video on YouTube: I do not like to wade through written instructions. I would even suffer through a podcast, although I have said before how insufferably boring I find podcasts.

Herein, lies my problem: I do not want to produce something which I would not like to read.

I am not a technical writer. I prefer to teach by demonstrating. I am not the kind of teacher who provides her students with reams of notes to "learn" from. My lessons are mostly of the "demonstrate and apply" format, followed by an assessment of the application.

Yet. . .

This blog is for an assignment. I want to do well on this assignment, and I want to conclude this project in December having met the following four goals set in my proposal:

• to achieve the level of "proficiency" in all six tools
• that my future Web 2.0 experiences, through self-regulation, will be rich with deep learning 
• that each post will be a place “of critical thinking, analytical writing and reflection”
• to become a resource for teachers and students in my school (See my full proposal for further explanation of these goals, including references for some of the language appropriated here in quotations.)

I believe my readers are knowledgeable and they can infer a great deal from what I am not telling them. I believe my professors can do the same.

But. . .

Can my professors assess what they infer? I do not think so. To date I have demonstrated proficiency in Diigo, Jing, and VoiceThread. I believe I am becoming a resource for teachers at my school, and I have provided some evidence of this in these blog posts. But my posts have yet to be places "of critical thinking, analytical writing, and reflection", nor have I explained much of the deep learning that I have experienced.

Hmmm. . .

So. . .

My challenge from this point forward is:

• to include the "how tos" in a critical, analytic, and reflective style that will hold my readers' attention; and, 
• to provide evidence of my deep learning through connections to academic literature

My posts are going to get longer. I just hope they get better, too.

P.S. The rant: I HAVE SHINGLES! According to The U.S. National Library of Medicine, when you have had chicken pox as a child the virus lives on forever in your body. And for about 20% really fortunate people (sarcastic tone necessary) it can reactivate during a time of lowered immunity. Say, when your husband is away with the senior boys soccer team and you are single parenting and trying to stay abreast of your Master's level coursework. . .ARGHHHH!

For further information on shingles, refer to this page. Caveat: the images are disgusting!

My fling with Jing

According to the timeline I developed for this inquiry project in Web 2.0 tool exploration I should have completed my time with Flikr and Picassa. Astute readers of this blog (ummm, hi Joanne and Jennifer) will notice I have deviated from my timeline proposal significantly. It was only natural to overlap Diigo with Jing; really, it just happened. When I initially planned out my time with Diigo I intended it to be exclusive on-on-one time, but no one seems to have gotten hurt by my shared affection. Time flies though, so now that I have to leave Jing in the upper right hand corner of my screen, rather than actively open on my desktop, I should get back on track and return to Flikr and Picassa. But I can't. Storytelling seems to flow so nicely from Jing. So I'm off to visit Little Bird Tales and Voicethread. But first, the Jing affair...

Before I ventured into the screencast world I thought, as I always do, that it was something super techie and it was really going to stretch my capabilities. Was I wrong! It is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, as my daughter's teacher says. . . . except for those hours of my life I will never get back trying to figure out where my clipboard lives on my Macbook Pro. . . .

You see, TechSmith, the company that developed Jing, shared this little tidbit with me on their Jing tutorial page: "Now that you have your new Screencast.com button, you are ready to capture images or videos as usual, and click the button you just made to have embed code copied to your clipboard" (TechSmith, 2011). So I dutifully searched for my clipboard. I remember PMD (Pre-Mac Days) when my clipboard could be called up in a word processing program, but this simple process seemed to elude me on the Mac. After several frustrating searches in the Finder and then on the Screencast.com page looking for this bloody html code that was supposed to be ON MY CLIPBOARD, I finally, accidentally, figured out that it was hiding, where I could not see it, on my clipboard. Make sense? Yeah, not for me either, but when I hit "command + V" the embed code appeared in my draft post. Thanks be to the tech gods!

After this slight glitch Jing swept me off my feet. I captured a screencast for the Grade Five students to help with their inquiry project on diseases,


and one for the Grade Nine students as an at home refresher for an introductory lesson on Diigo.


All of these are hosted on my school library wiki where I have posted my Jing experiments for real time use.

Jing, you were just what I needed. 

Carina Olsen (Kat's Photography)

References
TechSmith Corporation. (2011). "Embed Jing content using Screencast.com." TechSmith. Retrieved from http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-jing-embed-content-using-screencastcom.html?requestsource=productredirect&redirlang=enu&redirproduct=jing&redirver=2.0.0

I've been cheating on Diigo

I feel like I have developed a good relationship with Diigo, but I need to tell you, it is not exclusive. You see, in order to demonstrate my learning I've had to master the art of the screenshot, and in so doing I have kind of fallen for another Web 2.0 tool.

Hard.

Actually, to be completely honest, I am in love with this new tool. Is it because I get to hear my voice in video captures? Or because I can precisely set the crosshairs to capture the exact portion of the screen? I'm not sure at what point I started pushing Diigo to the back burner, but it's happened, despite my best intentions to give it my all.

We'll still be friends, I promise.

Next post: My new love and I go public.

Proposal Approved!

As you can see from the text below my photo, I am a part-time grad student at the University of Alberta in the Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning program (TLDL). My full-time gig is as a Teacher-Librarian at a small, independent K-12 school just outside of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I am enrolled in a course this semester which requires independent exploration of at least six Web 2.0 tools. My learning is to be documented through this blog. The design of my exploration was crafted in the form of a proposal which I submitted earlier this week. The feedback I received last night from my professor was very positive. My proposal is approved!

I intended to explore the following tools in this order:

1. Diigo
2. Flikr and Picassa
3. Video/Screen casting
4. Good Reads vs. Shelfari
5. Digital Storytelling
6. Google Apps

However, this week I was experimenting with the screencasting app, Jing, so the order of tool exploration may shuffle as this blog evolves. For a detailed look at my proposal, this link will take you to the document in the publc file of my Dropbox account.


Next post: Introducing Diigo