Archive for category Web2.0

Writing While Reading

Oct 18

Posted by John Howell in Web2.0, literacy, reading | 2 Comments

Writing While Reading
I write all over the pages of every book I read.  It helps me have a conversation with the author and allows me to keep track of my thinking while I am reading.  I would love to have a Web2.0 tool that allows me to highlight, underline, and take notes in the margins while reading online.  Is there any such tool available? I just read through  Alex Beam’s article I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen where he quotes Anne Mangen highlighting the differences of reading a traditional book compared to reading online.  She says:

The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions – clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads – take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone.

I hear ya Anne!  If there is an online article or blog post that I really want to read deeply I will often print a hard copy so that I am able to write all over the paper.  If I don’t print off the article I will often highlight a section of the text, as if I am copying and pasting, which gives me a focus during the online reading experience.  It also gives me a specific purpose for using the mouse, it limits my scrolling, and seems to limit the distance between me and the digital text.  It’s not perfect but it helps my brain.

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Parenting 2.0

May 10

Posted by John Howell in Web2.0 | No Comments

So much has changed over the last 10 years and I can’t imagine what life will be like for my children when they are teenagers. I just finished reading a blog post from Shana Albert about How the Web 2.o has changed Education and her article asking if Teens are Lacking Interpersonal and Communicative Skills? There is simply no easy answer to Parenting 2.0

I can say that I spend a great deal of time learning about these technologies of today in order to help my children navigate through their Digital Worlds. There is a part of me that wishes it away but the reality tells me that I need to help prepare my children for the 21st Century and doing so takes me out of my comfort zone much of the time.

I think the number one way for me to help my children is to simply give them my time. Spending time rolling through a pile of crimson crisp leaves, crinkling our toes in the moist spring dirt, or curling up to a good book. Oh yeah, we read a lot…I try to give my kids an enjoyable reading experience daily. Let’s roast marshmallows at grandmas or play hide and seek before bed.

Building strong relationships and staying involved and helping them learn how to communicate is what I am comfortable with. Who knows what technology will be available when they are teenagers, but for me I simply want to stay connected to be able to have those conversations when things get tough.

I have been following Will Richardson’s blog for awhile and the one thing that really struck a chord with me is his willingness to share his thoughts and ideas about how he helps his own children. I look forward to hearing how he has supplemented his children’s learning experiences and what he has done to open their eyes to other possibilities. I look forward to hearing about how he is managing his way through Social Networks with his own children and the side conversations he has with them. It has me thinking, that’s for sure.

They say that children don’t come with instructional manuals but maybe we can create a wiki on this topic…Parenting 2.0, what do ya think?

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NOT Doing the Same Thing Differently

Jan 14

Posted by John Howell in Web2.0, blogging, education, podcasting, wiki | No Comments

Ideas about the Read/Write Web
flowing through my head
Relentlessly reflecting
Creatively Collaborating
Voices heard that become widespread
Through these tools, I DO NOT want to simply do the same thing differently. I am desperate to help my students take part in the global conversation, and for them to experience first hand the power of networking. I am desperate to have my students take charge of their learning and create, design, and let their imaginations soar. But, I struggle with how to do this. I am fumbling along and looking for answers.

I am passionate about helping my students discover their voice and realize their potential. I simply do not want to do the same things I have been doing in class differently. No! I need to figure this out and determine the best way to begin and to create sustainability.

Podcasting
I would love to work on podcasting with my students. I have a MacBook with Garage Band loaded and ready to go. We have worked with this a bit with poems they have written from the beginning of the year, but it is challenging finding the time. Where can I find 5 or 10 minutes in the day to work with this? OK, there is playground where a couple of students can stay in and work on this. We can have a working lunch, and there is some time at the end of the day to work with this.

I am not sure what to do when they have recorded their poems yet. I am going to check out podomatic and see if this is a free site to use. I don’t have a .Mac account so I will look around to see what is available.

Is this doing the same thing differently?

Perhaps but they are reciting their poems with energy and a great deal of pride. This is something I don’t think I have truly tapped into at such magnitude.

Wiki Projects
Hmm, I am using PB Wiki for my own organization strategy where students can stop by and take a look at our class notes but it is not collaborative. Our students do not have access to the editing portion of Our Wiki due to our filters at school.

Can the wiki be edited by more than one person at a time?

Is this doing the same thing differently?

I think so. I have not wrapped my head around how to get this going yet but the students have been exposed to wikis and can take that background knowledge with them to the Middle School.

Blogging
OK, we have started with this and I hope to connect with a local author, Freddie Remza, and have her stop by our blog to see the conversations taken place about her book, The Journey to Mei. What an unbelievably powerful experience it would be for the students to not only read a book, write about it, but have the author comment on their thinking. The students are engaged in the reading and writing and it will be interesting to see how this looks in a couple of months.

I don’t simply want to do the same thing differently with using blogs and need to be very conscious of how to help students go to deeper levels and I am not sure how. I will keep reading and searching for ways to answer this question.

ePals
This is up and running but I am finding it challenging to put together effective curriculum based projects where students can have a true global collaborative learning experience. I need to think this through more and find teachers that are willing to work on collaborative projects.

Digital Story Telling
I have seen a collection of Marco Torres videos and seen the potential value in having students create digital stories. I think the first step for me is to find out how to create effective story boards. I keep hearing about this but need to investigate more. Staying true to the theme, I simply do not want to do the same thing differently. Learning needs to be more.

Social Networking
Absolutely out of the question for this year. Our school is just not ready to have students begin constructing their own social networks in our building and quite frankly I am not ready to help facilitate this either. Well, wait a minute! We have used a “Discussion Board” within our class Blackboard Site where students are having conversations among themselves. This of course, is a monitored site where I post forums, or topics and students will lead the conversation. I will help by asking guiding questions but for the most part this is student driven and it has helped me spring board into using our class blog, Fantabulous Fifth Graders.

OK, what are the social networking tools I could use with students in order for them to leverage their own learning?

1. Flickr
2. Delicious
3. Twitter
4. Blogs
5. Skype
6. Google Tools
7. Wikis
8. What have I missed?

Oh, did I mention that I would also like to help my students become proficient at evaluating websites, how to cite sources, utilize the databases we subscribe to, how to search the Internet effectively, maximize Microsoft Word, Power Point, and Excel for optimum learning, read articles online using all the strategies effective readers use, and get them ready for our State Tests? It can be done! It must be done. Wish me luck.

Before the Conceptual Age can Arrive

Dec 24

Posted by John Howell in DavidJakes, Web2.0, Wesley Fryer, education, reform, teaching | No Comments

My wife and I decided to take some quality time to visit one of our local educational centers, The Roberson Museum and Science Center. While there, the Edwin A. Link Exhibit really spoke to me, so much so that I went to get a piece of paper and pencil and copied down some of the quotes around the room. Here is one:

Americans have long been fascinated by speed, motion, and any kind of vehicle that can explore new places.

We also have a recurring, if not constant belief in progress. The latest technologies often seem to have the potential not just to make life easier but solve large social problems.

The first half of the 20th Century these two themes – the romance of motion and belief in progress through technology came together in the idea of the airplane, and created an exciting concept.

The Air Age would be a time of peace and prosperity made possible by this new technology.

Before the Air Age could arrive, pioneers would have to explore and improve the technology, making it safe and demonstrating its usefulness.

There are many educational pioneers of today exploring and improving the technologies of the 21st Century, in order to make it safe and demonstrate its usefulness. We are fighting virtually the same battle today instead this time it’s over a different kind of technology and with a different social problem.

Who are the pioneers of today?

  • Students
  • Teachers
  • Administrators
  • Parents
  • Business Leaders
  • Politicians
  • Community Leaders

Perhaps there are others but I would imagine that to be a true pioneer in the midst of these exciting times that not only do you recognize the urgency and need to change but you act on them as well. The pioneers will blaze the path and the rest will follow in time. Unfortunately, it will take time and unfortunately some will take a fall.

According to Daniel Pink’s, A Whole New Mind, we are transitioning from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Many times transitions and times of change are marked with distinct dissidence, fear, and radical behavior. So it seems to me that before the Conceptual Age can truly arrive, todays pioneers will have to continue to explore and improve the technologies of the 21st Century, making it safe and demonstrate its usefulness. It would appear that history is repeating itself.

A book called Who Moved My Cheese talks briefly about different personalities and how they deal with change. According to Dr. Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese, there are three stages of change:

  1. Stage 1 ~ Preparing People for Change
  2. Stage 2 ~ Gaining Change Skills
  3. Stage 3 ~ Achieving a Change

A true pioneer, David Jakes, has put together a nice foundational plan for schools to begin dealing with this transition into the 21st Century. His plan seems to follow these three basic stages of change and outlines how school districts can begin to handle the transition effectively and in such a way that the staff will feel safe and find usefulness in the tools. Wesley Fryer, another who continues to blaze the path focuses in on very specific points in our educational system that needs to change.

During such times I would like to think that I am on the side of the pioneers handling the change in a way that will help blaze the path. I gotta tell ya though, I am riding on the coat tails of many others through this journey. I certainly feel that I am living and teaching during exciting times, and I look forward to the next year of growth.