Social Networking Sites 501 Blog Post

Social Networking

Social Networking in Plain English…amazing! Makes it all seems so easy to get connected and stay connected with friends, family and peers. In fact, it almost made me want to see how far I could push the envelope for finding: a new job; a new partner; and, a great place to live!!

One of my favorite pastimes is Ham Radio. In respect of my own anonymity in the webosphere, I will refrain from posting my callsign. But, I will share a little bit of history with you about my journey into amateur radio.

My Elmer, mentor, leader, role model, and guide through the journey was an awesome man who inspired me to pursue not only my basic qualifications to operate a ‘radio station’, but also to get my morse code certification while Canada still required it to own radios of certain power, and specific capabilities. As with every area of specialization, there are phrases, terms, idiomatic expressions, and terminology that users in that arena are required to assimilate into their bank of personal/professional knowledge in order to be successful in said arena. It is regrettable that mandatory morse testing was dropped from amateur radio in Canada, because it really required a radio operator to use a language that was specific to radio operations.

My Elmer was a retired firefighter, who spent 40 years helping others, saving lives, dealing with others’ mistakes, and trying to educate people about how to be responsible in the face of the considerable power of combustibles. I stumbled upon this individual not by chance, but by circumstance. I was back in Canada after a long absence in Asian Russia, and I had no way to communicate in realtime with friends I made, and family I reconnected with while traveling. Ham radio seemed like the most natural method of ‘keeping in touch’ with that area of the world. I found that, if I sent a package to them, or when my mother sent packages to me while there, the packages would get to me already opened, with the best contents removed (read: stolen) by locals, mail authorities, buerocrats who justified the theft as payment for allowing foreigners in their regions, or by mail transporters who got hungry while delivering the post. If I sent a letter to friends and family around the world, the mail was inevitably opened, sometimes lost, and ALWAYS read by others, so nothing was really secret. I approached my Elmer in Canada indicating my desire to use ham radio to send open, short messages by morse code to local postal outlets in various towns, villages, hamlets, and scattered settlements across Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, through Siberia, and up into Arkangel where postal workers would receive the morse transmissions, decode them into Russian, and deliver the messages to my family and friends’ mail boxes at their houses. I’m not even sure where a telegraph station is located in Alberta, but I can assure you that every city block east of the Carpathians has a telegraph station, where average people send telegrams for low-cost, at high-speed to others. I remember sending a telegram ahead of me as I left Piter to visit Sochi. The telegram was sent immediately, and my aunt got the paper transcription of my message an hour later delivered to her door.

Not only was ham radio effective for helping me to get morse code messages to friends and family, but it introduced me to an entirely different world of people who were connecting with one another literally at the speed of light around the world. Many a night my Elmer would call me on my handheld radio during the wee hours of the morning, demanding me to bring him two blueberry fritters and two extra large Tim Horton’s Double-Double coffees because “the bands are wide open, and I’m making contact in deep valleys in Italy, Chile, China (or wherever).” And, off I’d speed from my small house, cruise over to the local Timmy’s, get the booty for my Elmer, and jet to his place where we’d make contacts around the world while the atmosphere was quiet with solar activity. It was amazing to talk, in realtime, with no delay, to persons in extremely remote locations, and develop a network of ‘colleagues’ around the globe who would try to meet one another at specified times on certain days of the year to swap stories about long distance (called DX) contacts we’d made. I remember speaking to the space station on one occasion, but it wasn’t as thrilling as I thought, because there were no obstructions between earth and space to overcome! So, for me, social networking has always been an important aspect of my personal development, and finding new methods of contact was only a game to play, to figure out how to get messages around to many people at one time, so we could all share ideas with one another in an open venue.

Today, social networking has a new visage, and utility-specific language that accompanies the use of each tool for getting one’s messages out to their audiences. Another

Sunday

Today I spent touring around Ning, getting caught up in the many digressions available to a wayward mind on a Sunday afternoon that is looking for distraction. I created/joined a few Ning networks. Ning instructions are not as clear as I would have hoped them to be. Although today’s post is rather short, I learned a whole lot abut how to use Ning, and how other Ning users are integrating technology into their classrooms by reading countless posts about success and failure stories dealing with Web2 and technology in schools.

Monday

Today was Facebook day, when I updated my account that, well, hasn’t been exactly dormant during recent weeks, but didn’t receive full attention because of the various other Web2 tools and utilities I have been exploring. I am very pleased with how many new friends I have on FBook, and with how well received many of my postings on friends’ boards have been commented on. I was astounded to read Iyengar, Han and Gupta’s 2009 statistics about Facebook, “Social networks have become a cultural phenomenon. Facebook, one of the largest social networking sites in the U.S. was founded in 2004. By February 2009, it boasts more than 175 million active users and continues to grow rapidly. Worldwide these users spend 3.0 billion minutes each day on Facebook. More than 850 million photos and 5 million videos are uploaded on the site each month.” And, that, according to Leitner and Grechenig (2008), users are connecting with one another on the bases of “common language or shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality based identities. Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new information and communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging and photovideo- sharing.” With users connecting to other users through literally hundreds of millions of Social Networking Sites (SNS’s), from which is drawn this sample of “100 different social networks as the following, listed in alphabetical order: Amiglia, Amitize, Anobii, aSmallWorld, Asoboo, B4class, Badoo, Bebo, BeRecruited, Blogtronix, BooksConnect, BottleTalk, Boxedup, BuzzNet, Campusbug, Capazoo, CarDomain, CarGurus, Change, Cingo, CircleUp, CitizenBay, Classmates, Coastr, College, College Tonight, ColShare, CompanyLoop, DeviantArt, Dogster, Doostang, Eons, Etsy, Facebook, FaceParty, Famster, FanNation, FastPitch, Flickr, Flingr, Flip, Flixster, Friendster, Gather, Geni, Graduates, Groovr, GuildCafe, Habbo, Hi5, iHipo, ImageKind, iYomu, Kaboodle, KinCafe, Kinzin, Konnects, LastFM, Lawyrs, LibraryThing, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Lovento, Mahalo, Meetup, Multiply, Mycool, MySpace, Netlog, Ning, Orkut, Pairup, Pandora, Passado, Piczo, Plazes, RateItAll, Reunion, Revish, Ryze, Shelfari, Shoppero, Spoke, StudiVZ, StyleFeeder, Stylehive, Tagged, Takkle, ThisNext, TravBuddy, Tribe, Twango, Twitter, Vox, Wishpot, Xanga, Xing, Xuqa, Yelp and Zooomr.” (Leitner & Grechenig, 2008)

My own Facebook account is riddled with ‘friends’ who are friends of friends, but are business opportunities looking to advertise their pay-for-use services to continue to remain friends. This week, I found an excellent video about how to use Facebook:



While I realize that Facebook is not the only SNS, it is, by far one of the most common sites for users. Tonight I tried customizing my Fbook account, again, but had difficulties figuring out how to import the customizable wallpaper background for my account. I’m confident with my use of Web2 tools these days, so I cannot imagine how intimidating it must be for newbies with no background in technology at all….

Tuesday

Tonight I logged in to MySpace, also for the first time in a very long time. I like MySpace, and the functionality it offers users. While there are extensions and apps that a users can add, there is so much more functionality to MySpace. And, when I log in to my account, I like that I can have my playlist already dropping tunes for me to hear. I was able to add a new app to MySpace, but when I logged in I spent too long trying to update my profile. I’m thinking there must have been some sort of internal server error that kept me from editing my profile beyond the addition of a single app. In fact, at the end of a long night of trying to get MySpace to react, it ended up crashing FireFox on me several times, so I left the editing process there for the night. I decided to turn my efforts to reading more about social networking, and how online identities are created, monitored and measured by users in SNS’s. First off, though, I really like Park’s (2003, p.50) definition of found an excellent definition of social networking, and social networking analysis, “A social network is a set of nodes (people, organizations or other social entities) connected by a set of relationships, such as friendship, affiliation or information exchange (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). SNA is a set of research procedures for identifying structures in social systems based on the relations among the system components (also referred to as nodes) rather than the attributes of individual cases.”

Harrison and Thomas (2009) relate a qualitative research approach to online identity creation, “(f)irstly, they outline the core concept of identity, which refers to the way in which users develop their online profiles and list of friends to carry out four important community processes:
1. Impression management is concerned with personal identity formation, in which users define their own identities through the information they provide in their profile, and the extent to which they make it public or private in the community and thereby send out identity signals to others.
2. Friendship management is linked to impression management in that users use publicly displayed profiles of others to choose who they would like to include as friends on their list, that is, they look at the identity markers of other users as a benchmark for establishing levels of social interaction.
3. Network structure relates to the roles that users play in the social community in which they participate. Some users will be fairly passive and have a restricted personal network. Others will be active posters of information, and build up intricate networks of friends. Others will play an even greater role in actively promoting and developing the SNS as a whole, by setting up groups and communities and posting publicly available information to encourage interaction.
4. Bridging of online and offline social networks, which is concerned with the degree to which the SNS becomes an integral part of the users’ actual life while offline (Turkle 1995).

From my own experience, I have tried my best to limit the use of my name, location, and relations to family in my SNSs, and it is difficult when making friends, not to share personal information, and bonds of trust should first be developed between myself and other users before I provide contact email addresses, or personal information.
Despite the length of the following quote, I think it only appropriate that my own personal interests in the works of Milton Erickson and Lev Vygotsky should be recognized as contributing to a dialog surrounding SNSs. Harrison and Thomas (2009, p. 115):
“Social Interactionism:
The role played by what Erikson (1968) terms ‘other significant people’ has been recognised as a fundamental concept in social interactionism. Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Feuerstein et al.’s (2003) idea of Instrumental Enrichment, stressed that mediation is fundamental to all human development including learning. Successful learning is seen as being dependent on how learners interact with the people around them in order to overcome problems they cannot solve by themselves, so that they can move to the next stage of development that lies in the ZPD. The role of the significant other or mediator (also referred to as the ‘more knowledgeable other’ or MKO) is to attempt to find ways of helping the other person to learn. While Vygotsky noted the centrality of language as an essential tool used by humans to carry out mediation, Feuerstein et al. (2003) emphasized the fundamental role of mediators in the transmission of culture. In this way we can see that the concept of mediation provides us with a means to examine the roles of both language and culture in human development.”

I am a convinced that Social Networking Sites provide a shared social construction that mimics face-to-face human relationships, but provide greater safety in the interactions by allowing, as Harrison and Thomas note, respect for each individual’s Zone of Proximal Development, as well as each users Social Territorial Imperative.

This has been quite a plate of food for thought this evening. I will keep my readings up, and hope to share them with you later this week.

~rob

Wednesday and Thursday




















































Two days were spent creating new accounts for, and navigating through LastFm.com; LinkedIn.com; Zoomr.com; thinkfree.com; Ask.com; MetaCafe.com; LiveStreamTV; Pandora.com; ODEO.com; hi5.com; and bebo.com. There is so much available to newcomers into the webosphere, but unfortunately there isn’t enough time in the day to join a community, get engaged in learning what each community has to offer, and still get enough sleep to make the work day easier!

~rob


Friday

Today I returned to Facebook and MySpace, with greater success this time around. I was able to make changes to my profile, and update not only friends lists, but to change settings which I had been unable to do prior to today. I reread Michael Blanding's (2009) article, Thanks for the add. Now help me with my homework. I am very impressed with how 'on the mark' I believe Blanding is. Learning styles have changed considerably in the past five years as our society shifts to a more visual/kinesthetic demographic. I think that teaching needs to reflect a more visual/kinesthetic nature if we are to 'hook' kids into becoming excited about learning. I was pleased to have Joanne link a Trailfire to Stephen's Lighthouse, as that is a  website I have visited numerous times (like weekly) over the past three or four years. I always appreciate Mr. Abrams sense of humor, and the technology reviews he does. Another blog I am totally in love with is ZDNet.com, for news as well as the other treats they offer.

Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

This week the greater majority of my learning was from the journal readings I collected about the history, development, use, and explosion of SNSs during the past ten years, but more specifically since Facebook went public. I am really astounded that so many people are accessing SNSs each day, and so much information is passing through such a simple user interface. This week Stephen Harper used Twitter and YouTube to get his message out to youth, but according to the news his experiment was a bit of a bust because he failed to connect with his audience in ways that the public wanted to him to appear. While I understand that the last US election employed considerable efforts to use social media marketing to reach a demographic of voters that doesn’t typically present as a high voter turnout at the polls, I think there is a disparate sense of comparison between a US leader’s “Change” campaign, and a CDN Prime Minister using social media to ‘get to know’ we, the plebes, in Canadian society. The most recent articles I located in the ERIC, CBCA, and ProQuest databases through the university databases using the search terms +social +networking +facebook +myspace +twitter netted results that deal with analyses of social networking utilities. It is alarming to see the amount of research committed to employing social networking tools to gain greater shares of social capital in online communities. I wonder if the youth of today really have even a fighting chance to limit their exposure to the great machine that has billions of dollars invested in using social networking and social media marketing to increase the purchasing habits of today’s youth. My personal interest in appreciating the diversity of humankind leaves me wondering if the push to modernize southeast Asia and Africa by the year 2030 isn’t just a push by NGO producers to find greater markets in which they can sell their goods and harness the purchasing desires of developing nations by having them mass produce disposable items for distribution in developed nations….

Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning

My own personal learning this week, as with most weeks these days, benefited from the numerous errors I made, and shortcomings of knowledge I expressed with editing my existing accounts, and in creating membership in the new communities I joined. There is a great feeling of satisfaction I feel when I have mastered a technology…HA! Mastered! Well, when I have figured out how to create and post using a technology. This week I didn’t get that feeling of satisfaction, like with Animoto last week, or with Voicethread, or even with my PBWorks account.

My school division still blocks access to FBook, MySpace, YouTube, and the majority of other SNSs I highlighted in this week’s post. Students still use the verboten social networking sites, but they are not to talk about them, or try to login to them during school hours. The ban on social networking in schools makes me think my folks growing up in the  60’s, when rock music was still considered to be evil, and it was banned in many areas. How archaic can we really be and still make progress as a society? Are those same people who lived through the evils of rock era the employees running school divisions who are now determining the SNSs are out-of-bounds? What in the world will people say in 30 years from now when they look back on their education and realize how dissimilar schools are to society and the workplace?

Again, my learning this week was really gleaned from the readings I did, and from the difficulties I had with using the simplest tools that even elementary children have mastered!

Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

I have to be honest that there isn’t much more I can add to what I believe are the benefits and advantages of using social networking sites that Michael Blanding didn’t already mention in his article Thanks for the Add. Now Help Me with My Homework.

When I took over teaching high school classes in my school, the principal told me that class sizes ranged between 6 and 10 students for the options courses, and that it should be easy for my first experience teaching high school (remember, I’m a kindergarten teacher). Well, although I don’t know a whole lot about technology or Web2 tools, I was able to integrate PowerPoint presentations, YoutTube videos, mp3s, videochatting, virtual tours, online games, and various other technologies into out daily lessons, and class enrollment was 46 students, with some sitting on the windowsills, some standing, others sitting on the floor…you get the picture. Students want a school experience that reflects their everyday lives; they want an education they can use. In the 21^st century it is difficult to imagine enabling students with skills they might never use, when there are skill sets readily available to them they are off limits.

Again, there is no way I can add to Blanding’s (2009) article, but I will applaud the subscribers to the blog who left comments sharing stories about the need to reach students by providing them with an education that is emotionally and mentally stimulating so they WANT to learn.

I hope that after I retire from teaching in 32 and ½ years from now, that I will be able to look back and recognize that students enjoyed my classes and went on to use the tools I shared with them. It is amazing, because during our last Elluminate session I asked Joanne how she developed an interest in Web2 tools, and the persons who were influential in aiding Joanne’s development have inspired her to pass on a knowledge of technology to me, and I will likewise pass on the same inspiration to my students, and the spiral seems to continue growing…. It really IS quite amazing!

~rob

References

Blanding, M. (2009). Thanks for the add. Now help me with my homework. Retrieved from http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/marks/295594

Iyengar, R., Han, S., & Gupta, S. (2009). Do friends influence purchases in a social network? Retrieved from www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-123.pdf

LeFever, L. (Producer). (2007, August 6). Social Networking in Plain English. Common Craft. Podcast retrieved from http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61581

Leitner, P., & Grechenig, T. (2008) Social networking sphere: A snapshot of trends, functionalities and revenue models. Retrieved from www.iadis.net/dl/final_uploads/200810C024.pdf

Park, H. (2003). Hyperlink Network Analysis: A New Method for the Study of Social Structure on the Web. Connections 25(1), 49-61.

Multimedia sharing/mashups 501 blogpost

Social Media 

My teaching duties are split between kindergarten mornings, and high school afternoons. At report card time, most ECS parents want to know how their children are developing socially, and what aspects of their childrens’ daily activities are progressing best. High school report cards are a different story. I remember the last high school report card night I sat at, when one parent in particular came into the gymnasium, where the meetings are held, and while waiting to speak with the teachers of their child, they talked to a client via a Blackberry, checked some documents on their laptop, and responded to a Mic Phone call. One of the questions this parent had for me, was why in the world their child cannot use a cell phone at school. My response was a deferral to school policy stating “no cellphones”, but the issues goes much deeper than a simple student policy.

I am familiar with the nature of that parent’s business, which is a multi-million-dollar-a-year industry. Having spent time with that gentleman, I know that early in the morning, that dad reads the news on his computer at home, checking emails, responding to client concerns, delegating work to subordinates, calling numerous suppliers about contracts, shipping, and, planning for trips that take him out of the country on a weekly basis. His office is his Ford pick-up truck, from which he manages several hotels, three trucking companies, eight time shares around the globe, and three VERY large, high-grossing, local concerns. On top of all that, he has six children that he keeps in contact with via LCD screen. His wife talks about how busy he is, and how much she wishes he were home more. For him to make it to parent-teacher night is almost astounding, but it is even more shocking for him. He believes that school should better reflect the duties and responsibilities that new workers entering the workforce will be expected to perform. His reliance on technology is not an isolate incident. For such a parent to visit a school, and see student work on paper makes him chuckle. Hoping that someday his children will be supervisors, managers, and office managers for the empire he built over a lifetime of industry, he asked me, “what are you teaching them that they can use to make money for me?” My response was candid, yet political, “Sir, you see, the skills we acquire in our classroom enable students to transfer their abilities across a range of interests…” He found this laughable as well. “I see, it’s not you, it’s the system. It’s hard for me to believe that schools haven’t changed in the past 30 years, but society has moved forward, leaving you guys behind!” And so the conversation went as I listened to his perspective about technology. I left report card night realizing there are many more skills our high school graduates need just to get hired by a respectable employer in the 21st century.

That incident took place a year ago, but this week while I was collecting research about social media I encountered Wayne’s (2010) article, Are you wireD?

“Are you wired, connected networked? Are you blogging, videocasting, and getting your feeds on your PC, not your plate? Seen any terrific mashup blogs lately? Recorded your weekly podcast to staff?

Or, are you an analog administrator drowning in a digital world? Regardless of where you sit on the speeding technology train, one thing is absolutely certain – the world of communication is changing. Just watch today’s college students communicate electronically with each other if you doubt the tectonic shift under way. These people are tomorrow’s public school parents.” (p.16) Wayne’s article emphasizes the simplicity and ease with which educators and education-based administrators can connect with the communities they serve via social media mashups, most notably through Twitter, Facebook, podcasting, and district websites. Thus, I am no longer skeptical about including social media in my teaching experience, because of the confidence I’ve gained from our Web2 course.

Sunday

Today was Trailfire day, and I really enjoyed the Social Media In Plain English video. I’m not much a fan of ice cream, and I wish Lee LeFever had used donuts to illustrate the effectiveness of social media, but the point was loud and clear:

Today I watched the video presentation about Animoto, and this seems like a useful, interesting tool. Unfortunately, my digital camera is broken, and I am unable to take pictures today, but I will ask a colleague if I can borrow a camera later this week so I can take photos and make an Animoto. At first glance, Animoto seems to be a web-based movie maker that assembles photos into a linear collage of still images, with options to insert video and audio files for diversity in presentation. I will definitely try to find some way to master this tool by the end of the week.

Voicethread has returned to our course this week! I wasn’t very receptive toward Voicethread a couple of weeks ago when I was hoping to create a simple podcast, and found that voicethread was much more than I needed to make a humble digital recording of my voice, along with a place to host the recording.

Despite the academic nature of our course, I am always interested in using my Web2 exploration to construct artefacts that represent my own personal interests, as well as meeting our course requirements. Like my own students, when I am personally connected to a subject, to a theme I enjoy, I invest more energy into my efforts, because the moment speaks louder when I can contribute to it. Stuart (2009, p.22) relates an important point about the value of engaging social media uses into a library’s experience, similar to my own desire to connect with Web2.0 use through personally relevant material, “Social media—the most popular are blogs, wikis, social network sites, and microblogging offer both opportunities and difficulties in the establishment of metrics: Social media adds a level of qualitative information to the quantitative data traditionally made available through web analytics. However, the quantitative information is often restricted and not easily comparable among sites.” I can definitely agree that, as a user, I feel validated in my contribution to online communities by the comments I share with others, just like the content I give back to the microadobe I live in with my brothers and sisters across the world. When others validate my comments, I am not only more likely to reside in that sphere, but also to bring others there as well. But, it isn’t so much because I am finding solace with like-minded believers to my ideas and ideals, but that my expression contributes to a body of knowledge about a given topic that is important to me. Wikipedia is a venue where I can comment (add knowledge) to several fields of interest that reflect the many aspects of my personality, and the diversity of my understandings. I don’t necessarily feel abashed when an idea or comment has been altered by another user, because that is indicative to me that there is another user who is more of a ‘specialist’ in that area than myself, and I typically follow the postings of such people so I can learn more from them. “The suggestions”, according to Marcoux and Loertscher (2009, p.7), “(and strong ones they are) for incorporating technology into our work so student interest in research and resources may flourish are only as good and as helpful as we make them. So take time to investigate what is out there, use what is most helpful to your situation, and know that this is a world that is rapidly changing. Focus on how to best serve students’ needs and you make the call as to what to use in your environment.” So, with that said, tomorrow I set off on a new journey to follow through with

Monday

Today I created my Animoto account, and I am impressed with how easy it was to get setup. I played around with the account, but my explo’ is limited because I don’t have photos or videos to upload, and I am still wondering what theme my animoto will follow. I watched the complimentary Animoto video a couple of times, partly because it is very well made, and partly because it has a theme I wish I could make mine after.

***Hold on, I think a short update is in order. Last September my digital camera, a Nikon D3000, got busted at school during a game the kids were playing. Last summer my GloFiish was in my pocket when I was fooling around with some of the guys, and the beautiful little machine got crushed as the wrestling match was just getting great and I was starting to win. The hard drive in my laptop recently fried beyond repair. My iPod fell from the seat of my Jeep when I was driving to Montana in the fall, and I didn’t realize my heel was crushing the screen for a couple of hours while on the road. I lost my DSLite at the university during my first summer residence two years ago, and the same week my bicycle was stolen, it was my beautiful Scott Sub20. So, I’m not having much luck with technology these days, and with the rising costs of dorm fees and tuition it is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to scrape together the funds to replace lost, stolen and broken items. My hope is that by next year I will be able to get tech savvy, and be totally connected with my family and friends, and recent classroom acquaintances more often when my masters degree is done. I never realized how important it is to have effective tools to participate in an online community, and how difficult it must be for people who want to engage others in dialog, but feel the same limitations I am constrained with at this point in my life. I read Farkas’ (2009, p.35) article, Governing social media: Protect your library’s brand online with interest. I was particularly interested in how she echoed Joanne’s idea about the blurring of boundaries between public, private, professional, and personal identities across social media utilities: “With online social networking, the lines blur between the personal and professional, simply because one’s audience is often made up of people from various parts of one’s life. My network on Facebook and Twitter consists of family, friends from childhood and college, people from my professional network, and faculty and students at my university. As a result, it’s far more difficult to keep my work and private lives separate online. In a single day, I may tweet about the cute thing my infant son did and the project I’m working on for my library.” For me, theme plays an important role in creating identity, but the theme must also respect the boundaries I am willing to create about how much of my life is available in the webosphere.

So, back to Animoto…. Despite feeling disadvantaged at having few tools for creating the initial resources necessary to share blips about my life with our online community, I will try to find some artefacts to add to my Animoto account to create a project there that are, in the very least, reflective of who I am, and what I do.

Check I again tomorrow and I’ll show you what ideas I came up with!

Tuesday

Tonight was elluminate, and I really enjoyed our talk, and the sidebar chat we had, thanks folks! After two years of online study, my attitude and disposition toward online collaboration, especially online studies, has changed dramatically. Working in seeming isolation to get my work completed, and only to interact with others through delayed monologue has made the past two years very difficult. And, while I realize that this masters degree is an independent research program, independence is challenging when tackling research for the first time. And, since my present Web2 course requires about 35 hours each week for collecting articles, exploring tools, creating artefacts, and evidencing my own personal and professional growth through the utilities, I still have another 35 hours each week to dedicate to the other courses I am taking concurrently; (on top of teaching full-time, working as department head to establish our fledgling tri-lingual languages program, and lastly, to get some sleep at night). I won’t try to tally-up the number of hours I spend on each course, plus working, or it would make me wonder what I am doing to myself through sleep deprivation, nutrition deficiency, and lack of interpersonal, one-to-one social contact. When attending conferences, I have linked-up with peers who are in my course, and those who are completing options courses are feeling the same pinch as myself. Despite repeated reminders from friends and family that I need to “get out and get some fresh air”, I am already 20 months into my program, and I hardly think that now is the time for a break. After tonight’s elluminate session, I am even more impressed to share a blip about the need to be surrounded by positive people who can motivate and encourage one another to participate in discussions and jibes when times allow for it. It isn’t so much rhetoric about focusing on the goal, and staying one’s course to get work done that helps me to keep moving forward, and to immerse myself in learning and utilizing new technology. It is the nuances I find in reading my classmates’ postings that reflect their positivism, and the fluidity they develop in using technology that encourages and inspires me to be both persistent and tenacious in mastering our weekly explorations and postings. There are so many inadvertently negative influences in the world that can act as distractions against trying to stay focused on fulfilling my obligations to my academic studies, and my career. I try to keep my blogposts directed to the lighter side of life, as I spend each night at my computer, living vicariously through digital user interface with the rest of our global community. I have been fortunate to have traveled far and wide, and I never realized how important those travels would become to me when I was to become restricted in how much I could experience in life beyond the walls of the office in my home during this time. If my optimism sometimes seems too great, I can say with surety that Dale Carnegie was right on the mark, when he wrote that we should be “hearty in our approbation, and lavish in our praise.”


So, to continue with lavishing praise when praise is due, I would to say how much I liked what Joanne said about how twitter changed her life, and how she uses twitter as an indispensable form of PD when and she follows inportant hashtags from users who update others with their own PD experiences. I also like how Joanne commented that she follows, and has followers that reflect her own interests, and how she belongs to a community. I am still trying to find my own voice, and a community of similar-minded bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, tweeters, and Fbookers. Since Web2 tools are still very new to me, I am still learning how to use each different tool to express my voice and my interests with different communities I participate in.

Tonight’s elluminate session was great, but after a long staff meeting, and an elluminate session, I will have to provide an Animoto update tomorrow!

Cheers!

Wednesday and Thursday

Funny, tonight as I am using MSOffice 2003 I am coming to realize that too many words in MSWord 2003 spellchecker fail our new technology. I’ve found words such as blog, vlog, MySpace, Facebook, blogspot, LinkedIn, Gmail, Animoto, Ning, Skype, YouTube, microblogging, and, even folksonomy get FAIL from Word 2003.

Ah, and then there is Animoto! Animoto is anything but a FAIL in my books. I really like Animoto, and the free account allows users to create a 30 short video from photos in the Animoto photo album. Animoto reminds me of Windows Movie Maker that comes as a stock item on pretty much any PC these days, but Animoto hosts the video that users create, and there is no stress about which site will provide viewers to check out my artefacts.

Of course, I am simplifying the Animoto process, and it actually took me about an hour to figure out what tools are available via the free service Animoto provides (the number of tools is seriously restricted for free users taking advantage of the freemium service), but it still takes time to figure out how to use Animotos libraries.

I am pleased with my progress in Animoto today.

Friday

Today was a great day to get familiar with Voicethread again. I chose to use Voicethread’s media files supported by the New York Public Library. I narrowed my topic of interest to images of Staten Island from the turn of the last century, and the result was a success…kinda. I was unable to resolve two issues with Voicethread this week: 1) I cannot figure out how to import music into my ‘thread, in order to use music as a backdrop for the photos, instead of using my voice for narrative; 2) I was completely blind to the proper button or procedure about how to make my ‘thread public, and I cannot figure out how to make my slideshow available to all viewers. I will try this again tomorrow. The assignment IS complete, but I would like to have it clearly more functional than it is in its present state.

Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

Learning about social media was an enjoyable process this week, I think in part because of my prior exposure to Voicethread a couple of weeks ago. Mostly, though, I enjoyed Animoto, and that made a huge difference for me. I was put off by pbworks last week, because I did get a sense of immediate gratification from seeing my works in final form immediately after setting up the necessary resources to make the creation happen. Followers and readers of blogs expect bloggers to maintain a level of daily interaction with their audiences. Stuart (2010, p.46) reminds us that, “In the Web 2.0 world, users have an expectation of a constant flow of new information. With everything automatically time stamped, it quickly becomes obvious when institutions are not fully partaking in the community.” A small amount of time devoted each day to exploring with a tool, and supplementation with academic research into the nature and changes of a tool make a world of difference with providing the how’s and why’s of a tool, but also permitting a user with incentive to add something new that they build upon, much like the eclectic nature of a quilt that is a collection of patches, or knowledge – all assembled into a connected, collective whole.

Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning

My own personal learning, as I found out this week more than any other since beginning this course, is really connected to my own interest in a topic or theme, and directly proportionate to the level of satisfaction and gratification I get from using the tool or utility. I enjoyed using Animoto to create because of the simplicity it offers. I still have a lot of learning to do, and to create more projects using the tools I explored with this week. It is regrettable that Animoto offers only a 30-second short movie for free users, as it would be nice to have the option to create, say, up to five of each of the paid services before having one’s account limited to the 30 short, so a user could get a feel for how interactive and versatile the Animoto account really is (free users cannot access all of the features a paid account offers). Kniffel (2010, p.2) remarks that, “What’s happening is that the technology has become easier, so the technologically challenged can turn our attention to the content of our blogs instead of the novelty of publishing one.” Grensing-Pophal (2009, p.36) relates the experience of Patricia Fraser:

Personally, says Fraser, “I almost never turn to a company’s help desk or customer service department now because it’s faster to Google my question than find a number, sit on hold, and inevitably be asked 10 stupid questions before I get to ask my question.” She continues, pointing out that she feels that social media “is honest. Many times,” she says, “my problem is one that the company won’t admit, has ‘never heard of’ or just can’t answer properly. There are a lot of people out there willing to write down how they solved a problem or [who] have a workaround—including when they got a refund or replacement product.” Lastly, she says that the social media approach has a clear price advantage for customers: “It’s free. Too many companies won’t help you unless you are within a certain period of purchase or have paid support.” Social media is breaking down barriers by providing ways for individuals to communicate their experiences directly, in real-time with one another to provide a more accurate, more realistic model of customer-oriented business that is changing the way both beginners and experienced social media users are giving-back to society in ways unprecedented in previous generations.

Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

”For students in grades K–3,” writes Ramig (2009, p.9) “find ways to use online social networking tools with the entire class. Pair up with another school. Together as a class, post online messages that students in the other school respond to. For very young students, try a network such as VoiceThread, which uses recorded messages rather than typed ones. By second grade, you can move to blog or wiki sites that are text-based. Encourage parents to read what has been posted too. Have class discussions about social networking. Students even as young as kindergarten have heard of Facebook and Twitter, so seize this opportunity to talk about what these sites are and how they are similar to what you are doing in class. Discuss what is good to post online and what should only be shared with people the students know in person.” I am always looking for new ways to integrate new technology in my classroom that does not present me as the sole distributor of knowledge, but that allows students to participate in using the technology. Every classroom in our school has an interactive whiteboard, and using a computer in the kindergarten class is a collective effort of all students watching and learning together. IT is easier for students to use a SMARTBoard’s haptic features more successfully than the keys on a standard keyboard because of the still-developing fine motor skills of most students at that age.

I am very likely to incorporate Animoto into my class activities because the icons are large enough that my students could ‘press’ the buttons for everyone to see as a group learning activity.

-rob

References

Carnegie, D. (2010, January 4). Quote retrieved from http://dalecarnegie.com

Farkas, M. (2009). Governing social media: protecting your library’s brand online. American Libraries, December, 35.

Grensing, L. (2009). Social media helps out the help desk. EContent, November, 36-41.

LeFever, L. (Producer). (2007, August 6). Social Media in Plain English. Common Craft. Podcast retrieved from http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/77918

Kniffel, L. (2010). Is technology catching up? American Libraries, March, 2.

Mercoux, E., and Loertscher, D. (2009). Keeping up with technology requires collaboration. Teacher Librarian, (37) 2, 6-7.

Ramig, R. (2009) Social media in the classroom – for kindergartners (!) through high schoolers. Multimedia & Internet@Schools, Nov/Dec, 8-10.

Stuart, D. (2009) Social media metrics. Online, Nov/Dec, 22-24.

Stuart, D. (2010) What are libraries doing on twitter? Online, Jan/Feb, 45-47.

Wayne, G. (2010) Are you wired? Leadership, (39) 3, 16-18.

Widgets, Gadgets, Addons... and ... Mxyzptlk: 501 Widgets, Gadgets, Addons Blog Post

Gadgets, widgets, addons.... I suppose I am already old school in my thinking, but when I hear the terms gadgets, widgets, and addons, I can’t help but connote those terms with small, or at least compact-ish items, not necessarily of the highest manufacturing quality, that are seemingly disposable because of their low cost.

Growing up back in Oakville, Ontario, we didn’t have dollar stores, but, rather Bi-Way stores, where a kid could get a whole lot of everything for VERY low cost. A quick Google search earlier this week netted a blog that shows there are still three BiWay stores in operation back home. As a kid, my mom would take my four brothers and myself to the BiWay, once a week, where we could find knock-offs of popular items that were out-of-reach for our $2/week allowances. Well, actually, it wasn’t really an allowance that I was collecting, because I had to do chores to earn it, so it was more like a wage. But, I don’t think the training I got from my chores really enamored me too much. Somehow, as a kid I already had a strong sense that if I was being paid to sweep the floor, pick up the trash, cut the grass, wash the car, trim the hedges, clean my room, and pick the fruit off the trees, amongst other duties, I was basically doing the job of hired help/janitor. And, I really didn’t aspire to janitorial work, because I saw what those folks had to do in my school, and while it is a respectful position to hold, the kids still made fun of the people who cleaned the washrooms. And, I didn’t want kids to make fun of me, so I resisted in performing many of my chores until I was humbled enough to do my work so I could afford to buy a week’s supply of Lik-M-Aid Fun-Dip Lik-A-Stix, Bottle Caps, Neapolitan Taffey, O-Pee-Chee hockey cards, and, of course, whatever imported gadgets, widgets, or on-the-shelf- addons were being discounted for sale each week. I suppose that I have romanticized my memory of the BiWay store that made a small fortune off our allowances. I can still recall the amazing things I bought at BiWay, things that were referred to as gadgets, such as a key chain that beeped if you whistled a correct pitch, which was to help people find lost keys. Oh, and then there was the brown ‘leather’ (naugahyde) wallet that had a rain jacket built in to it, and there were days that I wore my brown, tent-fly-material, k-way-knock-off jacket with a wallet shell attached to the bottom hem on the back that I could tuck into my back pocket. Ah, what found memories of childhood gadgets I have. A quick Google search earlier this week connected me with some pictures of what the image of ‘gadget’ conjures up in my mind:




Butter in a tube -- gadget!

A suit for baby to wear so they can mop the floor -- gadget!

A tissue paper dispenser designed for persons with chronic post nasal drip -- gadget!

A toaster that can add brand logos to bread -- gadget!

Also this week, I found out what the terms gadget, widget, and addon mean to the new generation of learners who embrace and immerse themselves in Web 2.0-based technologies. And, for those of you who visited my blog last week and found things pretty much in order, you will notice that my blog is no longer as neat since my experiences with trying to integrate gadget, widget, and addon technologies into my space here in blogpost (see sidebars of this blog)!

I began this week by doing my readings first, before styling my way into a Google search to find information about gadgets, widgets, and addons. I wish there had been a trail fire video link to a widgets video created In Plain English by Lee LeFever, about how to incorporate these new technologies, because I still had a number of questions about the use and inclusion of gadgets, widgets, and addons into the various social networking sites we have been working with during this term. But, don’t get the idea that I was completely helpless!

The first article I read was Wisniewski’s (2008) Fast and Easy Website Tuneups, which are recommendations that definitely helped to show me why I need to make changes to the way I use technology so my voice is more attuned to how readers, listeners and viewers interact with what I share through my postings. I can’t pinpoint exactly one article that has lead me to understand that considerable research is being done to understand the networking habits of online technology users, but Nicola remarked in her discussion posting this week, “As a reader of blogs on a regular basis I tend to focus on the post and find that blogs that are too busy are distracting; therefore, I tend to ignore the information in the sidebar. The ones with a cleaner, simpler feel come across as organized and I then examine the sidebars. There is a fine line between too much and not enough. One of the most useful widgets is a blog roll that informs me of other blogs that may fit my interests. For example, I am a big fan of http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/ and find that I really look at the widgets as they include recent comments, a twitter feed highlighting what others say about the blog and a blog roll.” I totally agree with Nicola, and it seems that her experience with using these technologies has really helped her to find her own voice as a follower/subscriber of various blogs that helps her to know what and how she wants to interact with others’ blogs.
I’d like to re-work Wisniewski’s sixth point into a way that I can remind myself to stay on top of my own blogging. Wisniewski reminds us to ask of others:

• What is the purpose of your visit to our website today?
• Were you able to complete your task today?
• If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?

And, I’d like to ask of myself,

• What is the purpose of adding to my website today?
• Was I able to complete my task today?
• If I was not able to complete my task today, why not?
• If I was able to complete my task today, how will users respond to what I added?

The next important article that got me moving this week was Kroski’s (2008) article Widgets. Kroski encourages users to get to know widgets by creating their own through a free service offered by Widgetbox.com I created my own widget, not knowing how it would turn out. In fact, I am quite pleased with how easy the process was, and how great that compact-ish little, low cost (*sic FREE*) works. However, this little addition to my blog also made me see that my blog is not quite as colorful, or interactive as it could be if I had a few more months of experience as a blogger.

Kroski (2008) also mentions that,
“Still more widgets can be used in Web sites and social networking profiles and do not require installation or download. These gadgets may be found in a variety of places online, including social software sites.
YouTube, for instance, provides a piece of HTML code that can be copied and pasted into a site or blog. This embed code, which appears to the right of any YouTube video, is the means by which millions of clips are now being shared on the Web. The hosted storage Web site Box.net allows its users to share folders of stored files for others to download including PDF files, spreadsheets, presentations, and other documents through a widget. As with YouTube, a Box widget can be placed on any Web page, blog, or social networking profile simply by pasting in the related code. Want to chat live with Web site visitors? With the Meebo Me instant-messaging widget, you'll get a personalized IM window to do just that.” Admittedly, I did not know that embedding codes were considered with widgets or gadgets, and began using embed code to prevent me from having to download, then upload files to allow users to interact with my resources. I am very pleased with how much learning has taken place so far in this course, and I am impressed with how completely malleable the internet is for users who need to connect files across various platforms, and through various utilities and tools.

Marcoux and Loertscher (2009) write that, “now educators face the second decade of the 21st Century with seemingly unlimited ways technology can influence what we do. Simlutaneously, children and teens of this generation have enthusiastically embraced technology for social networking and content creation purposes but have failed or not been allowed to extend their technology expertise over into their academic pursuits.” (p.14) I’m sure I have been guilty of proving Marcoux and Loertscher’s point as true, because of the limited understanding I had of Web 2.0 tools for educational purposes. And, despite my blogposts indicating familiarity with these tools, I think it is only through daily contact with others via Web 2.0 tools, that I can develop confidence similar to Nicola’s, that will eventually allow me to teach others about these tools in ways that are meaningful for the learners.

Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

As I mentioned earlier, I am at a loss to explain what happened during the process of adding gadgets to my blog. I found, and integrated a Twitter gadget, which is working, but doesn’t have the same appearance as the gadget image on the site from where the gadget was taken. I added a Diggit widget, and it was a little more disastrous than the Twitter widget, because it isn’t formatted to fit the sidebar of my blogspot account. I would very much like to keep the Diggit widget, just because I enjoyed experimenting with Digg, but I think the widget makes the side bar too cluttered, and the poor aesthetics created by a widget that is cut-off on one side doesn’t really reflect my personality as much as I would like from tools/addons on my blogspot.

Other gadgets I added are: It’s a Library Thing, because of my love of books. However, this gadget doesn’t format to my blospot either. Lastly, there were two other gadgets I added that work with my blogspot, and that are ‘good’ for me. The first is a Google Maps/ Google Video gadget, which allows me to host Google videos and location finder to BMW 335i Twin Turbo videos, which is a beautifully created, awesome functioning marvel of German engineering. And, the last is a Google Video search bar, to allow users to rip through Google videos right in my blog

Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning

I learned a lot about widgets, gadgets, and addons this week, and despite my own shortcomings in being able to make them work correctly, I know that with repeated use, I will find greater success, more satisfaction, and increased understanding of how to incorporate these tools into my ‘online voice’ in the future. I am somewhat perplexed by the limited number of articles available through the university libraries online databases regarding widgets, gadgets, and addons. I thought there would be more information, and better yet, more research-based evidence of the success of using these tools to attract readers. Yet, individual exploration and investigation seems to be the order of the day for newbies hoping to get familiar with using these, uh, not so new technologies.

Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

Widgets gadgets, and addons, while providing more visual appeal for a website, blog, or networking link, definitely increase the functionality of a page, to offer more to users than a simple interface. I think of the pilgrims who stepped off the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, and lived according to the light given by the sun, and maybe with a little fire at night from a candle they had to manufacture themselves. I’m sure those folks spent a lot of time together, sharing stories, and living by a traditional system of word-of-mouth information transferrance. Heck, probably that’s when a handshake was still a handshake, and people lived by the auditory-kinesthetic interactions they had with one another. And, while books were worth their weight in gold, they weren’t as readily accessible as they are today. Then, along came radio, which still held listeners captivated by oral tradition, and left imaging up to the imaginations of the hearers. Well, then along cam television, nuclear energy that made processing of resources cheaper and easier, and the media was born as society became more bombarded with images on every side. Sometimes when I watch documentaries about the 1920’s and 1930’s I think there was more advertising through signage than we have today! Evidently there has been a shift in our society that leads us from auditory traditions, to visual traditions, and the internet, video hosting, image hosting, flash animation gadgets, embedded widgets, avatars, and background customizing lure our visual senses into a Web (*2.0*) of information, excitement, and interaction that satisfy the deeper needs of human learning systems.

In my classroom, I will encourage students to add these features to their sites, and their online journals/blogs. I know that all of my students use cellphones, and in my searching for gadgets, widgets, and addons, I found many useful tools, like the Twitter bar, that didn’t exactly work as planned, but seems to be up and flying now! 

I had a great week finding new forms of expression for my ‘spaces, and now I will take the time to find synchronicity between my own learning and the new tools to achieve the desired results that the tools can produce.

-rob

References

Kroski, E. (2008). Widgets! School Library Journal, 54(2), 41.

Kuhn, N. (2010, February 27) Creating personalized spaces [Msg 1] Message posted to private WebCT Blackboard class posting for EDES 501 - CONFERENCE SEMINAR (SEM 95 Wi10).

Marcoux, E., & Loertscher, D. (2009). Achieving teaching and learning excellence with technology. Teacher Librarian, 37(2), 14-22.

Wisniewski, M. (2008). Fast and easy website tuneups. Computers in Libraries, June, 24-26.

Wiki Week: Collective Knowledge for a Collaborative Cohort: 501 Wiki Blog Post

Sunday

Last Thursday morning our class was beginning the day with circle time, and I mentioned to the students that I’d had pancakes with applesauce after school the day before. In response to my brief remark about applesauce, a first grade boy in our class noted, “I know how to make applesauce, because my sister knows how.” That boy’s comment stayed with me all day long, and I was impressed with how much the visage and the machinations of our society are really beginning to reflect the intuitive nature of natural human psyche as we develop collective consciousness and knowledge based on the contributions of everyone within our six degrees of separation. Teaching in a small, rural K-12 school pretty much necessitates that teachers remain flexible in their teaching assignments, and I typically teach math, language arts, and science in the configuration of K/1 in the mornings, and high school in the afternoons. My high school students enjoy our classes together, and I get a lot of positive feedback because I am really a kindergarten teacher in my approach to education, and the social constructivist nature of my high school classes involves the students to develop their auditory, visual, and kinesthetic representational systems in each lesson we have together. Essentially, our high school classes are organized and structured like kindergarten classes with enhanced high school knowledge content. I wish that all classes in our school were taught like kindergarten classes, and students would always reflect the positive comment of the grade one boy who claims a certain liberty of restricted evidential knowledge based on his reliance on a social network as being representative of his own consciousness. Today, as a I followed Joanne’s Trailfire links, I saw undeniable evidence that my hopes that students can learn within and from their social systems is becoming more of a reality each day. Wikis represent a collection of everyone’s will, and knowledge, by tying participation and abilities together to develop a new type of logic that is representative of Olson’s (1965) hypothesis arranged in The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. The camping trip gear list allegory for wiki presented an otherwise unknown technology as a tool that I would enjoy using, since so many of my friends and family live in various countries around the globe, and organizing our knowledge and efforts can be made so much more holistic through the use of this tool.

There are certain trends that blogs seem to follow, and one of the habits I’ve developed is to promote and praise the works of Lee LeFever, and his In Plain English video series. This week’s In Plain English: Wikis video is probably the simplest explanation of any technological tool that I have ever encountered. The analogy of organizing a camping trip was well thought out, and there weren’t any gaps in the video that left me wondering, “where do I go from here?” I am grateful for the amazing video that Lee posted, and I feel charged to get involved in a wiki this week. Today, I spent a few hours reading wiki-related articles in the university databases to add to the wiki-consciousness I began to develop as a result of reading the links provided by Joanne’s Trailfire link.

From the get-go, I began to winder if it is necessary for each student in our course to find a site that hosts wikis, and for each of us to create our own wiki, or if it would be better for all of us to contribute to a central wiki so we can get practice editing and adding to others’ postings. There was one Trailfire link in particular, Guidelines for Effective Wiki-Editing that clearly explained some of the issues that arise for wiki-users. I appreciate that a list of quasi-problematic scenarios was posted, because it is difficult for me to think of possible situations that might arise with a technology I have never encountered before.

Monday

Much of the evening on Monday was spent reading articles I located about wikis, wiki-building, and how to effectively use wikis for teaching and learning.

As I was reading the articles I thought back to last week when one of my grade one students brought me a map of how to get to her house. Well, as a grade one teacher I get all kinds of maps, invitations, notes, and random creations on paper from students. However, the map given by this girl in particular, sparked a connection in my grey matter that almost made me want to drive to school in the middle of the night to get the map while I was reading about wikis. The funny thing about the map is that the girl told me I couldn't keep it because she didn't have any more paper at home, and she needed it back so she could make another picture on the backside of the map. I traded her three sheets of blank paper from my daytimer for the one sheet of paper that had her map on it. It seemed like a fair trade for her, but I think I got the better deal when the bargaining was over. Below you can see the map, and see how she understands, and how she sees her place in the world in relation to her family and friends.



Usually kindergarten/grade one students include landmarks in their maps, and have at least one identifiable intersection between school and home. This map is unique in its approach to identifying pathways that all appear to be terminal. And, while it is hardly genius in its logic, this map really represents the fundamental origins of any network-based system. I think I would be safe in saying that I could show where I think a Wiki could be placed on the map, just because no Wiki is dependent on one single person (terminal end); a wiki can exist because each person has their own entry point on the wiki; and, each person comes to a wiki with their own ideas, knowledge, and needs that have to be met in order for that person to return to the wiki to add their intelligence and participation to the network in order for the network to continue to exist. The greatest shame is that I cannot identify the student who created the work, but anyone who knows the girl, would agree that her daily problem-solving orientation is DIRECTLY analagous to this map, and when she has conversations, she talks in terms of the terminal ends that contribute to the dialogs and activities that make up her life.

I really hope that everyone has as much fun reading into this map as I did, and I look forward to hearing from others about their thoughts on the map. I think that if my student could attach phonetic symbols to each of the contributors in the social network, she would agree with

Tuesday

About creating a wiki... I decided to get straight the to core of Wikidom, and I opened a PBWorks account. I haven't created a wiki yet, as it is another time-consuming endeavor to add color to the background, upload a picture or two, invite others to paraticipate in the wiki, and to get a topic in place that will form the basis of my first wiki.

I've noticed that since beginning this course, I am finding it easier to speak my ideas and my intentions through the various tools we experiment with. And, my blog posts are getting easier to organize because I understand the tools better, and how I relate stories about my learning feel less contrived because of my confidence and the knowledge I am gaining in the use of social media utilities makes my ability to manuever between tools more fluid.


“A wiki, considered to be a “Web 2.0” technology, is fundamentally grounded in social and cultural aspects to support learning because it facilitates learning through social interaction: creating, editing, collaborating, and synthesizing multiple ideas.” (Twu, 2009, 16) Rather than joining a public wiki to edit their site, I set up my PBWorks account which proved to be uncomplicated, and I am hoping that by creating my own wiki, I can simulate Harris's research (2009, p.112) concluding that, "teams that wish to collaborate on the entire project from start to finish are more likely to make changes to the template. But they also have a clear idea of the minimum expectations for the project."

I am persuaded to use a PBWorks wiki, more than a WikiSpaces wiki, because of the recommendation of Mears (2009), Podcasts and Wiki's: Delivering Content Information to Students Using Technology, that "PBWorks has developed a platform specifically designed for educators. A Wiki site allows the educator to not only deliver Podcasts to students, but links students to websites containing information, deliver documents and assignments, and if desired, allow students to change or develop content for the site." (p.32)

Getting this information together was quite time consuming, and I am pleased with the progress and success of my efforts to develop a wiki so far.

Drop by again tomorrow, and hopefully my wiki will be more fully developed according to my themes, with attractive backgrounds, gadgets, and interactive tools for users.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

My pbworks account is still up and running, however, I ran into a glitch a few days ago, and it seems that I spent countless hours on Wednesday evening, Thursday evening, and Friday for a few hours, trying to get the problem solved. I have had a pbworks customer care representative working with me to solve the problem, but no solution has been found to allow me to integrate images into my wiki, or to change the background, or the font, or anything else about my wiki. (*wait*) I know you’re going to direct me to the AMAZING tutorials wiki offers in both html and video format, and then you will advise to me to read the AWESOME users manual pbworks includes with each account, but I’ve done that. …and so have the people at pbworks, but we are still trying other avenues to get the wiki editable beyond just adding text to the wiki.

During this ordeal the voice of reason DID speak to me through a comment posted by Nicola of Seven Summits Librarian blog, who reminded me, “It is true that an initial frustrating or negative experience with technology can turn people off using it, especially in their classrooms. I applaud your ceaseless efforts at creating a podcast (cf. wiki) despite everything working against you.” Thanks Nicola! Despite the frustration and reluctance I felt to pressing forward and persisting to get the problem resolved, I found enough tenacity to see this wiki through the good and bad, ‘til death do us part!

Reflections on the process of learning about the tool

Working with a pbworks wiki has been a very great learning experience this week. Although my wiki doesn’t have the exterior comforts of colors, images, icons, and full editing features, I am positive that I know each and every feature offered by pbworks. I have ‘played’ with my wiki more than any other of the tools we’ve explored, mostly out of sheer necessity to try to make this happen.

Never in the past have I had to contact a customer care representative before, and that in itself has been a learning experience. The first few times I responded to their emails, I did my best to explain the issue I was having with my wiki, but there was a communication breakdown between us, and we were stalled in trying to figure out if we were talking about the same things. Eventually, I made screenshots of each screen I navigated through to get to the page where the problem ended my navigability through wikidom. I wonder if Joanne knew this type of problem could confront a student when she wrote that we should

Harris (2009, p.111), presents wikis in a simple light, with simple user instructions, “One solution that can make the most of a group’s time and energy in a collaborative writing assignment is Wiki software. Wikis were invented to foster rapid collaboration with a minimum learn­ing curve. Using two buttons—Save and Edit—they allow members of a group to take turns editing a web page and saving it for the next team mem­ber’s contribution. A short film by Lee Lefever that demonstrates a group of friends planning a camping trip using Wiki software…” Harris was right on the mark about how easy it is to add to a wiki. And, as I found through troubleshooting and trial and error this week, adding users is as simple as entering the user’s email address, and using a drop-down menu to determine what level of access each user can have to the wiki account.

Despite the turbulence I’ve had with completing and customizing my wiki, I will keep on the wiki until it is done, so I feel a greater sense of accomplishment and confidence in dealing with this tech-tool. At first, I wasn’t exactly sure if I would find it particularly useful for my lifestyle, and the types of interactions I have with friends and family, but working closely with my wiki for more than a week, I have imagined a hundred and one uses I have for this tool, and how to use it to get my friends and family involved in my life despite the large geographic distances that separate us.

Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning

My own personal learning about wikis seems to be a rollover from my process of learning about the tool. Here I go old school again…. When I travel, my favorite method of communication with friends and family is still postcard. In my wallet, I carry a piece of paper with two lists: one list is Summer, the other list is Winter. And, from September through March, the ‘winter’ people get postcards from me, and April through August is for the ‘summer’ people. It can be quite difficult to fill-in 45 postcards if I am only in Calgary for a weekend, but I try my best to keep in contact with everyone I know, by sending them each a memento of my life. Also, I don’t own a cellphone, a laptop computer, or a GPS. I am still working my way into the 21^st century, and only 3 years ago I got a phone, opting instead for the past 15 years to use Ham radio to receive calls from friends, either at home or on the road. Fortunately, I could afford the $6000 cost for radio equipment, but not everyone could, and it made life difficult for new friends to reach me if they were not Hams. But, when I was in other countries, I was still able to call home, and to have ‘conference calls’ because my closest friends would be on the air at the same time each week to hear from me. Then came Email: the impersonal monologue that took the fun out of postcarding. And, I found myself trying to link up with friends by constantly checking my email and sending directions back and forth with them. As one small example of ineffective communications tools, can you imagine how  much trouble it was when I was in Sankt-Petersburg, my brother was in Alesund, Norway, and I was trying to meet up with him, as well as a friend in Geneva, and another friend in Berlin… MADNESS! So, there we were, emailing, trying to call one another, sending telegrams, and trying to decide on where we could all meet because of time, ca$h, travel visa, and accommodations limits! It wasn’t easy. But…if there had been a wiki, it would have helped considerably to get us all together in the right place at the right time. Funny, as I am writing this, I remember the ride-board back in Oakville, where anyone could post a ride: wanted or needed, for others to see. I remember getting low-cost transportation to B.C. several times during highschool, never knowing who I’d be traveling with until I met up with the driver and put my backpack in the truck! I remember using a ride-board service in Hamburg a couple of years ago, and got a ride to Bodensee on my way to Zurich. The driver was a louse named Carston, who, with the help of his friends tried to get me out of the car and take-off without me. Funny… I can definitely find parallels in my own life to having tried to create or use a pre-wiki wiki, but it never quite worked as comfortable as a wiki really can. It seems that Byrne’s (2009) article titled, Wiki tools are not all the same rings true in more than one sense. And, pbworks comes out on top of its competitors with a full range of functions Byrne lists as ‘key differentiators’ between wiki providers:

>rich-text editing environment,

>organizing and refactoring services,

>change monitoring and alerting,

>access control and approvals,

>spam prevention, and

>target use cases. (Byrne, 2009, p.8)

And, having played extensively with the features listed above, wikis receive Rob’s stamp of approval!

Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning

Learning about the tool in terms of teaching and learning was supported by the ‘play’ time I had using my wiki, but the learning was substantiated by the professional readings I did about wikis. There are innumerable applications for bringing wiki teaching and learning into the classroom, as I will share from my readings.

Typically, in thinking about advanced technology integration, like wikis in the classroom, I would have assumed only a place in high school teaching as an arena for encouraging wikis, but Hudson (2009, pp.66-67) in her article How to Teach With Wikis outlines several ideas for bringing wikis into elementary teaching as well. “find ways to use wikis, collaborative websites that any user can edit, to help kids push further and think deeper. Create your own math book; Rewrite a classic tale; Go back in time (in history); Learn Spanish (or any language); For that science center (parallel wiki learning to the development of science).” This brief excerpt does not justice to the article, which I am including with links below because it offers practical, inspiring ideas that can be integrated with great success to increase student engagement and learning.

Another important application I envision for wikis, is what DiPietro, Drexler, Kennedy, Buraphadeja, Liu and Dawson (2010, p.25) talk about as offering “best practice strategies, suggest(ing) possible technology tips regarding wiki implementation, and seek(ing) to better scaffold future scholars and/or mentors seeking to effectively participate in or plan for collaborative qualifying examination preparation.” With great pleasure I recall the endless hours I spent with friends studying for exams, and found that a lot of exam prep in a group setting was allocated to getting organized, and working collaboratively to identify what each person thought was of most importance to learn about for exams. Lengthy discussions, wasted hours, and feelings of frustration and confusion sometimes arose is trying to reconcile what I felt was of importance with what another group member wanted to focus on. A wiki would eliminate the set-up time involved in group study periods if each member posted their ‘agenda’ before the group would meet, and each person’s contribution would be prioritized and identified by everyone else before actually getting together, which would save time, and increase effective group networking skills.

Our school is a trilingual school, and it is oftentimes difficult to begin dialog with teachers of other languages because of the direct involvement a teacher has with students, materials, responsibilities, and teachers of their common language of instruction. However, I still have teachers of English and French approaching me with questions about how I am achieving such positive gains and forward successes in my classroom, when so many students don’t understand the language of instruction. I see that a wiki will be valuable for creating and maintaining dialog between teacher s who would like to collaborate when time permits, and to share ideas, beyond materials and resources, about how to integrate new activities into their classroom activities. I am excited at the thought of using a wiki to post ideas and to have other challenge those ideas, with different perspectives for making student learning a greater priority. Wiki technology and the return to rigor (Roe, 2010, p. 21), suggests five uses for wikis in a professional development paradigm

“1. Support the development of our professional learning community;

2. Make our processes and work open and transparent to the community and one another;

3. Equip teachers with technology that could add more time and rigor within and without the classroom;

4. Allow students to create online portfolios and evidence of their learning;…”

A few years ago I asked a member of our school division’s central office if it would be possible for teachers to have access to a threaded message board on which we could discuss ideas in a professional milieu. Unfortunately, the idea was never acted upon, but now seeing the greater value of a wiki, I am much more likely to pursue, with success the implementation of collaborative learning via an intranet for staff members.

As a side note, I remember an undergraduate professor remarked to me, “Rob, when I wrote my 200-something page dissertation, I had to use a type writer, and if I made just one error, I had to remove the page from the machine, and start that entire page over. So, if you think I will let you get away with making a spelling error in your essays in this age of spell-checking, copy and pasting, white-out, and computers printers, you are in for a big shock. And, in retrospect, I’m sure that many of my hang-ups related to proper language use would find their genesis in my close relationship to that person, I value the sentiment, and now find myself thinking, that with so many tools like wikis available, surely students must be able to get their work completed on-time, and with sufficient depth so as to evidence signs of originality and creativity considering they literally have the entire world, and the entire collective knowledge of human civilization at their fingertips!

References

Byrne, T. (2009). Wiki tools are not all the same. KMWorld, Nov/Dec, 8-9.

De Groot, J. (2010, February 14). Trailfire: Wiki information Message posted to http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61579

DiPietro, J.,  Drexler, W.,  Kennedy, K.,  Buraphadeja, V.,  Liu, F., & Dawson, K. (2010). Using wikis to collaboratively prepare for qualifying examinations: An example of implementation in an advanced graduate program. TechTrends 54(1), 25-32.

Harris, M. (2009). Technology review: Teaching writing for the workplace? Try a wiki. The community college enterprise, Fall, 111-113.

Hudson, H. (2009). How to teach with wikis. Instructor, Sep/Oct, 66-67.

Kuhn, N. (2010, March 3) Random videos, articles, & podcasts I've found to help me understand podcasting this week: 501 podcasting blog post [Msg 1] COMMENT POSTED TO CNRGRADIO.BLOGSPOT.COM  retrieved from link http://cnrgradio.blogspot.com/2010/02/d-podrandom-videos-articles-podcasts.html#comments

LeFever, L. (Producer). (2007, August 6). Wikis in Plain English. Common Craft. Podcast retrieved from http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61579

Mears, D. (2009). Podcasts and Wiki's: Delivering Content Information to Students Using Technology. Strategies, 23(1), 29-34.

Roe, M. (2010). Wiki technology and the return to rigor. Leadership, 39(3), 20-22.

Twu, H. (2009). Effective Wiki Strategies to Support High-Context Culture Learners. TechTrends, 53(5), 16-21.

-rob

n.b. Monday after assignment was due

As a complete side note, I'd like my readers to see a smile on my face right now because my wikiblues were cured this evening when a new pbwroks CSrep emailed me with some suggestions about how to solve this problem that had even the wiliest of wikiworkers stumped... Well, the wiki is now editable, and I will continue to upgrade, update, uplift, and upsomething else my wiki because I am very pleased with this experience, and the great feeling of satisfaction I'm having now.

Shouts out to J-Rock for the extra special help I received this week!

~rob