Jodi’s ET630 Blog

This is an example of two students communicating with each other. 

     Here is an update of how my fourth graders have been collaborating with each other.  Most of my classes have had about two weeks worth of researching.  The first week in the computer lab was mostly learning how to log in and navigate with in the learning management system.  I was concerned if it was going to be too hard for the fourth graders because of their difficulty logging in and enrolling.  Some of the students even made comments about how much work it was to create a user name/ password and enroll. I think they felt this was because it was so new to them. 

    The second week was much easier and the students had more of an oportunity to research their Native American Tribe and communicate with each other.  More communicating occurred during the second week.  Some of the communicating wasn’t on target, but most of it was. 

    Here are some interesting things I learned during the past two weeks during my Edu 2.0 experience with my fourth graders:

• It took students longer to get acclimated than I thought it would.
• Almost everyone cared about their avatar, even the students I didn’t think would care, cared about it.
• Some students really were interested in communicating with others, but some of the students didn’t even try it out.
• The students’ spelling and grammar was atrocious and even though we discussed what was expected before beginning to communicate.  It didn’t seem to matter.  (There wasn’t a spell check feature in the discussion area!)
• Many students loved communicating with other students and asked if they could talk about other things than Native American Tribes.

For the future, I have decided to try something along the same lines of communicating, but without the need for doing something else, especially when first using a new Web 2.0 tool with students.  Next time, I would start smaller.  For example, I might begin the collaboration by  having students discuss  what they know about a given topic or possibly share what they learned about a topic.  I would then move onto utilizing more of the tools.

     Although Flickr is blocked by my school system’s filter, I can still see this tool being a valuable one for some things.  Even if I can’t access it at my school, it could be used in an online learning situation or to allow for two or more teachers to collaborate.  It encourages collaboration though the use of digital images and discussion areas.  The discussion area is similar to most discussion areas.  You can post a discussion and others can reply.

     I have created a group inside of Flickr.  If I was teaching an online class and wanted students or teachers to access these pictures, they could. I would either e-mail the link or provide it in a course management system. Here is the link. http://www.flickr.com/groups/919403@N20/?added=4.  You have to be a member of Flickr in order to see the photos.  I kept the group public, but I could have made it private.

 I choose to add pictures that would be a springboard for identifying mood in literature.  Although I haven’t added all of the pictures needed for the lesson, I could add more pictures myself or folks that I invited into the group could also add digital images. 

I could also see picture showing right angles, obtuse or acute angles could also be shared.  Flickr would an interesting way to encourage folks to work together.  While I think that Flickr is a great source for photos, I would say that there are other types of Web 2.0 tools that might be more beneficial for collaboration in the educational field.  That being said, here is a link to a discussion forum on the Civil War.  It shows collaboration and the power of people working together.

     I had heard of Flickr, but I really wasn’t sure what it was all about.  I heard talk about it being “copyright friendly” but I wasn’t sure it was true and I wanted to check it out.  I had also heard that it was a good site to find awesome photographs.  Many of photographs I have seen have been more like artwork than everyday photographs. The search feature in Flickr is good, but overwhelming.  The search feature is only as good as the description or tags people typed in when they uploaded their photograph.  My search for “right angle” came up with 28, 430 results.

        While I was checking things out, I uploaded a couple photographs and made the pictures public.  I found myself searching to find my photographs in the search feature.  I was able to edit the tags and descriptions fo rmy photographs after I had uploaded, which is very helpful.

         I found Flickr an easy to navigate site and I appreciated all of the helpful hints they provided along the way. I also liked that Flickr included a section on respecting the copyright of others in their code of conduct tag.  In addition, while poking around the site, I also found an area called “Creative Commons” and found that members of Flickr were able to post their photographs under different categories.  I have posted them below. 

□       Attribution

□       Noncommercial

□       No Derivative Works

□       Share Alike

            Unfortunately, Flickr isn’t accessible at my school due to filtering.  However, I do plan for lessons at home, so I will be able to use the site.  At school, I have the students use Pics4Learning.  They love this site and are able to locate what they need most of the time. I would love to be able to share Flickr with them, too.

 I recently joined Collective X Network that was created by our e-Learning Specialist, Judy Campf.  She shared this amazing Web 2.0 site with the group.  It is called Go2Web20.net.  It has so many Web 2.0 resources that I have never heard of before.  It was very overwhelming, but also quite amazing.  You should check it out.  Some of the resources would not be appropriate for a school setting, but many would. If you are looking for a particular tool, go to the Collections tab at the top and it will narrow down the choices.

      I have been using Edu 2.0 more and more.  Although it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of a licensed course management system such as D2l or Blackboard, it does have many of the tools needed to facilitate an online course.  Individual teachers would need to decide which tools they would need for their specific purpose. I am still hoping that a spell check feature will be added soon. I found it in some areas, but not everywhere.

     I especially like Edu 2.0 because you can make your class public or private.  This is especially important in a school setting. I chose to make my class private.  Here is a link to the tools available to the teachers. Several of my students were leery of the discussion area because their parents said they were not allowed to go to chat rooms.  I explained that the site was private and it would only be fourth graders from our school chatting with each other.  In addition, every post made in the discussion area, goes right to my e-mail.  I had to set up a special Native American folder in my inbox so I wouldn’t be inundated with messages.

     Students have an interest in collaborating with their peers whether face-to-face or in an online setting . Their excitment about the online site was evident when I was sharing the information with them.  They were very curious and asked many thoughtful questions.  Not surprisingly, they all wanted to change their avatar before they began researching.  

     Here is the link to Edu 2.0  http://www.edu20.org/.  Select the learn tab and then Search for Classes. Enter 38858.  It will take you to Fullerton’s Fourth Grade Class.  Because I am using this online class with my students, I need to keep the site secure. If you are interested in checking it out more, please contact me for the password. My e-mail address is joneill@bcps.org.

     One part that I didn’t include in the last post was that before I let them begin collaborating with each other online, we discussed netiquette.  While some of the fourth graders have already communicated with their peers in an online setting, I do not believe that anyone had ever discussed the expectations of how to handle themselves in this type of environment. Not one student in any of the four classes had ever heard of netiquette.  Many of them had heard about ways to stay safe online, but didn’t know about the rules of communicating online.  I shared a simple website on netiquette and used it to guide our discussion.  Here is the link I used to lead the discussion.  http://www.kidsdomain.com/brain/computer/surfing/netiquette_kids.html

I will review netiquette with the classes again before we continue our research in class.

     After some thought about the best way to use a wiki with my fourth grade classes, I began thinking that this tool wasn’t the best fit for my purpose.  To have collaboration between all of the fourth grades, I decided I needed something different.  Ellen’s comments from her blog made me realize that I could run into some issues.  What would I do if two children tried to edit one of the wiki pages at the same time?  How would it work?  From my understanding, a page can only be edited one at a time.  That could cause a problem if I had two students working on the same Indian tribe.  So, I decided to investigate a different collaboration Web 2.0 tool. I found Education 2.0. I explored the site and found out that it is a free learning management system. 

I am very familiar with Blackboard and Desire2Learn (D2L) and I was able to make some basic comparisons.  Here is what I found out.

□      The administrator of the site (the teacher) is able to add resources needed for the class. The Resource page can be linked to webpages, files, html pages and resources from your Favorites.

o      There wasn’t a spell check in this area and I would have liked to have one here.

□      Under the Forum section, your students can have asynchronous class discussions and once again, there is not a spell check feature. (I think it is needed and I found it frustrating that there isn’t one.)

□      Under the Collaboration section, you have synchronous chats and your students can set up a wiki.

□      Your class can be public or private.  If it is private, you set up a password.

□      Your students do not need to have an e-mail address to enroll.  You can give them the link and they will be able to sign up if they have the class number an password.

□      Signing up for a free account takes a couple minutes.  My fourth graders needed help navigating through the process.

I will share more about how things are going soon!

           I have been thinking about wikis for a couple weeks now.  Wikis offer an easy way to collaborate with others.  So far, my concentration has been on how I could use wikis to bring teachers together.  Because my school already has an e-Community using Desire2Learn, we already have a platform in order to communicate with each other. 

            I began pondering the possibilities of using wikis with my students.  Every year, our fourth grade students work on a research project dealing with Native American Indian tribes. The students must identify certain aspects of each tribe. They always start researching in their classroom and then come to the lab to finish things up.  This year, I am going to change things a bit.  Instead of having the students work by themselves, I am going to allow them to collaborate with other fourth grade classed using wikis. 

            It will take me sometime to set up the wikis because I need to review the necessary components of the research assignment with the fourth grade teachers. The biggest obstacle I have run into with using Web 2.0 tools is that users often need an e-mail account.  PB Wiki has acknowledged this and has created a work around for this problem.  Teachers are allowed create generic log in user-names and passwords for your students in just a couple clicks. I am excited about setting up the wikis and I believe the kids will love collaborating with them.  I will blog about the issues I run into and share how I worked them out.

The more I use Voice Thread, the easier it becomes.  I chose to create a Voice Thread for a tutorial on posting a message with a file attached in my school’s e-Community.  Although I previously held a face-to-face session on posting a message with a file attached, not everyone was able to attend.  Additionally, I thought it would be helpful for participants to have a quick tutorial to access if needed.

First, I created a storyboard of the steps needed to compose a post in the discussion area.  I also wrote down what I wanted to say for each step.  Then, I captured screen shots of each step . After that, I logged into Voice Thread and uploaded the saved images.  Next, I was able to record my comments on each page.  Last, I was able to share my Voice Thread by sending the URL, embed the link on a variety of predetermined Web 2.0 sites or include the address link in the appropriate place.  Here is the link to my Voice Thread.  The link will be placed within my school’s e-Community in the Technical Help section of the discussion area.

     Voice Thread is an easy to use Web 2.0 tool that allows you to share pictures or images using a slideshow format.  You are able to narrate your slideshow and doodle on your images, if you want. You might be thinking to yourself, I can already do that with PowerPoint or other types of software.  However, Voice Thread allows you to share your slideshow with others via the Internet.

Here are some of the highlights.

□      If you choose to keep it private, then you are able to share it with others by sending them the URL address of your Voice Thread. 

□      If you choose to make it public, it is displayed on the Voice Thread site, but you can still invite others to view your slideshow using the URL of your Voice Thread.

□      Others who view your slideshow are able to make comments about it. 

□      Voice Thread can be free or you can choose the Pro option and pay $59.95 a year.  The Pro option allows you to do more, including using video.

            When you enter the Voice Thread site, there is a brief slideshow on how Voice Thread works.  It is on the home page and it is called, “What’s a Voice Thread Anyway?”  You are able to browse the slideshows without registering or signing in, but if you are going to create anything you must register.

            The topics ranges from slideshows of people’s pets, or artwork to a lesson on how to measure angles using a protractor.  There are also several Voice Thread tutorials included in this section. I think this could be a valuable and motivating tool in schools.  I will discuss these soon!