Web2.0 Journey, 2007 December 29, 2007
Posted by Steve in CSTA, Elearning, Musing, Web2.0.Tags: web2.0 journey blogging csta ning virtualstaffroom feed
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The Web2.0 journey in 2007 has been quite a learning experience and has resulted in quite a shift in thinking as well as having impact upon my comfort zone in terms of privacy.
My first dip of my toe into the waters of Web2.0 involved the purchase of my current RSS
Reader, Feed Demon. I chose it because it was rated very well amongst reviewers. I didn’t know what a RSS feeder was at the time but I suspected I would find uses for it. (Indeed I did). Shortly after I purchased Feed Demon, it was purchased by Newsgator which allowed me to view my feeds from a web page anywhere in the world. I used this as I was in North America Christmas 2006.
The school sent me to Melbourne for a 3 day eLearning conference that was excellent. Basically, one chose a particular workshop which lasted for an hour and the presenters went to each others sessions as well. Most were very worthwhile. In addition there were physical breakout rooms where themes were discussed as well as an auditorium session every 3 or 4 hours. Again, they were excellent as well. I wrote up a lengthy summary for the school and presented it to them in January 2007. No specific concepts were taken up, but a general sense of direction seemed to be undertaken.
For the past 10 years I have been using http://groups.yahoo.com with my Year 12 students to assist them. I was also one of the founding people of csteachers which links some 400 teachers nation wide. Using electronic information systems has not been a new concept to me. I also used the same organisation for use with the Honours Program as described in a previous post.
As I was snow bound in North America during January 2006 and my daughter was in Sweden
(who had setup a My Space account), I undertook creating a My Space account for myself and attempted to match my daughter’s quality. I learned a few new concepts, but since I have not kept it updated during 2007, it has not been of much use to me.
Later in 2007 I created an account with Face Book assuming some of my students made use of it. Face Book seems to have more value and I have been contacted by a couple of students from former schools as well as a teacher from Danebank. My social network could expand using this. My daughters seem to be into it ‘big time.’
Chris Betcher set up a podcasting site entitled the Virtual Staffroom which is a repository of his podcasts that have to do with education and technology. The first couple of episodes dealt with the basics of Web2.0 and a huge amount of conceptual and valuable information was crammed
into the podcasts. In addition, I followed Chris’ blog site which modelled what could be done within a blog site. He seems to be at the forefront of any advance that seems to be made in the blogging world. I used Chris’ site as a jumping board to other blog sites which started my way into networking with other educationalists. I subscribed to the blog sites that were of interest to me. Hence, social networking had its hook into me.
Term 1, 2006 saw me attending a number of inservices that included the use of audacity, podcasting and blogging. I was not able to attend an inservice on Wikis due to time conflicts. I spent considerable time exploring my blogging options with students. In fact, I had 
set up two different sites but realised that I needed to be able to edit each student’s blog if there was a need. Our IT person, Andrew, suggested a different site but eventually I settled on Wordpress multi-user since I knew it. I was NOT willing to learn the idiosyncracies of other blogging software. Eventually, TIGS created its own Wordpress multi-user site which I used with my Year 8 Technology class and the Honours Program Participants. Surprisingly, the students didn’t jump at the chance to use a blog as a whole. I am still mulling that over. I suspect it is a time crunch thing. The use of blogs with students had mixed success.
The same can be said for podcasting. I went to an inservice on it, used an idea that Chris Betcher
had used previously and implemented it in my Year 8 Technology class. We used Audacity (yes, I attended an inservice on that). The students worked in groups and were quite receptive to the concepts. The end products were of wide ranging quality. Unfortunately, we were unable to upload the end products to their blog site due to the site being down during school hours. I hope to minimise this with our own independent site.
I have not been a strong advocate of the wiki but I think that is because of my involvement with other electronic information systems over the past decade. However, I did allow a couple of my Year 11 IPT students create a wiki for one of their assessment tasks. They did quite well in terms of content and their efforts nudged open my mind a bit more. My involvement as an observer in the Flat Classroom Project Wiki as well as the TIGS wiki site has further opened my mind in the use of it. Having said that, using a Ning seems to be an alternative.
Some of the Web2.0 services tied in with the Computing Studies Teachers Association during
2007. The CSTA created and used the Delicious bookmarking site for the Simerr project as described in a previous post. I attended a National Computing Summit in Adelaide that focused on Web2.0 services. And lastly, I have made extensive use of docs.google.com to share agendas and workshop inservice assignments for each meeting. This has encouraged collaboration between the committee members.
In late 2007, I was introduced to Twitter where one sends a message in 140 characters or less. I thought it was the most inane piece of software I had ever come across. However, I have changed my mind. It is real time. It allows for social linking, not social thinking as carried out in a blog. My social network expanded by looking at the Followers list in other twitters. Because of twitter I became aware of some significant events in the cybersphere such as EdTechTalk and K12 Online.
Future:
- I would hope that in the near future I will be able to consolidate podcasting and blogging in a couple of my classes.
- I anticipate to be further trained in Elluminate (video conferencing software).
- I hope to get one of my classes involved in a collaborative project with another group of students in a different time zone.
- TIGS will be involved with the Value Added Exchange program run in conjunction with
other schools. I assume I will want to monitor it because it is a new concept. It is not widely advertised since it is in its pilot phase. - I will NOT be exploring the different aspects of Second Life due to time constraints and my fear of becoming too impressed with it.
Nice post Steve, I find it really interesting to see how other teachers found their pathway into ed tech… thanks for the kind words about the podcast and blog too. It’s nice to think it had a positive effect on someone other than me!
Interesting to read about the things you will be pursuing this year, and equally the things you won’t be. Food for thought!
Chris