Web 2.0 Recap

So it's been an interesting and enlightening few months learning how easy it is to publish and edit content on the internet and gaining understanding of what is truly meant by the idea of an internet "community." The ability to create wikis or blogs about any topic of interest as well as editing and commenting on ones created by others has truly opened my eyes to the possibilities of the emerging power of the internet not only in the sense of the classroom but in all aspects. I feel like the tools covered in our class can serve to make the discourse of information much easier and more interesting to all involved; teacher and student. I particularly enjoyed the video postings because they allowed you to literally "see" the new internet in a different way. Content you create today could be online in literally under an hour and streamed directly to anyone who wants to see it by way of subscription etc. It blows my mind, really.

Here is a neat article I found about keeping it all in perspective and staying focused on the goals of the web 2.0 classroom. It's a little corny but there's good stuff in there. It describes everything you need to keep in mind in "6 pillars." I sometimes find things like that useful to keep my thinking organized, and maybe you guys will too.

So....It's been fun and I feel like I really have learned a lot. Thanks everyone.

Jordan

This might be a little more out there than most of the movies made for class, but I thought it might spice it up a little bit. It's a "horror" movie that my friends and I made. It's silly but it was a lot of fun to make.

My Podcast

So here is my podcast. It is on more or less the concept and goal of education in general. Broad enough topic, huh? But just as a clarification for what you are about to hear, I am not yet a teacher but I have been involved heavily in tutoring (both one on one and group) and writing workshops.

Here it is...

Podcasting

The podcast I chose to check out is an education based show called "Hall Pass" hosted by Mike Dionne, a technology teacher. The neat thing about this podcast is that in his most recent posts he is covering a great deal of things that we are learning about in class right now. He has episodes on social bookmarking, photo shop, and even podcasting itself.

The most interesting things he talks about are the ways in which he applies these tools in his own classrooms. The most interesting use comes from his photo shop episode where he describes a project where the students were asked to morph the faces of teachers in the building. Not that this is a particularly useful vocational skill to learn (morphing faces that is, not photo shop itself) but it is an original idea and one that promoted nearly 100% cooperation from his students due to their high interest level. That's always something to shoot for.

His show is a bit lackluster on the whole, and he doesn't update very often, so I had to check out past episodes rather than subscribe to a daily feed, and his annoying commercial for his sponsor took up a full minute of each episode. However, there is quality information in his short lectures and it really opened my mind to a brand new world of possible information waiting to be retrieved at a simple click.

Photos and Social Bookmarks

Had some fun making up these sites. I find delicious kind of a pain, but I can see how it would be useful. However, Flickr is a breeze and fun too boot.

Pictures

Social Bookmarking

My Week With RSS

In my week with RSS I feel like I have turned a corner in my knowledge of the internet. Formerly, I would spend countless hours checking in on all the websites I frequent; only getting sporadic updates and getting endlessly sidetracked by advertisements and little nonsense stories. However, by using the RSS feed I was able to see only what I wanted to see, and keep track of many things in one easy to use and manage place.

What I like the most about RSS is that it is technology that takes things more to their basics rather than making them more complicated. RSS just boils the internet down to the essentials by showing you only what you are looking for and reducing the “noise” that generally accompanies websites. Finally, here is a technology that actually makes things easier and better.

As far as its uses in an educational setting I see it as being more useful as a tool for instructors rather than for students. If a teacher created a blogging assignment in which the students had to update their blogs through the week it would cut down on his grading time to be able to check the status of all the blogs in one place rather than going to all of them each time. However, I did have one interesting idea of how students could use RSS. In a social studies class, the students could be asked to subscribe to a number of news websites and track the differences in how they reported each day’s top stories, looking for bias or sketchy facts.

So, in the end I suppose there are ways it could be useful for all participants in the classroom, but I think that the use on the administrative side is much stronger.

Wiki Contribution

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. McFeely (David Newell) from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood this week, so I decided to ask him a few questions to help beef up his Wikipedia page. My additions can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Newell . My information is the paragraph that begins "He began his acting career..."

I never knew Wikipedia was so easy to edit. Really an interesting tool, but also a bit worrisome on how easily false information could get on there. "Always be a filter, not a sponge."

Video Games as Educational Tools

When many people think of video games their mind goes directly to one of a few antiquated ideas. Some believe that they are nothing but mindless violence while others picture simple mindless reflex reaction. Both have elements of truth in them, but only elements, for it is impossible now to deny the complexity and depth at work in the world of video games today.
The point is that video games are no longer mindless automatic reaction but can instead have deep, meaningful impact on gamers. A recent article from the New York Times documented how many libraries and other educational institutions are attempting to use video games to up interest in reading. The question seems to be, however, does reading equal learning, and can the skills derived from playing video games be transferred to other settings. I believe they can.
Will Richardson, prominent education blogger, sees this as a somewhat vacant point. In his response to the above article, he had this to say about video games as tools.

The obvious answer is because in school, Noah doesn’t get to learn reading and writing in the context of the things he’s passionate about. And in that respect, if games are a way to get kids engaged in words, great. I guess I wonder how much of a connection there really is in that regard, and how we would be able to create that connection in classrooms even if it does exist.

In this reaction he makes a valid argument, but seems to miss the bigger picture. Video games engage minds. They have grown to be extremely complex either recreated or re-imagined worlds, and regardless of whether anyone likes it or not they are shaping the way children think and how they see the world. So in this sense, video games are already at use in education. Many games have puzzles that help teach lateral thinking, while others allow the player to become an entirely different person which can help open their mind to a greater sense of empathy. But Richardson is right in saying that implementing them in the highly standardized world of today’s education might be difficult, because no easy answer jumps to mind. However, as they say, the proof is in the pudding and games are here to stay and already making an impact so it’s best to find a way to get on the wagon before we (the educators) get left behind.

Test Test Test

hey blogoverse, can you hear me now?