Blogs, Wikis, Poscasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson
Overview
As I have integrated more and more technology in the classroom, I find myself focusing on one to two tools and dipping my foot into other tools of interest. Over the past two years, I have used blogging(see link) and wikis and each year I improve and reflect upon the value they have on my students' learning and my instruction. In this book review, I am going to focus on my experiences with blogs in relation to what I read in the book and to talk about how I want to expand my use of RSS, which is something I am currently not using. I have also linked some of my blogs I referenced in the review as well.
Blogs
"Adopters of Weblogs in the classroom have already created a wide variety of ways to use them and they have shown that blogs can enhance and deepen learning" (p.20). I would agree with this point and also say that the more you blog and share your experiences with other teachers, the more integration occurs. I first used the blog as a class portal (blogger.com). The one thing that has been challenging for me with blogger is using it as an on-line filing cabinet. I haven't found an easy way to upload and organize assignments and so using it as an E-Portfolio in English hasn't worked for me. In photography, I have used blogging quite extensively as an on-line hybrid class. I post all class assignments there and students then create their own blog and post their work on the blog. I haven't loved the way that their photographs upload on blogger so I am still searching for something that is more adaptable to sharing photography in addition to commenting and doing classwork. I do like that students can go their and access all the assignments and blogger makes it easy to add links. Students can also comment and have conversations in the blog as well.
I have also used it as a collaborative space. I loved how Richardson had his class use the blog along with the author of the book students were reading. How authentic! This made me think about how I could use other authorities for particular assignments. For example, one of the major interdisciplinary topics we study is justice and so students do quite a bit of reading and blogging on various aspects of justice. Our police officer comes and does a presentation and I have students blog on what they learned. I could add the police officer to our blog discussion as well as other authorities in the community (Assistant principle for example). I have expanded the walls of the classroom by having various sections of my classes blog with one another; however, I would like to go beyond my walls in the future. I have an honors challenge assignment where students read a book called Funny in Farsi and respond to the book and blog with one another. I could have students also attempt to reach out to the author as well-it's worth a try. (Example of student blog)
I have been interested in the way that blogging is changing the way students read and write in the classroom and beyond. I haven't heard the term connective writing before but this is something I want to explore. Richardson discusses the differences between writing and blogging by statement "writing stops and blogging continues, where writing is a monologue and blogging is a conversation and writing is thesis and blogging is synthesis" (p. 31). I love this comparison and it makes me think more deeply about how writing is changing both in my classroom and on-line. Richardson gave some various examples of what blogging is and what it is not, but I wish he had been a bit more specific with his examples. I am not sure what he means by his distinction between complex blogging and real blogging. I find students who are not great at writing thesis statements can be very engaging in a blog because it is more like a conversation. Plus students seem to take more time in their responses when the audience becomes the classroom and not just the teacher.
Another way I have used blogs in the classroom is for students to have their own. On student blogs they did several things: commented on in-class readings, commented on videos, reflected on learning, reflected on own research process, commented on presentation, commented on participation on a group activity and honors challenge work. Some suggestions Richardson has on page 39 that I could see myself using are having students publish their own examples of good writing, showcasing poetry (I have done this with photography but it is challenging to post with blogger), literature circle, online book club, and link with a class in another part of the world.
I haven’t encouraged students to utilize blogs as resources for research. We do a big research project on justice and I could find a few blogs myself and then ask the students to analyze the reliability of the blog using the technorati.com. Richardson also suggests getting to know the author (using About), profession, title, blogroll, google search and reputation among peers. In summary, students will need to “identify who the author is, what he/she does for a living, what her level of expertise is and what judgements other have made about him/her” (p. 38). I plan on adding this type of blog analysis into our research project next year.
RSS
Two years ago I set up an RSS feed through google and since then I have checked it occasionally but never used it in the classroom. I set up a few feeds on three or four different topics I am interested in and that was about it. After reading Richardson's chapter on RSS, I have begun thinking about how to integrate this tool for my own personal and classroom use. One thing Richardson said that stood out to me was that RSS is a tool "aimed at helping you consume all that information in more efficient and relevant ways" (p. 71) and that RSS allows us to "read more content from more sources in less time". As teachers we need to be modeling this type of behaviors for our students so that they can also be more efficient and relevant in how they manage, analyze and synthesize information.
One big thing that I learned about RSS is how to create folders and then how to add tags and star things that I want to read later. For my personal use, this is a big thing. It is unlikely that I would check my feeds daily, but if I check them every so often and tag things by categories (education, environment, photography, ecology are some of the tags I created) it becomes much easier to manage. By staring feeds, I then know I really want to come back later and use it. There is also a feature where you can share feeds and I tried this but am not sure I fully get this feature yet. Richardson also talks about the importance of "making sure the sites you add are worthwhile" (p. 74). Again he adds this is something we also want to teach our students.
There are a few ways I can see myself using RSS Feeds in the classroom. One was is that instead of checking student blogs, I can have them sent as feeds. Then I will know when a student has posted recently. Another is to have students create their own RSS feeds and help them to organize folders and use tags. Just having them go through this process gets students to think about how to manage and aggregate information. I would suggest feeds for particular topics we are doing such as justice, culture and human rights. A while ago I created a Netvibes account so I would also like to revisit this again and create a page that organizes RSS feeds around a particular topic and to then share this link with my students.
Concluding thoughts
What I enjoyed about this book is that it enabled a person to access it despite their level of understanding with a particular tool. I learned just as much from the blog chapter (which I am more familiar with) as I did with the RSS chapter (less familiar with). I know that as I play around with RSS and go back and re-read that chapter I will again gain some further understanding. I am excited to both improve my understanding of blogs and to explore my RSS feeds.
Overview
As I have integrated more and more technology in the classroom, I find myself focusing on one to two tools and dipping my foot into other tools of interest. Over the past two years, I have used blogging(see link) and wikis and each year I improve and reflect upon the value they have on my students' learning and my instruction. In this book review, I am going to focus on my experiences with blogs in relation to what I read in the book and to talk about how I want to expand my use of RSS, which is something I am currently not using. I have also linked some of my blogs I referenced in the review as well.
Blogs
"Adopters of Weblogs in the classroom have already created a wide variety of ways to use them and they have shown that blogs can enhance and deepen learning" (p.20). I would agree with this point and also say that the more you blog and share your experiences with other teachers, the more integration occurs. I first used the blog as a class portal (blogger.com). The one thing that has been challenging for me with blogger is using it as an on-line filing cabinet. I haven't found an easy way to upload and organize assignments and so using it as an E-Portfolio in English hasn't worked for me. In photography, I have used blogging quite extensively as an on-line hybrid class. I post all class assignments there and students then create their own blog and post their work on the blog. I haven't loved the way that their photographs upload on blogger so I am still searching for something that is more adaptable to sharing photography in addition to commenting and doing classwork. I do like that students can go their and access all the assignments and blogger makes it easy to add links. Students can also comment and have conversations in the blog as well.
I have also used it as a collaborative space. I loved how Richardson had his class use the blog along with the author of the book students were reading. How authentic! This made me think about how I could use other authorities for particular assignments. For example, one of the major interdisciplinary topics we study is justice and so students do quite a bit of reading and blogging on various aspects of justice. Our police officer comes and does a presentation and I have students blog on what they learned. I could add the police officer to our blog discussion as well as other authorities in the community (Assistant principle for example). I have expanded the walls of the classroom by having various sections of my classes blog with one another; however, I would like to go beyond my walls in the future. I have an honors challenge assignment where students read a book called Funny in Farsi and respond to the book and blog with one another. I could have students also attempt to reach out to the author as well-it's worth a try. (Example of student blog)
I have been interested in the way that blogging is changing the way students read and write in the classroom and beyond. I haven't heard the term connective writing before but this is something I want to explore. Richardson discusses the differences between writing and blogging by statement "writing stops and blogging continues, where writing is a monologue and blogging is a conversation and writing is thesis and blogging is synthesis" (p. 31). I love this comparison and it makes me think more deeply about how writing is changing both in my classroom and on-line. Richardson gave some various examples of what blogging is and what it is not, but I wish he had been a bit more specific with his examples. I am not sure what he means by his distinction between complex blogging and real blogging. I find students who are not great at writing thesis statements can be very engaging in a blog because it is more like a conversation. Plus students seem to take more time in their responses when the audience becomes the classroom and not just the teacher.
Another way I have used blogs in the classroom is for students to have their own. On student blogs they did several things: commented on in-class readings, commented on videos, reflected on learning, reflected on own research process, commented on presentation, commented on participation on a group activity and honors challenge work. Some suggestions Richardson has on page 39 that I could see myself using are having students publish their own examples of good writing, showcasing poetry (I have done this with photography but it is challenging to post with blogger), literature circle, online book club, and link with a class in another part of the world.
I haven’t encouraged students to utilize blogs as resources for research. We do a big research project on justice and I could find a few blogs myself and then ask the students to analyze the reliability of the blog using the technorati.com. Richardson also suggests getting to know the author (using About), profession, title, blogroll, google search and reputation among peers. In summary, students will need to “identify who the author is, what he/she does for a living, what her level of expertise is and what judgements other have made about him/her” (p. 38). I plan on adding this type of blog analysis into our research project next year.
RSS
Two years ago I set up an RSS feed through google and since then I have checked it occasionally but never used it in the classroom. I set up a few feeds on three or four different topics I am interested in and that was about it. After reading Richardson's chapter on RSS, I have begun thinking about how to integrate this tool for my own personal and classroom use. One thing Richardson said that stood out to me was that RSS is a tool "aimed at helping you consume all that information in more efficient and relevant ways" (p. 71) and that RSS allows us to "read more content from more sources in less time". As teachers we need to be modeling this type of behaviors for our students so that they can also be more efficient and relevant in how they manage, analyze and synthesize information.
One big thing that I learned about RSS is how to create folders and then how to add tags and star things that I want to read later. For my personal use, this is a big thing. It is unlikely that I would check my feeds daily, but if I check them every so often and tag things by categories (education, environment, photography, ecology are some of the tags I created) it becomes much easier to manage. By staring feeds, I then know I really want to come back later and use it. There is also a feature where you can share feeds and I tried this but am not sure I fully get this feature yet. Richardson also talks about the importance of "making sure the sites you add are worthwhile" (p. 74). Again he adds this is something we also want to teach our students.
There are a few ways I can see myself using RSS Feeds in the classroom. One was is that instead of checking student blogs, I can have them sent as feeds. Then I will know when a student has posted recently. Another is to have students create their own RSS feeds and help them to organize folders and use tags. Just having them go through this process gets students to think about how to manage and aggregate information. I would suggest feeds for particular topics we are doing such as justice, culture and human rights. A while ago I created a Netvibes account so I would also like to revisit this again and create a page that organizes RSS feeds around a particular topic and to then share this link with my students.
Concluding thoughts
What I enjoyed about this book is that it enabled a person to access it despite their level of understanding with a particular tool. I learned just as much from the blog chapter (which I am more familiar with) as I did with the RSS chapter (less familiar with). I know that as I play around with RSS and go back and re-read that chapter I will again gain some further understanding. I am excited to both improve my understanding of blogs and to explore my RSS feeds.