I am currently working with a group of eight teachers to work through a teacher inquiry process where they identify a curriculum need for their students and then match this to an ICT tool that can help them address this need.  Teachers have been sharing the curriculum focus with me over the last week and I have been helping them to identify possible ways of working with ICT that they will implement in Term Three. I deliberately set out to work with teachers who might be a little lacking in confidence and I am finding it interesting to see what they are deciding to focus on.

One teacher wants to concentrate on improving the students’ general knowledge. I found this to be a little challenging to my own beliefs about teaching and learning in a digital age. Should we still be trying to build up ‘general knowledge’ at a time when students can find out almost any fact they want by doing a Google search? How could I approach this subject in order to make the teacher feel her ideas were valued while still keeping the focus on effective pedagogy? Was I right to think that general knowledge was now not as important? Do my own feelings partly stem from the fact I can never remember names, dates or locations so I am truly terrible in a quiz night team?

So I did what I normally do – I started to search around the net using Google. In this way, I stumbled across an article titled ‘Is Google killing general knowledge’ I enjoyed the article and thought that it did a pretty good job arguing the point that we do still need to have a basic level of knowledge to be effective learners. Here is a quote from that article:

IS GOOGLE KILLING GENERAL KNOWLEDGE? | More Intelligent Life via kwout

This article still makes the case for knowing facts while also recognising that the internet is a game changer as it allows people to continue to build their knowledge over their lifetime by being able to tap into the great collective knowledge.

So I was feeling a little more comfortable with the importance of facts but still not sure about teaching them in isolation. As a compromise, I came up with an activity that would help to develop information literacy skills while students learn ‘general knowledge’. Here is how I described it to the teacher:

A group of students could have a category each week to research (eg Famous monuments of the world) and they have to write 10 questions that you put into a form tool for the rest of the class to answer (which they can also do by researching). The students writing the questions have to show that the facts they are using are valid using the ‘3 sources rule’. Then the next group can have a turn.

To prepare for this, you could do some work with your class on knowing how to check the information you find on the net is valid. I have links and useful videos about doing this with students on my wiki.

At the top of the page, there are searching tips including some videos from Google.

Here is an example of a Google Form that they could use to put in the questions for the other students to answer (I ran out of energy after four questions but you get the idea).

So, have I sold my principles down the river in order to work in with what a teacher wants to do or is this type of activity valid? I would love your thoughts.

This is just a quick late night post to share a video about how to sign up on Skype as an educator in order to find other educators to collaborate with. Very cool! I am going to turn over a new blogging leaf after my long period of silence

How to create a profile and find a teacher from Skype in the classroom on Vimeo.

OK – so I haven’t been very prolific recently on this blog but with my son Toby due in a week’s time and my 14 month old daughter Zoe to keep me busy as well, I guess some of my online life has taken a back seat

Still, here is an article I wrote recently for a magazine that looks at two different tools for creating live collections of websites. They are both good tools for different reasons though I probably lean more to Live Bookmarks.

Organising the web

In education, there are many times you need to organise content from the internet. You might be creating a bank of websites for the students to access around a topic (or be asking them to do this), categorising useful teacher websites to be able to easily find them again, sharing great websites with other educators, or creating activities for students to complete as they move through different websites. Bookmarking sites on your own computer may help you to find them again but it doesn’t allow for many of the other functions.

There are online tools that allow you or your students to build up link resource banks that can be shared easily. Many people know about tools such as Delicious or Diigo for online bookmarking . However, there are now new tools that give you live versions of each bookmarked site rather than just a static link in a list. This article is going to focus on two such tools; LiveBinders and Jog the Web. Both are excellent options and have slightly different focuses.

LiveBinders

http://livebinders.com

The name of this tool pretty much sums up the way this tool works. You can set up an online ‘binder’ around a topic of your choice. Within each binder, you can have tabs containing live versions of websites. You can also create subtabs within each tab so you can break a tab topic down into subtopics. Below is an example of a LiveBinder I have set up to share Web 2.0 tools. You can visit this LiveBinder at this address: http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=26329

Live Binders subtopic

The live versions of the sites that load within the tabs or subtabs can be navigated through without leaving the Live Binder environment or you can click on the hyperlink at the top of the window to visit the site directly.

Clicking on ‘Edit Menu’ while working within Live Binders gives you a number of extra options. You can upload a file into a tab or subtab, change the position of a tab or subtab, insert media from sites such as Flickr, YouTube or Delicious links, change the layout of a tab or subtab so that you can include your own text or content, and change the properties of the binder including the title, description and colour scheme.

Text layout options

A LiveBinder can also be added to while surfing the net by adding their bookmarklet to the toolbar of your browser. Simply click on the bookmarklet (called LiveBinder It ) and you will be asked to select one of your binders to add the site to or be given the option to add it to a new binder that you can create on the fly.

LiveBinder It

Finally, sharing a LiveBinder is very straightforward. You can send people an email with the link to a specific binder or embed a visual link to the LiveBinder within a blog or wiki page.

Embedded LiveBinders

Jog the Web

http://jogtheweb.com

Jog the Web has less customisation than LiveBinders but what it does, it does very well making this another useful tool.

You can create ‘steps’ within a ‘Jog’ which are basically live versions of the sites listed in a sequential order down the left side of the Jog. You can either use the arrows to move through the sites in order or click on each site listed on the left.

Jog Interface

You can add text to the top of the live website so that you can give information and instructions related to the site. I do think that the interface on Jog the Web does this function a little better than LiveBinders which is why it lends itself particularly well to building web challenges or guided tours of sites.

Jog Step

You can also choose to add your own content pages as a step within a jog. You have different layout options for these pages and the page editor gives you lots of customisation options within the page. You can even edit the html so I was able to embed content such as Slideshare presentations.

Jog your own content

Embedding Slideshare presentations

If you are using Firefox, you can install an extension that allows you to add to a Jog while browsing the net. As yet, there is no support for other browsers.

Firefox Jog Extension

Finally, you can share your Jog easily by giving people the URL to visit the Jog. The embed option creates a ready made hyperlink but does not give you a visual object to embed on your wiki or blog. You can access the URL from the final page called the ‘End Page’.

There are a couple of downsides in that there is quite a bit of advertising on the Comment and End pages which are added to every Jog created in a free account. You can also not control the comments that are added to a Jog, which can become an issue if people leave inappropriate comments. Overall though, I think this would be a handy tool to use in the classroom.

What is Wall Wisher?

Wall Wisher is an online Web 2.0 application that allows someone that has signed up for an account (free) to create a digital wall.  Once given the URL of the wall, a number of users can simultaneously post virtual sticky notes to the wall making it a great tool for gathering contributions during a brainstorming session. A big advantage is that the users do not need to have accounts themselves to post a sticky note so it is quick and easy to use in a group situation. Sticky notes can contain up to 160 characters and can include hyperlinks to other sites. Multimedia that is hosted online on other sites, such as images, videos and sound files, can also be added to a sticky note by using the URL. Once a wall has been created, you can also embed the wall in other online spaces such as wiki pages or blog posts.

How can you use Wall Wisher in your classroom?

This simple yet effective tool has a number of classroom applications. Here is a list of some ideas to get you started.

Use Wall Wisher to:

• brainstorm knowledge about a topic before beginning a study
• brainstorm key questions to investigate during a study
• summarise key learning points about a topic after a study
• collect student feedback on a lesson
• have students collect feedback from their peers on the work they have completed
• create ‘to do lists’
• link to online resources for a given topic
• link to work that students have completed that is available online
• create a multimedia space for a topic where students can view videos and images or listen to sound files as well as add their own
• brainstorm ideas on how to deal with issues that have arisen in the classroom
• have students document how they are demonstrating the key competencies

To see Wall Wisher in action and add your own ideas to the ones above, visit the wall set up at this address: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/interface

Example of Wall Wisher

How does Wall Wisher work?

Visit http://wallwisher.com and sign up for a free account. Click on ‘Build a wall’ at the top right of the screen. You will then be given a number of options for your wall.

You need to add a title, subtitle and image for your wall.  You also need to choose the end of the URL for the wall and decide who will be able to leave sticky notes on the wall. Once you have completed all of those steps, click on ‘Done’ in the bottom right of the screen. The wall will be created and you will be sent an email containing the URL of the wall to give out to other people.

To add a sticky note, users need to double click anywhere on the wall.  You can type up to 140 characters into a sticky note. You can also add an image, audio track or video link by pasting in the URL of where these are hosted online.When you have finished adding your content to the sticky note,  need to click on ‘OK’ on the bottom right corner of the sticky note to ensure the note is visible to others and remains on the wall.

Close up of a sticky note.

Anyone that has been to workshops I run on Web 2.0 tools knows that I am a HUGE fan of Voicethread. To my mind, the three big online tools are blogs, wikis and Voicethread. Other tools that I speak about are great but they are not as central to me as these three (though Google Docs would come close!) I am always impressed at the ways Voicethread continues to innovate (and they’ve just given the site a makeover too!). Here are a couple of features of Voicethread that I think are really valuable. They might have been around since last year but I’ve just tripped over them. I read about them within the Voicethread blog https://voicethread.com/blog/#20090911

Searching within Voicethread for Creative Commons images in Flickr

This is a new development for adding images to Voicethread straight from Flickr that have a Creative Commons license. You do have to have a Flickr account to link to your Voicethread account for you to be able to make access this feature. Here are the steps involved.

Step one

Click on ‘Create’ to make a new Voicethread and then click on ‘Upload’ and select the option’Media Sources’ and then choose the ‘Flickr’ option.

Step Two

Click on the link to import Flickr images from your Flickr account into your Voicethread. If you have not done this before, you will be prompted to link your Flickr account with your Voicethread account.  Once you have done this, the option to search Flickr for Creative Commons licensed images is at the top of the screen.

Step Three

You can click on the ‘i’ next to the title of an image in the search results to see more details such as the specific Creative Commons license.  Click on each image you want to add to your Voicethread and then select ‘Import’.

The brilliant thing about this option is that Voicethread automatically adds a link back to the image on Flickr on the Voicethread slide so there is no need to worry about attribution.

Changing the order of comments on a Voicethread

I have wanted to do this before but didn’t realise I could.  This is a direct quote from the blog:

If you are the creator or editor of a VoiceThread you can now reorder the comments by moving your mouse over any comment segment on the timeline beneath the VoiceThread.  Just hold down the shift key while over the timeline and then click-drag to move a comment segment to another position.  This will allow you much greater control over the quality of your conversations.

So basically, I continue to be impressed at Voicethread and look forward to ongoing future improvements.