Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Searching and Sharing Made Interesting and Easy


A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to a couple of great Web 2.0 tools that I think would be great in a classroom and might make a teacher's life a little easier and maybe a student's interest level increase.

I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for search engines that make web searching a little more interesting than text based links. But I'm also looking for time savers when it comes to finding web pages. I really like this new tool called SpaceTime 3D. Those of you who have used Cooliris will know what I am talking about. Cooliris gives you the ability to search for photos from either Google images or Yahoo images galleries and present them in 3D format. You can move your mouse over the photos and scroll through a list with one click, rather than having to go each page and view an image individually. It's a great add-on in Firefox and a great resource for searching images fast and easy, but I digress.

I did a quick search for Credenda Virtual in the SpaceTime and this is what came up for an image. What this search engine does is loads a number of pages in sequence that the searcher can scroll through without having to go to each page individually.


To get a larger view, just click on the above image. But this hopefully gives you an idea of the potential of a tool like this. Now a drawback might be bandwidth issues. Because it pre-loads the web pages in the background it does use up more bandwidth.

Another feature SpaceTime 3D offers is a separate browser that can be downloaded and used outside of Firefox, IE, or Safari. With this browser, you can save your searches and go back and forth between stacked search windows.

I see how youth are attracted to images and I think that this search engine may increase the levels of engagement for students. For myself, I really get tired of browsing through pages of searches to find what I am looking for. I've used add-on tools like SearchPreview in Firefox, because I want to see a snapshot of what the search list has found so I don't have to visit one page at a time and which can be a huge time-waster. So this is one tool that was shared with me recently, that I thought be of some value in our classroom.

The other Web 2.0 tool is LiveBinder. Wow. What a great tool! I recently completed a digital portfolio for myself and this tool really impressed me and worked well at placing all my webpages, videos, and resources that I have created in Wikispaces, Ning, LinkedIn in one hosted environment. Imagine a tool that will allow your students to work in groups and create different media resources that they can place in one location and share with other group members or with the teacher.

Some of the features include:

  • View URL links within a binder page
  • Upload Word docs, or PDF's that are embedded in the a page
  • Create tabs and subtabs for organizing information
  • Upload media: Quicktime, SWF, and more into a page
  • Use it for classroom presentations
  • Build a library of resources for students to access
  • Create group projects to share with other group members

Here's a quick overview of LiveBinders for Teachers.



Once you've created your LiveBinder, you can share it our by email, Twitter, Facebook, or embed it like I'm doing here. Check it out.



Pretty cool, Eh? Can you tell I'm Canadian? Hope you enjoy this quick tour in my LiveBinder. It's just a smattering of some of the work I have done in the past year, and work I continue to do. Check it out.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Social Networks - Friends or Not?

I deactivated my Facebook account about eight weeks ago, and I don't miss it. Really, at first I was checking it every spare hour I had, but I got to the place that I really started to dislike it. A lot of it centred around privacy issues for me. I'm sure we have all heard stories of people losing their jobs because of pictures being posted or comments being made that were inappropriate. While I was not worried about anything being posted without my permission or that might be compromising, because my life is pretty quiet (almost boring), I disliked having to read other people's news feeds that was full of swearing or silly comments.

Initially when the fad started I added everybody I knew. People I hadn't seen or heard from for years were adding me. I never talked to them even after they became my Facebook friends, but they were on list. That's all that matter. But eventually I started filtering out people I didn't want on my friends list. Apparently deleting them from your list is called a Facebook slam. However, the intention was not to slam anybody, but just bring my list down to a realistic number of people I wanted as friends.

But even after that people were tagging photos they posted of me and writing silly comments that I got tired of. So I made the plunge to deactivate the account to see how I might survive without it. I have done very well without it. I really don't miss it all.

I have concerns about how young people are using it today. I realize that it is pretty hard to ban the use of Facebook in schools when almost every student is carrying a cellphone that they can use to access Facebook. But I find it a huge time waster. I have seen young people sit in front of the computer screen going through photos after photos, writing comments, chatting online for hours. It clearly has become a major social network for students to use to communicate with one another. But clearly, they need to learn about how much information to post about themselves and how they need to interact with one another. Just like we used to spend time teaching our own children and our students about how to speak to one another politely and courteously, we need to teach our students about social networking etiquette. Here's a couple of links about determining how to use a social network like Facebook; Social Networking Etiquette or The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette.

Recently, I had a conversation with a number of educators about whether or not they added their students to their Facebook friends list. The overwhelming consensus was "absolutely no way!" And I agree.

Call me old fashion, but let's put this into context. Remember the time before computers and MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, did we engage in social activities with our students? Did we go to the weekend party they were at and hang out with them? We didn't have email, or SMS, or Facebook, but did we send them Valentine cards in the mail, or write personal letters to them telling them about what we were doing in our lives, or share our photo albums with them. We didn't do any of that stuff, because it would have seemed weird and inappropriate.

So my question is how does the new trend of social networks and technology make it acceptable. I know teachers who have students as their friends in Facebook and use it to post assignments. But in a case like this, I would want a separate account that was just a teacher profile. But most students don't take the time to create two profiles, and I'm not sure I want to see all the stuff they put on their profiles. I think that is the parents job to see what their children are doing online.

While the majority of teachers are trustworthy, I think friending students on Facebook is risky and weird. I wouldn't recommend it. While I don't want to sound paranoid, I do think there is potential for both teachers or students to get into trouble by what gets posted. Everybody, who is friends with that person, sees what is said about them, to them.

Reputations are on the line. Kids innocence needs to be protected. I wouldn't do it. There are other resources like Ning, EduBlog, Wikispace to use with students.

However, I was introduced by Greg Limperis, founder of the Technology Integration in Education to LinkedIn. This site is makes it's distinction from Facebook by being a professional network. It's a place to collaborate with people in the same line of work or share similar interests with one another. I certainly haven't figured out all the ins and outs about it's advantages and disadvantages. But my first impression is that it's not in the same category as Facebook. So I'm going to try it for awhile.

I hope to add to some of the educational discussions that come up in this network. I'm really not interested in sharing with the world what I'm eating today, or what I'm watching on TV this very moment, but I am interested in participating in dialogues about how do we improve learning standards in our classrooms, or how to integrate 21st Century technology with our learning outcomes. These are the things that excite me. That being said, I really enjoyed this video called, Learning to Change - Changing to Learn. I hope you like it too. I think is has some important things to say to us as educators, parents, and students.