I am loving Diigo. I know I’ve written about this site before, but the more I use it, the more I like it. I’ve been bookmarking sites like mad, and I’ve set up networks with a lot of the Edubloggers I read so that I have access to their bookmarks, too. It’s a bit of information overload, but most definitely provides a wealth of information and useful links. You can find my links at http://www.diigo.com/user/Tekkieteacher. If you decide to set up an account, feel free to send me a friend request and join my network. After all, in this Web 2.0 world, you are what you share!

One of my latest additions is Boolify Project. If you’ve ever wondered how to efficiently search the web, this tool will show you the way!

I had heard this statement before. The first time was at the JMU’s Content Teaching Academy where I had the opportunity to learn from some really wonderful fellow educators and technologists. I’ve read about it, or versions of it, in many of the Edublogs I follow. I heard it again today, during David Warlick’s session at the District’s Closing the Gap Summit. Every time I hear or read about it, it really hits home for me. This is the reason why educators do what we do — we strive to prepare our students for the today’s world and the future that lies ahead of them. However, it is more important than ever before in the history of education that we prepare our students for their tomorrows without resorting to yesterday’s methods.

So, what was so wrong with our yesterdays? Absolutely nothing, really.

I can still remember Monday nights when my family gathered around the TV to watch one of the four channels available, physically getting up to change the channels. Luckily, we all liked MASH so there wasn’t much arguing over what to watch, although we did argue over who would do the channel changing.

But for our students today, this scenario is completely foreign. It is not their reality nor is it their future.

Why is this a problem? It’s a problem because all too often we find ourselves teaching the way we were taught. It’s what we know and understand best. But yesterday’s teaching does not match our students’ reality any more than the scenario above does.

Let’s imagine we have mastered teaching in today’s world, employing current methodologies that are relevant and meaningful for our students. Even given that, how can we possibly prepare our students to succeed in a world that is changing so rapidly? In his presentation Warlick stated, “For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our children for a future we cannot clearly describe.”

OK….so we are supposed to teach using new methodologies to prepare our students for a future about which we have absolutely no clue….feeling overwhelmed, yet?

While this is a totally understandable feeling (and one that isn’t all that unfamiliar to most of us in education), I hope that at the same time you are also feeling excitement regarding the potential there is in today’s classrooms for some truly amazing learning experiences. The Flat Classroom Project, where students from different parts of the globe collaborated on projects together, is a great example of 21st Century learning. More than ever before, learning is no longer restricted to what happens within the classroom’s four walls. Teachers today have the opportunity to increasingly become facilitators of learning rather than distributors of knowledge. In the 21st century classroom, our students have the opportunity to become active participants in the learning process rather than passive consumers.

So while feeling overwhelmed is understandable, please don’t let it extinguish the excitement you may feel about the wonderful possibilities there are in today’s classrooms.

For those of you who were unable to attend Warlick’s session, it was awesome! Here are some his resource links.

http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?p=254

http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OSOWSessionOutline

http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurStudentsOurWorlds

I tried to upload this last night, but TeacherTube was experiencing technical difficulties (technology is great as long as it works ! :-))

Here’s a video on this week’s featured website, Diigo.

Download Video: Posted by tekkieteacher at TeacherTube.com.

This week’s featured website is Diigo. It’s online bookmarking, social networking, and instant messaging all rolled into one site. Here’s a nice Wiki about how to use it, too!

Blogs are a wonderful way to publish information and provide commentary on topics important to us. This week’s featured websites are two blogs authored by some of our peers here in the district. The first is the Bulldog Readers blog authored by our librarians for the Virginia Reader’s Book Club. Be sure to check out the student comments on each of the books. The second is the BRMS Blog done by their ITRT, Frances G. The BRMS Blog has some wonderfully detailed information about technology in education.

In addition, a number of our teachers are using blogs more and more through the SchoolFusion AfterClass suite of tools. To check out any of these blogs, go to our school webpage and then check out the Teacher Profiles under For Students & Parents. The teacher’s blogs are linked to their profiles. The entries and commentary from our World Languages classes are especially neat!

What is Web 2.0? Here’s an example:

Last night I was twittering with other Edubloggers where I learned about a live EdTech webcast with Danah Boyd on social networking and education that was starting in just a few minutes. I logged in and joined the live chat while listening to the live audio stream. While participating on the chat I learned about Diigo, SqoolTools, and Buzzword, bookmarked them all on del.icio.us,  and added one of the participants in the chat room to my del.icio.us network.

It was way cool.

This is not your parents’ Internet.

Our new Web 2.0 tool, AfterClass, went live today! For those of you wanting to dive in to these nifty new instructional tools, here is an online help site from SchoolFusion.

http://www.schoolfusion.info/help/afterclass/teachers/

Don’t know what Flickr is? It’s one of the most popular photo sharing sites available on the Internet today.  For those of you quick-clickers — you’ve already figured out that the site is, of course, blocked by the county. Web 2.0 tools like Flickr have made publishers out of literally everyone! Problem is, some of the things folks publish don’t quite fit the “appropriate use” policy of our AUP, so it has to be blocked.

All that aside, it is a pretty nice service. And now the Library of Congress has joined the Flickr community! Why is this a big deal? After all, the pictures they posted were already available on the LOC site…

The big deal is that now the world, and I do mean the ENTIRE world, can provide comments, feedback, history, perspective, etc., to accompany the pictures. Does that mean some crap may be posted? Of course! But the tremendous community of knowledge that makes up our little world (and it IS getting smaller, at least as far as technology is concerned) most certainly outweighs the garbage that some goofballs post.

 THAT’S why this is a big deal….

Who could have imagined?

Download Video: Posted by shaggyhill at TeacherTube.com.

This week’s featured website is Students 2.0. It is an edublog (blogs that only deal with topics relating to education) written and published entirely by students from all around the globe where they express their views about education today. It’s pretty impressive and thought-provoking. Some of what they say may make you squirm in your seat a bit, but the posts are thoughtful and well-written. Be sure to check out the information under the About tab to learn more about their mission.

We’ve all heard about Facebook and MySpace, but for those of us just a teensy bit older than 25, there’s another social networking service called Ning. Just like MySpace and Facebook, the site is blocked by the school system. However, I found I could still get to a really great Ning community called Classroom 2.0. The pictures don’t work if you are in the school building, but the text is there. It’s a great resource! If you’ve been thinking about learning more about social networks, nothing’s better than giving one a try!

You are teaching class. You are incredibly excited because your lesson utilizes some very neat Web 2.0 technology. Your ITRT is very proud.

You set the stage for you lesson by introducing the blog (or wiki, or podcast, or any other Web 2.0 teaching tool) that you’ve integrated into the day’s lesson. You look out into the their eyes, expecting to see looks of appreciation for your awesome lesson planning creativity. Instead, you get nothing but blank stares–nada, nothing, zip. Where is the excitement for technology that your ITRT and the experts have promised will be there?

Yes, it does happen. In spite of the studies that tell us that our students know more about and are more comfortable with techology than any of us born before 1990 could ever hope to be, the fact is that we do have kids who are still wading in the shallows rather than riding the technology tidal wave. And that’s OK.

David Warlick wrote about this recently in his post, Such a Quiet Revolution. In it he wrote, ”Today’s change is fast. I suspect, aside from great cataclysms, faster than any at time before. But it’s not so fast that it really stirs up the wind.” And that’s what we have–a technology revolution that’s moving rapidly, but the winds of change are more like a whispering breeze rather than a hurricane gale.

Does that mean we should give up on technology? Of course not. Just because some of our students are still waders, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t learn to swim. According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, technology needs to be an integral part in our students’ education if we hope for them to be able to compete in today’s global economy.

So what does this mean for teachers? It means that in spite of the occasional blank stares, don’t feel disheartened. Like virtually everything we do in teaching, we just have to keep trying. It’s hard to imagine, but just a few years ago “surfing” meant something totally different and “googling” and “blogging” were gibberish. Things are changing. Our kids WILL “get it”.

They have to.

I had a very nice conversation last week with one of our Language Arts teachers, Jennifer C. We were talking about our Learning Management System, SchoolFusion, and she mentioned that she’d been getting some really wonderful responses using the Discussion Board feature. She said that her students’ online writing was generally more thoughtful than what she received from them in class. We talked a little bit about the reasons why and theorized that it may be because our students today are Digital Natives and the online world is very much a part of their “comfort zone.” More so, perhaps, than even the “real world”.

Given this conversation, those of you not currently using the Discussion Board feature might want to give it a try. If you are interested, here’s how to enable and use it:

To enable:

1. Log in to SchoolFusion and go the your class webpage.
2. Click Update Class/Section Configuration.
3. On the right under Class/Section Settings, click the pencil next to Message Board.
4. Adjust your message board settings as desired and click Click here to edit the Message Board Setting.

To use:

1. Return to your class/section webpage. You should now see a section called Discussion Board on the right side.
2. In the Discussion Board section, click start a discussion.

Check out the finalists for the 2007 Edublog Awards!

Today we have a whole list of featured websites–just slide your eyes a bit to the right and down and check out the Blogroll! Every blog has a listing of other blogs the author likes to read.  Therefore, if you like what you are reading here, chances are you’ll like what you find in the Blogroll. Although I read them all, my current favorites are Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth, McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant, Fisch’s The Fischbowl, and Gate’s Tipline. These blogs are much better written, much better researched, and way more interesting than mine. While my blogroll reflects my interest in technology and education, but there are over 50 million blogs out there on every subject. To find one on a subject of your choice, just google it!

A few weeks ago I posted an entry for Website Wednesday about PortaPortal.com, a social bookmarking utility. Here is a nice video explaining further what social bookmarking is and how it might be beneficial for you, your fellow teachers, and your students. This video showcases another great bookmarking tool, del.icio.us.

Download Video: Posted by leelefever at TeacherTube.com.

Last week I was speaking with one of our English teachers, JJ, about an extra credit assignment he’d given his seniors for their study of the Iliad. JJ asked them to create a “myspace-like” page for one of the characters, writing an appropriate profile and communicating with other characters from Homer’s epic. He did not tell them they had to actually use MySpace to create their page. They could have used another software application or even hand-drawn the page.

What happened? Most students opted for the cyber-approach and the Iliad is now alive and thriving on MySpace!

Most of us have heard about MySpace and Facebook, but do you know what they are? They are social networking sites that many (if not most) of our students are using to find and communicate with friends. 

Download Video: Posted by laurie.king at TeacherTube.com.

Are these sites sometimes used inappropriately, with students making inflammatory comments and posting questionable photos? Absolutely. Are they home to predators hoping to befriend minors for unspeakable purposes? Yes.

When used appropriately, though, these sites are not evil. Humans, and most especially the teenagers we teach, are social beings. Social networking is just another way to socialize. We can embrace this technology and strive to use it to make learning relevant for our students, in the process teaching them how to responsibly and safely utilize this resource. Or, we can ignore it.

But one thing is certain — it’s not going away.

I showed Karl Fisch’s original Did You Know video at the start of the year. Scott McLeod later re-did the video with new music and graphics. Here is the updated version.

Download Video: Posted by ksblues at TeacherTube.com.

What is a Digital Native? Marc Presky was the first to use the term in his 2001 article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. According to Presky, a Digital Native is someone who grew up in the digital world, surrounded by and immersed in technology. Alternatively, a Digital Immigrant is someone who came to computers later in life. Presky and many others in the educational community argue that because our students today grew up in the digital age they learn and process information differently and that it’s important for educators to understand and address those differences.

Here are some additional resources:

• The Digital Natives Research Project
• Portrait of a Digital Native - From TechLearning
• What Causes the Disconnect - From Apple Education

I have mixed feelings about this classification. What generation HASN’T argued that “adults just don’t understand” for one reason or another? I DO believe students today are able to multi-task much more efficiently than the students I had in class when I first started teaching 16 years ago, which is probably a product of their growing up in the digital age. Afterall, it takes skill to send a text message, change the MP3 on an iPod, read email, and work on homework all at the same time!

Where I question the Digital Native/Digital Immigrants argument is where it says that a Digital Immigrant will forever speak with an “accent” when in comes to technology. I have come across many “immigrants” who were very technologically proficient. Additionally, we should remember that it was Digital Immigrants who invented the technology to begin with!

Whatever your point of view on the subject, it’s a very interesting idea. If you find yourself wondering about and not understanding just what our students are thinking, maybe it IS because they think differently today.

Here’s a video on it. Thoughts?

Download Video: Posted by jsdt4 at TeacherTube.com.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years, most of us have heard of Wikipedia. Feelings about Wikipedia among educators run the full spectrum, but that’s a topic for another blog….

Today’s Mini-Byte concerns the “wiki” in Wikipedia. To understand what a wiki is, check out this video, Wikis in Plain English from Commoncraft.

Download Video: Posted by leelefever at TeacherTube.com.

Is this a tool you and/or your students might find useful? Probably! If you’re interested, check out pbwikis. There are other wiki sites out there, but I like that pbwiki markets itself as safe and secure–allowing users to easily set their wikis to be private rather than public.