Workshop material for CHOICES course

1. Welcome to
Social Software in the Classroom
You can prepare by:
• going online (on your laptop or on a desktop)
Network: SSS
Password: SpongeBob
• contributing to our wiki by answering the following question:
At the end of today what do you hope to have achieved?
http://www.skrbl.com/100024620
Rochelle Jensen, 2006

2. Note: Parking Bay
Making the most of this network to address other issues.

3. Social Software in the Classroom
Blogs and Wikis
This practical workshop will provide teachers with a quick overview of social software before
launching into an in-depth look at two tools – blogs and wikis. We will look at the merits of using
these tools in the classroom and provide time and support to get started.
Course Content will include: What else?
Overview of social software
What do you want more of
Examples of classroom blogs or less of?
Hands-on creating a blog
Examples of wikis
Overview of why and how to setup a wiki
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4. Plan of Attack
9-:10:30
 Getting Started
T
 Education in the Digital Age
Overview of social software and the potential impact on education
 Creating a Student Centred Blog
F
Blogging in a Nutshell
11:00 -12:30
A
 Blog Examples / Purpose/ Keeping Safe/
 Setting Up a Blog –Planning / Getting Started
R
1:15 – 2:30
 Wikis – What? Why? How?
D
 Other
 Reflection

5. Setting Up for Success
Establishing a Learning Culture
Collaborative – focus on sharing ideas, making sense of new material, helping each
other
Questioning to make sense of material
Share talking time and ensure everyone participates
Flexibility and Multiple Paths
Sequence
Dialogue and Discussion
Cell-phones on silent
at else???
W h

6. Learning Goals
By the end of today…
Web 2.0+Education
Be familiar with key changes in the web
Explore e- learning and the New Zealand curriculum
Classroom Blogs - Have begun creating a purposeful blog and have
the skills and knowledge to continue to grow your blog
Wikis - Know what wikis are/ classroom application/knowledge of the
set-up process

7. What’s Changed ?
The Digital Landscape Our Learners
Web 1 vs. Web 2.0

8. Social Software/ Web 2
oUsers are active rather than passive
oCreate and publish content.
o Shared constitution of meaning.
oLess about places and other nouns more about verbs.
oNo html knowledge required.
oContent flows in a variety of directions that depend on the behaviors
of those who produce the information and those who use it.

9. Web 1.0 was about reading, Web 2.0 is about writing
Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
Web 1.0 was about HTML, Web 2.0 is about XML
Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
Web 1.0 was about portals, Web 2.0 is about RSS
Web 1.0 was about taxonomy, Web 2.0 is about tags
Web 1.0 was about wires, Web 2.0 is about wireless
Web 1.0 was about owning, Web 2.0 is about sharing
Web 1.0 was about dialup, Web 2.0 is about broadband
Web 1.0 was about hardware costs, Web 2.0 is about bandwidth costs

10. Web 2.0 can be organised in the following way:
Aggregators - A site or program that gathers data from multiple sources and organizes the
information to present in a new, more streamlined or appropriate format. Google , RSS feeds,
Delicious …
Social Networking - Websites focusing on connecting people with other people directly like
MySpace, Club Penguin, Oldfriends, Secondlife …
Social Media - User-generated content like blogs , wikipedia, webnote …
Audio, Picture and Video - Online television such as YouTube,Pandora, Podcasts,
Flickr…
Web Applications - online programs that can do virtually everything your existing
software programs can do. Googledocs for instance can replace your
Microsoft Office programs.
Check out the growing list of web 2.0 applications
http://www.listio.com/web20/index.php?tnm=0
Rochelle Jensen, 2006

11. Social software supports the
desire of individuals to be
pulled into groups to achieve
goals.

12. Talk to a partner, come up with one
word that best describes web 2.0

13. What’s Changed ?
The Digital Landscape Our Learners
Web 1 vs. Web 2.0

14. Conventional Speed
Step-by-Step
Linear Processing
Text First
Stand-Alone

15. The e-Life
Communicating Coordinating Searching
IM, chat Projects, workgroups, Info, connections,
MMORPGs people
Sharing Evaluating Analyzing
Blogs, webcams
Reputation systems– SETI, drug molecules
Buying & Selling Epinions, Amazon,
Slashdot Reporting
ebay
Moblogs, photos
Gaming
Exchanging Solo, 1-on-1, small & Programming
P2P large groups
Open systems, mods,
Creating Learning
search
sites, avatars, mods About stuff that
interests them Socializing
Meeting Learning social
3D chat rooms, dating Evolving behavior, influence
Collecting
Peripheral, emergent
behaviors Growing Up
Exploring,
mp3, video, sensor data transgressing
Rochelle Jensen, 2006 © 2006 Marc Prensky

17. Do these new web 2.0 technologies actually have anything to
offer us in the way of improving our pedagogy?
Key Research Facts :
• Learning becomes more personalised, social and flexible
• Encourages:
group/individual activity
collaboration
active involvement in creating content
sharing and exchange of information

18. E- Learning and the New Zealand Curriculum
E- learning and Pedagogy
**Making Connections
**Facilitating Shared Learning
**Creation of Supportive Learning Environments
**Enhancing Opportunities to Learn

19. Blogging in a nutshell
o Example of Web 2.0
o Definition from wikipedia :
A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more
personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to
its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting).
oUser-friendly
oShare a common format. Lots of free blog providers.
oControl of blog is with the person who has set it up

20. Blogs tend to have a few things in common:
o A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest at
the top
o An archive of older articles
o A way for people to leave comments about the articles
o A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”
o One or more “feeds” like RSS …

21. Setting Up a Student-Centered
Classroom Blog
1) Examples
2) Purpose and Benefits
3) Planning your classroom blog
4) Making a start with blogger.com

22. Surfing the Blogosphere
http://nzedublogs.wikispaces.com/NZ+classroom+student+blogs
Digging Deeper:
o Searching for Blogs
o RSS Feeds

23. Purposes of blogs
oTeacher and Group communication
http://bellevue8.blogspot.com/
http://gblibrary.blogspot.com/
http://proctor-thomson.com/brooklynprimary/
oPersonalising Student Learning
http://www.opsroom15.blogspot.com/
http://www.e3eclat.blogspot.com/
oDialogue Generation
http://thediaryofannefrank.blogspot.com/
http://boyoverboardteamb.blogspot.com/
http://room9writing.blogspot.com/
oStudent Blogs
http://team1407.blogspot.com/
oTeacher Blogs
http://www.nz-interface.co.nz/teacherblogs/

24. o Creates a learning community feel in a place away from the traditional classroom. This
learning community is open 24/7
o Blogs give individual learners a voice – shifting the ‘power’ from the instructor to the
learner
o Provides an authentic audience for student writing, an audience of peers, parents, and a
potential worldwide audience.
o Allows for multiple feedback loops among the networked students, teachers and other
interested parties. Learning in a class blog setting is now a social activity.
o Supports differentiation. The blog gives some of our more verbally reserved students a
forum for their thoughts.
o Encourages reading. To make a meaningful comment, or to choose their favorite post, the
students first need to read what’s out there.
o Encourages and teaches research skills. Encourages students to extend their research
beyond the assigned work.
o Builds technology skills
Towards Reflective Blog Talk
o Provides links to others sites and resources
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25. Planning your (classroom ) blog
Food for Thought
oWhat would be the purpose of your blog?
oWhat are you going to write about?
oHow often?
oWho would read it ? Why would people read it?
oWho would comment on it? Who would post on it ? Why?
oWhat links will you have from your blog?
oWill you pose photos?

26. Making a start with
http://www.blogger.com/start
THE FASTEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND BLOGGING IS TO TRY IT OUT. JUST TYPE IN THE LINK ABOVE, AND YOU CAN BE PART OF
THE PHENOMENON THAT'S TRANSFORMING WEB AND MEDIA TO A PARTICIPATORY ACTIVITY IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES.
SERIOUSLY.
BLOGGER IS TOTALLY FREE.

27. 1. Create your blog 2. Personalise Settings 3. Make a post
4. Customise Your Blog
-The Template
NB> Customise by thoughtfully
answering the questions in each section.
These all relate to the look, feel and ability of
others to interact with your blog

28. Tools to enhance your blog
Widgets
http://bling4yrblog.blogspot.com/ - Allanah King
http://cogsforblogs.blogspot.com/ - Lenva Shearing

29. Tips
o Stick to the purpose of your blog
o Interact with readers
o Make it worthwhile
o Build your blog bit by bit
o Seek expert blogs to assist with posting on your own
o Try and post at least once a week
o Make all posts relate to student learning

30. Student Safety and Privacy Concerns
The following guidelines are by no means exhaustive, but may be helpful to address
some real and legitimate concerns
• Create a blog contract
o Depending on the age of students, consider posting their work using a pseudonym
instead of the students’ real names. In no cases use a student’s first name and last
name on a blog posting.
o Set up your blog so all comments must be moderated by you. Comments will be
emailed to you for the ‘ok’ before being directly posted to your blog.
o Keep the school community posted.
Inform all stakeholders about your planned or ongoing use of blogs for instructional
purposes. Solicit their support and feedback in advance, ideally before concerns or
problems develop relating to blog postings.
http://www.netsafe.org.nz/schools/schools_default.aspx
http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://nelsoncentral.wikispaces.com/blogs
Blog Letter

31. Rochelle Jensen, 2006

32. What’s a wiki?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

33. Exploring Wikis
http://nzedublogs.wikispaces.com/classes+and+students+using+wikis
http://www.wikispaces.com/help+Teachers#accounts

34. Blogs
Which tool? Wikis
•Online diaries •Editable webpages
•Some people can make main entries (posts), •Some people can make changes to any part of
anyone can comment. (This depends on how you the page. (This depends on how you set it up!)
set it up!)
•Greater potential for participation.
•Greater degree of control by the administrator. •Greater flexibility in layout and organisation.
•Easier to keep tidy.

35. Getting Started with Wikis
http://nelsoncentral.wikispaces.com/creating+wikis – Rachel Boyd
Getting Tricky:
http://gettingtrickywithwikis.wikispaces.com/ - Lenva Shearing

36. http://rocky11.blogspot.com/ Stay in Touch
rjensen@waikato.ac.nz
Resources:
http://www.wix.com/rjensen/handpicked