1. Why would you want to do a
collaborative project online?

2. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir #3 'Water Night' received 3746
videos by 2,945 people in 73 countries. YouTube video 2 April 2012,
and received 100,000 views in the first week.
Eric Whitaker’s Virtual Choir on YouTube

3. Can online participation lead to
something good happening in real life?

4. In just over 24 hours after posting one man's heartbreakingly heroic
story on Reddit, more than $80,000 in donations had been
pledged to a Kenyan orphanage where he saved a group of kids.
The donations came from all 50 U.S. states and 46 different
countries

5. The world in which we live is complex and
interconnected. Today's students need new skills to
be successful - creativity, collaboration,
communication.
A digital display of the Facebook user community and the connections between users.

6. Where are the connections in this classroom?

7. How different is it from a classroom from the
1950s?
Source: Heywood Grammar School

8. Are we afraid to step out?

9. How teens view their digital lives
Entire infographic here

10. As teachers we need to get over that barrier first.
Upskill.
Photo by Tralamander on Flickr

11. It's never too late

12. Our rationale:
Learning in a social media environment.
Using skills to develop important
literacies

13. Why are social media literacies important?
If you know how to swim that will serve you very
well, but if you are the only person in the world
who knows how to read and write then it won't
serve you very well. (Howard Rheingold)

14. Social media literacies involve not only the skills of
encoding and decoding in these media but the
social part, the ability to use these skills and these
media in concert with others to get things done.
(Howard Rheingold)

15. Participatory culture:
don't just consume - create
(Rheingold)

16. Case in point: our students start
blogging

17. Year 9s find an authentic audience - a
real story

18. How it started
Tania > Nick
Have I ever sent you my documentation of a
collaborative project I did with a year 10 English
class and students from Florida (USA) and
Finland?

19. Nick > Tania
What a fabulous idea

20. A little later...
Hi Tania,
I’d like to get my yr nines to think more about what
and how they are learning. I want them to be
more reflective and more critical thinkers.

21. Can you think of the best way to make this
happen?
Tania: I think I can

25. Tania > Nick
What do you think about embedding a clustrmap
into your blog and those of your students?
Students are thrilled to see that people are reading
their blog.

26. Nick > Tania
It's very exciting for me to see where all of this
goes. I'm ok with it going nowhere/ failing, but I
think it will be fun.

27. Nick > Tania
It's a bit scary making their work so public, but I
think it will inspire them to do their best.

28. global audience

29. How is blogging different from all the
other writing students do?

30. sharing:
now I can read what you're writing
Joel Robinson's photo

31. authentic audience:
not just writing for my teacher
Photo found on Pinterest

32. peer readership:
writing for my friends to read (just like Facebook)
Flickr photo by h.koppdelaney

33. ownership of blog space:
make it the way I like

34. empowerment:
I am an author/publisher

35. engagement:
peer encouragement

36. real world influence:
the world is my classroom
Photo by Joel Robinson

37. Preparation:
How to behave online

38. Rules:
traditional

40. Rules:
what's most important

42. First post:
Setting the stage

43. Open minds welcome

44. The why

45. Know yourself

47. Students buy in
Good day, Mr Fairlie
Here's my Posterous Space page.
http://simontr.posterous.com/
I am looking forward to post more and share my
ideas.
Simon Trinh of 9L.

48. Nick > George
Well done, George. I love your first post. Your
musing about the innate self versus the learned
self is very interesting. I look forward to reading
more.
Keep it up.
Mr Fairlie

49. First comment from 'the outside'
Nick, Penny Bentley (maths teacher and ICT mentor
- Australia) commented on Simon's post.
Later she wrote on FB ' 'They are amazing,
articulate young people... it's a credit to their
teachers.'

50. Nick > Tania
Yay! Hooray! I am thrilled, and I hope Simon is too.

51. Nick > Tania
So I just looked at our clustrmap, and saw views
from Belgrade, Luxemburg, NZ… amazing

53. Tania > Nick
Congratulations! You've passed 1,000 blog views!

54. Bringing in real people, experts

55. Isobelle > Tania
Thanks for asking me Tania. I will
happily write a message.

56. Nick > Tania
Wow. This is really starting to blow my mind.
A-Ma-Zing.

57. Isobelle Carmody writes to our students

58. Isobelle Carmody - Blogging...
...seems to me like a diary and yet it does have an
audience and feeling that, it causes me to treat
the material I want to talk about differently...it
does exactly what Mr Fairlie talks about in your
site - it allows me to try out ideas on paper (well,
cyberpaper) for an audience that may or may not
read me, but they might, and so I have to take
their presence seriously.
It allows me to find out what I think about things-
that in fact is what I think all writing should be
about.

59. Nick > Tania
Fabulous. What she wrote was just perfect. And it's
addressed to the boys!

60. Hang on...
... is this who I think it is?

62. Yes, I can talk to my favourite author!

64. Isobelle encourages ongoing
connections

65. Why not 2 authors?
Tania > Nick
Michael Gerard Bauer (The Running Man, Ishmael
series) has agreed to write something for yr 9s
on the blog.

66. Nick > Tania
How fantastic.

69. Michael gives the boys some advice

71. Nick > students:
What's your take on Michael's post?

73. Students reflect on the power of words
It is not so much that we take words for granted but more that we
ignore the beauty and power (and danger) they contain.
Words can also be manipulative and vitriolic, possible made to
influence your thoughts in invisible ways, fooling you with their
eloquence. Words can also be empty, soulless and flung with little
care onto paper.
These tiny insignificant characters that are so puny and insignificant
by themselves but if carefully crafted and ordered can rock an
entire nation to its core.
Most people don't think about how important it is and how our lives
would be completely different. We could not communicate ideas,
feelings and just general informatiom. We would be locked in our
own thougts, but then again, how could humans even think
advanced and complex thoughts without language? We would
only be able to think graphical thoughts like an image of a place.

74. Nick > Tania
These responses are blowing my mind. Perhaps the
most exciting thing I've done in 10 years of
teaching!

75. Teaching online conversation
Source: Daniela Volpari

76. Nick > Tania
They are at pains to respect each other and the
ideas. They are getting it!
Now they just need to learn the opposite: that you
can't afford to be overly precious about ideas. If
the ideas are robust enough they will withstand
some verbal punishment.

77. The art of commenting

78. Social media literacies

80. Conversation

82. The task surprises

83. Nick > Tania
It's becoming clear that this is as much a writing as
thinking task. It sounds weird, but I saw this as a
forum for developing their meta-cognition, and
didn't anticipate the benefits to their writing

84. Voice
Source: http://www.isawthisimage.com/2011/04/50-beautiful-images-of-inspiration-time-
stands-still-ar/

85. Nick > Tania
They are all really experimenting with voices. I love
the difference in voice between the first and
subsequent posts. They very often go over the
top, and mimic what they think is an adult voice.
This is sooo much better than what they usually
produce, which is the voice they think is the
'right' one (bland and devoid of personality).

86. Tania > Nick
Yes, all that will hopefully happen over time. I keep
forgetting they're yr 9s.

87. Nick > Tania
I've just read x's posts. His blog epitomizes the
purpose of the project: it's deeply reflective and
he's really taken chance to develop an authentic
voice.

88. Student blog posts can surprise you
This is EXACTLY why we're doing this project. Tasks
narrowly defined by me produce narrow thinking,
aimed at pleasing me (!)
How would you devise an assessment task aimed at
eliciting this kind of work?
"Write a reflective essay of staggering insight,
which cuts to the heart of your very being, in an
authorial voice which is mature beyond your
years."

89. Nick > Tania
I really believe that school is valuable if it teaches
you why knowledge is important.
School needs to inspire curiosity and provide a way
to pursue it. If school doesn’t do that, I honestly
don’t know what else it’s for.
I want them to see that school is worth it because
they are worth it.

90. Nick has an epiphany ;P
I think this has to be the starting point for all
classroom engagement.
The questions, ‘why does this matter?’ or ‘when am
I ever going to use this?’ are legitimate ones and
should be addressed explicitly by a teacher.

91. Nick:
The answer ‘all knowledge is valuable’ is the true
and important one, but a kid won’t necessarily
accept that on face value.
They need to see why knowledge matters by
honestly and critically engaging with it, and
examine themselves in the light of that
knowledge.

92. Deep understanding of blogging as a
learning experience for the teacher
Nick:
The reality of exams and assessment tasks, and
teaching to the task is undeniable, but this
shouldn’t be allowed to dominate a classroom.
This project is my rage against the learning-is-
assessment machine.

93. Teachers doing, not just saying
We model writing by doing what we ask the
students to do.

94. Nick's post

95. Tania's post

96. Student gets it about online
conversation

97. From the blog In Retrospect

98. Challenge:
do something then write about it.
Asking the important questions

100. Challenging assumptions,
questioning stereotypes

101. Student:
In Western society today, the 21st century, a new
kind of man is emerging. This man, surprisingly,
is quite conservative, despite the thought social
progressiveness of his society. To be brief, he is a
coward, who will very easily conform to the
existing norms of behaviour. We, for all our
progressiveness, still cling on to the archaic
model of masculinity; a physically strong man
who is both authoritative and financially
successful.

102. Online serendipity:
metacognition of online behaviour

103. Go on, get lost

106. Making connections

107. Nick > boys
...and even though the
ideas taught in Maths have everything to do with
lessons from Philosophy , we treat them like
they're unrelated.

108. Student:
Connections strengthen as we grow older, because
we experience more. With more experiences,
there is more to connect to. Therefore we must
make it our duty to be not only learning, but
aware that we are learning, every day.
Only then can we constantly make connections to
old thoughts, and to other old connections.

109. Examples of student blogs from other
disciplines

110. Natalie's studio:
posting what I love and what inspires me
Siena College
Drawing of feather created using app
Sketchbook Pro
Art

111. Reflection and self-assessment
Natalie:
If I was to do this again, I would try other materials
like oil paint or pencil to create different types of
feathers and textures but otherwise I am
extremely happy with this feather considering I
only created it in under 45 minutes!

112. Sean Nash teaches important literacies
in his biology ning

113. Thinking about learning in biology
Student:
I've learned so much - not only about the
carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins but about how
misleading the media is and how uninformed
people are about their health, including myself.

114. Where to next?
Further collaboration within the school
Collaboration with students outside school, possibly
from another country
Bringing in experts for areas of interest
Possible whole school integration of digital literacies
and citizenship into learning and teaching

115. Year 9 English MSH blog link -
http://9l-english-mhs.posterous.com/
Nick Fairlie on Twitter @Nickfairlie
Tania Sheko on Twitter @taniatorikova
Blog: Brave New World