Nabt09

You have an email account. You check your email once a week. Every day. More times per day than you’d like to admit. You own a digital camera. If you’ve built a web site or a wiki.
But before we get started, let’s define our terms. What do we mean by “participatory media”? With that phrase, I’m referring to the thousands of new web 2.o tools currently available that facilitate content creation and collaboration online. So, things like blogs, wikis, online photo sharing, mashups, and social networking sites - like Facebook - and this image is of a moment in time, capturing the Facebook connections. So all of these participatory media tools make up what is colloquially referred to as “web 2.0”.... Visualizing Facebook from space: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10106234-2.html (video)
So, if that’s participatory media, what is web 2.0? With a number assigned to it like that, it might sound like a new version of the web, like a new software release. But really what it signifies is a new trend in web technology. A second generation of web based communities, services and tools. But what the “2” really signifies in my mind is TWO-WAY communication. In the early days of the web, I know I thought of it as the world’s greatest library. I could go online and look anything up. I’d search, find what I was looking for and read it to answer my question. So, in that way web 1.0 was the “read only” web. Web 2.0 is the “read and write web” - today people are using the web to read, yes, but even more so - to write. To create. To write. To mash-up. To blend. To produce.
And in that way, web 2.0 becomes a perfect fit for us as science educators. A read/write web becomes the ideal support for inquiry-based, constructivist learning. Which is something we all aspire to - with our educational materials, our labs, our courses, and our interactions with students. A way to support our efforts to move away from the passive method of pouring information into student heads and move toward the more active methods where students become participants, producers, and collaborators in their learning.
Not only are these web 2.0 tools a perfect fit for inquiry teaching, they are a tremendous help with those invidious problems we face as teachers.....mixed student backgrounds, lack of motivation, and way too much material for the time we have in the school year. The old “blivet” problem. 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 bound sack.
Another term that we need to define here is the ubiquitous “21st Century skills”. we’re all hearing this these days aren’t we? And I’ve got to say that the more I hear about this the more confused I get. It’s like a lot of these trendy eduspeak terms....the more it gets used, the more things get tucked under the heading, the less useful it becomes. In some of the papers I’ve read about 21st century skills lately, I’ve encountered everything from “leadership” to “flexibility” to being able to change the oil on your car. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and I’ll tell you what I think 21st century skills are -
Bow Drill movie what do you notice about this movie? young person made it himself looking for a teacher video was required (to show exactly the nature of his challenge) He was careful to show what he’d tried and failed at He made it safely (you never see his face or know where he lives)
they are the skills needed so that students can create, navigate....
And if that’s the big kahuna 21st century skill goal - what are the little supporting skills that add up to that? Here are the ones that I think are crucial....This is the stuff that, if students can do, they will be successful. most of what we’re seeing is unedited so vetting/evaluating skills are essential last 500 changes in wikipedia (check it out)
As I was struggling along my own learning curve with these intriguing web 2.0 tools, I came across an idea from an educator that I follow named Alan Levine. Alan is a colleague of Liz’s from the Maricopa Community College system. He’s now a thought-leader and visionary and a thought-provoking blogger on the subject of applying new media tools to the teaching and learning equation. And this is probably a good place to put in a plug to encourage you to think about your own personal learning networks. One of the best things you can do for yourself to feed your own head is to seek out and find a few really good education thinkers out there (there are more than enough to choose from), bookmark their blogs, plug into their twitter stream, and follow them. It’s probably one of the most important things I do online to plug into my learning network and find out what’s going on, what’s new, what’s interesting each week. And Alan Levine is in my personal learning network. A year or so ago, he suggested the idea of getting inside these new learning tools by telling the same story, 50 different ways, with 50 different tools. So, in the best traditions of fan-dom, I stole his idea. I thought that this might be a good way for us to approach our challenge here this weekend. How can we get to know these tools - what their good for and what their weaknesses are. How to use them, leverage them, and which ones to leave behind. So, here’s what I did (and what you’re going to do). I picked a topic - a biology story that I wanted to tell. In my case, it was Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle. I wrote out my story, collected some images and documents and then began to tell the story 50 different ways, using 50 different new media tools.
Flickr Organize your photos in “sets”. Make “groups” that others can contribute to. Or make maps - where you locate the photos (along with your commentary) on a map of the world.
Creative Commons
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/ A flickr tag browser ( a way to look at flickr tags) - gives a total image count and lets you browse by page
Animoto Upload a few photos, pick a song, and you’ve got a high-produciton “short” - great way to liven up your blogs, send a follow-up, use for student projects.
Sample digital story from a 10th grade calls.
http://voicethread.com/?# u68532.b356120 Content delivery, anticipatory help, students can create and share (critique each other’s)
Tod Duncan using VoiceThread for test analsysis
Kelly HOgan - UNC Chapel Hill
Create your own online books. Cheryl Hollinger’s AP bio student (Central York HS - York , PA)
Pixton Make comics Here’s one I made: http://pixton.com/comic/5fwucqcd
You download this application from the internet and then when you open it, it accesses the imagery from internet feeds (a mash-up between google search and satellite imagery). I’m going to take you out to show you a movie, demonstrating GE on YouTube. You can create canned trips in Google Earth. Tour video: http://earth.google.com/tour.html Jump out and give a demo.
QR codes. QR = “quick read” - two-dimensional bar codes that can contain any alphanumeric text and often feature URLS. The idea is to direct someone from a physical world object to a web site or an action on a computer. Cell phones can be the decoding device. Product labels, billboards, buildings. Very popular in Japan.
xtimeline each item in the timeline is a link.
Screenjelly www.screenjelly.com / Record what’s happening on your screen - voice and visual - max of 3 min.
Zamzar Way to download video from the internet and have it emailed to you

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