About Me

My name is Kristie and I'm an elementary teacher in BC. As part of my Master's program I've been tasked with creating a blog. I'm nervous about sharing my educational journey with potentially the entire world. I'm reminded of the countless times I've put my foot in my mouth during casual or professional conversations. Creating a permanent record of what I have to say is a scary proposition.

On the other hand, I'm more than a little intrigued by the possiblility of using blogs with my class. An hour each week of typing practice and Yukon Trail seem like a waste when I consider what I could be teaching my class. So, with some trepidation, here I go. I hope all who read this blog will find something useful in it, and a great big thank you in advance to all those who post suggestions for my teaching practice!

The New World of Blogging

When I was in Kindergarten, someone invented this amazing thing: a game you could play on your television. It was called ‘Intelevision,’ and it let you play games that filled the screen with colourful images. Some people had an Atari, but Intelevision was just as good. We just couldn’t play Q-bert. About five years later, Nintendo came out with their first system. I loved Super Mario Bros. Everyone did. Here was a nice, linear game with just enough timing and memory challenges to make things interesting. The only thing I liked more than Super Mario Bros was Super Mario Bros 2. It had the same timing and memory challenges, but with a few more opportunities to move back and forth, up and down.

When I was in my late teens, something terrible happened. The Nintendo people released a new unit. I think it was the Nintendo 64. Anyway, gone was the old, linear, jump and shoot Mario Bros of the past. This was a whole new game. Characters could spin around in 360 degrees and choose any direction. There was no clear way to go. I tried, but I was soon frustrated. I asked other people, “How do you know what to do?” I was told to search around by some. Others told me there were magazines I could look at that would reveal the tricks and secrets. Lacking the time to search virtual landscapes and not having the magazines at hand, I gave up. Video games became something the other people did, as I am reminded every time I look at my favorites bar and scroll past the numerous ‘cheat sites’ bookmarked by my husband and children. I pretend disdain for these games, like they waste my time, but really they represent a nonlinear way of thinking that my brain just couldn’t master.

Web 2.0 is the new Nintendo 64 in my life. It represents a new, nonlinear, multi-strand collection of information that makes me dizzy. Yet, unlike video games, I can’t choose to just walk away. So, I will endeavor to go on the same quest as my pal, Mario. Just as he’s squished monsters, swam through infested water and jumped over lava, so shall I squish, swim and jump my way through the perilous world of Web 2.0. Here’s hoping that I too shall graduate from linear courses to a more three-dimensional conception of the multifaceted, ever expanding web.

The First Challenge: Choosing a Character

So, what do you do at the beginning of a Mario Bros game? Pick a character. Each has their own unique attributes that make them more or less suitable to each level. Choosing a blog platform is the same. I chose Blogger because Will Richardson recommended it in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (2010) and, upon trying it out, I found it easy to use. Basically, all I had to do was sign up for an account, pick a background and post. The one problem I did encounter was trying to take the ‘next blog’ button off my blog. Richardson suggests that teachers do this as the suitability of the next blog might be questionable. I tried to edit the code and thought I had done it, however, there was the button at the top. I’m afraid to mess with the basic code now that I have the blog set up, so I guess it will have to stay. Other than that, this blog seems easy to use. I was even able to change the background after the initial set up (the first one was too dark and difficult to read).

Now that I have the blog, it’s time to see Kristie in the land of Flickr and Google Earth.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Social Bookmarking

            Social bookmarking refers to the act of bookmarking online content using an online site rather than the ‘Favorites’ tool bar attached to the internet browser. There are various social bookmarking sites, but essentially they all offer the ability to access bookmarked sites from any computer and share bookmarked items with others.
            Previous to this past summer, I had never heard of a social bookmarking site. Diigo was the first social bookmarking site that I explored as a result of being asked to look at it for a course I was taking. Setting up the site was simple. All I had to do was provide a little personal information. Diigo provides a tool bar that needs to be downloaded. All I had to do was click on a couple of buttons and the tool bar was downloaded in well under 5 minutes. I was up and running with Diigo in less than half and hour.
            Bookmarking with Diigo is as simple as clicking the word ‘bookmark’ on the tool bar. An image appears that records the URL and the title of the website. It also allows the user to add a description and tags. Very quickly, I was bookmarking site after site, collecting valuable information to use later. I also very quickly began to enjoy the fact that I could bookmark sites at home and view them at school, and vice versa. Previously, I would email myself sites of interest.
            One cool thing about Diigo, and social bookmarking in general, is the ability to apply tags to your sites so that they can be searched later. Tags are key word identifiers that can be added to any bookmark which allow the user to search for sites when needed. This allows the user to organize his or her work. In addition, if the user chooses to share his or her bookmarks, tags can allow others to see what subject the new bookmark connects to. To share a bookmark, all the user has to do is click on the word ‘share,’ then click on ‘link to the meta page.’ When searching for content through shared bookmarks, tags allow a user to find other pertinent information. In my initial use of Diigo, I did not consider sharing tags with others, nor did I search tagged sites. I simply used Diigo to bookmark the sites that I found using various search engines and tagged them with what I found personal relevant. Upon reading about social bookmarking, I realized the scope of the tagging process. Tags create a way of searching a database, like a social bookmarking site, in the same way that professionals apply terms to journals or other items when adding them to a database connected to a library or other such institution. The amateur version of such a taxonomy is called a ‘folksonomy’ which is “the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content (Wikipedia, 2010).” Knowing this has made me rethink some of the bookmarks I apply to the sites that I collect. Drawbacks to the creation and use of such a folksonomy include:
no standard set of keywords (i.e., a folksonomy instead of a controlled vocabulary), no standard for the structure of such tags (e.g., singular vs. plural, capitalization), mistagging due to spelling errors, tags that can have more than one meaning, (and) unclear tags due to synonym/antonym confusion
(Wikipedia, 2010)
I dislike thinking that I am adding to a problem of “inconsistent or otherwise poor use of tags (Educause Learning Initiative, 2005).” Knowing this, I am much more likely to use the tags suggested by Diigo when bookmarking a site, and then add a personally relevant tag as well.
Upon first signing up for Diigo, the video tutorial stated that I would be able to perform a variety of functions that I was enthusiastic to try. Unfortunately, many of these functions I still haven’t been able to manage. First, the ‘capture’ function of Diigo, which allows users to capture a picture of a website and record it on Diigo, has never worked right. The site seems to use the capture feature indiscriminately, capturing some sites and not others. I have had limited success purposefully capturing a page, and the function doesn’t seem to work at all on the computer in the classroom. Adding sticky notes has not proven useful, either, nor has the highlighting function, because to refer back to highlights and sticky notes I believe I need to have captured a page. I had grand plans for using Diigo. I wanted to be able to capture a text-based informational site that connects to a content area, apply sticky notes to explain or expand upon ideas and make it available for students to look at. Students could then read the site fairly independently, highlight important passages and respond via email. I haven’t been able to do any of this. Perhaps it’s due to my free membership status. I’ve considered paying for the premium service so that I can capture as many sites as I like each month, however, I am reluctant to pay for something that I don’t really know how to use.
            I was feeling a little dejected about my inability to use Diigo in a classroom-relevant way until I read the article Social Bookmarking on Teaching Today, which suggests that not only can social bookmarking sites can be used as an alternative to search engines such as Google, that they likely yield more relevant search results as they, “provide links to sites that other people have found valuable (Teaching Today).” In addition students “can move from one computer to another and still have full access to their bookmarks,” and they can “share their bookmarks with their classmates (Teaching Today).” While the suggestions were meant for students in grades 6-12, I can certainly see the applications for fourth grade students.
            With this in mind, I decided it was time to check out the social bookmarking site Delicious. To sign in to Delicious, I needed a yahoo email account. In order to sign up for yahoo email, you need to be over 18 or have parental permission. So, setting up my students with individual accounts, while not impossible, would be difficult. We will probably use my account only this year, just like with Flickr.
            Searching for sites tagged by others released a treasure trove of materials. I easily spent an hour searching and bookmarking. While bookmarking, I focused on tagging sites with terms that would set up a list that connected to the grade four curricular areas and that I could share with my students. Knowing that these sites are already tagged by others in a useful manner made me feel that my tags could be a little more self-serving.
            In the future, I can see using Delicious with my students to search for information when working on inquiry projects. I’m not sure that it will replace our current search engine, but it could be one more tool at our disposal. I think that the most useful application of either Delicious or Diigo will be the ability for the class to create our own lists of valuable sites to look at while researching various topics. Once the class has agreed upon its own ‘folksonomy’ of tag terms, students could search for and bookmark sites, all of which is available for future use.

References

Educause Leaning Initiative. (2005) Seven things you should know about… social
bookmarking. Retrieved from http://www.trailfire.com/joannedegroot/marks/199340

Teaching Today. Social bookmarking. Retrieved from
http://www.trailfire.com/joannedegroot/marks/199326

Wikipedia. (2010). Social bookmarking. Retrieved from
http://www.trailfire.com/joannedegroot/marks/199324
Posted by Mrs. Ox at 1:57 PM

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