Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

By Will RichardsonReport on chapters 4-9

Wikis

• From Hawaiian – wiki-wiki meaning “quick”• Ward Cunningham (1995) looking for easy

authoring tool (spur others to publish)• Vital – every student needs to learn

collaboration• Tsunami entry – posted w/in 9 hrs, by 48 hrs it

had been edited 1200 times & included graphics such as video

• Concept that all together is smarter than anyone alone

• Collaborative construction of knowledge & truth• Wiki pedia spurred revolution of other wikis:– Recipes, travel, song lyrics, etc

• Challenge in schools – frowned on by teachers (?) and librarians. (districts!)

• Create online text for your curriculum that you & students can edit and contribute to

• CA Open Source Textbook Project• South Africa – entire national High School curr.

In a wiki!

• Wikibooks – 10K text modules in 2 yrs• Learn about editing, and collaboration, but

also publishing and writing as well• Holocaust Wiki Project• Teacher’s Lounge• Peanut Butter Wiki -- good place to start• www.pbwiki.com – work w/ students on a wiki• Seedwiki.com wikicities.com

RSS – new killer app for educators

• Real Simple Syndication• Start today and teach it tomorrow• Blogs (and other sites) create XML code

(similar to HTML)• Referred to as “feed” (as in newsfeed)• This code makes it possible to subscribe to the

feed and get the content w/o visiting the blog• Aggregator – collects all info on one site

• Read more content, from more sites, in less time

• Bloglines – aggregator – sign up • Links on blogs or news sites to click to

subscribe• Use to monitor your students’ weblogs rather

than check all of them!• Have students use them to view news sources– For reports, etc– Can combine RSS feeds into one (all of a class’s)

Social Web

• Learn together• Interaction w/ others internationally to learn• 43things.com – connect w/ other who want to

learn same things• Bookmarking services – tag marks and share• Del.icio.us• Furl.net

Flickr and Podcasting• Using digital images– Photo field trips– Analyze a picture from history– Post pics of a topic your students studied– Geobloggers (all flickr images tagged with latitude

and longitude)Podcasting

creation of amateur radio

Ipod is a mobile radio stationExapanded to multimedia – netflix, etc

• Create an educational radio station• Listen to one of the many stations out there

already • Some accompany online magazines• Screen casting – capture what students do on

a computer and add audio narration to it

What it all Means

• New literacies have been created– Must be able to publish to fully utilize the

read/write web– Be editors as well as readers – check for accuracy– Give students skills to manage the info they collect

• A number of “big shifts”– Open contents– 24/7 learning– Construction of knowledge socially, collaboratively

• Teaching is conversation, not lecture (interact)• “where” learning – not as important to know

“what” but to know “where” to find it• Reading no longer passive – must interact,

converse, and be active• The web as a notebook – collect notes in many

forms – graphics, audio, video, etc• Write in ways other than text – genres such as

audio, video, etc• Mastery is the product, not the test – use web

and various tools to create

• Contribution is the ultimate goal, not completion – this is a shift in thinking from the past– Use read/write web– Students look at work in a whole new way – work

isn’t meant just for the teacher but for the whole world to see (created on the web)

• This is JUST THE BEGINNING!– Realtionship w/ the internet is still developing,

particularly in education.