Web 2.0 For Rookies: Creative Writing

One of the big issues of our time seems to concern writing. Or, to be more specific, NOT writing. And to whittle it away even further, boys' writing. Apparently, boys don't like writing. If that's the case, perhaps Web 2.0 can help?

I think the first thing I'd like to say is that if it happens to be true that boys don't like writing, perhaps that's because they're not being asked to write about anything they're interested in. I know that's either a really facile statement or a no-brainer, depending on where you stand on the issue, but it strikes me as pretty obvious that if you ask someone to write about something they have no interest in whatsoever, why would they?

You might say that the same argument applies to girls, and you'd be right. Except that in my experience girls tend to (a) be more compliant than boys and (b) like writing for its own sake anyway.

I recall that in one class I had I could not get one of the boys to settle down for more than ten minutes at a time. Then one day, he was really quiet and engaged for about 25 minutes before I could risk breaking the spell by talking to him.

"I don't understand this.", I said. "Normally you're a complete head-banger, and all of a sudden you're a model pupil. How come?"

He laughed and then gave the brutally honest response, "'Cos usually I don't find it interesting enough to bother."

So what was so interesting that captured his attention for the entire lesson? He was compiling a list of all the games his team had won in the last ten years, from a whole load of football programmes he'd brought in. For me, that would be the most boring thing on earth. For him it was captivating. As my American friends might say: "Who knew?"

But even if you regard this example as an aberration, is even the broad statement about boys and writing true?

I think not, because boys write all the time. Perhaps what is meant is discursive writing, but boys text each other, and send each other games cheats by instant messenger or Facebook, to take a couple of examples.

Well, that's a start for an article like this, because there are several ways in which teachers can take the enthusiasm of boys for writing, which I believe does exist, and the variety of Web 2.0 applications, and harness them together. Here are some suggestions.

  • Get the pupils to take it in turns to act as the class scribe. The scribe writes down the main points covered in the lesson, and writes it up in the class blog. Check out Sue Waters' Using Scribe Posts on Class Blogs for some tips and references about this.
  • Get the youngsters to write film and book reviews, either using a blog, or using something like Blippr. Blippr is a social network which specialises in reviews. It gives you 160 characters -- the same as you get for a text message - in which to have your say. It's possible, and it's fun -- but it's challenging (which is, more than likely, WHY it's fun). Have a look at mine for some examples.
  • If 160 characters strikes you as far too easy, how about 140? You can use Twitter for the same sort of thing, or for writing short (very short!) stories. See, for example, Twitterfiction.
  • If you like the idea of a book review in 160 characters, but not the idea of a social network, try Wallwisher. It's like having post-it notes, and you can type up to 160 characters on each one. You can also include pictures and, a big bonus, everyone can see each others' efforts. Maybe you could even get boys to work together on some writing.
  • Blogs are useful for writing book and film reviews too. There are one or two great examples of this in the forthcoming 'Amazing Web 2.0 Projects' book.
  • Also in the book are some creative uses of Twitter, including its use in getting a class of primary school children to understand what life on the run must have been like from the standpoint of one of the Gunpowder Plotters.

I could go on giving example after example, and don't forget there is also the writing involved in podcast and video scripting - not just the dialogue but 'stage directions' too.

I think that by using a variety of Web 2.0 applications it can't be that hard to get kids -- including boys -- writing.

Of course, finding a topic they're actually interested in -- or making a topic interesting to them -- no doubt helps!


Web 2.0 For Rookies: Photo-Sharing

Let's face it: clip art is, generally speaking, boring. And the reason is not hard to fathom: if a popular program comes with clip art all ready to use with no extra payment needed, then people who are in a hurry are going to use it. The question is: should we not encourage children in schools to look beyond the standard fare?

The answer is a cautious "yes". Why cautious? Because one of the things we should be teaching children is that there's no point in reinventing wheels just for the sake of it. If a piece of clip art is just right for the purpose, then why not use it? The problem is, many teachers seem to go no further than telling kids where the clip art menu item is. In the words of the standard school report, they could do better.

One way is to create their own photographic clip art with a digital camera. Storage is no longer a problem if a class Flickr account is opened: it's free. What's more, there are thousands of photos on Flickr which have been uploaded by other users, many of which can be used free of charge under certain conditions. Most of these pictures are as unique as the people who took them.

(Incidentally, there are other photo-sharing applications on the web, but I've chosen to use Flickr. If access to Flickr is blocked in your school, you may still be able to enjoy an approximation to its functionality if your school or Local Authority has installed a Learning Platform/Virtual Learning Environment which allows photos to be uploaded and tagged. But unless your lucky it's likely to be a very poor approximation because of the many features that Flickr boasts.)

There is another outcome of going around taking photos: you start to notice things more. Here's an example: when I went around taking pictures according to a theme of "numbers", I noticed for the first time ever that London buses have *three* numbers: the licence plate or registration number, the bus number itself, of course, and also, inexplicably, another number displayed in the driver's windscreen.

That outing also made me start to notice that some shops advertise goods at 50% off while others advertise goods at half price. Does that make a difference to people's perceptions? I have no idea, but I do know that once I'd got going I started to notice numbers all over the place -- and I noticed even more numbers in some of the pictures when I looked at them afterwards on my computer screen.

What better way to fire up a young person's interest in numbers and in their environment?

One venture of mine was to take pictures of patterns in the street: it's astonishing what you notice once you really look. Some are very nice indeed. And there would have been even more of them had I remembered to charge up the camera battery and the spare battery before leaving home!

You can see all the photos I've referred to, and more, by going to www.flickr.com/photos/terryfreedman.

So where does Web 2.0 come into all this? There are 3 ways in which it does:

  • Uploading photos in this way paves the way for sharing. For example, if I see a photo of yours that I like, and which I think will fit perfectly with the theme of my story, I will be able to use it as long as the licence assigned to it allows me to do so. The licence terms are clearly stated by the side of the photo. If it says 'All rights reserved', I'm not allowed to use it. But if it says I can use it as long as I give an attribution to the owner, that's fine. Nancy White has provided a useful review of a couple of online applications to help find photos with what is called a Creative Commons licence. A nice side effect of all this, of course, is that it gets across the point that you can't just go around taking stuff you like from the internet: at the very least you have to give credit to the originator. If you don't, it's rude to say the least. And if you use an image for which you don't have permission at all, it's theft.
  • Sharing isn't the same as collaboration, which involves more interaction. There are several ways in which people can collaborate on Flickr, or with Flickr, using various options ranging from joining a Flickr group to annotating photos to manipulating them with a number of 3rd party tools. I intend to write about some of these but in the meantime you might like to check out The Great Flickr Tools Collection.
  • You can use the photos as a starting point for discussion or creative writing. For example, you could incorpoarte a picture into a mindmap, as I have done on my Big Freeze example (shown below as well), and take it from there.
  • Snapshot of The Big Freeze Mindmap

Before closing this article, a few words of caution about using Flickr, some of which apply generally.

  • It's good practice to tag photos, and discussing with children the most appropriate words and phrases to use is a worthwhile exercise. Part of the information & communication technology (ICT) curriculum in the UK is concerned with finding things out, so pupils need to know that the use of appropriate tags makes this process a whole lot easier.
  • You will need to exercise the same sort of attention to what pupils search for as you would for any internet search. Although I haven't found anything explicitly pornographic on Flickr, there are pictures with ample amounts of flesh on display. I'm not sure if they would be blocked by an ordinary filtering system.
  • Remember that people own the copyright in their pictures, so you can't use them without permission. Flickr makes available 6 different kinds of copyright licence and explains what each one means in terms of what people can do with the photos. It might not be a bad idea to put a summary of these on your classroom wall or on the school intranet or home page. Children should be encouraged to check to see what, if any, licence has been assigned to the photos they wish to use -- and to ask the owner's permission if none has been assigned (or ask you to do that for them, to prevent their identity being revealed). By the same token, you should decide what rights you're going to assign to th class photos you upload to Flickr -- what a great opportunity for a class discussion followed by a democratic decision!
  • You can't take pictures of people and post them on the web without their permission -- at least, that's the position in the UK. However, I understand from a talk I attended at a recent Society of Authors event that you don't have to worry if the people were not the subject of the photo, such as if you were taking pictures at a fottball match. But I'm not a legal expert, so if in doubt seek advice, or err on the side of caution (see the next point too). You will also, obviously, need to ensure that photos of children are not published without their parents' permission, and to make sure that the children cannot be identified individually: see the UK's Information Commissioner's advice on taking photographs in schools, or UNESCO's guidance for broadcasters. (Thanks to Neil Adam for disocvering the latter whilst researching an article for Becta's TechNews.
  • I'd also recommend going a step further and not taking photos that easily identify businesses or which feature car registration or other identifying details. Perhaps I'm being unduly cautious, but it seems to me that we should at least be encouraging pupils to consider the rights of other people. I for one would certainly not like my car or house details plastered all over the internet, and would feel pretty aggrieved if I discovered that someone had done so.

But notwithstanding those few caveats, digital photography is a great way of creating clip art, and for making the environment come alive and helping children to seen new things -- or new aspects of old things. And Flickr (and similar tools) help take it all a step further by encouraging and facilitating the cross-fertisliastion of ideas, and collaboration. That has to be a good thing!

STOP PRESS! I've created a group on Flickr called ICT in Education for the purpose of sharing photos to be used as a stimulus for discussion. Contact me if you'd like to join it. (I declined to make it completely open because I'm fed up with spammers getting everywhere!)

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Offline is Important Too

Spike Milligan, the British comedian, was once working in his study at home. All of a sudden the doorbell rang. His wife answered it. Standing there was a postman bearing a telegram that Mrs Milligan had to sign for. When she opened it, she saw that it had been sent by her husband. It read:

VERY THIRSTY STOP MAY I HAVE A CUP OF TEA PLEASE

My wife and I sometimes communicate like this, in an updated way.If I have been upstairs for a few hours, and she is downstairs, she will sometimes send me a message on Facebook to suggest we have supper in half an hour's time.

This cartoon seems to me to encapsulate the funny side of all this.

 

 

But there is a serious side too. Kahlil Gibran, in The Madman, describes a man who is standing on a beach with his back to the sea, listening to the sound of a seashell.

Gibran says:

He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment.

The beach at Aldburgh, Suffolk, England

I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves that actual physical experiences are important too:
There's a joy to be had in walking around the school playground looking for minibeasts to photograph, instead of just looking on Flickr.

There is pleasure and much 'hidden' learning to be had in visiting somewhere in real life, if you can, than looking at it on Google Earth, or experiencing it vicariously through someone else's eyes via a video stream or webcam.

And everyone I meet agrees that, whilst online communication is wonderful, nothing quite beats actually meeting people face to face.

And there's another consideration too. Many years ago, as a form tutor, I decided that I was going to play some classical music to my registration class each morning. Not because I thought that music was superior to their own, but because I didn't think they would even get to hear classical music in their everyday lives. They really enjoyed it.

In the same way, if it is true that youngsters today are always online in some fashion, especially as many parents are afraid to let their children play outside on their own, don't we owe it to them to provide a few quality offline experiences during the course of the week?

If this post has seemed very un-Web 2.0, don't worry: normal service will be resumed tomorrow!


Have you seen the other articles in the Web 2.0 for Rookies series? Feel free to comment, and to recommend them to your colleagues and students.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Working Together

Web 2.0 is about nothing if it isn't about working with other people in some way. It doesn't matter what application we're talking about, working with other people is what it's designed to do. That, in fact, is what Web 2.0 is, hence my very pragmatic definition: Web 2.0 is as Web 2.0 does, as explained in the very first article in this series.

It's not just kids who work togetherNow, the reason I'm talking about 'working together' rather than 'collaborating' is that it seems to me that 'working together' is more encompassing. Why? Because there are so many ways in which people can work together.

They may indeed collaborate, for example in the development of a mindmap using a program like Bubbl.us or Mindmeister. Or they may contribute a note or a comment which, while possibly insightful, is not as involved, perhaps, as collaboration.

Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but I am thinking in particular of the sort of youngster I had in my Business and Information Technology class 20 odd years ago. Group work was the order of the day, but he preferred to chat with members of a neighbouring group about last night's soccer. Nevertheless, in a feat of multitasking not usually seen in males (sorry to sound sexist, but it's true), he was also able to follow the discussion in his group.

Thus, every so often he would look back over his shoulder and say, "Well how about a targetted advertising campaign?" or "An overdraft would be better." Invariably, the rest of the group would continue in this new direction, and he would go back to discussing the game.

The interesting thing here is that the rubric supplied by the Examinations Board (now called an Awarding Body) didn't have any provision for that sort of contribution, which meant that my colleagues and I spent ages debating whether he was really good at collaborating, or excruciatingly bad at it - because he wasn't really collaborating at all in the true sense of the term. Had there been a box for "Makes useful contributions" it would have been a non-issue: A for contribution, D minus for collaboration.
I'll deal with assessment issues in a separate article. The point I'm making here is that Web 2.0 facilitates working together in all its guises.

Now, if you think of Web 2.0 from this point of view, it makes life easier if you're not allowed to use Web 2.0 applications in your school, because there are alternatives to some applications. For example, some Learning Platforms and Virtual Learning Environments include a forum feature that takes the form of an area on which people can post 'stickies'. So, if you can't use Wallwisher you may have something like that instead. It will have a limitation in that nobody will be able to view it without logging in to the VLE, but for many schools that would be seen as an advantage anyway.

And at the risk of causing you to shudder, even a program like Word, or the OpenOffice version of it, has a review facility whereby people can make suggested changes and leave named comments. OK, it's not something you can use in real-time, and you can end up with the most terrible problems of version control if you're not careful, but if push comes to shove you can use it instead of a wiki or, say, Google Docs.

Now, I have to be honest with you and say that in my opinion non-Web 2.0 applications do not have the same level of excitement as proper Web 2.0 ones. They don't have the same breadth of collaborative features as a rule, and working in real-time, or near real-time, is exciting in itself. Most of all, though, is the tremendous buzz that everyone gets from working with someone thousands of miles away without having to email documents back and forth.

However, if you have been unable to convince the powers-that-be of the need for access to Web 2.0 applications, it is not the end of the world.

The important thing, I think, is not to think in terms of application but in terms of the activity and the learning. If your school has a VLE then it probably has a built-in word processor application designed for collaborative working, if what you'd like pupils to do is work on a story together. If you would like them to be able to upload and share photos, there's almost certainly a facility for that. I've already mentioned the post-it notes approach to discussion.

When pupils have completed their work, they may still be able to show it off to the world by uploading it to the server to enable it to be embedded in the school's blog or website, as described in the article about embedding.
Getting back to the idea of working together, what lies at the heart of it is a particular philosophy of education and an underlying theory of how people learn. If you think that the teacher is the expert, and people learn best by keeping quiet and taking notes, then Web 2.0 is not the approach for you. If you feel that everyone has or should have an equal voice, and that people learn best by discussing things and working together, a Web 2.0 suite of applications will be on your list of 'must-haves'.

In reality, these approaches are not mutually exclusive, but are dependent on circumstances. For example, if I am going abroad, I would like someone to tell me what sort of plug adapter I need. I don't want a discussion about it, or someone's opinion; I want an expert to say to me: you need X.

In an ideal situation, the teacher will have  access to a whole range of types of application and classroom repertoires.

And the knowledge and skills to use them effectively. 

Have you seen the other articles in the Web 2.0 for Rookies series? Feel free to comment, and to recommend them to your colleagues and students.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Appearances Can Be Deceiving

At this stage in the series, I think it's worth taking some time out to consider what is not Web 2.0. In the first article  I said:

… my view of Web 2.0 is that if something lends itself to collaborative working and can be worked on over the web, let's call it Web 2.0.


I think we can go a bit further and take into consideration the spirit of Web 2.0, because just because something looks like Web 2.0 doesn't mean it is Web 2.0. The underlying philosophy is one of sharing and mutual benefit. Or at least, in my opinion, it should be.

I'm thinking in particular of newspapers online. All of them encourage readers to post comments, but I haven't found one that does this in a true Web 2.0 kind of way. Admittedly I haven't looked at every newspaper online, but after a couple of experiences which put me off forever, I stopped bothering to think about posting comments to online newspapers.

For me, here are the fundamental tenets of Web 2.0, especially when it comes to commenting on blogs:

  • It should encourage a conversation.
  • There should be equal mutual benefit.
  • No copy, including comments, should be edited without the author's permission.

I've commented on newspapers online twice. In both cases, my website was omitted. To me, that breaks the first of my 'rules':

It's hard for any other reader to have a conversation with me, if they want to, or me with them, if there is no way to find out any contact information. Obviously, I wouldn't expect, or want, a newspaper to publish people's email addresses, but if they publish people's website/blog addresses then at least other readers have the option of seeking them out if they want to.

But it goes deeper than that. The first thing I do when I read a comment that interests me is have a look at the person's website to find out more about them. That helps me work out where (I think) they're coming from.

For example, if someone posts a comment like "It's appalling that teachers are allowed to take time off school to go on courses", and their website is selling online courses that teachers can do in their own time, that would colour my view of the comment. In other words, the person's website often provides a context for their comment.

It also provides a way of checking the credentials of the commenter. Otherwise, a professor who has been working in that field for 30 years has the same status as someone who has only thought about the issue in the last 5 minutes. In terms of their value as a human being, I would certainly not say one is better than the other. But in terms of expertise in a particular area, not including commenters' 'credentials' reduces everyone to the level of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells".

Getting back to my experiences, the last time I commented on an article I wrote a blog post about the issue, and drew my readers' attention to the newspaper article. I then commented on the newspaper article, and in particular the comments of another reader, and included the article I had written. Not only did the newspaper not include my own website, but they only published the first sentence of my comment, thereby removing all qualifying statements, and didn't bother to include a reference to the article I'd written in which I mentioned them. Thus, the newspaper broke all of my 'rules':

  • They didn't include my website.
  • They had the benefit of getting readers from my site, but that wasn't reciprocated. 
  • Finally, they edited my comment without my (explicit) permission. I say 'explicit' because there is probably something in their terms and conditions that says if you post anything on their site they can do whatever they like with it. I think it's fine to edit a comment for grammar and formatting, say, or to insert an explanatory note, without the author's permission. I don't think it's OK to make changes which have a direct bearing on how their message comes across.

I've checked the Guardian newspaper, and it seems that you can include your website and so on in the sense that you can put such details in the personal profile you have to create in order to leave comments. But what if, like me, you don't want to register on the Guardian's website?

There are some general principles we can glean from this venting about my experience of commenting on newspaper articles. When coming across a blog or wiki, say, or even when setting one up oneself, there are questions we can ask:

  • Does this allow anyone to contribute without having to register first?
  • Will they publish my website/blog address if I provide it (unless I ask them not to)?
  • Do they seem genuinely interested in a conversation, or is the sole purpose of the comments facility to increase traffic to their website?
  • If they want to make substantial changes to my comments, will they consult me first?

I think that if the answers to these questions are not satisfactory, the editor/owner of the website in question is only playing at Web 2.0.

Have you seen the other articles in the Web 2.0 for Rookies series? Feel free to comment, and to recommend them to your colleagues and students.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: What is Tagging?

Tagging is the a way of labelling something, such as a website, an article on a blog, a photo, video, or any other object. By tagging things you group them together. This makes them easier to find.

You may not realise it, but you see examples of tagging every time you go shopping. Go to the supermarket to buy milk, and you'll find cheese and butter nearby. That's because all those items have been, in effect, tagged with the term 'refridgerator'.

In another example, I was watching an episode of Numbers recently, and Professor Epps mentioned that a supermarket analysed its sales figures, and discovered that sales of nappies (diapers) peaked and troughed in synchrony with those of cartons of beer. They drew the conclusion that men who were sent out to buy extra nappies were taking the opportunity to buy extra beer, so they placed the items next to each other and sales of both increased. I'm not sure if that story is actually true, but it's a nice illustration of the concept of tagging because both of these items were, in effect, tagged with the label 'items bought by men sent out to buy nappies"!

Now, you might say we don't need tagging in the context of technology, because we have categories. This article, for example, has been published in a category called 'Web 2.0'. Why give it a tag as well?
The trouble with filing things in categories is that, as a rule, you can only file them in one category, whereas they could, logically, be stored in a different one. This restriction does not apply to this blog, because Squarespace lets you place articles in more than one category at a time, but it was certainly the case with my original website. If I'd been writing this article for that website I'd have to choose between the following categories:

  • Web 2.0, because this is about Web 2.0;
  • Using and teaching ICT, because it's about using an aspect of ICT;
  • Leading and managing ICT, because it's aimed at helping colleagues understand an aspect of ICT, which is one of the things ICT leaders and Co-ordinators tend to do.

None of these is inherently right or wrong, but whichever one you choose precludes the others. If you forget where you 'filed' it, or if other people don't think in the same way you do, the article will, to all intents and purposes, be lost, because nobody, including you, will be able to find it!

There was a marvellous illustration of this many years ago in one of the Professor Branestawm stories (I've included a couple of these books on my Amazon Books page).

Professor Branestawm, as the name implies, was an absent-minded professor. In one of the stories, he borrows a book from his local library, but 'loses' it. So he borrows the same book from another library, and then 'loses' that. Eventually, he has borrowed the same book from over a dozen libraries, and spends all his time cycling from one library to the next renewing the one copy he has managed not to lose, in order to avoid paying a fine for late return of the book. In the end, he decides to come clean and so he invites all the librarians round to his house so that he can tell them all that he has lost their books.

While they are waiting for him to appear, they browse his bookshelves, and start to find their books. What had happened was that Professor Branestawm had filed the book in different sections of his library. I can't recall the exact details, but it was something like this:

One copy was stored under B (for biology). Another was stored under 'P' (for plant). Another was stored under 'T' (for tulip). You get the picture.

Now, that's quite humorous on one level, but at a deeper level it illustrates perfectly the problem with hard and fast categorisation.

Tagging cuts across all that - in fact, you might want to think of it as a kind of horizontal categorisation rather than a vertical one.

Take this article. It's tagged with, amongst other things, the term "Web 2.0". That means that anyone searching this website on the term "Web 2.0" will find it. They will also find other articles tagged in the same way, along with any videos, photos or podcasts I happen to have given the same label too.

I've also tagged these articles with the term "Web 2.0 for Rookies", which means that if you look for that tag you will see all of these articles bunched together. In fact, in a Branestawm-like fashion, I'd completely forgotten this, and have been advising people to search for these articles in the alphabetical index! It was only a message in Twitter from Sandy K giving the tag URL which made me remember! (You can follow Sandy on Twitter.)
There are some things you need to think about when it comes to tagging.

Firstly, you have to be consistent, even down to deciding on what case to use. For example, I discovered, by accident, that the tag "Web 2.0 for Rookies" is not the same as "Web 2.0 For Rookies" (spot the difference!). If you're not consistent, people, including yourself, will not be sure what to search on and will still have difficulty in finding articles.

Secondly, this has an implication when it comes to working with colleagues and students. Do you allow them to create their own tags? If so, should there be rules about tagging to ensure consistency?

Thirdly, bear in mind that tags need to be specific enough to filter off irrelevant search results, but not so specific that people would never think to search on that term. An example of a tag that would not satisfy the first condition would be, on this site, ICT. Given that every article is about ICT in some way, searching on that tag would bring up the entire collection of articles! At the other extreme, a tag like "Terry Freedman's article about tagging in his series about Web 2.0 for rookies" would be as much use as a chocolate teapot because nobody would ever think to use it.

Fourthly, how far should you go in tagging? I know that some people recommend tagging articles with every conceivable label and variation they can think of, in order to maximise its chances of being found, and of being picked up by search engines. It's up to you whether or not you adopt that approach. Personally, I find it boring to spend ages tagging articles, and I've found that tag generating applications are so 'efficient' that I have to spend ages weeding out the ones that I don't think are that useful. Aside from all that, I simply don't like the fact that having loads of tags at the top or bottom of an article takes up so much space!

Used well, tagging is a perfect example of a Web 2.0 'application': it's very effective in linking up disparate objects, and therefore people, as will become apparent in the article on social bookmarking. And it's conceptually simple. What more could one want?

Have you seen the other articles in the Web 2.0 for Rookies series? Feel free to comment, and to recommend them to your colleagues and students.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Embedding

In this series I'm looking at Web 2.0 for the benefit of the complete novice. If you would like to get your colleagues or, conceivably, even some students up to speed, these articles should help. At least, I hope they will provide a good starting point. In this one, we look at the idea of 'embedding'.

You've almost certainly already seen examples of embedding. Go to any website where there's a video clip on the page, and you're looking at it in action. In other words, embedding is simply the act of inserting code into a web page or blog that puts the object right there on the page. This 'object' might be a video, a presentation, a document, a picture -- just about anything, in fact.

One thing that's important to bear in mind is that when you embed an object all you are really doing is inserting a link to it -- but a special type of link which puts the object itself, rather than the usual sort of blue underlined hyperlink, in front of people.

So, a reasonable question would be: why bother? After all, how much effort is it for people just to click on a link to take you to the object itself? There are several reasons why you might want to use embedding rather than plain old-fashioned linking.

Firstly, why encourage people to leave your site when you don't have to? Go into a department store and you'll notice that there is, say, a Costa coffee bar: not a sign telling you where the nearest Costa is on the high street, but Costa itself. Embedding is the same sort of idea.

Secondly, in some cases you might not want people to go off-site because you have an enclosed space like a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Learning Platform.

Thirdly, if you have embedded more than one object in the page, it would become tedious for the reader to have to keep going somewhere else, and then coming pack to the original page.

And fourthly, as implied by the previous point, placing the object where the reader is, rather than expecting the reader to go to where the object is, provides a service to the reader -- a bit like meals on wheels.

A couple of things to bear in mind about embedding are as follows.

Firstly, because the embed code is really just another kind of link, if the object itself is moved or deleted, or if access to it is blocked, then embedding it won't do you any good. For example, if YouTube is banned in your school, there's no point in trying to embed a YouTube video.

Secondly, if YouTube, say, is not banned in your school, you might still want to place some sort of disclaimer on the page to the effect that you can't guarantee that the object will always be available. Teachers need to understand this, because if they have prepared a lesson based on watching an embedded video, and that video is no longer there when they start their lesson, they need to have something else to fall back on (which is good practice anyway).

Thirdly, although embedding an object is not the same as downloading it and then uploading it onto your own website, you should still be aware of copyright issues. Some sites specifically state that you're allowed to use their materials for educational purposes. With those that don't, you may wish to seek permission. Where this is impractical, my own suggestion would be to make sure you include citation information if this isn't obvious. For example, a video hosted on YouTube will have the YouTube logo embedded in it, but a photo from Flickr won't have any such logo, so a proper citation is in order -- assuming the owner has allowed people to use his or her photos in the first place.

Example of a video embed codeHow do you go about embedding an object? In the case of YouTube or TeacherTube, the embed code you need will be right there on the page, as illustrated in this screenshot. You select the code by clicking in it and pressing Ctrl-A, and then copy it to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C. Then, in your blog editor, find a button labelled 'Source' or 'HTML', click on it, and paste the code there by pressing Ctrl -V. If you paste it into the normal editing window, all people will see is the embed code. (Note that some blogging platforms, such as Squarespace, which is what I use, have a facility which enables you to paste the code into a special window without having to find the Source area.)

What if it's your own video, hosted on your own website, or the school's server, or your Local Authority's server, that you wish to embed? Where do you get the embed code from? The best site I've come across for this is the Video Codemaker site.

To embed a picture from Flickr, go to the size of the photo you want to use (by clicking on the label 'All sizes' above the picture), and copy the code under the heading 'Copy and paste this HTML into your webpage:'.

But why stop at video? The article, How to embed almost anything in your website is very good, with instructions on how to embed files of all descriptions in your website or blog. The only thing I would say is ignore the instructions for embedding video: they're far too unwieldy. Use the Video Codemaker site instead.

Finally, don't forget to check out the other articles in this series by looking in the alphabetical index for 'Web 2.0 for Rookies...'.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a recording in digital format that you can listen to online, or download to your computer, and transfer to a portable device like an iPod. In fact, the name 'podcast' derives from the name 'iPod' -- but you don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts.

podcastingIn many respects, podcasts as an educational tool will be familiar to even 'traditional' teachers. For many years, schools have made use of radio programmes and other recordings, and have incorporated the making of recordings into classroom practice. There are, however, important differences between podcasts and these older types of recording.

The main difference lies in the use which podcasts make of RSS feeds. By subscribing to a podcast's RSS feed you can ensure that you will automatically receive each new episode without having to make a special effort to go looking for the latest one.

There are differences, too, in the making of recordings these days. For a start, recording devices are a lot smaller than they used to be. Indeed, you could use an ordinary mp3 player as long as it is able to record, although I prefer to use a dedicated device like the Edirol recorders, which I find give superb results even where there is a lot of background noise.

Editing is easier as well. In the old days of reel-to-reel tape recorders it could take a long time finding the section you wanted to cut out, and then cut it out, and then splice the two ends of the tape together again. Cutting out was pretty much the only editing option open to the amateur, unless you had access to some fancy equipment that would allow you to add a musical sound track or sound effects. But there was little scope for subtleties like fading the music out and the commentator's voice in -- at least, not in the normal run of things in a classroom situation.

Not only that, but the results of cutting bits out were often jarring to listen to, and the process physically weakened the tape.

When cassette recorders appeared, editing was more or less out of the question altogether. Although there were editing tools available, the facts that (a) the format was so small and (b) most of the tape was enclosed made editing impossible to all intents and purposes.

Editing now is so much easier. Using a program like Audacity means that you can see what needs sorting out, so the process is less hit and miss. You can cross-fade, amplify soft parts, add music, and easily cut out gaffes. And you can do all this without fear of making a fatal error, as long as you make sure you've backed up the original recording first, and without weakening the quality. Best of all, Audacity won't cost you a penny.

Podcasting has a place in every area of the curriculum. Youngsters can have fun and be creative by making their own radio programme. They can even include interviews with people from abroad by using Skype together with a Skype recording program.

A number of projects in the Web 2.0 Projects Books make use of podcasting, so you may like to have a browse through that for some ideas. The original edition is still available from http://www.ictineducation.org/free-stuff/. Not all of the links work now, but the ideas still do. The second edition will be out in January 2010, so look out for announcements for that.

One thing which has to be said is that, strictly speaking, a podcast is not Web 2.0, because it doesn't easily lend itself to collaboration with others, in the sense of editing the recording itself. However, people can leave comments if you create a blog to go with the podcast series, or if you have the podcast hosted on Podomatic, and the use of the RSS feed makes it worthy of being included in the Web 2.0 panoply. Besides, a well-made podcast should not only encourage others to comment, but will have involved pupils collaborating with each other in order to make it in the first place.

If this article has whet your appetite for creating a podcast, have a look at this how-to article. You will probably also find my account of my visit to the John Hanson Community School interesting.

My own efforts at podcasting may be found on Podomatic.

Finally, don't forget to check out the other articles in this series by looking in the alphabetical index for 'Web 2.0 for Rookies...'.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: What Is Microblogging?

In this series I explain in plain and simple terms what various web 2.0 concepts and applications are. Items covered so far are Web 2.0 itself and blogs. This time, microblogs are under the microscope.

Microblogging is a form of blogging in which the length of each post is limited to a certain number of characters. Usually this is set at 140, but in some cases it is 160, the same as sms (text) messages.

So what can you use this sort of thing for? In other words, what's the point?

The best-known of these services is, probably, Twitter. To some extent, and certainly at first, its value was doubtful because, believe it or not, nobody really cares what you had for breakfast or that you're going to watch Neighbours.

But there are more serious uses. For example, teacher Chris Leach used Twitter to help his class of primary (elementary) school children understand the Gunpowder Plot, as you can read in the Web 2.0 Projects Book (2nd Edition) -- look out for that in the Free Stuff area of this website -- and in this summary.

Another popular use is as a means of recording what a speaker at a conference is saying, which can be especially useful to colleagues who were unable to attend.

It can also be used as what is called a 'back channel', which is a conversation between members of the audience about what the speaker is saying. Sometimes this can be quite useful, with people dropping in useful links and their own insights.

You could also use it in lessons, such as asking the students to have a meaningful debate through Twitter, or to write film of book reviews. It sounds impossible, but in fact the 140 character limit really focuses the mind and forces you to cut out excess verbiage. It also encourages 'sms-speak', which some educators do not approve of.

One of the most common uses of Twitter is to pass on information about useful resources. Indeed, I regard this as essential to my attempts to keep up with all the developments in education and educational technology. As part of this dissemination process, some people (including myself) use Twitter to announce the posting of new articles on their blog. You can use a service like Twitterfeed to automate this through the use of your blog's RSS feed .A school could use this facility to let parents know when something new has appeared on the school website. For this to work, you'd have to set up a Twitter account for the school, and then try to encourage parents to sign up to Twitter and then 'follow' the school.

Topics of interest can be assigned a hashtag, eg #myconf. By entering the hashtag, 'tweeters' can help to ensure that their post will be picked up by anyone keeping track of that hashtag.

Twitter also has a list facility, which enables you to join or create lists of people in Twitter whom you'd like to 'follow': following someone means that you are more likely to see their messages than if you weren't following them.

Twitter is not the only game in town as far as microblogging is concerned. There are two others which are especially suited to education, these being Edmodo and Cirip. Each of these allows you to create groups, which can be very useful, and its worth exploring their features to see which one is right for you. or example, Edmodo allows you to upload files, whilst cirip lets you include pictures and even video clips in your posts, and to create or join private groups. Don't let the fact that it's Romanian put you off: there's an English version of the website. ave a look at José Picardo's article on Edmodo, and the related articles he lists at the bottom of the page.

A moment ago I mentioned reviews. There's a service called Blippr which is specifically set up to enable you to review books, music and films in 160 characters. Moreover, it incorporates elements of social networking because you can easily see and interact with others who have reviewed the same thing. Obviously, though, this has implications for e-safety, as does any kind of open online space. The same applies to the similarly-named Blip, which lets you create playlists of music tracks, which you can also review, and connecxt with others who share your taste in music.

One last thing: the groups facility in Edmodo and Cirip could be used in the service of admin. I think if I were still a Head of Department I would seriously consider setting up a group for my team, to enable us to quickly and easily exchange notes, news, links and other resources.

In conclusion, blogging and microblogging are two very different, but potentially complementary, manifestations of Web 2.0. 

Web 2.0 For Rookies: What is a Blog?

This series, as explained earlier, is intended to give people a flavour of what Web 2.0 is all about in as non-technical a way as possible. This time we look at blogs.

I think it would be true to say that many people have heard of blogs and have a vague notion of what they are. What a lot of people struggle with, however, is the question: What's the point of them?

First things first. A blog, short for 'web log', is a kind of website where you can do four things very easily:

Firstly, you can write new content without much ado. Sure, you can write new content on an ordinary website, but that usually means thinking about what kind of editor you're going to use to do so, how to link the new page to the rest of the site or how to change the content on an existing page without messing up the formatting. When you set up a blog you can, if you like, not worry about anything like that until you want to start exploring the possibilities. You can often even update the blog by sending an email from a mobile phone, or a picture from a phone or a camera.

Secondly, you can get the word out very easily that you've updated the website. Often, the platform you use will automatically create an RSS feed, which is the means by which people find out there's been an update without having to visit your website itself just on the off-chance in order to check.

Thirdly, and this is key, the default setting in a blog is to allow people to comment on what you've written. That's what turns a website from a repository of content to an area where discussion is positively encouraged.

Fourthly, you can quickly publish your work to a potentially worldwide audience. You can do that through a normal website too, but having an RSS feed plus the commenting facility makes the idea of a global audience much more likely to be realised.

Setting up a blog is easy: just go to http://www,blogspot.com and follow the instructions, and you'll be up and running in less than 10 minutes. In fact, the hardest thing will be to think of a name for your blog.

But let's move on to the question of: so what? There are a number of ways in which blogs can be, and have been, used in education:

As a personal learning journal. If you're doing a course, such as an MA, you could use a blog to record papers you've come across and your thoughts on them. You can then refer to these notes -- which nobody else need see -- when preparing essays. You could do the same on paper, of course, but a blog is accessible from anywhere in the world, more or less, and you can't cut and paste URLs and references using pen and paper.

As a diary of feelings or events. This is, I believe, how blogging started in the first place: with people keeping a diary, a log, of their activities.

As a place to do some creative writing. Or just to think aloud.

As a place to show off, and easily update, your creative portfolio. That could be writing, artwork, photography -- you name it. Next time an editor requests a sample of your work, point them to your blog.

As a place to keep, and update, your CV (Resume). Not necessarily the whole thing, but for the headline roles you've had and skills you possess. Interested parties will ask for the 'real thing' if they like wht they see online.

As a means of keeping a group of students informed. If you have a blog to which you publish new links and assignments every week, students can access that from home, their library or even, potentially, their local shopping mall.

As a means of obtaining students' thoughts and feedback, either by giving them the access rights to write blog posts themselves, or by encouraging them to comment on yours.

As a means of engaging students, either to record what went on in the lesson (see, for example, The Scribe Post by Darren Kuropatwa)or as a means of encouraging kids to write.

If the idea of having your students blog appeals to you, look into ClassBlogMeister from David Warlick.
You'll also want to read the relevant sections in Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW Worldwide Web, and browse through the many projects in the Web 2.0 Projects Book, both of which can be found in the 'Free Stuff' area of this website.

And look out for the utterly fantastic updated version of the projects book and, if you're in London in January 2010, my seminar on the subject. You can read all about these wonderful developments in my original article  in this series!

Web 2.0 For Rookies: What Is Web 2.0?

I think it's all too easy to assume that everyone knows about Web 2.0. Well, I am always coming across intelligent, well-informed people who don't know about it. So, this 'Rookie' series is for two sorts of people: those who don't know about Web 2.0, and those who do know about Web 2.0 (because they can send the articles to those who don't!).

Web 2.0 is so-called to distinguish it from the original experience of the world wide web. Traditionally, the web has been mainly a publishing medium, but in one direction only: from the publisher to the reader. That's great for making a lot of stuff available to a lot of people; not so great for having an interesting interaction, or 'conversation'.

Collaboration is what Web 2.0 is all aboutWeb 2.0 is sometimes referred to as the 'read-write web'. This nicely summarises the new web from the old: now you can write to it, ie contribute, rather than just read what someone else has written. You don't have to look very far to find examples of this: just add a comment to this article and you'll be doing it yourself.

Like many delineations, this one blurs at the edges. After all, long before 'Web 2.0' as such was born we had discussion forums to which anyone could contribute once they'd signed up. For a very good analysis of the different types of tools and interactions available, see the article by Miles Berry and Steve Lee in the free ebook Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW Worldwide Web, which is available from the 'Free Stuff' page on this website.

The delineations blur at the edges, too, when you have a practical decision to make, as I had recently, in whether or not to include a submission to a book about Web 2.0 projects. For example, one project involves the use of a cell phone and PowerPoint. Not much Web 2.0 in evidence there, you might say. But if the kids had used their own cell phones, and contributed to a SlideShare presentation, say, then it would have been Web 2.0.

In other words, I decided to take a pragmatic rather than a purist approach, a leaf I've taken out of the economists' book. Faced with endless debates about what money is, and whether X is money, near-money, or not money at all, economists have largely adopted the view that if it acts like money, if people use it as money, if people accept it as money, then it must be money.

In a similar way, my view of Web 2.0 is that if something lends itself to collaborative working and can be worked on over the web, let's call it Web 2.0. I'm sure that will upset the purists, but as far as I'm concerned it's a good practical definition which, hopefully, will make sense to 'rookies'. It makes sense to me, and I consider myself a perpetual 'rookie'.

Examples of Web 2.0 applications include blogs, wikis, online presentation tools, online photograph-sharing sites like Flickr and many, many more. For a good introduction to Web 2.0, download and read the aforementioned Coming of Age.

Also available from the same place is the Web 2.0 Projects Book, which contains around 60 projects undertaken by teachers using Web 2.0 applications. Not all of the links work now, but the ideas are still valid.

A brand new edition will soon be available, containing over 100 amazing projects. In fact, it will be officially launched at my seminar at the BETT Show 2010 entitled Amazing Web 2.0 Projects: Real projects in real classrooms with real kids! That would be a good place to gain an introduction to Web 2.0 if you're at BETT this year, but there are other seminars too as well as the Teachmeet event.

But if you can't get to BETT, not to worry: just follow this series and download the new projects book when it's available!

Using New Technologies To Enhance Learning Experiences

Kevin Mc Laughlin discusses his reasons for using four (free!) applications – Audacity, Edmodo, Animoto and Voicethread. In this article, he assesses their usefulness from an educational standpoint.

 

I have always used technological tools to enhance my teaching, create enthusiasm and raise standards in my classroom and I am constantly reviewing the effectiveness of the tools I find, or am pointed to by followers on Twitter. However I need to ask myself a very important question before using them.

Why would I want to use this tool for teaching?

I will focus my answer on my use of Audacity (open source sound editor) and three online tools - Edmodo, Animoto and Voicethread.

Using Edmodo

Edmodo is described as ‘a private communication platform built for students and teachers’. With it you can set up a secure, private class account and share files, links and notes, post assignments and send alerts, and grade students’ work. It took me no longer than a few minutes to set up my class and then demonstrate to them how to use it and what we were going to use it for. I use it for posting homework, spellings and details of upcoming school events and my class use it for collaborative project work and sharing ideas and links to resources. I can also respond to their questions and guide them in their learning through the site’s Twitter-like message service.

Using Edmodo has helped raise standards in ICT in my class as I post mainly technology-related assignments such as Science PowerPoint presentations and video animation projects for Literacy. It has also helped my class to practice their English skills as my students will not use their first language (Spanish) to message me or each other.

Edmodo is incredibly useful and another teacher in my school has recently started using it effectively with her class. I have also received a lot of positive feedback from parents who find it helpful as they can see what homework their child has and when it has to be handed in.

Using Animoto with Audacity and Movie editing software

Animoto is a fantastic slideshow presentation tool that I have used with my class during a recent Literacy topic. I wanted to use this for the specific purpose of enhancing creative writing skills through a spoken presentation, the tool itself would provide part of the platform for the children to present their work.

Animoto is quick to set up and within minutes your class can be uploading their images and watching their results. It allows you to use provided background music or if you wish your own music or sounds.

Another tool I use regularly with my class is Audacity, a free sound file editor, and we have used this to create podcasts, and sound effects for school assemblies. It is incredibly useful and no school should be without it. The children in my class are quite adept at using it and after writing and editing their presentations they recorded their ‘voice-overs’ using audacity.

After they had done so and their work was saved I transferred it to a movie editing tool (such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie if you have a Mac) to create their final video presentations.

 

Voicethread

Voicethread is another tool that I have only recently started using but wished I had discovered earlier in the year. I would describe it as a collaborative documentation tool that has many uses in the classroom. We used it to document a school excursion and I asked my class to create the documented story in Spanish so that the Spanish tutors in school could use it. Again it is easy to set up and takes no time to learn how to use it. There is a growing list for its use in the classroom on this site. 

I have mentioned only four tools I use with my class although I use many more. Each tool has a place in my classroom and each achieves a purpose I have thought carefully about. I want my class to learn how to use these tools because I understand the effectiveness each can bring to their learning and creative thinking.

After using them in class I am convinced of their validity in the classroom to enhance learning and teaching.

Kevin has started work in his new school as a Primary Teacher this month. He has a great interest in using technology (tools) to enhance his teaching and the learning of his students. He can be contacted through

 

http://twitter.com/kvnmcl 

http://www.kevinmclaughlin.wordpress.com 

kevindmclaughlin@gmail.com

This article was originally published in Computers in Classrooms.

 

Web 2.0 is not a thing...

Great image from Daniel F. Pigatto via Flickr. Funnily enough, I said in my recent Classroom 2.0 Live talk that, as far as I'm concerned, if it looks like Web 2.0 and behaves like Web 2.0 - ie facilitates collaboration and interaction, then it is  Web 2.0. This image encapsulates my thinking exactly.

Web 2.0 is not a thing...

The Online Information Conference and other news

In this video I talk about the Online Information Conference. If you're in London and you see this in time (it finishes on 4th December 2009) you might like to get along, for reasons I describe.

If you can't get there, it's worth checking out the website for information and podcasts.

I've also included a short video I shot with a pocket video recorder called the Kodak Zi8, which I'm quite impressed with.

Other items mentioned include the next issue of Computers in Classrooms, which includes several book reviews, two reviews of the same website, current legislation in the works, elevator speeches and coping with inspection. That will be out very soon.

Plus information about the Web 2.0 Projects Book I'm working on, and my two presentations at BETT, which are:

Driving Your ICT Vision: how might advanced motoring techniques help us achieve our ICT goals?

Amazing Web 2.0 Projects: Real projects in real classrooms with real kids!

Wasteful Widgets #4: Maps

Like many bloggers, I have a map on site showing where visitors are coming from. Why?

World viewI think there are two aspects to this question: why have a map, and why show it to the world?

On the first issue, it is quite nice to look at one's reach. I have to admit to a little thrill when I see that someone in Borneo, say, has been checking out my blog. And I find it fascinating that I can write something now, sitting here in my home near London, England, and seconds later someone on the other side of the world, in Australia or New Zealand, can be reading it. I am still intrigued despite having done this kind of stuff for nearly 15 years.

But the other question, about why show it, is more problematic. At first, I did so because I wanted people to see that I am being read internationally. I now feel that one should be able to take it as read that that's the case, and not make a big deal out of it.

I also think, like recent comments, it's a matter of context. When I took part in the Classroom 2.0 Live discussion, people were asked right at the start to click on a map to show where they were listening from. Seeing the whole world 'light up' as members of the audience did so was an incredible experience. And for me, as the guest speaker, it really did bring it home to me that, although I was loafing around in casual clothes and unshaven, I was addressing a global audience in just as real a way as if I had been speaking at a physical event.

So, given that there's not much point in displaying a map on my site, because it lacks context and smacks ever-so-slightly of egotism, why do I continue to do so?

The answer, I'm afraid, will be familiar to married men everywhere. My wife likes to look at it, and doesn't want to have to bother logging in in order to do so.

International ICT in education superstar I may be, but at home I know my place!

Other articles in the Wasteful Widgets mini-series

Wasteful Widgets #1: Most popular articles

Wasteful Widgets #2: Twitter Feeds, and 7 Reasons to Eschew Them

Wasteful Widgets #3: Recent Comments

Collaborative Approaches To Learning: Always A Good Thing?

Collaborative approaches to learning certainly have their place -- but not at the expense of the facts!

This is an updated version of an article which first appeared on Wed, 7 Sep 2005.That sounds like a long time ago, but I think the issues I was describing then are still relevant today. But I'd value your opinion on this matter. It's a longish article: go grab yourself a cup of tea.

In March 1923, in an interview with The New York Times, the British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, and replied, 'Because it's there'. That seems to be exactly the attitude of some educationalists when it comes to recent developments such as blogging, podcasting and wikis. That is to say, they use them purely and simply  because they are there.

I'm all in favour of pioneering and trailblazing, but the downside is that evangelistic fervour can sometimes outweigh, or cloud over, any objective judgement. In my view, what we educationalists should be aiming for is not to get our students and colleagues to use technology, but to use appropriate technology appropriately. Unfortunately, that message sometimes seems to get lost in the hubbub.

I am thinking in particular of the apparently increasing adulation of, and reliance on, collaborative tools for the purpose of research, especially blogs, podcasts and wikis (the most well-known of the last is, of course, Wikipedia). In case you are new to all this, blogs are online journals, podcasts are recordings, usually in MP3 format, and wikis are web pages which can be edited live on the internet, either by anybody or by people who have subscribed to the group concerned. Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia which features articles which can be published, then edited and counter-edited.

Is ‘truth’ relative or absolute?

Wikipedia in particular is often hailed as a fantastic resource, and one which has grown through collaboration by ordinary people. It is, if you will, a perfect example of democracy in action -- apparently, at least. The question we need to ask, however, is whether this and similar enterprises are actually useful.

For most people, and societies, the ultimate goal is absolute truth, not relativism. This isn't only a religious quest: in the field of finance, one of the main attributes of money is that it should be a measure of value which does not, in itself, change value. Hence, in modern societies, the attempts to fix a currency's value by pegging it to gold or to another, more stable, currency. Trying to measure the value of something if the value of money is constantly changing is like trying to measure the length of something with a ruler whose length keeps changing.

Is collaboration always a good thing?If relativism is not ok in our religious or economic lives, why should it be ok in our intellectual life? We all know that knowledge and understanding are constantly evolving, and that the self-evident "truths" of yesteryear are sometimes found to be wrong in the light of new evidence. That is disconcerting, to say the least, but at least it's a process that happens over years rather than overnight.

It's also a process that happens with the involvement of experts in their field. Now, I am not so naive as to not understand that viewpoints which do not fit into the convention wisdom of the age are unlikely to be heard. You only have to look at the experiences of Freud, Darwin and, in our own age, homeopaths and others to realise that. And the economist J M Keynes, when asked why he had failed his Economics examination at university, said that it was because he knew more about Economics than his tutors.

Nevertheless, you can't have an article published in a scientific journal or the Encyclopedia Britannica unless it has been scrutinised and vetted by another expert. This is in contrast to wikis, where for the most part anybody can come along and change an article without knowing the first thing about the subject area.

Two cheers for democracy*

Now, this may seem like a very anti-democratic point of view, and that's because it is -- in this context. If that sounds arrogant, consider this: if you are the world's leading expert in a particular area, do you really want some virtual passer-by to "improve" your work by chopping bits out or adding bits in? Of course not! But even if you are an ordinary expert, as distinct from a world one, you will still not want someone correcting you. At least, not in that way. You might enjoy a good debate, and be open to have your views challenged, and may even change your views through that process, but that, I would contend, is a very different situation.

Even more important, though, is the potential confusion it creates for students. Imagine finding a great fact to put in an essay, and then double-checking it the next day, only to find that it's disappeared. Does that means it was incorrect, or that someone didn't like it? The only thing the student can do is to seek verification from another source. That's good practice, but the question is: what kind of source?

When I asked Limor Garcia, the inventor of Cellphedia** (a kind of mobile phone version of Wikipedia), how she would advise students to check the truth of the information they find, she said that people would be able to correct each other's answers, but also that they could check the answer in Google. That seems to me to beg the questions: (a) if you are going to check the answer in Google, why use Cellphedia? and (b) how would you know if the information you found in Google is correct?

The Library of Babel

Searching, searching...Interestingly, these kind of paradoxes are not new. In a story called "The Library of Babel", written in 1941, the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges describes a vast library in which there is not only a copy of every book ever written, but every book which could be written. There is, for example, a library catalogue, and an infinite number of variations of it. There is a marvellous passage in which he describes the quest for the "master" book:

"In some shelf of some hexagon, men reasoned, there must exist a book which is the cipher and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has perused it, and it is analogous to a god. Vestiges of the worship of that remote functionary still persists in the language of this zone. Many pilgrimages have sought Him out. For a century they trod the most diverse routes in vain. How to locate the secret hexagon which harboured it? Someone proposed a regressive approach: in order to locate book A, first consult book B which will indicate the location of book A; in order to locate book B, first consult book C, and so on ad infinitum."

(J L Borges, The Library of Babel, in "Fictions", which is featured on our Amazon page)

 The worrying development for me is not the invention and expansion of tools such as Wikipedia and Cellphedia. I actually think they have vast potential and are, in fact, tremendously exciting. From the point of view of the learning process, taking part in such collaboration is bound to engage or re-engage a lot of learners.

What I am more concerned about is the often uncritical stance of some educationalists in relation to these tools. For example, I have read articles which favourably compare Wikipedia to traditional encyclopaedias on the basis of weight, its ability to constantly change, its democratic ethos, and other characteristics. Surely the most important yardstick is accuracy? And a couple of months ago I met the Head of ICT at an independent secondary school who said, quite seriously, "We don't need to teach kids how to search the internet; they use Google and Wikipedia all the time at home."

Essential skills for users of ICT in education

We need to teach our students a number of skills or approaches when it comes to verifying information:

  • a questioning approach rather than a willingness to accept things at face value;
  • triangulation, which is the cross-checking of supposed facts with other sources of information;
  • in triangulation, the use of different types or sources of evidence; for example, there is no sense in cross-checking the accuracy of the comments I've made here by looking at other comments I've made: you should look in other sources; otherwise,it all becomes self-referential.

Above all, we educationalists should not fall into the trap of using a new technology in every situation just because it is there.

Conclusions

So what does this mean in terms of the educational benefits of services like Wikipedia, Cellphedia and, in a wider context, blogs and podcasts? Does it mean we should reject them entirely? The answer is that we need to treat them in the same way as we would encourage our students to treat any other source of information: with caution and, as stated above, to cross-check the information found using them.

We should also recognise that these new tools have some distinct advantages: they are fresh, they allow "breaking news" in academic fields to be published with a lower burden of proof required, meaning that a debate can be entered into at an earlier stage and by more people. They also enable the ordinary person and the maverick to have their say. Finally, they can also have profound benefits in a social context, especially mobile phone-based services like Cellphedia (the need for which has, I would suggest, been superceded by the wonderful mobile phone apps that are available these days) : imagine being able to go to a new area and find out where other people would recommend eating or staying (there are apps for exactly this).

Finally, taking part in such projects can be very useful for students, because it involves the skills of research, writing, collaboration and editing. It is easy enough to set up your own blog, podcast or wiki, as you will know if you've looked at the Web 2.0 Projects book .

In conclusion, we need to steer a fine line between using something in all situations, regardless of how appropriate it is, and rejecting it out of hand. I'm sure that the line is a wavy one as we continue to grapple with and debate these issues.

Postscript: The Demise of Wikipedia?

According to the London Evening Standard, editors are leaving Wikipedia in droves. Apparently, they don’t like the recently changed rules which, supposedly, make it harder to get away with writing rubbish or deleting good stuff. Read the comments too. Kate, for example, got fed up with her expert postings being deleted by some nameless and faceless person who decided that she hadn’t cited enough references. That sounds reasonable, but for me, having your work commented upon and rejected by someone who won’t or can’t even give you their name is unacceptable.

* Apologies to E M Forster.

** Unfortunately, at the time of writing the Cellphedia website seems to be unavailable.

 

Also on the web: 11/25/2009 (p.m.)

Succeeding with Web 2.0 Projects-Special Guest: Terry Freedman - Classroom 2.0 LIVE!

I enjoyed taking part in this. Unable to multitask effectively when giving a presentation (can anyone?), I am gradually catching up with the comments on screen as I listen and watch the recording in bits each day.

The presentation looks at the factors which help to make a (web 2.0) project successful, and includes (mainly) a case study of a multimedia project, and info taken from the forthcoming Web 2.0 Projects ebook. Thanks to Peggy, Kim and Lorna for their support before, during and after the session.

tags: Web 2.0 projects, Classroom 2.0 Live


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

What's RSS and why is it useful?

Here's a quick guide to RSS, which you may have seen mentioned on websites and blogs. (Note: I've written this guide with the complete novice in mind. If you already know what an RSS feed is, think about bookmarking this article in order to refer to it colleagues who are less knowledgeable than you. Thanks!)

What does RSS stand for?

The most commonly accepted answer is 'Really Simple Syndication'.

What does RSS let me do?

It makes it easy to do two things really easily. Firstly, it lets you read the articles on your favourite websites all in one place, using an application called a 'feed reader'. Secondly, as an extension of that, it lets you collate the latest posts from several blogs all in one place. It doesn't have to be only blog posts. It could be latest comments on someone's blog, or their most recent tweets in Twitter, or anything else that has an RSS feed.

Taking the first point, it means that you don't have to traipse from one website to another to check if there is anything new: new stuff will show up in your feed reader automatically.

How do I obtain a feed reader?

Just search for the term 'feed reader' and then find one that suits you. You can have one which is installed on your computer, or one that resides on the web. I prefer the latter, because it means it doesn't matter whether you're sitting at your own computer or not when you feel like checking for new content. Some installed feed readers let you synchronise with a web-based one, meaning that you potentially get the best of both worlds.

Popular feed readers include Bloglines and Google Reader, which are web-based. For other readers, look at this article about feed readers.

Update: since this article was written, Google has decided to discontinue its RSS Reader service. There are plenty of alternatives, however. Check out RSS isn't dead: the best Google Reader alternatives. Read the comments too, as there are suggestions in there as well. Feedly has been cited lots of times in articles. I myself have started to try one called The Old Reader, which seems quite nice.

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

If you've installed your feed reader's browser toolbar, you should be able to do so by clicking on 'Subscribe', if the blog or website has been set up to allow this. Otherwise, look for an icon like this: and click on it; your feed reader should do the rest. If it doesn't, right-click on the icon and select the menu item which reads 'Copy link location' (or similar), open your feed reader, and then paste the link into the New Subscription box. Don't worry: it's all a lot simpler and quicker than it sounds.

How do I read new articles?

Just open your feed reader and see what, if anything, has been added to the various websites since you last looked.

Conclusion

RSS makes it easy for you to keep up with lots of reading in a shorter period of time than would probably otherwise be the case, because you're not racing all over the internet from site to site.

If you're a teacher, it can also benefit your students. For example, if your school uses a virtual learning environment (VLE) you could set up areas for students to visit where the latest headlines from a range of websites are displayed. That could be used purely for reference, or you could incorporate it into lessons. For example, the first five or ten minutes of each lesson could be spent discussing what's new in the world of hospitality and catering, or in business and finance. At the risk of sounding clichéd, the uses for RSS are limited only by your imagination.

I hope you have found this useful. Feel free to comment on the article.

18 highlights from the 140 Conference

Yesterday I attended the 140 Character Conference in London, where I met up with Bill Gibbon, Neil Adam and Bill Lord.

From left to right: Neil Adam, Bill Lord, Bill Gibbon, Terry Freedman

Here are 18 highlights, any one of which could be the start of a rich conversation. I think if you take the volume and variety of the presentations overall, you would have to conclude that any schooling which does not address matters such as etiquette in, and use of, Twitter and other social media is not really a fully rounded education at all. Anyway, here are my ‘takeaways’.

I love the idea of Buy A Credit. Donate £1 and you get to have your name listed on the credits of a film. The money goes towards financing said film. What an ingenious idea. @buyacredit.

In the eracism slot, Kyra Gaunt told us that racism gives us the opportunity to be courageous.

Apparently, one fifth of businesses in the UK are on Twitter.

Several people, such as Stephen Fry and the lady from SB Buzz reminded us that Twitter is a relationship channel, not a sales channel.

Alex Bellinger told the story of a high street florist which engages its customers with Twitter. The plasma screen in its shop, displaying Twitter conversations, attracts curiosity, and then converts. This would probably be a good tactic to adopt in a school setting, both as a way of engaging other teachers and, on open days, parents.

I liked hearing from Dean Landsman and Dean Meyers that an augmented reality system tried out in New York provided the information that, in a particular direction, the nearest tube was 3,000 miles away. This is almost science fiction: think of the great creative writing you would see if you used this anecdote as a starting point.

In the musicians’ slot, Manny Norte started a sentence with the words, “M and M comes from an age…”  That was only 5 years ago! He went on to say that if M and M were starting out now, he would almost certainly use Twitter to engage with fans, as part of the marketing strategy.

I have to say that, in the ‘brands’ session, talk of ‘humanising the brand’ all sounded very cynical to me. Why not just be upfront and admit that Twitter is part of the marketing mix and be done with it?

JP Rangaswami, chief scientist at BT, asked why we couldn’t subscribe to a car park’s Twitter feed. Brilliant idea: you’d know which car parks are full in advance. After all, Tower Bridge has a Twitter feed and sends out alerts when the bridge is about to go up.

Josie Fraser gave an excellent talk about retweets, followed by some fake stats. I didn’t realise: RTs are a rarity apparently.

If you’re a consultant, maybe you miss the buzz and gossip of the office? Federico Grosso suggested that Twitter is actually a gigantic water cooler. Nice idea! Does that mean, then, that home-working is now not only technically possible, but feasible from a ‘human’ point of view too? A question for business studies students perhaps?

Some of the more ‘switched-on’ police forces, both here and abroad, have used Twitter to find missing persons and murder witnesses. Chief Inspector Mark Payne explained how using Twitter as a two-way information stream allowed the police to be deployed in the most efficient way during demonstrations, and to keep the public informed of what they were doing, and why. Question for citizenship students: is this a step towards policing with people rather than the policing of people?

The education session was interesting. James Clay stated the obvious (which is often necessary) when he said that “We need to get educational leaders to understand the value of social media.”

I was impressed by Ruth Barnett, of Sky, who emphasised the need for integrity when quoting from sources like the ‘Twitterverse’. For example, when covering the recent troubles in Iran, Sky apparently did its best to ensure that the tweeters it obtained information from were people who had already been reporting on it before it became the hot topic.

I also thought what she said about the challenges of networking with China was very interesting: they use a different character set and different networks. I’d also add that they probably have a profoundly different world view. All cultures differ, of course, which is what makes all this so interesting and, ultimately, rewarding.

Vikki Chowney made the point that, at the G20 conference, live blogging was difficult because of the volume of data being thrown at the audience. Twitter became, in effect, a tool for live blogging. That’s exactly what goes on at many conferences these days, of course.

She said that Twitter closed the gap between politics and people.

Finally, the author Thembisa Mshaka listed the differences between celebrity and stardom; for instance, a star has a tireless work ethic. She said, in a way reminiscent of Malcolm McLaren’s talk at the Handheld Learning Conference, that mediocrity becomes the order of the day because it is so easy to get away with.