Amazing News About the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book

I thought you might be interested in some news about the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book.

As of 5 minutes ago, it had been downloaded at least 11,928 times since the 14th March.

I’ve received and read some great comments about the book. You can view them here:

http://www.ictineducation.org/free-stuff/

If you can spare three minutes, please give me some feedback via a poll I’ve set up:

http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/cgi-script/csPoller/csPoller.cgi?cid=1&t=1&pid=70

(This is the link behind the 'Take our poll' text over on the right-hand side.)

It consists of just three questions, so won’t take you long! Thanks.

If you like, place a link to the poll from your own website or, even better, embed the poll using this code:

<span id="poll_70_1_v">

<script src="http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/cgi-script/csPoller/csPoller.cgi?cid=1&t=1&pid=70&js=1">

</script>

</span>

All you do is go into the HTML view of your blog post or web page, and put that code within the Body section, ie between the tags <body></body>. You should see the questions as they appear on the link above once you have done that. Once someone has voted, they will be able to see the results of the poll so far.

As the poll is actually hosted on my site, it won’t use up valuable real estate on yours.

New developments

I’m going to be announcing some exciting developments in relation to the book, and the contributors to it and the subscribers to my newsletter, Computers in Classrooms, will be the first to know about them. Here is one for starters:

I’ve set up two methods whereby you can embed the book on your own website or blog if you want to.

Firstly, there is a SlideShare option.  The links are live, ie you can click on them and they work. Also, the subject-project  list near the beginning of the book now contains hyperlinks to the projects cited. You’ll see the embed code near the top right-hand side of the screen.

Secondly, I have created a Myebook version. To obtain the embed code, you will need to open the book and then click on the Info tab. The advantage of this over the SlideShare version is that it looks and sounds like a real book, and you can zoom in to read it more clearly. Also, you can grab parts of the screen and email it to a friend. Unfortunately, though, the links don’t work, simply because I don’t have time to create them all manually – I’m waiting for the automated version of the book builder to do that for me!

Here's what it looks like:

 

Thanks again for contributing to this ebook, and for spreading the word about it. Judging from the number of downloads and the comments written about it, I think a lot of people have found it very useful so far.



50 Rules of Social Media Etiquette for Students

I've just been checking my Google Reader subscriptions., and came across this interesting post from Social Guy. It contains 50 'netiquette' rules for students, categorised into General, Twitter and Facebook. Helpfully, there are sections devoted to job-seeking and grammar as well.

Observe the rules of etiquetteI don't agree with all of these 'rules'. For instance:

Substituting “2″ for “to” looks like you’re in junior high.

Well, perhaps, but it also saves one character, which could be crucial!

Another one:

You might think it’s nice to send an automatic message every time someone follows you, but it actually makes you look lazy and unengaged. Social media is about the personal effort behind the connection.

I agree, but not responding at all for a while also makes you look unengaged.

I shouldn't use this set of rules completely out of the box, but as a very useful starting point for discussion with students.

Word Cloud Shoot-Out

What's better: Wordle or the new kid on the block, Tagxedo? Each has plenty to recommend it, but what's the best one to use?

I've been putting Tagxedo through its paces, and written up my findings in the latest edition of Computers in Classrooms, which will be available later today.

What's this meant to be? See the newsletter article for full details.

Subscribe to the newsletter

If you'd like to receive the newsletter by email, please complete the form below. We use a double opt-in system, which means that you will be asked to confirm that you wish to subscribe. The subscription is free.

 

Please fill out this form to receive our newsletter!
Email:
fname:
sname:
Position:
How you heard of us:
Your purchasing power:
Where you live:
Main age group: 0-5
5-10
10-14
14-19
19+
N/A
Please indicate that you agree to the Terms of Service
 I Agree		 Subscribe
 Unsubscribe
 

The newsletter archive

If you like, you can have the newsletter delivered to your news reader. Just subscribe using the button below.

 

 

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Geotagging

Geotagging is the term given to the adding of geographical metadata to photos, videos, tweets, websites and other media. This ' metadata ' can include longitude and latitude, and other attributes such as altitude. There's a fuller version of this summary information over at Wikipedia , but let's think about the applications of this technology in school.

You can geotag photos, which is a fancy way of saying that you can embed geographical metadata into your digital photos. Have a look at the information -- the metadata - shown below for two photos. One important difference between the two is that the one on the right includes information about where the photo was taken.

Spot the difference

There are several ways of entering this information in a photo. One is to buy a camera that does it automatically. That's still a bit of an expensive option. Compact models are starting to appear at a price which makes it feasible to consider having two or three in a school for lending out to classes, but not one per class, much less several per class unless the school has a clearly thought-out policy regarding the purchase and use of handheld devices. (For example, Scargill Junior School uses sets of SmartPhones for geotagging photos.) This is a clear example of where allowing youngsters to use their iPhones would make perfect sense, if managed carefully. If the kids have the technology, we should be providing educational opportunities for them to use it. Seems like a no-brainer to me. (There's a good article in the early-April issue of Computers in Classrooms in which a teenager describes how essential his phone is to him. I believe he sometimes even uses it for talking to people!)

Another option is to place your photo on a map in Flickr . This works well, but can be a cumbersome process if there are lots pf pictures to process. Obviously, it would be a good idea to make this process an educational activity in itself: something the geography folk could get involved in perhaps? There's a geotagging group on Flickr , with links about how to use the mapping facilities there.

Yet another approach is to but a wi-fi-enabled storage card, which is what I hope to experiment with soon. This looks like a brilliant option. It's not exactly cheap, though, and at the moment it seems to me that you'd get better value for money by purchasing a new gps-enabled camera than one of the full-works eye-fi cards, even though it would cost you more. I think this is an area where careful research, and some patience, are required.

So what can you actually use geotagging for in education? One obvious answer is anywhere that mapping is relevant. For example, a presentation about a school trip can be made to come alive by placing the photos taken on a map. And school excursions can themselves be made more exciting by the use of geocaching , which is essentially a treasure hunt that makes use of GPS-enabled devices to find hidden objects.

Get SmartExploration of different habitats in the local area or school grounds can include geotagging the photos taken. In Scargill Junior School, mentioned earlier, the children use the SmartPhones to take pictures of minibeasts , and the exact location of the insects is recorded at the same time, enabling them to find them easily again, and to place them on a map.

Anything involving measures of distance or altitude will not only thrill the geography teacher, but will be welcomed with open arm by the mathematics teachers too. For history teachers, also, the use of geotagging to explore where past battles took place must be an exciting prospect. You could also bring in a discussion of the impact of information technology on society: in England during WW2 rural place names and signposts were taken down so that the Germans would get lost if they managed to land on our shores. (See this set of Yahoo! Answers , especially #3.) How useful would that bluint approach be in this day and age?

Even the artists can get involved. You can find out how by going to Lesson Planet , where a multitude of suggestions for geotagging and using GPS-enabled devices will be found. You have to log in to find out the detail, but there are pages of ideas which subject specialists should be able to make sense of.

An example of geotagging you may have come across is the Clustr map . Seen on numerous blogs , this is a map showing where visitors have come from. Variations may also be found on widgets which proclaim when the last visitor arrived on the site, and where they are accessing it from, and the sort of thing I experienced when taking part in a Classroom 2.0 Live discussion , when as people joined the discussion they were invited to enter their location on a world map. 

This kind of thing is, I have to say, terribly exciting! It's fascinating to see how many people in different parts of the world are looking at your stuff. It engenders a sense of curiosity ("What country is that ?" ), and even a sense of responsibility: in some cultures some of the things we say and do would probably cause deep offence.

OK, so geotagging is fun, and educational, but where does Web 2.0 come into it? I think there is the obvious answer that the sort of thing I just mentioned msakes it interesting and more meaningful to collaborate with other people from a different location. On a more everyday level, it's possible to take a photo of something, say a restaurant, review the thing you've taken a picture of, and upload both to a site where anyone looking for a restaurant (say) in that area will come across your review and photo.

My own view is that geotagging is not so much an example of a Web 2.0 application in itself, but it is certainly one that can enhance what I would call the 'Web 2.0 experience'.

Other useful references:

Educational Geo-caching (especially pages 10-13)

Geotagging in education

Google Earth for Educators

JSchools use geotagging , wikis , iPhones to teach




Book Review of How to Do Everything With Web 2.0 Mashups, By Mike Nardine

Book Review of How to Do Everything With Web 2.0 Mashups
By Mike Nardine

How To Do Everything With Web 2.0 Mashups By Jesse Feiler
McGraw Hill 2008
$29.99

This book grows on you. I originally purchased it to find out something about mashups. I'd come across the term before and hadn't been satisfied with the explanations I'd found. This book at once did an admirable job of that; I'm satisfied I now know a mashup when I see one.

What put me off about the book was its almost mechanical approach. Written in terse, no-nonsense unemotional prose, it had none of the humorous dry quips I'd come to appreciate in other Internet-related books. It drove from point to point as if building a house rather than a concept. Liberal arts major that I am, I guess I'm uncomfortable with that. Of course it's possible others, more technically inclined than I, might enjoy the book precisely because of this approach.

The book's first chapter is titled "Welcome to the World of Mashups" and that's the last bit of gratuitous amicability you'll find. After that it's, bang! "Understanding the Mashup World;" and bang! "Use XML to Structure Data;" and bang! "Use JavaScript to Script the Mashup Page," and so forth until your head spins. I set the book aside.

I picked it up again a month or so later when I suddenly discovered that it had done an excellent job of acquainting me with the central mysteries of mashups. I finally recognized them for what they were when I came across them, and found the book had given me the ability to actually understand how they did what they were doing. I wasn't quite ready to start building my own mashups, but I did enjoy the feeling that I'd learned something interesting and wanted to learn more-I guess that might be even more important than the humor I found in some lesser books.

Instead of struggling against it I found myself appreciating the way the book broke mashups down into their component parts and put them back together. Anyone who has struggled with JavaScript, RSS, XML, Php and API's as separate unrelated entities will get a sudden flash of understanding from each seeing them now working as parts of a larger whole. Still, I wish the author put a bit more of himself into the prose.

Mike Nardine operates http://www.CheapMikesDomains.com Mike sells domains and hosts websites at competitive rates. He reviews books at http://www.yourbookreview.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Nardine
http://EzineArticles.com/?Book-Review-of-How-to-Do-Everything-With-Web-2.0-Mashups&id=3072523

Why Schools Cannot Ignore Web 2.0: Educational Factors

#iCTLT2010 Last week we looked at the commercial drivers for change. But what of the educational drivers? What are youngsters doing that we ought to know about? 

 

I think I’ve probably already covered many of the educational drivers for change, in previous articles, but  just to summarise, I think it comes down to two things: the need to help youngsters  prepare for the future, and the need to give guidance to young people. I know a lot of people take the view that youngsters already know everything there is to know about technology, but even if that were true, which it isn’t, they would still need help on how to use the technology effectively and safely. As a 14 year old very tech-savvy girl said in a conference last year, she and her friends feel that they have been under-taught. You can find an interview with her about her views on this website.

There are also two other issues. Firstly, young people need guidance in order to help them keep safe on the web.

Secondly, it’s more and more the case that parents want to be, and have to be, involved in their children’s education, and to be kept informed of their progress ­– in real time if possible. Having Web 2.0 applications like blogs is obviously one way in which they could see what their children are doing, and having a wiki would make it possible for parents to easily contribute to discussions about the school. I visited a school recently in which parents said that the school website had made a huge difference to how involved they felt in what was going on in the school, and they wanted even more involvement by having access to the school portal in which homework was set and resources uploaded, and students and teachers discuss issues in subject forums.

Here are some statistics about youngsters’ use of the internet.

  • 73% of USA teens use social networks.
  • 12-17 year-olds in USA spend 1hr and 35 minutes texting.
  • UK teens in the 13-15 age group spend over 31 hours in an average week surfing the internet.
  • They use it for socialising; with people they already know (especially girls).
  • They use it for homework more than recreational activities like games.
  • They do a lot of multitasking.

I’ve carried out some of my own research online to find out more about how teenagers use Web 2.0, which are the points in blue. I found that teenagers belong to three general social networks, with MSN, Bebo, MySpace and Facebook being the most popular,  in that order. Their average age was 15. Half of them also belonged to at least one specialised social network, like YouTube. I know that we don’t tend to think of things like YouTube as a social network, but YouTube does have the kind of attributes that we associate with social networking, such as being able to follow people. It’s the same with MSN.

Now, surprisingly, the most popular use of the internet was to learn new things, followed by doing homework together with friends and then playing games, in that order. It’s possible that they were only saying what they thought the adults would like to hear, of course.

As for multitasking, that is no doubt true, because if you add up the amount of time they spend online with the amount they spend watching television and other activities, they are spending more hours than are available, because they spend over an hour and a half watching television and nearly an hour and a half playing games every day, as well as nearly one and a half hours a day on the internet. Incidentally, that figure comes out to around 10 hours a week surfing, which ties in with my own research which came out at 9 hours, and other research which suggested 12 hours online. The figure of 31 hours seems a bit excessive, and it is: the researchers  added up all the different activities.

What all this, along with the previous articles in this series, boils down to is the following:

We've looked at a lot of information and several factors from different angles, but I think we can probably summarise it all in half a dozen points:

  • ‘Levelling’.
  • Expectations.
  • Online conduct issues.
  • Awareness of issues such as privacy and non-delete.
  • Ability to share and collaborate.
  • Ability to respond quickly.

These are the elements which seem to me to be common to all of the areas we’ve looked at so far, or which arise from them. There is the idea of levelling, which goes hand-in-hand with people’s changing expectations. Then there are conduct issues, and these are bound up with concerns such as privacy and also the non-deletable nature of the web, that is, that once you’ve uploaded something you can’t get rid of it as a general rule.

There is also the need to be able to share and collaborate with people in distant locations (look out for an interview with Melendy Lovett, senior vice president of Texas Instruments and president of the company’s worldwide Education Technology business, in which she speaks about the charactersitics of the ideal TI recruit). I think what also comes out of this is the need and the ability to respond to situations and discussion points quickly. Again, I think this ties in with expectations too, because people these days expect to receive very fast responses to their communications.

If you're convinced of the usefulness of Web 2.0 in education, but are not sure where to start, you have a number of options, none of which are mutually exclusive:

  • Read the Web 2.0 For Rookies series to get an idea of what the terminology means, and for examples of great applications.
  • Read the Cool Tools for Ed Tech Leaders series to get an idea of what Web 2.0 (and other) applications are available for helping school leaders do their job.
  • Download and read The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book. It contains 87 classroom activities involving Web 2.0 applications + other resources, submitted by 94 contributors. Running at 121 pages, this free ebook has now been downloaded 10,995 times from this website in the three and a half weeks since it was published.

 

The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book: An Update On Downloads

This ebook has now been downloaded at least 10,056 times. Why the lack of precision? Because lots of people Over 10,000 downloads in less than 3 weeks! Woo hoo!have put it on their own websites or VLEs, and obviously I can't track the downloads from 3rd party sites. Also, some folk have linked directly to the file on my site -- in which case I still can't track the number of downloads. Much better to link to the download page, and let people click the link there.

In case you've missed it, the book contains details of 87 projects involving Web 2.0 applications in the classroom. It's methodical, inspirational, fun, moving (to quote Gerald Haigh) and free!

Go to the download page just mentioned to find out what others have said about the book and, erm, download it!

Here's the spec:

87 projects.
10 further resources.
52 applications.
94 contributors.
The benefits of using Web 2.0 applications.
The challenges of using Web 2.0 applications.
How the folk who ran these projects handled the issues...
... And what they recommend you do if you run them.
What were the learning outcomes?

Download!

Enjoy!

New to Web 2.0? Here is a Book Review of a Great Book For You -- by Mike Nardine

New to Web 2.0? Here is a Book Review of a Great Book For You
By Mike Nardine

Exploring Web 2.0:Second Generation Interactive Tools-Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Networking, Virtual Worlds, and More
By Ann Bell Katy
Crossing Press 2009 Copyright

Web 2.0? Whatever happened to Web 1.0? For that matter what's the difference? And even more to the point, who cares?

According to the author, Ann Bell, an Online Instructor and Course Developer For the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Web 1.0 faded away shortly after the Dot Com debacle at the beginning of the new millennium. Before that, she says, the information paradigm was "publish and browse;" the web was there to be read from, not interacted with. Today, in Web 2.0 data streams from every conceivable source are continually mixing and combining. As to who cares, knowledge, as they say, is power; any businessperson planning to make a living on the Web would be wise to pay heed to some of this stuff.

And this is a fine book for someone who wants to learn more about the Internet but doesn't want to get bogged down in the technical morass. Author Bell doesn't torment us estimating kilobytes or explaining domain name servers. Web 2.0, she says, depends on sharing among users, and she sets out to show us how we all can benefit from this collaboration. The chapter on RSS Feeds, for instance, gave the clearest explanation of what RSS is and how to use it of anything I've yet read on the subject. Information diced and sliced and delivered to your plate to suit your needs. She also gives us a list of valuable links to use in building our own RSS system.

For those of us that have always gone blazing by such nonsensical words as metadata and folksonomy, there is an interesting section explaining these terms and showing how they are important in Social Bookmarking, another system any businessperson who hopes to succeed on the net should be aware of. Are you on delicious.com yet? Good, then you understand tagging. Of course there is still Podcasting, Vodcasting and ScreenCasts, Wikis, Mashups and Virtual Office applications to be discussed.

Virtual Office applications, or cloud computing as it is called by many, is a valuable addition to any business office. Free software and free storage that is well beyond the reach of your crashed hard drive. You don't know where to find this valuable stuff? No problem, Ms. Bell lists several of the better-known services: Google Docs, Microsoft Live Office and Zoho. (I tried Microsoft Live Office for the first time and found it overly complicated; I'm back to Google Docs.)

Some readers might find this book a bit on the light side. Ms Bell spends very little time on technical questions. Except for the section on RSS she tends to be more descriptive than helpful in using the various items she describes. But the book does serve as an excellent introduction to the new interactive resources of Web 2.0.

Mike Nardine operates http://www.CheapMikesDomains.com. Mike sells domains and hosts websites at competitive rates. Mike also writes book reviews at http://www.YourBookReview.Com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Nardine
http://EzineArticles.com/?New-to-Web-2.0?-Here-is-a-Book-Review-of-a-Great-Book-For-You&id=2920737

Encouraging Digital Access to Culture

well worth readingThis looks like an interesting document. I've literally just skimmed through it in nanoseconds, but it contains nuggets like:

A culture of playful, rapid small-scale experimentation needs to be fostered, complementing the desire for quality and integrity which already exists. Inappropriate governance is often stifling innovation and rapid expansion of digital access. Encouraging digital access means a radically different approach to managing technology from the way that large-scale legacy systems have been managed. Technology needs to be better integrated into creative processes.

Hear hear to that! That's exactly what we need in education too: a culture in which experimentation is encouraged, without fear of punishment if it doesn't quite pan out. Obviously there needs to be standards, and kids shouldn't be used as guinea pigs for every new half-baked idea that pops into people's heads. But hasn't it gone too far the other way?

That's what's so refreshing about the projects described in The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book (8,895 downloads at least, by the way, as of 5 minutes ago; and that's in just over two weeks!). They are small-scale, and driven by educational aims rather than technological ones. They were experimental; and they were undertaken in a spirit of playfulness.

Read the 10 Essential Things To Do. It's excellent advice, and transfers easily to an educational context.

You can download this free publication from here:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/DCMS_Encouraging_Digital_Access_to_Culture.pdf

 

Why Schools Cannot Ignore Web 2.0: Technical Factors

#iCTLT2010 Based on my recent talk at the ICTLT2010 Conference, this short series looks at the social, technical, commercial, economic and educational factors that I think together mean that a compelling case can be made for schools to fully embrace Web 2.0 technologies.

Last week I looked at the social factors involved. This time, let’s look at the technical drivers for change. The obvious one here is changes in technology. As well as Wikipedia and social networking, there are other developments too, such as Cloud Computing, which is starting to enter the mainstream as a viable proposition. In fact, 98% of reluctant companies have said that their main concern was security. But technically, it is now completely feasible to use web-based software for most things, and some schools and even whole districts have been using Google Applications for Education, or similar services, with success. In fact,  Singapore's Minsitry of Education has arranged for access to Google Apps right across the country.

There is also now an openness on the part of government as far as data is concerned. For example, the UK Government recently launched a data portal that enables people to work with the data, and create apps, to drill down into the data to find information which might otherwise remain hidden, such as to do with housing and local amenities in an area. In the USA, the Patent Office has built a wiki called Peer to Patent to enable people to peer review patent applications.

The technology of search engines has changed so that search results can include blogs and consumer reviews. There has also been a  growth of open source, consumer-developed apps, such as for the i-Phone. There are now 150,000 apps  in the Apple Store, and by January there had been 3 billion downloads. Other companies are also adopting this model. Facebook Connect, which lets you take your Facebook identity with you to other communities on the internet, is another example of what I called a kind of 'levelling' process.

Changes in technology have enabled the existence of what Chris Anderson has called the long tail, by which is meant the fact that anyone can produce a niche product in an economic way. For example, by using print-on-demand you can produce a book that only you and your students will use, or you can create a television channel just for use in your school.

AnywhereIn a recently-published book called ‘Anywhere’, Emily Nagle Green talks about the importance of connectivity, in devices, such as pill boxes that know when they’ve been opened and closed, and can notify the network accordingly; in customer experiences, such as people being able to pay parking meters by text messaging, as shown below; and connectivity in business, such as wireless transmitters on taxis in London to save waiting time at Heathrow Airport.

I discovered that in Singapore when you enter a car park your arrival and departure are noted, and you are sent the bill afterwards. Apparently, in Hong Kong things are even more connected.

Parking by textI think the degree of connectivity in the world was brought home to me recently by something which a manager in IBM said:

“There are more transistors in the world than grains of rice”

Brendan Riley, IBM

I have no idea how many grains of rice there are in the world, but I’m sure it’s a lot!

Next week: The Economic drivers for change.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Music While You Work

When I was a teacher I used to play music in the background, whilst the students were working. Not House, or Funk or whatever the current fad happened to be, but baroque music such as, and especially, Vivaldi.

I found that the music calmed the students down if they were a bit 'hyper', and they also worked better, and for longer. I didn't know it at the time, but there is, apparently, some research which shows that this was not a figment of my imagination. Listening to baroque music is not only soothing but it also, or so I've read, makes the brain waves more coherent, ie work together, like meditation.

If you think about it, that is, counter-intuitively perhaps, exactly what one needs when working on a highly logical problem such as the ones encountered in ICT.

Notwithstanding such benefits of this type of music, was I abusing my position of authority by not allowing the students to listen to the music they liked? I don't think so, because the purpose of the exercise was not for me to enjoy 'my' music, but to create a calm, ordered atmosphere in which we all get on with our work. Much as like the deep bass drum, hi-hat and general 'groove' of House music, I have never heard anyone argue the case for its being conducive to quiet, serious work.

If I were teaching now, I would involve the kids more, simply because the technology allows it. For example, I might ask them to compile playlists based on users' preferences. That would entail compiling a questionnaire, collating and analysing the results, coming up with a solution (or set of solutions) and then  seeking client feedback. It would also entail examining copyright issues, an whether it's worthwhile paying for advertisement-free versions of services like Spotify, rather than make do with the no-cost version.

In short, I would be able to integrate the use of background music into the ICT curriculum in a way which would not have worked as well when the selection was confined to my CD selection. How come? Because ultimately, whatever solution my students would have come up with would have been unfeasible unless I happened to have those CDs in my collection, and we had the time to record, mix and compile a physical playlist – illegally. In fact, unless I had the CDs in my possession, or the local library had an extensive selection, even sampling different sorts of music or artist would have been far too cumbersome a process to be viable.

With Spotify or Last.FM or similar services, you can easily find different types of music, find out what others rate as worth listening to, try out different combinations of tracks (another example of modelling) and come up with a draft solution to run by the client.

And at the end of the whole process, the whole class can work with their own playlist going on in the background.

If that isn't an incentive to approach the work seriously, I don't know what is!

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Projects to Try Out

So far in this series we've looked at various types of application that fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella. But what does a Web 2.0 activity actually look like, and how can you go about setting one up?

Those were the kinds of questions I set out to answer when I embarked on the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book activity. Previously, I had compiled a list of around 60 projects that teachers had undertaken, using Web 2.0 applications. That proved to be quite popular, and it met my aim of wanting to spread ideas and practice.

A truly amazing collection of project ideasNotice that I didn't say 'spread good practice'. Clearly, it is not my intention to spread bad practice, or even mediocre practice. But it seems to me that the very terms 'good practice' and 'best practice' are value-laden. What I, in my circumstances, may regard as 'good' may, given your students and school set-up, be fairly pedestrian as far as you're concerned.

So, this updated collection of projects are largely self-selected. I invited contributions, and    quite a few came in. I asked would-be contributors for answers to specific questions, such as 'What challenges did you face in introducing this project into your school, and how did you overcome them?'

Where necessary, I emailed people individually to obtain further information. I was very clear in my mind that I wanted the projects to be replicable. So, even if providing a website for people to look was out of the question for safety reasons, I made sure that the description of the project, preferably with accompanying screenshots, made it possible for the reader to get a very good idea of what it was about, and what it looked like.

Although the book is arranged in order of student age, starting with All Ages and then from  Primary to Adult, I believe that any project can be used at any age, with a bit of tweaking obviously.

Certainly, the challenges people faced, the concerns people had, and the contributors' recommendations are not differentiated by age group.

I hope you will find this resource useful. If nothing else, it will give you a good idea of how some of the applications we've looked at in an abstract sort of way have been put to use by real teachers, in real classrooms, with real kids.

Enjoy!

You can find out more about this free resource by going to our Free Stuff page, from where you may download it.

Stop Press! At the time of writing this, the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book has been downloaded by 2,142 people.



Web 2.0 For Rookies: Mashups

A mashup is the combining of two or more sources of data to form a new data set. In principle, there is not really any difference between a mashup and the situation in which you trawl a few websites for data, paste the data you find into a spreadsheet, and insert some formulae to work on the data to yield different, and potentially more interesting and revealing, results.

The kind of mashup we're talking about here is (usually) on the web, and is updated automatically in real time.
A kind of low-level mashup is, I would say, inserting an rss feed into your home page so that people can see what you've been saying on Twitter, or the comments people have been making about your articles. If you think about it, that meets the criteria for a mashup which I have just outlined: it's on the web, it combines one set of data (the comments) with another (your blog's front page) to yield information that is updated in real time, ie immediately.

You could argue that this isn't a real mashup in the sense that it doesn't reveal anything new, and certainly doesn't give you anything you could not have found anyway. However, by adding the comments to the front page of your blog, it provides the visitor with a richer experience and, furthermore, saves you and them time: why go looking for the data if if you can have it delivered.

More adventurous mashups combine data from sources you may not know exists, or does so a lot faster than you could without assistance.

Take Trendsmap, for example. This takes Twitter trends and places them on a world map. Want to see what's hot news in British Columbia right now? Look no further. Is this a solution looking for a problem? Not if you're a journalist or a blogger wishing to write about the latest news on everyone's lips.

It should be obvious by now that this sort of application does not merely present you with two or more sets of data. By combining the data sets in new ways, the information you obtain is itself different to what would otherwise have been the case. Anyone who has ever used a pivot table in Excel will know exactly what I'm talking about: by mashing up the data, you start to see patterns that were hitherto hidden.

This has business and social applications too. The UK government has recently made publicly available sets of data in ways that techies can use them to create mashups, as described in Hacking For Good Reasons. Mashups which let you see what jobs are available locally without having to stir from your kitchen table, or which tell you which areas of your town are safest, or what was in the news when your local politicians were waxing lyrical to the press -- all these things matter to real people.

As far as business is concerned, mashups can form an essential component of a company's data-gathering armoury. The real-time characteristic of mashups can even be put to use for defence purposes.
An interesting exercise for students might be to ask them to come up with ideas for mashups. They can explain why they think the mashup would be useful, and who for, and what data sets they would need in order for it to work. They would not necessarily have to create the mashups, although as part of a unit on sequencing (programming), or in an after-school club, such an exercise could be very interesting indeed. The idea would definitely fit in with the section in the National Curriculum (in England and Wales) which looks at the effects of technology in Society and the importance of client feedback. Other curricular include similar demands.

In many respects, mashups are among the most exciting of Web 2.0 applications -- not least because they are all different from each other.

Free Web 2.0 Projects Book Now Available!

At last! The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book!

  • 87 projects.
  • 10 further resources.
  • 52 applications.
  • 94 contributors.
  • The benefits of using Web 2.0 applications.
  • The challenges of using Web 2.0 applications.
  • How the folk who ran these projects handled the issues...
  • ... And what they recommend you do if you run them.
  • What were the learning outcomes?
  • And did I mention that this is free?!

To download it now, and to pick up a badge you can use to promote it (if you want to), please go to the Free Stuff page.

Why schools cannot ignore Web 2.0: Social Factors

#iCTLT2010 Based on my recent talk at the ICTLT2010 Conference, this short series looks at the social, technical, commercial, economic and educational factors that I think together mean that a compelling case can be made for schools to fully embrace Web 2.0 technologies.

Starting with social factors, I think we can see a number of trends at the moment.

Social networking statistics

Firstly, more and more people are online, and using Web 2.0 applications , especially social networks like Facebook. For example,

  • 400m people are on Facebook (more since I wrote this!)
  • 74.3% of Singapore’s internet population aged 15+ belong to social networks.
  • 23m Brits in social networks (1 in 3)

Social networks are used badly -- by adults. Take a look at these statistics from an article in the Sunday Times back in 2007:

  • 83% of people give their full name.
  • 38% give their Date Of Birth. Bear in mind that your name and date of birth is pretty much all anyone needs in order to steal your identity.
  • 63% make their email address public.
  • 78% of social network users are adults.

Expectations

I think we also have to consider people’s expectations. Given how widespread wireless access is, together with the trend towards people wanting to be consulted and involved in decisions that affect them, and to doing so many things online or at least in a collaborative way, it seems strange to imagine how schools could not embrace Web 2.0 in the long run.

Internationalisation

Along with this goes internationalisation, by which I mean it’s easy and almost unavoidable to interact with people in other countries when you have free and easy communications applications like Skype available.

In fact, you could argue, as Neil McLean of Becta has, that if a student is learning a foreign language, they should be able to expect to have a conversation with a native speaker of that language at least once a week, and whereas at one time that would have been unthinkable, it is now entirely feasible.

Levelling the playing field

I think there is also a sense in which the playing field has been levelled, so there is less deference to authority in the traditional sense. The obvious example of this is Wikipedia. I’m not saying this is good or bad, just that it is, and I think schools should be helping students to navigate this new world by helping them understand how to recognise authority, and how and when it is appropriate to put forward your own opinions and views, and how to evaluate information you find on the internet.

Companies are using Web 2.0

And more and more, companies are using Web 2.0 ideas to relate to, and engage, their customers. Here are some examples.

The Beano is a children’s comic in the UK, and one of its characters is Denis The Menace, who is always up to mischief and getting into trouble.

What they’ve set up is an area of their website where you can create your own Denis The Menace comic strip and save it to the website, so that other people can comment on your efforts.

Coca Cola has a fan page on Facebook, and Kodak has issued a booklet on how to use social media like Twitter to best effect, because Kodak maintains a presence on Twitter and elsewhere. So does British Telecom, which seems to have a customer services team looking out for comments about its service. A few months ago I heard of a case in which someone who had been trying, without success, for months to speak to a high level manager about a mistake on the bill she was sent, had a response within 15 minutes when she posted a comment about it in Twitter.

I had a very similar experience with another company.

Other companies like Ford, Toyota and Proctor and Gamble have entered the Web 2.0 world. In fact, Proctor and Gamble has an interactive and very engaging site called Being Girl which gives advice to teenage girls on a range of issues, and invites them to contribute, and which also promotes Proctor and Gamble products. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course – after all, I promote my own books on my website! But I think schools can help youngsters develop economic literacy and commercial awareness, as well as meeting expectations, by getting on the Web 2.0 bandwagon themselves.

Last year, Toyota worked with MySpace to launch a competition that attracted 18,000 entries, and which far exceeded the company’s hopes for brand promotion.

It’s not only big companies that are involved. There is a flower shop in London that has a Twitter account so that its followers can easily be alerted to when there are special offers. In fact, a recent survey found that in Britain, 17% of small businesses have a Twitter account.

I find it hard to believe that anyone looking at this collection of information could believe that Web 2.0 is not entirely relevant for schools today.

Since writing this I have come across Why Schools Should Learn To Use Online Services Like Facebook & YouTube Rather Than Banning Them, via Steven W. Anderson's blog.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Photo-sharing

"Upload your photos and share them with friends and family!" That's how photo-sharing websites such as Flickr are often promoted. But in education, there is a more serious side: photo-sharing sites make available a huge repository of pictures.

Pupils like to illustrate their work, but unfortunately all too frequently neither they nor their teachers seem to fully appreciate the concept of copyright.

Here's the deal: whoever owns a photo owns the copyright in  it. Just because they allow anyone to see it, does not mean they allow anyone to use it. Just because it's available through Google, doesn't mean you're free to use it. Bottom line: if in any doubt whatsoever, assume that you can't use it, and you should be legally safe. Do not be tempted to use something you have no legal right to. Not only might you get caught, it also sets a bad example to your students.

So at the very least you must look at the licence terms next to the photo you want to use. If it says 'All rights reserved', it means you can't use it unless you write the owner a very nice email and they take pity on you. Even better, find a photo that is free to use, usually for non-commercial purposes, and as long as you give credit to the owner.

My tools of choice are Flickr for the pictures, and the Creative Commons search engine for finding pictures with the right licence terms.

When you find a picture you like, if it has the legend "Some rights reserved", click on the text and see what you're allowed -- and not allowed -- to do. You will see something like the Creative Commons licence agreement shown in the illustration.

Find out what you're allowed to doRegardless of whether you make use of other people's pictures, I would always encourage schools to create their own repositories. After all, it's highly unlikely that other people will have taken photos of your street, your school or your neighbourhood. And even if they have, they may not be exactly right for your purposes. Flickr is free, or a modest amount for an unlimited amount of space, or you could use a dedicated hard disk or server in-house. Think about it: if each class spent one lesson a term taking photos for the school repository, by the end of the year you'd have hundreds, possibly thousands, of pictures that anyone in the school could use to illustrate their work.

You can even build in curriculum work. Depending on your subject and students' age group, have a session taking photos on the theme of shapes, or the colour green, or weather, or ... well, you get the picture.

If you do use Flickr, there are 3rd party applications which allow you to do more with your photos than simply share them with others. For example, you can create mosaics, or posters, or magazine covers. One of my favourites is Flickr Toys.

If you like the idea of making more use of photos, you know what to do: start snapping!

My photos on Flickr may be found here.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Instant Messaging

Instant messaging, or IM, is the name given to communicating with someone else, via a keyboard, when that other person is online at the same time, as you can see in the screenshot below. In this respect it differs from emailing, tweeting or texting, where the other person may pick up your message later -- when perhaps you are offline.

IM is great for sharing informationWhen IM first appeared on the scene it achieved notoriety because of the way some people conducted themselves in chat rooms in Yahoo!, MSN and other providers. In fact, in the teen rooms especially, but also in 'adult' rooms, some people would use IM for writing sexually explicit content. I found that the sensible rooms were sometimes quite useful, as there were rooms for all different interests, but because it was always a bit hit and miss as to who was going to be online at the same time, these were never as good as today's communities and the ability to 'friend' or 'follow' someone.

There was also the ever-present danger that, because IM is text-based, you could never be certain that the person you were speaking to really was who they purported to be. Not that that particular danger has gone away, as the recent Facebook murder story sadly illustrates. However, there are ways of teaching youngsters about this sort of thing, as Dughall McCormick illustrated in Computers in Classrooms last April.

Today, many of the original chat rooms have disappeared, and those that remain seem to be overrun by spam. However, IM has entered the mainstream, insofar as anything Web 2.0 may be termed 'mainstream'. You will find it in applications such as Skype, streaming video, Facebook, Google Wave.

The reason is that IM is a brilliant way of communicating with someone else instantly. You can quickly share an opinion, ask for a file, give them a useful URL. Used sensibly, IM can provide a rich extra dimension of communication whilst engaged in another activity such as taking part in a discussion or watching a video.

Like anything else, such as text messaging, just because IM has been abused, does not mean it should be abandoned all together.


The Pros and Cons and Safety Aspects of Social Networking

I'm preparing a talk on the pros and cons of social networking, with some tips on keeping safe. The talk is going to be to a group of 6th formers (ie 17-18 year olds).

I've been doing my own research to see how many social networks these youngsters belong to, and it turns out to be a modest 2 or 3 on average. Then I made a list of the ones I belong to, and had a bit of a shock.

I currently belong to -- wait for it -- 63 social networks. I say "currently" because I am about to join more, and look at another one without joining it, to see what they have to offer. The reason I don't wish to join the second one is that it's for teenage girls. (I'll come on to why I'd want to look into such a network in a second.)

Of course, it all depends on how you define "social networking". The website What is Social Networking says:

"Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will."

That sounds pretty accurate, although I'm inclined to go further. I come from an Economics background, and I quite like the economist's definition of money:

"Money is as money does."

It takes a bit of getting used to at first, but actually it's a succinct version of the observation by Douglas Adams:

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."

So, applied to social networking: if it looks like a social network and people behave in it as though it were a social network, then it's probably a social network.

On that basis I have lumped together a whole load of applications that enable me to post messages, see other people's messages, comment on those messages, share files and follow or befriend people. In other words, I've included social bookmarking applications, video sharing websites, general social networks like Facebook, specific or focused social networks like Wired Journalists, and what I suppose we might call quasi-social networks like Friends Reunited.

Why is any of this important? Before I go into that, let me just explain why I'd want to look at a teenage girls social network -- and I can assure you that it is not for the sort of reasons you might think! I was reading in an article on social networking in Information Age about the benefits to business of social networking, and it mentioned a site called BeingGirl, maintained by Procter and Gamble. The article states:

"The same technologies can be applied in a marketing capacity. Involving customers and prospects in a community built around products and brands is proving to be a powerful way to maintain loyalty and engagement. 

Procter & Gamble is one notable leader here with its BeingGirl website. The social network provides an environment in which young girls discuss and get answers on many of the awkward topics that arise as they enter their early teenage years, with P&G introducing marketing material for its relevant products at pertinent points."

So I am interested in questions like, does this look like a genuinely useful site for girls? What's the product placement actually like? Is one of the things we should be educating kids about the fact that product placement goes on (including in television programmes)?

I'm coming at this from a number of angles.

Firstly, I see nothing wrong in companies deciding to start a social network in order to engender customer loyalty. Ten years ago I signed up to The Beano website. The Beano is a comic which has been part of the British comic landscape for what seems like forever, and is full of cartoon strips that are so stupid as to be hilarious. Now, the Beano website had all sorts of silly features on it, and it was just a good laugh. And it was an example of product placement.

Another example: I myself started a social networking site called ICT in Education. I stopped promoting it or nurturing it because I felt that it was actually diverting attention from my main website -- although I haven't shut it down because there are nearly 200 members who may be upset if I did so. Given that I often mentioned my articles in discussions where I felt such a reference would be useful to people, that was a vehicle for product placement too.

Secondly, issues like product placement have always been important. Or, to put it more generally, media literacy has always been important to teach. Right from the time I started teaching I made it clear to my students that they should always look not just at what is being said, but who is saying it, and what they're not saying. Nothing new about that.

Thirdly, if people find a social networking site like BeingGirl useful and helpful, and the products are good, that's what's known as "good customer service" isn't it?

So what does this have to do with my talk?

Well, it seems to me that a question like "What are the pros and cons of social networks?", and the supplemental question "And how do you keep safe in them?" raise a number of issues. Taking the first one first:

  • The answer will differ according to whom you ask. The advantage of BeingGirl for P & G is, presumably, marketing opportunities and (hopefully) customer loyalty. The advantage for a young girl is the facility for discussing issues and getting advice.

In addition, the answer will depend on:

  • The exact nature of the social network.
  • How active it is.
  • Who belongs to it.
  • What sort of facilities it offers.
  • The quality of the information posted on it.
  • The quality of the discussions posted on it.
  • The quality of the resources that people share on it.

As for the pros and cons of social networking sites in general, for me it's the same as the pros and cons of social networking, ie interacting with other people, per se.

The answer to the second question, about safety, must partly depend on how one defines "safety". Everyone seems to think in terms of sexual predators, but without wishing to denigrate the importance of that in any way, it does strike me as a somewhat narrow definition. What about identity theft? What about safety from economic predators?

(I was looking at a website this morning on which people can post their stories and articles and earn a share of the advertising revenue. The "small print" says that the site owners reserve the exclusive right to use your work forever, and also to do with it as they like, including chopping it up, featuring it anywhere they like, and so on. Loads of people have posted their stuff on this site, thereby depriving themselves of other sources of income from that work in the future. I hope their earnings from the advertising revenue compensate them for that cost. Shouldn't we be making sure that youngsters are aware of the importance of not selling the family jewellery as it were?)

What about protecting your reputation, or ensuring the "safety" of your future job prospects?

As for why I belong to so many: it's because they mostly do different things. Where I am a member of two or three that do the same thing, it's because I like to try things out. And, to be honest, I'm active in only about three or four of them. Let's face it: if I were active in all of them I'd be spending at least a day a week socially networking online!

I guess that's one of the big disadvantages of social networking: it can be so time-consuming!

This article was first published on 3rd February 2009.

Web 2.0 For Rookies: Commenting

If there is one thing which really characterises Web 2.0, it’s the ability to comment on people’s work. Commenting is what can, or at least should, make a conversation possible. In this article I’d like to look at comments from both an educational and an etiquette point of view.

Educational

I’ve been to several presentations in which the speaker shows a screenshot of someone’s MySpace page indicating that they’ve received 1500 comments about something they’ve posted. My take on this is as follows:

  • How can anyone read, let alone respond to, 1500 comments?
  • If most of the comments are ‘Wow’, or ‘Cool’, how does that benefit the originator of the post, except for giving them an ego boost?

A more important, but more difficult to measure, criterion is how much influence your post has. Shelly Terrell made the following observation in a response to one of my articles:

I have used these posts at various times so just because I'm not commenting on them doesn't necessarily mean they weren't useful.

I’ve sometimes had people say to me, months after I’ve written an article that nobody commented on, that they found it useful.

Also, it’s now possible to read an article in one place and comment about it in another. I typically see comments about my articles on othert blogs, in Twitter and on Facebook. It’s possible, through the magic of RSS feeds, to collate various streams into one place and display it on your website. I find that looks a bit too messy for my liking.

Something I have done in order to keep track of when I or my articles are mentioned anywhere is to set up a Google Alert and a Twitter alert. These let me know, by email, whenever my name is mentioned on the internet.

It seems to me that used wisely, comments on students’ work could form part of your assessment for learning approach. The key to success in this respect is as follows:

  • Be aware of when comments are posted.
  • Discuss the comments, and what might be learnt from them.
  • Work out suitable responses whilst taking into account e-safety and time management issues.

Etiquette

I have set myself the following rules:

  • I always try to respond to comments. If someone has gone to the trouble of making a comment, the least I can do is acknowledge it.
  • I never post anything which is likely to offend people, such as swear words.
  • If someone makes a sensible-sounding comment, but has a website like ‘easyescorts.com’, I won’t publish it.
  • If someone tries to advertise their services in a comment, when the service has nothing to do with the subject in hand, I won’t publish it. Sometimes, I’ll even report it as spam.
  • I never respond to trolls, which is the name given to people who are just plain nasty. They have no interest in furthering the conversation, and usually hide behind a wall of anonymity. If you get targetted by a troll, it’s a compliment in a way because these people only attack those who are patently better than themselves, ie more educated or more informed. The common advice is: don’t feed the trolls. That is, don’t give them any attention. Here is a great post on this subject:

Trolls, meatheads and my mom

I like this video too:

Don’t feed the trolls

That video is a good thing to show to pupils to convey the effects of cyberbullying (because that’s what trollism is) on people.

I also love this feisty response to troll comments. Go to the YouTube site itself for the lyrics.

 

I found this on the Grammar Girl site about making comments online. It’s a great post and you should definitely read it with your students.

I’d love to know what you think of my comments on comments – but nice ones only please!

 

 

 

 

 



Web 2.0 For Rookies: Presenting

I can't think of any course in ICT, apart froma  few very specific application-centred ones, that does not require students at some stage to present their findings, views or designs to the rest of the class. The good news is that there are a few applications online which make it very easy to create presentations, share them, and invite comments. Here are four which you might like to explore.

Slideshare

This is like an online version of PowerPoint. Indeed, you can uipload your PowerPoint presentation to form a SlideShare version. Unlike PowerPoint presentations, SlideShare ones can actually be embedded in your blog post or web page.

http://www.slideshare.net

VoiceThread

This enables you to create a presentation from your photos or other pictures, and add a soundtrack (music or commentary) to them. Nothing unusual here, you might say, except that viewers are able to leave their own audio comments on each slide.

The fascinating thing is that once the comments start to build up, unlike the case with some applications, they seem to become an integral part of the presentation. In other words, they enrich the original upload. Great for letting kids collaborate in an easy way!

http://voicethread.com/

Glogster

One does not often associate the word 'fun' with presentations, but it comes naturally when referring to Glogster. Imagine a poster that can contain not only text and graphics, but sound and video too, and that's Glogster.

It's supremely easy to use. The real challenge is ensuring that your 'glog' tells a story: with all those wonderful options available, cacophony is never far away!

http://edu.glogster.com/

Animoto

Last but not least, Animoto, as the name implies, makes it easy to create a video from still pictures. LOad the pics, select some music, add text if you like, and Animoto does the rest, creating an animated display of your 'slides', synchronised with the music. It's a good way of creating a dynamic presentation without needing very much technical know-how. The skill lies in deciding whcih photos to use, and what music to choose to accompany them.

http://animoto.com/

Go on, give these applications a whirl! Get the kids to try them out. Unlike PowerPoint, these don't tend to channel you into creating lots of bullet points -- well, apart from SlideShare I suppose, but then that would have come from the priginal PowerPoint anyway!

If you enjoyed this article, check out the others in this series.