About face

So, says my friend, the end is in sight,

You need to assess all your work, if you might.

Let's start with Facebook, what do you think?

Will you keep it or is it bound to shrink?

As my Web 2.0 explorations draw to a close, I feel it is necessary to go back and visit each tool, seeing what I have learned and where I will go from here.

Before beginning my inquiry, I did not have a Facebook account. In fact, I actively avoided signing up for Facebook, based on various things I had heard about it - ranging from the time consuming aspect of it to privacy concerns about it.

After investigating the privacy concerns and learning how my personal privacy settings could be set to control who sees what, I am much more comfortable with Facebook. In terms of eating up my time, I do find that it is one more thing that I "need to check" when sitting down at my computer, several times a day - in addition to my two email accounts, Twitter and Google Reader. However, with my Facebook feed going into my TweetDeck, I find I only need to open up Facebook once unless I spot something I want to investigate further.

So, yes, I will continue to use Facebook. Personally, it allows me to connect with friends that I don't necessarily talk to or see very often. It gives me a taste of what is going on in their lives. It is nice to be able to share a photo and have everyone see it and give a comment. It also lets me connect with groups that I am involved with so that I am up to date.

Professionally, Facebook can also be used by teacher-librarians to connect with their personal learning networks. Buffy Hamilton, the Unquiet Librarian suggests using Facebook to connect with likeminded colleagues in Start Social Networking with Libraries and Librarians @ Facebook. She suggests some groups/organizations to "fan" as well as some groups to join to keep up to date on what is happening in the library world. Although I can see the value in this, right now, I am going to keep Facebook a personal foray and keep my PLN connections through Google Reader and Twitter.

Will Richardson (2010) suggests that the "key" to Facebook "for educators is to move beyond the friendship-based connections and really explore the potentials of the networked, interest-based learning that's possible" (p. 132). Facebook "has become an important online space in our kids lives" (p. 133) and, for the most part, no one is teaching them how to navigate it safely. Right now, I am at an elementary school. Since students must be 13 years old to sign up for Facebook, it is not possible to use it as a learning tool. However, I do believe that general discussions around internet safety and digital footprints need to begin in elementary school. In the event that I re-enter the world of secondary school, I can see some direct uses for Facebook in the classroom including creating private groups for discussion (Richardson, 2010) or creating Facebook pages for characters in books or history (What Would Romeo's Facebook Page Look Like). In fact, here are

So, the final word? I will keep using Facebook personally and will look to use it the classroom if I end up in secondary education in the future.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.

The goods on Glogster

But how did you do it? What did you do?

It looks so complex, with everything new!

It takes some patience and quite a bit of time,

And to set up a class, takes much more than a dime.

My investigation into Glogster had me initially a bit frustrated. I signed up for an account and was trying to create a Glog, but kept running into errors as I tried to upload a video. The video would not load, so I looked up some further information to see what format the video needed to be in and if I was doing something wrong. Then I realized that I had signed up for the regular Glogster, when I should have signed up for GlogsterEDU.

So, I started over again, this time in GlogsterEDU. But, because I had already created an account using my school email address, I couldn't create another. Ugh!!! I ended up using the library email account to set up the GlogsterEDU account. I then restarted my glog and had no issues uploading the video. Hmm???

Once I had the hang of it, creating my Glog was fairly easy, though time consuming. There are so many choices when it comes to images, graphics and text that it takes a long time to pick the components for the glog. I really like the fact that video, images and sound can all be embedded in the glog. I do think, however, that this is a tool for older students given the complexity of it. I do not think I would try it with elementary students, unless I was working with a small, technically advanced group. I think Glogster is a useful tool for secondary students and great to replace paper posters!

I am a little confused as to the pricing for Glogster as well. I created a "Single Free" account. "Free accounts do not offer any student management features." OK - I see now - I am able to see the tabs for "classes" and "students" but can't actually put anything in there, I just get a pop-up for upgrading my license. If I want students to be managed in classes, the cost is $29.95 for 50 students or $99 for 200 students, for a year. 

So, Glogster is rather costly and complex for elementary aged students. It is something that I may use in the future but can not see myself using it with a class at this point in time.

How to use your voice

So what can you do with a class and your voice?

Can the students do it? Do they have a choice?

There are many fun thing to create with Voicethread,

Images, videos and comments of what you said.

Since I can't seem to get into Voicethread tonight, I thought I would explore some resources looking at how Voicethread can be used in education. Here are some of the things I came across:

• there is a great wiki called Voicethread 4 Education full of tons of resources
• I really like the ideas in this Google presentation

• some of the good ideas:
• creating one account for the class and different identities for each student; students can they respond/comment on something you have posted
• making up a story to go with pictures
• displaying student art work
• recording reflections
• documenting science 
• the wiki also has pages specific to various grades with other lesson ideas such as:
• creating a class "book" Voicethread with each student's artwork and accompanying comment as a page
• book reviews
• the wiki definitely has many good ideas

Some other things I noted:

• the Voicethreads can take quite a long time to load onto a page and the video/audio comments can also take a while to load; would this be frustrating for students?

I found this good article on Voicethreads at Edutopia: VoiceThread extends the classroom with interactive multimedia albums

Bill Ferriter has a good handout for commenting on Voicethreads on his blog The Tempered Radical in the post Using Voicethread for collaborative thought . . . 

That's it for now. 

You know you're a techy teacher when . . .

Reposted from Ask A Tech Teacher - I am well on my way!

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

1. You can’t remember the last time you printed a classroom document.
2. Plurking, tweeting, and playing with your wiki in public are acceptable behaviors.
3. Your Notebook isn’t spiral bound – it plugs into the wall.
4. Forget the garden…you spend more time on the weekend weeding out your Inbox.
5. You can recite your school’s Acceptable Use Policy by heart.
6. On parent/teacher night, instead of exchanging business cards, you Bump.
7. You express yourself with emoticons.
8. You no longer consider it graffiti to write on someone’s wall.
9. Your significant other gets jealous of your PLN.
10. It’s not creepy to have lots of followers.
11. You’re in a constant battle to be Mayor of your school.
12. Your students call you the “cool” teacher.
13. The other teachers are jealous of your Prezi.
14. YouTube is blocked in your school, and you know how to get around it and still use the content.
15. The Tech Department is sick of your constant requests to unblock Twitter.
16. You’ve Googled your principal.
17. You know that TweetDeck is not a patio with a lot of birds.
18. You correct your friends’ grammar when they text you.
19. Never mind the fruit, you want a real Apple for Christmas.
20. “Casual Fridays” means logging into the EdTech UNconference in your bunny slippers.
21. You wear your “I Heart EdTech” button everywhere you go.
22. You read this blog post then tweet it, like it, and pass it on to a friend

Social media and education . . . again!

This interesting infographic from OnlineEducation.net looks at the good and the bad effects social media is having on students.


While the final verdict is inconclusive, I concur with the final statements:

 "Social media is now a vital part of life, and academia needs to learn how to effectively take advantage. When social media is integrated with academics, studies have shown serious positive impacts on students."

Social Media in Education

This infographic created by OnlineUniversities.com shows how social media is being used in higher education.  As things tend to filter down from universities/colleges to other educational systems, I think the stats are an interesting read.

What's all the Twitter about?

You tweet and you Twitter but what's it all for?

It seems like a hassle and almost a bore.

Well, little spider, it really is fun,

I use it every day to get work done.

I must admit that I was skeptical about beginning to use Twitter, as I thought it was just about celebrities writing about what they had for breakfast and other mundane bits of trivia from their daily lives. I quickly discovered how useful Twitter is though, in establishing a PLN or personal learning network of like minded professionals. I use it daily to find the latest research on education and libraries as well as new and exciting teaching strategies and resources.

In Twimpact: Twitter's impact on my week, Noah Geisel describes the things he has used Twitter for in the past week, including:

• reading dozens of articles
• attending a TED talk
• learning about new apps
• conversed with 16 other educators, most whom he didn't know

I am constantly sending articles, websites and other links to the teachers to my school from things that I have found on Twitter. They are amazing and wonder where I am able to find such things - Twitter - is the simple response.


This cute xtranormal video very simply points out some of the uses for Twitter in education.

Students and social media

Wow, look at these stats on student use of social media!  Educators definitely need to enter the mix.