Learning with Web 2.0

12 04 2009

In this post I’m just going to share the different Web 2.0 tools I currently use in the learning processes in my classes.

  1. Wikispaces . The class wiki for each of my classes is the center of our online learning environment. The students get almost all class information and due dates here; they complete class activities and discuss various topics; they collaborate with partners to achieve goals for projects; they share and comment on information provided by me and other students, and they embed and link to work here from other Web 2.0 sites. Links to my class wikis: Asian Studies, All grade 9 Asian Studies, IB ITGS.
  2. Diigo and Delicious. These social bookmarking sites are used to collate resources for my classes. I bookmark sources relevant to the different content we cover and tag each source with a certain tag which causes the source to appear on the class wiki through a link roll. At the moment, I do this link rolling process through Delicious. I’m in the process of moving all social bookmarking process to Diigo. In Diigo, I’ve created a group for each of my classes. The students join Diigo and become members of our class group so they can share resources with each other and collaborate in the research process. Soon, I’ll be showing the highlighting and commenting functions of Diigo that make the bookmarking and sharing process even more dynamic.
  3. Google Docs. As a collaborative writing tool that stores documents in the cloud, I use Google Docs on occasion to have students complete written activities they do in a group context. I also have them do collabortive planning here, as well. Here’s an example of a collaborative piece of writing my IB ITGS HL students did. All the assessment is done right on the document- no printing, no converting to a MS Word file.
  4. DropBox. This is a fantastic online file storing and sharing application. It looks and works just like a Documents folder on a computer. The difference is that it’s connected to and syncs through the Internet to other computers on which you have DropBox installed. Alternatively, you can access your files through the secure Dropbox website. You can also share folders and files with others who have a DropBox account. Any kind of application file can be shared. I’m doing this process with five IB extended essay students where they save all work in a shared DropBox folder. The IB coordinator is also part of each shared folder. We can view their work whenever we want, and give give feedback that the student sees as soon as we save the file. It’s a wonderful tool.
  5. Issuu. This is an online publishing tool. You can publish any kind of document here that then appears in a beautiful and easy to use viewer. Documents published to Issuu are completely searchable through web, so they can be considered officially published to the world. In my Asian Studies class, grade 9 students who had chosen to do a magazine article for an assessment had their articles collated and published through Issuu. See an example here.
  6. YouTube. I don’t need to explain what YouTube is. For the same assignment where grade 9 students were able to choose to do a magazine article published through Issue, the other students chose to do a documentary style video that was published through YouTube.
  7. Xtranormal. This is a site about which I recently learned. This is a simple video creation site (cartoon-like) where all you have to do is insert some text, chose a character and background, and you end up with a cool little movie. I will have my grade 9 students use this site as supplement to an opinion (for/against) paper they will write on a controversial topic about which they will be studying. They will take their for/against arguments, make them sound more conversational, insert the text into the script for two different characters on Xtranormal, and create a virtual debate between the characters. Here’s an example I created for the students to view.
  8. MindMeister. This is a cool collaborative mind mapping tool. I just used it for the first time with my IB ITGS class. They used it with fellow group members to brainstorm ideas and start planning for a group project. It worked out well and allowed the students to easily complete this task outside of class since each person could access the centrally located mind map online.
  9. Gliffy. Gliffy is an online, collaborative diagram software. It allows you to create professional-looking flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, and technical drawings. As part of the same project for which ITGS students used MindMeister, they used Gliffy to show the layout of the network they are creating as part of their project. Gliffy has nice, visual icons for many different contexts. For the network layout, it provides icons for servers, computers, firewalls, hubs, etc. Here’s an example of a group’s work in Gliffy.
  10. VoiceThread. This is becoming a very popular medium for presenting work at all grade levels. VoiceThread allows you to share images, documents, PowerPoint presentations, and videos. The great thing is that you can do this collaboratively with anyone with an account anywhere in the world. Moreover, you and your partners can narrate on top of the images or slides. Here’s an example from a global collaboration project my IB ITGS students did last year with a school in Shanghai and Helsinki, Finland.
  11. SurveyMonkey. This site does exactly what its name says- surveys. I used this to do a student-teacher feedback survey I’m required to do each year. I also used it once to do a low-stakes, formative assessment quiz. It worked very well! We were able to see a summary of the class results within seconds of the last person finishing the quiz. We were then able to discuss immediately why any question was missed, thus giving immediate feedback to the students in the process.

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7 Steps Forward, Hopefully None Back

18 02 2009

Providing professional development (PD) is one of the critical actions needed in order to transform our schools toward engaging, relevant, and authentic 21st century learning environments. Faculty and staff at all levels of schools need to provide, encourage, and attend PD opportunities of different types whenever they arise and fit their schedule. At the same time, learning how to use technology to create a dynamic personal learning network (PLN) is a very important process so that we can professionally develop ourselves. In order to facilitate these processes, professional development will need to come from all angles- top downAngles of PD, bottom up, grade level to grade level, subject teacher to subject teacher, and even student to faculty. Moreover, explicit support and dedication to the transformation process from administrators and school boards will be essential. In order to start the transformation at the International School of Beijing from a bottom up angle, I, along with two other Apple Distinguished Educators (Jeff Plaman and Rob Cormack) teamed up to create a multisession PD oppportunity called 7 Steps toward 21st Century Education.

The idea for the PD initially came about through a couple of conversations with our high school principal about facilitating a “23 Things” type of PD to introduce colleagues to the powerful world of Web 2.0. From there we continued the discussion among ourselves, eventually moving to collaborative planning meetings with the curriculum and PD directors at the school. In that process, we decided that the focus of 21st Century learning-related PD shouldn’t just focus on technology, but rather on the shifted focus in what needs to be learned this century and the reasons why we need to transform the way we educate our students today. Technology is an important means to the larger ends, but there are also other ways in which transformed learning environments can occur and achieve the goals without technology.  However, since the integration of technology does tend to be a weak point for many teachers at our school, we did decide to emphasize ways to integrate technology in the process of achieving the larger goals as part of the PD. In creating the Steps for this PD we largely referenced the new ISTE standards and the Route 21 framework. We also fused our own ideas based off of conversations between each other, like-minded educators in our own PLN’s, books like A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, and educational organizations like Edutopia .

The next question was how to deliver this PD. We thought about just doing it all online, but we realized this might limit the number of participants. We also came to the conclusion that having face-to-face (F2F) time is still important in PD today. So, we decided to create a hybrid learning environment for the course.  Along with face-to-face meetings that correspond with the Steps (plus an introductory F2F session), we created a Ning to be our online platform for asynchronous learning and interaction.

In order for our colleagues to get a sense of what a dynamic online personal learning network feels like, Jeff, Rob, and I encouraged people in our own PLNs to join the Ning before the F2F sessions began. The response was great! Bringing in outsiders into a single school’s PD offering was a departure from the usual in-house PD process. Technology, when used effectively in the classroom, can help blow out the walls of time and space in the learning process. With that idea in mind, we thought by allowing remote educators and experts to join our online PD environment, thus blowing out the walls of the school, it would make a much more dynamic learning experience for our colleagues.

Lastly, we are planning on bringing in some students during one of the Steps to facilitate a discussion or activity. Students can be a great source of insight and ideas in this shifting process. We can’t forget that they aren’t only the recipients of what we do as educators- they should be a partner in the process. And, we need to realize that it’s ok to give up control at times and let the students educate us.

Step 1- Different Education for a Different World
Step 2- The World is at Your Fingertips (Communication)
Step 3- There Is No “I” in We, World, & Success (Collaboration)
Step 4- Work and Learn Smarter, Not Harder (Information Fluency)
Step 5- Technology and a Whole Brain Approach (Creativity & Innovation)
Step 6- Cultivating Habits of the Mind (Critical Thinking & Problem Solving)
Step 7- Bringing It All Together


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Turning Education on Its Head

21 11 2008

In reading a recent blog post by Jeff Utecht, he stated that to change the educational systems in which we are working to be in-line with the learning needs for this century, we must change the thinking within the whole system. This whole refers to our respective community/stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, administration, board, etc). He also went on to say that the hardest part in all of this is that we are all “experts.” All of the stakeholders have the experience of going to school (some for many years!), while most are still involved in the educational process today from a pedagogical perspective. So, years and years of ‘doing’ school a certain way is embedded in our hearts, minds, and souls. This is difficult to change. However, the world for which our schools are preparing our students now is very different then the world for which our teachers thought they were preparing us. Thus, we must change; there is no choice. But, in facilitating the shift and undoing what we all think we know, we have to remember that it will take patience, understanding, empathy, sweat, and maybe even some tears (it’s emotional to say goodbye to something you’ve known for so long!) as we journey down the path.

Turning Education on Its Head!

Reflecting on this issue and the challenge we face at my school, I thought of this picture I snapped earlier this year during the grade 9 China Studies trip to Shaolin. It is of a wall mural at one of the kung fu schools in Shaolin. What the monk in the mural achieved is what we must achieve to get the our schools in-line with the educational needs for this century- we must turn education on it head. Yes, a full 180°!

A few hours later as I was relaxing in bed, I read the following in the Oct/Nov 2008 hardcopy version of Edutopia (the great education magazine put out by The George Lucas Educational Foundation): “The centuries-old model of education- the teacher as an expert who passes information along to the kids- is now turned on its head.” The editorial director writing the article, James Daly, continued to say: “We’re heading toward a society in which innovation, digital literacy, and tech savvy are of paramount importance. Too often, our educational problems are simply rooted in old systems and old ways of thinking.” It must have been one of those days when there was some sort of cosmic alignment or something. To have read Jeff’s blog, come to remember a photo I took earlier this year, and come across the same idea in this magazine I had envisioned with the picture I took (along with the editor hitting on the same topic Jeff discussed) was weird. Somebody was playing some kind of harmonious melody with the cosmic superstrings that evening! Or, it’s just that people who understand what’s going on are part of some collective consciousness!

I’ve come to realize that this picture also demonstrates another critical element- the balance and sustainability we need to maintain both in the process of making the changes and in maintaining the focus once the desitination is reached. We have to remember, as Kim Cofino wrote in a recent blog post, that not all colleagues (and stakeholders) work as fast as us geeks (said endearingly!) in understanding the shift and in harnessing and using the different digital tools that arise (so rapidly) in the process. This also goes with the pedogogical ideas that are guiding all of this. By the time we get to balancing the current pedagogy and the technology, a new shift and journey will be upon us. We don’t necessarily want to push people over right away from the delicate balancing point, considering the journey it took to make the balancing stance the first time around.

We have a journey ahead of us, but I’m optimistic that we will reach our destination. Most people realize there are big changes going on the world right and that old ways of doing things won’t be sufficient to solve these massive problems. Thus, I don’t think there will be major resistance to turning education on it head. We just need to be very supportive along the road.


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ISB Teachers Take on Tech

17 11 2008

Written in collaboration with Jeff Plaman

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This week we’d like to share a few examples of how students are using technology in a variety of ways throughout the High School.  These vignettes illustrate the positive actions teachers are taking to help students learn essential life skills while meeting their curricular goals. For example, in Lauren Jordy’s grade 10 European History class, students worked with a partner to create a podcast about an individual or an event during the Crusades, illustrating how it impacted Europe or European culture. Most of Ms. Jordy’s students had listened to a podcast before, but this was the first time they had created one. The podcasts demonstrated the students’ understanding of the content, but also developed new technical skills, communication, collaboration, and problem solving strategies. Since these podcasts are uploaded to a server that is connected to the Internet, these podcasts can be considered published, as well. Anyone in the world can listen to or download them, and they can appear in search results through popular search engines. The students reported enjoying the task and having the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding through this new medium.

Faced with stacks of journal folders to assess, IB Theater teacher Tom Rosevear wanted a way to have his students connect with him and each other more regularly.  He also wanted to be able to easily share links and media with students and give them way to add creative content to the course.  Tom decided to create a social network for his class using the Ning platform, and it has been very successful so far.  “I can now read students’ responses as soon as they’re posted on the Ning and respond to it.  Others respond, too, and the learning act is thus much more ‘in the moment’.” The network makes different kinds of communication a snap. With built-in email, forum discussion, and blogs, one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communications are possible not to mention communication through the video and photo posts. Another advantage is that the learning isn’t confined to the four walls of the classroom, as Rosevear explains “we also have invited ‘experts’ to join our Ning.  Megan Campisi, a professional actor/writer based in New York City is a member and we hope to enlarge this network of ‘primary sources’.”

The grade 9 Asian Studies students had the opportunity to create and publish work with multimedia and Web 2.0 tools during the first quarter. For the Unit 1 final assessment, which focused on the essential question “How does geography impact culture, economics, and politics in Asian nations?” they chose to write either a National Geographic-style magazine article or create a documentary video. All students first had to write an essay or script according to expository writing structures taught in the course. Once this was finished, the writers used MS Publisher to layout the magazine article, converting the final product to a PDF to make it easier to upload to the internet for publishing. The final articles were published via Issuu. The video creators used iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, along with various video downloading and conversion tools, to produce their movies. Many students published their final video to YouTube. These students also reported enjoying the challenges of the task and being given a chance to present their content understanding in relevant and engaging formats that add value to the world beyond the classroom.

“I am always searching for ways to collaborate and create deeper meaning in what we do within the classroom so these new technologies certainly have the potential to help” said Kendra Farrell, a High School Visual Arts teacher.  Farrell was inspired after attending a presentation during the EARCOS teacher’s conference last spring and has since leaped into the Web 2.0 world with her Digital Imagry class.  Her students use a wiki platform to post their work, reflect on the process, and critique each other’s photographs.  “We have had feedback from people all over the globe.’I can’t really imagine what Digital Imagery would be like without wikispaces’ wrote one student.”

In all of these examples, the use of technology has not replaced the regular curriculum, rather it helped students to collaborate, create, and communicate as they demonstrate their understanding of the course objectives.  In the process, they’re expanding their abilities to thrive in an increasingly digital world.  As Kendra Farrell said, “Things are changing.  We are all connected and it feels very immediate, exciting and right to just do it and get involved.”


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Storming the Educational Bastille

3 11 2008

I have my IB ITGS students do a weekly reflection on our class wiki called ‘Your Week with Tech.’ The purpose of this reflection is for students to think about how digital technology has impacted them that week (impacts can be good or bad). They can also reflect on articles related to the course that they read independently. They’ve been reflecting for 5 weeks now and have presented many interesting experiences and thoughts. One of the most provocative came today from an HL student in my grade 11 class. Here is what she said verbatim (I didn’t  fix grammar):

“I read an article in China daily, which was very thought provoking for our generation. The article claimed that the future belonged to the people highly educated in the field of IT. This was something we could imagine, but then the interesting point of the article was that the people, who will be most successful are the one combined IT skills with highly developed social skills. First of all I thought about the IB course, which does not fully integrate IT in all subjects. Knowing that IT skills are the key to success in the future it is not acceptable that these skills are more or less neglected. I think the IB course should be made up to date regarding IT and its integration in subjects.”

Wow! Here it is, the scream for change and shift in way we do education, even at the IB level, coming from the mind of a student. Talk about an opportunity for harnessing a real grassroots movement! Imagine a mob of students storming the head of school’s or principal’s office (think of the French mob storming the Bastille; no chopping off heads though!), or protesting to their the 20th century teachers to change to the learning needs of this century, or flooding the IB with emails regarding this issue! If schools can’t listen to the students, then there is a major problem.

What’s the best way to harness this student voice and/or get them to overcome fear and advocate for this needed change? If this could happen successfully, I think the needed shift could happen much sooner. Like multiple horses pulling a stagecoach, a few hundred students advocating for meaningful and compelling technology integration in the context of learning and literacy for this century could be way more powerful then the few dedicated and enlightened teachers trying to do the same.


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ITGS SL Project: Project-based, Problem Solving Learning

30 10 2008

My first class of International Baccalaureate (IB) Standard Level (SL) Information Technology in a Global Society (ITGS) students finished their Internal Assessment (IA) project last week (wow, a lot of acronyms there!). Because we do the SL ITGS course in the same class as the HL’s, they got a lot of time to work on it- seven months to be exact. They started the work back in March. Because of having this amount of time, they took on projects that were a little bigger than most examples you’ll see from SL ITGS. Regardless of time spent, I do have to say that this process was a great experience for the students, providing a first-hand foray into project-based, problem solving work.

Each student has to find a client with a problem that can be solved with a tech-based solution/product, hopefully making work and/or life easier in some way for the end-user. Once that is established, the students explore a few different ways the problem can be solved. In consultation with the client and based off of the student’s informed judgement after some research, they chose one of the ways to solve the problem and proceed to create the product. Throughout this process, the students are keeping a log book, writing a report, and, of course, building the product. They also go through the process of beta testing and refining. In the end, they should have a functional product that the client/end-user can use immediately.

One student created an inventory database and a web-based checkout process of films for the IB Film teacher at ISB. The problem he solved was that the teacher usually had students just write down on a piece of paper the movie they checked out. These papers were often lost, however, and there was never an inventory of all the movies the teacher had; thus, movies would go missing. With this online checkout process, the teacher is now better able to keep track of his movies and know who has them checked out.

Another student, working with the Tech Office, created a database for teachers that allows them to access their students’ updated personal information and gives the ability to easily create electronic class lists for various purposes. This student wrote over 2000 lines of code that linked with both network protocols and the administrative software the high school uses. The problem he solved is that if teachers ever needed updated information about a student, they couldn’t access it. They would have to email or see a secretary in person. The gradebook software the teachers must use have personal information available, but it’s not automatically updated when it’s updated in the administrative software. Furthermore, the gradebook software doesn’t allow the teachers to copy and paste or export classlists to a spreadsheet or word processing program. This database fixed all of that.

The last student created a 36 question review game using Flash software for an IB Economics teacher. The game was modeled after the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” gameshow. The way the questions were worded and help options given were similar to that game show. The game focused on a part of the IB syllabus that tends to be difficult and typically causes problems for the students. The problem he solved is that the Econ teachers had to spend a lot of time on review for this section. This game would reduce that time.

These are the types of assessments that will really prepare students for their future, more so than any test they sit and write. The amount of learning and understanding acquired in the process of doing this kind of project is vast; the students will never forget it. These problem solving and innovation processes are what most of today’s students will be doing in the real world, so they should have opportunities to practice.

Working in international schools allows more freedom to pursue this kind of learning since we are not tied to district, state, and/or federal funding that can be determined by performance on standardized tests and not well thought through programs like ‘No Child Left Behind.’ International schools do rely on IB, AP tests, however, to help students experience rigorous left-brain academic environments and do what they need to do to get into university. The world is shifting, though- shifting more toward the need for right brain abilities. Those that will be successful this century are those who have the left brain logical and analytical abilities, but are even more creative and innovative (right brained) with their work. It is more of this type of project-based/problem solving rigor that we need to get into our classrooms, not more tests! Using technology in meaningful and compelling ways in the process, increases the students’ learning even more.


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