BP3_2009102_Social Bookmarking with Delicious

Grosseck, G. (2008). Using Del.icio.us in Education. INFOMEDIA, The International Journal of Informatics and New Media in Education. Retrieved October 10, 2009 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/212002/Using-delicious-In-Education.

Gabriel Grosseck composed and published an article entitled “Using Del.icio.us in Education. He spends the first half of the article introducing the site and its structure to novice users. For educational purposes, he highlights seven features of Del.icio.us that are helpful for use by educators and students alike. These features, in brief, are: Creating one’s on collection, managing marked information, personalizing, searching, researching for information, evaluation, and that of collaboration and communication.

“It is believed that [Del.icio.us’s] collective and spontaneous way of freely indexing Internet information offers a partial solution to the semantic Web… giving the power to the users.” (Grosseck, 2009) Grosseck’s discussion on the advantages and disadvantages can be summed up that while Delicious gives its users power to easily create their own learning or Internet environment and Tags, the versatility and lack of rules for Tagging also prevents a complete search while adding a level of chaos due to lack of consistency and control.

It was not until the very end of the paper that Grosseck began to discuss hoe the web service could support teaching and learning; however, the limited insight that he expresses is worth the wait for an educator new to such tools. Page after page he lists Del.icio.us’s powerful impact to the world of education. From management of research directed from student to teacher all the way to a mechanism for informal, formative feedback; Del.icio.us has the potential to make learning and teaching easier, faster, and more collaborative.

Emapey. (2008, July 19). Using De.icio.us in education. Message posted to Online Sapiens: http://onlinesapiens.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/using-delicious-in-education/

Emapey believes that “Delicious is one of the most useful Web 2.0 tools!” (Emapey, 2008) This remark is further proved thorough the extensive list of useful resources to promote and understand the program. (A list that seems to clarify and prioritize Google’s thousands of sites when searched.) The list provided at this site is very helpful to the Web 2.0 researcher.

Check out these titles:

- Del.icio.us help
- My Favorite Feed Reader is My Del.icio.us Network
- Use Del.icio.us to Create Your Eportfolio
- Del.icio.us Networking Features
- Networking With Del.icio.us in Education
- Social Bookmarking Makes You Useful and Connected
- The Del.icio.us Lesson – Bokardo
- Del.icio.us Is The Recommendation Service For The Internet
- Know When People Bookmark You on Del.icio.us
- Tracking My Own Published Articles
- How to Analyze your Site with Del.icio.us
- Who Says Librarians (and Teachers) Don’t Like Tags
- “Interview With Experts: What’s so cool about del.icio.us?”
- Social Bookmarking with del.icio.us
- del.icio.us as a PR measurement tool
- Tips for Using Delicious In (Doctoral) Research
- del.icio.us libraries
- A discussion of strategies for managing social bookmarking teaching and learning activities (using del.icio.us)
- How Delicious is Changing Academic Research
- Visualizing Del.icio.us Networks
- del.icio.us Tips, Part-2: day-to-day use
- A reputation economy via “via:”?
- Del.icio.us Network Explorer

You can start building your del.icio.us network. Join the EdTechTalk Del.icio.us network. You can also continue networking by joining some fans in the del.icio.us/network/edtechtalk

(Emapey, 2008)

I delved into many of the above listed as I pondered weather or not to change my shared findings, then I realized that the learner interested in the many educational uses of Del.icio.us would find it more helpful to know the specific topics available on the program, rather than only being able to review my particular choices.

LeFever, L. & S. The Common Craft Show. (2007, August). Social Bookmarking in Plain English. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU

Common Craft’s video on Social Bookmarking highlights Del.icio.us as an easy and organized way to save and share your Internet research. The discussion on this video specifically uses teachers as the example. The downside to this video is that the images are not always clearly readable in that the images are merely paper under a camera. However, the benefits of such a short and simple film are: it presents the material in a smile way that anyone can understand; the material is concise and thus not overwhelming in content, relatable examples are given throughout; and lastly, this film leads its viewers through the simple process of making Del.icio.us a part of their own Internet environment.

As a classroom teacher, I could see myself posting this video to my website and explaining it to students, so that we could use Del.icio.us to organize our classroom Web research.

BP2_2009101_ Anti-Teaching

A Public School Teacher and Educational Technology Graduate Student's reflection of Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance , 7 Things You Should Know About Personal Learning Environments, and the 21st Century Learner...

It is assumed, and rightfully so, that the public education system that we currently have is not properly preparing the students within it for the world ahead of them. The two articles above discuss how student-centered learning through PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) can transform knowledge acquisition and create more powerful learners ready for the life ahead of them. Are our the students in our classrooms who have mastered the memorization techniques needed to ace the test going to be able to create the proposals needed to sell their company's products one day? In essence, our current system of education creates programed robots before the needed creative visionaries.

My state of GA has recently moved to standards based education as a format to guide all classroom learning. These specific and detailed standards are assessed on the basis of project-based outcomes that combine critical thinking and analysis. On the other hand, the state is still assessing and promoting/ retaining its learners on the basis of fact-based standardized testing. Therefore, a problem remains that the system is flawed. Until the two sides of the same whole are in conjunction, the detriment to education will remain. (This, I imagine, is all too common for other states as well.)

It is my belief that the problem has been exposed to the majority, but that we are too afraid of the unknowns of the solution to implement it fully. Allowing students to be in control of their learning as opposed to the educator in control, would require both self restraint on part of the teacher and individual learning outcomes that would seemingly be difficult, if not impossible, to adequately assess.

Traditional educators, such as myself, are fearful of this open world of student exploration because we can't control the outcomes, fit the assessments into a grade-able rubric of right and wrong answers, or maintain an orderly environment. Yet we can see that our goals are to prepare students for the world and their careers within it; thus, learning must be open to variation and foster creative outputs. We are fearful that our students might actually learn knowledge that we ourselves are unaware of, that we might be perplexed by their findings, and that we will not be able to fairly and adequately assess them for the course numerical grade. I ask myself and my colleagues- which comes with more stress: not being in control of our student's learning and the behaviors and emotions that accompany enlightenment, or knowing that we are not preparing tomorrow's leaders for survival in a critical and creative world that awaits them? I admit that I have always been that teacher whose students sit in rows and spend their days listening to lectures, taking notes based on my professional knowledge, and complete definitive multiple choice tests. My personal excuses are that my time is stretched too thin as it is with over a hundred pre-teens, where maintaining control and teaching facts for the state tests are my daily goals. I find that I rarely get out of this daily cycle and I feel that I am trapped in the public education system, where data and multiple choice standardized testing reign as most important. I see the vast benefits of learning environments rich in exploration and creativity and experimentation... but I am currently blinded to see how I can meet the required benchmarks set before me. I believe that the teachers and educational gurus of today can be richly enlightened by the need for Personal Learning Environments, but their hands still be tied. Implementation and change can not fully occur until this revolution becomes real to the federal and state educational legislators and departments who dictate the run of our public school classrooms. Freedom of teaching is something that, I believe, most teachers long for in their heart of hearts... but a longing stress that many have to release in order to work within the confined environment of the public school classroom.

With evidence that PLEs and the like might just be the answer to raising student life-long achievement rates, paired with the sad reality that I work under a rigid system of teaching to the test- I dig into the possibilities to find my temporary solution. (An enlightenment that I, admittedly, did not come to discover until I was deep in the exploratory learning of my current graduate school program.)

Being that I teach 11-13 year olds, they are not at all versed in thinking outside of the box/ abstract thinking. As an experiment, based on the reminders from my graduate studies to promote student creativity and product choice, I gave my 6th grade language arts students a writing assignment in which their parameters were only limited by their imagination! Many looked at me like I was kidding them and waited for the given topic, length, and methods of writing to be handed to them. I admit, that I too was a little scared by the possibilities; but I pressed forward in my experiment anyway.

Now, in the middle of my classroom writing experiment, I am getting all kinds of creative products! Some are creating science fiction while others write memoirs; some are lengthy while others are seemingly too short to be a complete narrative. I admit that I am a little fearful of how I will grade these creations... I guess it will be based on student work ethic, the writing process, exploration of the topic, use of detail, plot development, how well they hook me as the reader, and other skills that a published author would be reviewed on. How ironic that those type assessment properties bridge their classroom world to the careers of the authors they read. It is just this kind of implementation of PLEs that is actually possible for the standard k12 educator. We can give students choices, allow for them to be creative, and promote self questioning without stepping outside of the boundaries set before us.

It is these type of teacher-led taste-tests that can grow leading to students to make higher-level inquires about their knowledge, explore their own brain-based learning strategies, and ultimately co-create their learning environments... much like they will be asked to do when solving their own life problems and also the work they will have to do in a collaborative teams in their individual careers.

Our society has made us to desire the one clean-cut easy answer to solve the problem; but

this is ultimately impossible. These questions of an educational solution that I am grasping to answer can not fit within a precise formula or yes/ no critique. It is my belief that those who are enlightened must speak up, those who are ready for change must do it in their own environments and share their outcomes, and those at top who can change legislation and formats to listen to those on the field and follow the examples of proven success. Maybe, if all three mentioned parts work together, then education can match up with the 21st Century!

These mentioned elements of a change in attitude, a unified cooperation towards the same goal, and a fearless exploratory vigor are all necessary in the heart and minds of educators to effectively teach today's student.

BP1_2009101_ RSS Feeds

The following are a few RSS feeds (blogs) that I have found to be both interesting and enlightening towards my field of graduate studies in Educational Media Design and Technology.

- Clive on Learning

Clive Shepherd is a man who has spent the last two and a half decades studying computer learning; which, in and of itself, is reason enough for a graduate school student of educational technology and media design to be interested in reading his notes. I am further intrigued because I see that he speaks from experience in another country besides myself- The United Kingdom, and for some time, I have heard of the UK's embrace of modern technology in K12 education... more-so than that of the United States in public education. By browsing this blog, one can quickly see that Clive enjoys seeking out the views of many of education's reformers and reviewing their proposals to enhance education as we know it. I am enlightened to piggy-back off of his gleanings and learn these truths for myself. His blog notes inspire me to think outside of the box that I am currently in, while showing me that there are men and women who are actively revolutionizing education... and I too can become one of those. Many of Clive's blogs have their foundation, or inspiration, in the review of another professional's blog, which give me a link to another source for reflection, contemplation, and study.

- elearnspace

I was first drawn to this blog because it is referenced on several other blogs for education and technology; therefore, it is apparent that the publications in this blog are favored by many in my same field of study. After visiting and touring the blog myself, I have found that many of the "buzz" words of my field are apparent throughout: social networking, connectivism, and elearning just to name a few. Under the "teaching" tab, I found discussions that directly relate to my situation in a school system that does not embrace web 2.0 tools. As I read through these notes, I am relieved that there are people out there speaking out on my behalf, encouraged that I am not alone in my feelings, and saddened by the commonalties of a lack of participation. I appreciate that this blog gives me links to many articles of interest such as "Confessions of an Early Internet Educator" and "Distance Learning: Step by Step." Since starting this program of graduate school, I have become more comfortable with the idea of teaching k12 online as a career... and just at the time when GA is offering an online high school! Being exposed to such articles and the thoughts of other distant peers help me to more fully understand the field.

- Technology in K12 Education

Solely on the basis of the title of this blog, I was sold! Then after browsing the site, watching the videos posted there, and reading the notes- I am still intrigued by much of it, while also distracted by the personal sections like a family beach trip...etc. The main reason I add this blog to my list is that there are many discussions about how government budget cuts directly (& negatively) effect education. Many of the postings read like news articles exposing the sad realities of school closures, laid-off teachers, and students lacking needed resources; all of which are also facing my state. Just recently, I have been shifted two years in a row based on teacher allotments and budget crisis. My heart and life are personally burdened by the governments decision to balance the budget on the backs of educators. For those reasons, this blog interests me.

- Blog By Carol

I enjoy Carol's blog because I can quickly see that she is very focused on the use of technology in the k12 environment. My immediate excitement came when I saw that she, like myself, is experimenting with Twitter in the classroom. It is quite encouraging, and empowering, to see that Carol seems to be at the heart of my dealings in the classroom! After reading her "50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education" blog, I find several techniques that I am going to implement with my few classroom followers! Furthermore, I appreciate how organized Carol's blog site is. She posts just about everything in a step by step outlined format that makes it easy to read and to follow.

- Web 2.0 Teaching Tools

My initial feeling when visiting this blog was discouraging in that the last post was in January 2009... obviously meaning that it is not kept active and up to date. However, after perusing the archives I see that it is still a rich source for information and ideas. Several free web resources are advertised that I had no idea even existed (not in cost-free form anyway). I greatly appreciate the softwares for assessment, as this is something I have desired to use with my students for some time but yet have not had the funds to do so. I also appreciate the many educational games listed... these can be posted to my own classroom website and assist in student remediation and enrichment. I believe that I will be able to use the contents of this blog to find printable, educational games, and assessment softwares that can ultimately make my classroom lessons more interactive with technology as well as take less time in the planning and creating stages that often wear me out as a teacher.

- Techno-News Blog

This blog provides up to the moment information about the newest technologies introduced and the uses of those already available. I strongly believe that it is important for those studying and desiring to implement technology to know what is available and understand the uses of applications. Technology is a fast-paced, ever-changing and developing culture that must consistently be kept up with. This blog is a great assistant in such efforts to stay informed! Several news articles are posted daily exploring the companies monopolizing our culture such as Microsoft, AT&T, Macintosh, and Google to name a few. Though aspects of this blog may not directly relate to my explorations and experimental research as a k12 educator, they are necessary and helpful to keep me, the technology student, well informed. I did find, however, a file within this larger blog that specifies the field of "educational technology." It is also by Ray Schroeder- a man whom I did not know of before this research, but of whom I have seen mentioned in many of the blogs I have been exploring. Turns out that his research and expertise have won him several remarkable awards in educational technology! Therefore, reading his notes and reflections would be an intellectually sound decision on my part seeing that I am a student of that field! As I explore, I find where he has investigated happenings and articles written in my own city's newspaper (Atlanta Journal)... thus, the content is relevant to not only my field of study, but also my location.