I DO wish they would read the blog I have designed specifically for them.  Latest Links.

Perhaps if the blog came in an old, familiar paper format?  Well – as Apple says (ad nauseum) – “There’s an app for that.”

From the most useful blog I have even found …

Free Technology for Teachers – Turn your blog into a newsletter with RSS to PDF

Through the wizardry of Web 2.0, your blog (or at least 2 printed pages of it) instantly morphs into a newsletter that can be printed and distributed to teachers.

I suspect that I will not use it myself.  I am a die-hard.  If I want my teachers to use blogs and other Web 2.0 tools, I will have to send them to the actual blog. So – I will continue to write the blog posts and then send the links to teachers via email.

Besides, if I were to use this tool, I would have to actually type in actual web addresses – not just hyperlinked titles. You just can’t click on that darned old-timey paper!

I have a dream.  Someday all teachers will actually understand (and use!) RSS feeds.  I know.  Crazy librarian talk. 

If the “traditional” publishers want to compete with Wikipedia – are they planning to broaden their coverage?  For instance, our 9th graders do research on young adult authors every year.  MANY  of those authors have not reached the level of “fame” etc. to merit inclusion in World Book, Americana et al.  Wikipedia is often the only place I can send kids to do the broad, general, beginning research that I would like them all to start with before getting into author reference sets, whole biographies etc.

So – here are my questions….

1.  Do the traditional encyclopedias plan to put online ONLY what they can feasibly publish in a print encyclopedia?

OR

2.  Are they going to take advantage of the limitless storage of the web to broaden both the scope and depth of their coverage?

Believe me – I COMPLETELY understand the drawbacks of Wikipedia.  However, as cautious as I am about Wikipedia, I am questioning the value of continuing our subscriptions to the traditional encyclopedias, if I don’t see a significant change in their business plans.

Thoughts?

It is how we both want to teach.  What’s holding us back?  The content filter, aka “Bess the Barking Dog”.  I’d actually like to use a synonym that would add some satisfying alliteration to that phrase.  Oh well.  Keep it PG.

Yes – it is frustrating.  But it is not totally insurmountable.  To quote & paraphrase from my reply to his email

We CAN’T throw up our hands and say “if I can’t use Delicious (Wikispaces, Blogger etc etc), then I am taking my toys and going home.”  We HAVE to make compromises to get a little of what we want – and hopefully get a little more another day.

Student Accountability – We do not do nearly enough with holding kids accountable.  We simply block things to make  our lives easier.  As teachers in charge of such a project, we would have to craft a realy tight “acceptable use policy” for collaborative projects.  There would need to be specific, swift and significant consequences to violation of the policy.  We would have to do memorable teaching about the ramifications of signing such a contract and what all the parts of it mean.  Then – “violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

I was shocked to read Will Richardson’s post today. I’m glad that he does not ascribe to the new AP pricing rules for quoting – or I would owe him money:

$12.50 for Five Words

That’s what it’s going to cost you to excerpt in your blog any content published by the Associated Press under it’s new pricing structure.

With a little more searching, I did discover a discount for educators. We would only owe $7.50 for quoting 5-25 words. 

What’s next? Charging students to use quotations from AP in their research papers? Might happen if any of said research papers should end up on the web.

Come on – figure out a way to make the web and web 2.0 part of your business plan. How are you going to police the Internet? Isn’t it better to figure out how to gain from your reputation as an authoritative source? I would think that bloggers quoting and linking to your sources would create a buzz, bringing more business your way. Get creative and realize that “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.” How much do you think I should pay Bob Dylan for using that quote?

]]> http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2008/06/21/what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-adapt/feed/ 2 http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/welcome-to-blogland/ http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/welcome-to-blogland/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:57:17 +0000 Jacquie Henry http://wanderings.edublogs.org/?p=145 I am so happy that Anne-Marie Gordon has decided to start a blog. I greatly value her knowledge and perspective.

Today – she blogs about Twitter – a web 2.0 app that I felt safe ignoring – until now. Darn. It really does have an educational use after all. Twittering in Outer Space

No wonder space aliens are portrayed with giant brains. People of the future are just going to need more brain space to keep up. What’s the next step after “twittering” – the Vulcan Mind Meld?

I was particularly struck by this part of the post, with it’s implications for educators in general and librarians in particular:

Help Build the New Playbook. You may think that you don’t have anything to teach the generation of students who seem so tech-savvy, but they really, really need you. For centuries we have had to teach students how to seek out information – now we have to teach them how to sort from an overabundance of information. We’ve spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content.  They may be “digital natives,” but their knowledge is surface level, and they desperately need training in real thinking skills. More than any other generation, they live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them, talking and texting on cell phones, and connecting online. We may be afraid to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted waters without the benefit of adult guidance. To do so we may need to change our conceptions of teaching, and better now than later.

We hope our upcoming Academic Challenge Event will help pull our school into the 21st century.  I am sure that unblocking Web 2.0 tools will be at least one of the issues students will focus on as they study and make recommendations about how to design school for the future.

A View to the World

I’ve created a category called English 12 Pop Topics, and I’d like to get my class involved in discussing some issues of debate/importance in the news. I’d miss a great teaching point with them right before they become citizens if I did not expose them to a forum on issues (ex. Imus). We can contain ourselves in (room) 110 and talk about it, but I’d much rather have them share a viewpoint with the world.

To use an phrase from my oh-so-distant youth – Right On!!

Librarian’s Lament has generated a few comments here – and many on LM_NET. I need to work these responses into a new post. Someday when there is time… I need to retire or take a sabbatical.

Anyway – just wanted to add some fuel to the fire. If you have not seen the video EPIC 2014 – you should take the time to watch it. Here is the filter friendly version in case your filter blocks the first link as mine does.

This video will make you think about what might happen if people lose their ability to think critically. Yes – there is a lot of wonderful thinking and discussion going on in this new world of the Read/Write Web. But there are dangers…. Our students need the skills to navigate this new world of information. I am thinking about it every day. Banning Web 2.0 sites and banning Google is NOT the answer. I suspect that changing databases & library catalogs to be more user-friendly is part of the solution. As school librarians, creating meaningful and memorable lessons on how to use & evaluate all kinds of information (google-based or otherwise)definitely IS the answer. Now – if I can just get some thinking/planning time!!

DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

I am doing some research for our exciting new 10th grade research project about globalization/flat world concepts. (See “Researching the Future”)

I expected to find a lot in our databases about WEB 2.0 and schools, but so far I am turning up very little. Additional search strategies might help – but still….. The results I have found so far are very interesting (and disappointing). It seems as if the issue of WEB 2.0 and schools is barely on the radar in either the popular or the academic press. And yet I feel that these technologies will be crucial to success in our ever-changing world. MySpace is the only WEB 2.0 phenom that appears to be of interest. Too bad…… Obviously we will be using Google et al to locate information and I am sure we will be more successful there.

Here are my results: