sd71

The following page was created to support two presentations I gave at //Learning in the New Decade//, a Pro-D event sponsored by [|School District 71], Comox Valley, British Columbia on February 8, 2010.

**Morning Session** - //Open & Collaborative Learning: How Social Networks Are Transforming Education//

 * Overview** - In the last few years, the world of education has changed significantly as more and more teaching and learning practice shifts online. Web based communication has exploded, thanks in no small part to the emergence and increased popularity of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. What are the implications for social networks in education? How are educators using social networks to not only engage their students, but also connect with each other? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we view these changes as an opportunity to inspire new, meaningful, and innovative approaches to teaching & learning?

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**Afternoon Session** - //Building A Passionate Network of Peers for Teaching & Learning Transformation//

 * Overview** - Social Networks services often get the bad rap of 'time-wasters' or tools that kids use inappropriately. Yet in reality, there are many social networks built upon passion, kindness, transparency, sharing, and collaboration. This session will explore these positive human networks as they apply to educators. You will learn how distributed teacher networks are transforming practice in many classrooms. You will experience the most commonly used tools to build and communicate within these networks. You will engage in important first steps for building your own personal learning network. And, most importantly, you will see how the future of professional development will be anytime, anywhere and always at your fingertips.

Introduction to Personal Learning Networks:
"[|Personal Learning Networks]" (PLNs) is a term commonly used by networked educators to describe the wealth of social connections facilitated through the use of [|Web 2.0] tools. Learners utilize social tools to create and nurture social connections for the development and dissemination of knowledge and support. PLNs can be particularly useful for educators in providing ongoing, anytime professional development opportunities, as well as for helping to connect their students to relevant and timely educational experiences. The illustration below is included as a possible model for a teacher's personal learning network. Other illustrations of PLNs and PLEs (a closely related term) can be found here.

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Tools Used to Support Personal Learning Network & Connected Teaching:
There are many tools that can be used to support the development of personal learning networks and help educators realize connected teaching. Each tool listed is supported with tutorials and examples of how it can be used by educators.

Twitter:
Twitter, an important microblogging service, is one of the most frequently used tools for developing a personal learning network. Twitter is a free service that allows its users to send & read 140 character (or less) messages known as 'tweets'. While this may seem like a limitation, these characters can be used to carry on rich conversations, provide links to resources, send multimedia (audio, video, etc.) messages, or share links to live events. If you would like a more private microblogging experience, [|Yammer] (enterprise) or [|Edmodo] (educational) are excellent options. Also, if you wanted to set up your own social networking services, see [|Ning] or [|Grou.ps] as excellent options.

If you would like a quick overview of how to use Twitter, [|view this video from HowCast]. Or, for a more education-specific overview of Twitter, see the following resources.
 * [|Twitter for Teachers (The Wiki)]: An excellent & growing resource related to using Twitter in the classroom started by [|Rod Lucier].
 * [|Advice for Teachers New to Twitter]: A great post from [|Liz B. Davis].
 * [|Twitter in the Classroom]: A short video on how Twitter is being used in a Minneapolis highschool.

Tagging:
One of the most important aspects of social media is the ability to tag (or add metadata to) content. A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information such as a blog post, a bookmark, a photograph, or even a tweet. Frequent tagging my many individuals create a [|folksonomy] (vs. taxonomy ), and allows users to find information of interest quickly and more accurately. On Twitter, tags (often referred to as hastags due # symbol used) are incredibly useful to track events, conferences, or other streams of thought.
 * [|Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy]: A short article describing the differences.
 * [|Tagging in Flickr]: A help page discussing how tags are used in Flickr, a popular photo-sharing service.
 * [|Hashtags Wiki]: A resource dedicated to understanding the use of tags on Twitter.
 * [|edchat]: edchat is a tag-based Twitter community run by educators. Every Tuesday night, a new topic begins and participants use the #edchat tag to engage in the topic of the week. For more information on how it works, see [|this post from Tom Whitby].

Social Bookmarking/Reading:
Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize and share bookmarks. Social reading is the accompanying phenomenon of reading, bookmarking, annotating, commenting on, and sharing particular posts with a group of interested peers - in a sense, reading and sharing knowledge with others.
 * [|Delicious]: Delicious is likely the most popular social bookmarking tool used by educators. The use of Delicious is greatly enhanced by installing appropriate plugins/add-ons for [|Firefox], [|Internet Explorer] or [|other browsers]. An example of how Delicious can be used to form a reading list can be seen at http://delicious.com/tag/eci831readings (where the tag 'eci831readings' is shared by all students to form readings for a grad course).
 * [|Diigo]: Is a powerful social bookmarking service that is growing in popularity. Diigo allows for shared annotations, sticky-notes and group development/sharing. It is preferred by individuals who want to take social bookmarking to a more active level.

There are many other resources that are similar to social bookmarking sites. For instance, [|Digg], [|Reddit], and [|Stumbleupon] are great sources for viral news (good, but often inappropriate content). Services like [|Evernote] & [|Clipmarks] are great for clipping information & notetaking. With some experimentation, you will find both the tool & network that suits your needs.

Blogging:
Blogging first became popular when it was realized how easily one could publish to the web without having to bother with HTML editors or FTP. Blogging has developed into an incredibly useful tool for classrooms in sharing student work around with the world. Additionally, blogs (or blogfolios) can be an easy way to create a personalized web presence and develop a personal portal to the world.
 * [|Blogs in Plain English]: A good introductory explanation to blogging by Common Craft.
 * Support Blogging: A long list of many educational bloggers. And if you run out there, [|here's another megalist].
 * [|Wordpress.com]: One of my favorite sites for student blogging. Also consider [|Edublogs], [|Blogger] (by Google), [|Weebly], or [|Classroom Blogmeister].
 * [|Kathy Cassidy's Classroom]: This grade one teacher from Moose Jaw does amazing things with her students. Check out her classroom, and student blogs.
 * [|Zoe Branigan-Pipe]: Here is another great elementary educator (Grade 6) from Ontario, sharing her practice and professional reflection.

For those wanting something that falls in between blogging and microblogging, there are several new options that are available. [|Tumblr] and [|Posterous] are great tools that make 'blogging' very easy and are ideal for braindumps and simple resource sharing.

Photo Sharing:
There are a number of photo-sharing services available that allow users to upload, manage, and share digital photographs with private or public groups. [|Flickr] is likely the most popular of these sites, but other popular services include [|Picasa] (from Google), [|Photobucket], and [|ShutterFly].
 * [|2010/365]: The Flickr group for the photo-a-day project (active since 2008).
 * M[|rs. Penner's Classroom]: A grade one classroom from Manitoba using Shutterfly.
 * [|Youth Voices]: A gallery made up of student work and imagery from around the world.
 * [|Think Photo Sharing With Flickr]: A great resource giving clear examples of how photo-sharing can be used in the classroom.

Beyond the social connections gained by photo-sharing, there is a wealth of freely available content (often copyleft) that can be used by educators and students. Understanding how to tap into these resources is really important. See [|Flickr Creative Commons Search], [|FlickrStorm] (see advanced), [|morgueFile], or [|compfight].

Video Sharing:
In 2005, [|Youtube] was born and easy video sharing became a reality. While Youtube itself is often blocked in schools, there are other services available and Youtube content can be downloaded so it is available offline. And, besides this new ease of sharing, quality video is also now easy to create. Video is going to be increasingly important in the classroom in the years ahead.
 * [|90+ Videos for Media Literacy]: I compiled this list to demonstrate how many excellent videos are available for discussing technology, media literacy, and 21st century learning.
 * [|100 Best Youtube Videos for Teachers]: A great list of videos from Classroom 2.0.
 * [|Life 'Round Here]: A video sharing project by Chris Craft, a South Carolina educator.
 * [|CinemaOwls]: This is Kelowna Secondary School's YouTube channel for the Media Arts and Video Production Program.
 * Digital Storytelling: Digital storytelling is a great application of video sharing. Please see the wiki I have developed on the subject.

Other good video sharing services include [|Vimeo], [|Blip], and [|TeacherTube]. Additionally, sites like [|KeepVid] and [|Zamzar] can be used to download videos from Youtube and convert them to different video formats.

Audio/Video Conferencing:
Audio and/or video conferencing allows us to connect real-time with individuals and groups for presentations, discussions, or collaboration. These tools are easy to use, generally free of charge, and offer advanced options for innovative use. Such tools are becoming indispensable for educators in many classrooms.
 * [|Skype]: This is the most popular of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that allows for audio or video conferencing.
 * [|YackPack]: This tool is web-based and allows for audio/video messages so it can be used synchronously or asynchronously.
 * [|USTREAM]: This tool allows you to stream events from a video camera or webcam for others to view around the world.

Wikis:
A wiki is a website that allows easy creation and editing of pages. Wikis are ideal for collaborative projects, where individuals or groups (e.g., teachers, students) build shared content. There are a number of active wiki projects worth exploring, but as well, wiki services are available for personal or professional use.
 * Wikispaces: This is one of the best wiki services available, and is available [|ad-free for K-12 educators]. I personally use wikispaces for my undergraduate and graduate courses. Other popular wiki services include [|PBWorks] and [|WetPaint].
 * [|Wikipedia]: Of course, Wikipedia is the most popular, active wiki project, and is a testament to global knowledge development and negotiation. However, check out lesser known wiki projects such as [|WikiHow] ("the world's collaborative how-to manual") and [|WikiEducator] (free educational content). Many more great wikis from educators can be found by browsing through the [|2009 Edublog Awards wiki category].
 * [|Google Docs]: While not exactly a wiki, Google Docs allows for a free, multi-editor, collaborative environment through the sharing of text documents, spreadsheets, slide decks, and forms.
 * [|iEtherPad]: iEtherpad is a free program that allows multiple authors to work on a document simultaneously in "really, real time". In other words, you can see the changes of all authors as they happen.

RSS:
RSS or 'Really Simply Syndication' is one of the most important social media tools as well as often the least understood. RSS is a format that allows you to subscribe to updates from various sources such as blogs, wikis, social network updates, etc. It saves individuals the time it would take to go to each news source (e.g., webpage) and helps to organize information. RSS is easy to understand once you begin to use it, and is very powerful.
 * [|RSS in Plain English]: Another useful video from Common Craft explaining how RSS works.
 * [|Google Reader]: Reader is and example of an RSS aggregator, a way of subscribing to multiple feed sources. The tool also allows you to comment on and share posts using other services. You can even bundle feeds to share with others (e.g,. share class blogs). Other popular RSS aggregators include [|Bloglines] and [|Netvibes].
 * [|Setting up Google Reader]: A tutorial by Liz B. Davis.

Anytime ProD:
Professional development is moving to an anytime, anywhere model. At any given time, an individual can participate in open courses, conferences, or social networks that contribute to professional learning. As you become connected, you will see the many opportunities available and rethink your own professional learning.
 * [|K12 Online Conference]: This is an annual, free conference for K12 educators. Sessions are prerecorded and available for viewing. The conference has been running since 2006, and there are dozens of presentations to choose from.
 * [|TED Talks]: TED Talks are a growing collection of presentations from some of the most brilliant people on the planet. There are many to choose from, but here is a list of '[|15 TED Talks to watch before 2010]' (OK, it's already 2010, but it's a great list).
 * [|Classroom 2.0]: This is a social network of 1000's of educators from around the globe working together and learning from each other. This is a great place to start if you are looking for help with technology in the classroom.
 * Social Media & Open Education: Every year I teach an open graduate course that is available to anyone in the world. The next offering is Fall 2010, and I invite you to join in to learn more about social media in teaching and learning.

To explore any of these topics in great detail, see the Emerging Technologies section of this wiki.