The Adventures of Diana Deco - Creating Readers Using Web 2.0

Social Media Mainline with Tee Morris

2009-06-16T19:12:00.001+12:00

On this 1 day course, Tee Morris introduced participants to blogging with Wordpress; Youtube; Facebook and Twitter. Technical problems, with some PCs not logging on to start with, and WELTEC's firewalls and security settings caused frustrations to participants and presenter alike. Partly as a result of this, we spent almost all the morning setting up an account on wordpress.com, and learning how to use some of its features.

Tee feels that blogger, which we use at National Library, is the easiest blogging platform to use. He prefers wordpress, as wordpress.org can be much more customisable, with individuals being able to change its settings and add their own features to their blogs. Wordpress.com, which we used in the course is good for beginners.

Tee recommends that blog entries be no more than 500 words, and feels that any longer can be a bit indulgent. (Oh dear, how many am I up to now...)

When looking at Youtube, Tee showed us his videos there, or tried his best to. I'd like to look at these at some stage, as Tee Morris has a strong background in this area, and has written books on Podcasting. A new book of his "All A Twitter" is about to be published, and he's also a Science Fiction author. Tee definitely has excellent "geek" qualifications, and answered questions thoughtfully, showing his background and knowledge about web 2.0. Come to think of it, I don't think he mentioned the term web 2.0 once during this course, which is a refreshing change!

Here are his videos:
ANTI-Social Media: Part One — Blogging

ANTI-Social Media: Part Two — Facebook

ANTI-Social Media: Part Three — Twitter

Tee talked about the value of twitter as a marketing tool, and discussed his relationship with Air New Zealand last year. At one stage, Air NZ sent out a tweet saying that their thoughts were with the people in Gisborne after the earthquake. Tee twittered back "what happened," got more information from Air NZ, then asked if the Air NZ twitterers were OK. They replied that they were fine, as they are based in San Francisco. Tee discussed with us the power of being able to send a message to so many people at once, and then quickly reply to Tee, and have a conversation on the subject. Last year twitter traffic increased 750%.

He said that he is recent and reluctant FaceBook user, being a "recovering" MySpace user. Facebook can be very powerful as a networking tool. Tee was, for example, able to contact an old university friend, who has become an actress, and successfully ask her to play a small part in one of his podcasts. You can create groups for specific communities of interest (click on the groups icon, right at the bottom of the FaceBook screen). However, he gets fed up at all the requests, for example people "poking" him, or sending him some silly survey.

Tee feels that Twitter and Facebook are currently neck-in-neck as the most popular social networking application. This made me think, that if we (SYNZ) are serious about using social networking tools, we should have a presence on these.

To use social media in the workplace, Tee sees three obstacles:

you've got to get past the "higher-ups" who don't understand social media
IT people can be a problem. They often won't allow access.
Its difficult to decide where social media falls - is it PR, advertising, IT - its all three.

Don't do it just because its cool. You do it because you have a message, and want to use the best application to get this message across. Find the initiative that works for you and then decide - how am I going to plan this, how am I going to initiate it.

Tee suggested having a social media plan. As an example, he talked about a plan he had developed for an educational institution he was working with. The plan included initiatives such as having a blog which discussed classes on this week; a 5 minutes "free-for-all" podcast each week where students could put their 2c worth in; a twitter quick tip sent to students once a week; and having a short video with a specific topic on youtube each week. You might build up the plan gradually, eg we will do this for the first 6 months, then add this initiative, then this etc.

Oops, 709 words - sorry Tee!

Twitter on School Library Journal

2008-07-04T13:22:00.002+12:00

Haven't blogged much for a while, but am just looking at this information before another presentation at the Reading Conference next week. Found this good article about the benefits of twitter on School Library Journal:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6573999.html

What should a literate teacher be able to do?

2008-02-11T13:52:00.000+13:00

This is quoted from David Warlick's blog 2c worth, who wrote these notes live from Stephen Heppel's keynote address at the 105th annual OLA Super Conference on January 30th.

Heppell asked a group of students what a literate teacher should be able to do, and they agreed that teacher should be able to:

upload to YouTube
edit a Wikipedia article
choose a safe online payments site
subscribe to a podcast and unsubscribe
turn on and off predictive text
manage a groups Flickr photos (and spell Flickr!)
look after a community in Facebook

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/archives/1345

Blogging for Students

2008-02-11T13:37:00.000+13:00

Here's a podcast called Blogging for Beginners from this Thinking About Learning blog. This podcast is for students to introduce the concepts of blogging.

Here's a great quote from this blog:
My school is in the midst of a blogging revolution! It all began with one 5th grade teacher who was willing to try something new, (thanks, Emily!) and now it’s the latest craze. The students in all six 5th grade classes, four 4th grade classes, and even one 3rd grade class have their own blogs. That’s over 220 blogs in our school! The goal is to blog at least once a week. The students love it because it’s fun. They stop me in the hall in the mornings to ask if today is their day to blog. Teachers love it because it motivates their students to write, it ties directly into their curriculum, it builds literacy, it improves technology skills, and it provides a great way for students to reflect and share what they’ve learned.
http://friedafoxworth.edublogs.org/2008/02/04/more-about-blogging/

Flickr and creative commons photos

2008-01-19T21:30:00.001+13:00

The above photo is from http://flickr.com/photos/elsie/154054286/

I have just been learning how to automatically post photos from Flickr to my blog. Have just set this up, and its so easy! I have had to log in to my google account to give permission (1 easy click from flickr), then choose a template for my photos.

I'm still working out the copyright aspect. Which photos are under a "creative commons" licence and which aren't? Which ones can I use, and how should I attribute them. What about if a photo is called "public" and has a "blog this" button above it, but says "all rights reserved"? Will let you know how I get on.

OK, hope you didn't mind the wait.
I found that I need to go into advanced search and choose to search on copyright commons images only.

Flickr

2008-01-19T21:26:00.001+13:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

LibraryThing

2008-01-18T11:30:00.000+13:00

What should I read next? What are some great YA fantasy books? I've read all the Alex Rider books, what else is good?
Join LibraryThing, and you'll be connected with thousands of book lovers and all their ideas.
You start off by cataloguing your own books online. This is easy and fast, and much cleverer than it appears. Under its bonnet, LibraryThing uses the power of z39.50 searching to interrogate the world's major library catalogues and find professionally catalogued details of the book you are referring to.

Once you've catalogued a few books the fun begins. You can check out who else has catalogued similar books, browse their collections and see what you might like to read next. Say you had a very specific interest in vampire books that none of your friends understood. All of a sudden, on LibraryThing you can find a group of like-minded people, check out their collections, add your book review to theirs, and form or join a group on the topic.

One popular group is the "50 book challenge". Members aim to read 50 books in a year, and post information on what they have read so far and what they think of it. Other people comment on their choices and make suggestions about what they might like to read next. There are some great conversations going on on this group.
Other popular groups include Children's Fiction, and Read YA Lit, which choses one book a month to have a discussion about. March's book is The Giver by Lois Lowry. They also have great "group talk" discussions about a wide variety of other topics.
LibraryThing is very popular with librarians. In fact, the group Librarians who LibraryThing is the most popular, with 3655 members.

Or, you could just use LibraryThing’s powerful search system to find recommended books. Look up Eragon by Christopher Paolini, for example, and LibraryThing will show you the most popular books that people with Eragon also have in their library. Click on more recommendations for specifics. This type of search can pull up interesting results, as its not limited to any genre or type of book, just to popularity by lots of Eragon readers. People with Eregon also seem to buy Inkspell by Cornelia Funke, and Magyk by Angie Sage. The recommendations work best with popular books – have a look at the top of a book’s entry to see how many members have this book (5,332 for Eragon).

Here's a good link to an article about LibraryThing.

Creating Readers Using the Web

2008-01-17T10:45:00.000+13:00

OK, introductory ideas for the presentation:

1. Introduction "what is literacy in the 21st Century?" Does it/how does it differ or develop from 20th Century literacy.

Quickly jot down your ideas, and share them with the person next to you.
Discuss in group.
We'll come back to these.

2. Questions for group to gauge level of knowledge and involvement in web 2.0:

Who reads blogs?
Who has commented on a blog?
Who has a RSS feed or blog aggregator?
Who has their own blog?

Wiki?

Watches u-tube etc videos?
Watches u-tube or other (eg teacher tube, ted) videos for educational purposes?

Uses social bookmarking tool like delicious?
Flickr account?
Bebo, Facebook or MySpace Account?

Talk about four Cs:

Consumer
Contributor
Collaborator
Creator

3. Create Readers blog

What is a blog?

History of Create Readers blog. Dylan Owen's idea. Need to be looked at as National Library blog. Issues for institutions, eg schools. Comment moderation, use of own names, copyright, etc. Refer to Courtney' Johnston's post on this topic here.

Discuss experience signing up as advisory editor. Mention decision to vet comments before publication. Choosing name for myself. Trepidation at first blog entry to the world. Using editing page to add blog. Adding links. Drafts and rewrites. Thrill of getting comments - eg What book got you hooked comments. Makes blog real conversation. Google analytics, seeing how many, where are reading the blog. Profiles. Tags - how to do these, what terms should be tags. Issue re adding cover photos, agreement with some publishers. Subsequent discussion on nzlibs listserv

Activity - Go through process of adding comments to blog entry. Get people with laptops to add a comment, any comment to create readers. Need to be able to add comments so people can see them.

Some other book related blogs. Look at list on create readers.

4. Library thing

Look at how it works, how to join up, add books, and in particular, look at what else other people who like similar books are reading. Mention how Library Thing does this - only mentions 3? of same author's books, often has books from quite different genre on list, because they are liked by so many people who liked your book. Disadvantages - not so good on NZ books, limited on Australian. Some books have different titles in different countries eg Captain UnderPants, the Golden Compass, Born to Run. Look at z39.50 power behind Library Thing books, using largest traditional library catalogues in the world, eg Library of Congress and British Library to get book information from. Look at potential as readers advisory tool - ie if you liked this book you might like... Good for teachers own PD, finding good read alouds - what is a book as good as xxx? School exercise getting students to catalogue their favourite books and write book reviews, and find new books to read? (Books do need to be available here).

Activity - have a box of NL books, get interested people to add a few books (or choose their favourites) and see what other people who are reading these books might like. Books will need to be grouped by age or type, and international enough.

5. Goodreads

Look at potential of this for forming a book discussion group. Mention social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook, Myspace. Ask participants how much kids they know are using these types of sites. Look at a couple of examples of book groups.

6. wikis for book groups

What is a wiki? How does this differ from a blog?

Look at examples of this, how people are using wikis to share their book group information.
Mention Year 1 teachers doing this.

Activity - start your own wiki. Give out instructions for those with laptops that can follow. Go through process for those that don't.

Look at:

Places you can create a wiki
Issues to consider - private/public, names used
Look and feel
Organisation of wiki pages
Tutorials on creating wikis
Getting people sharing information
Moderation

More important to think about what information goes in, how it is organised, used and shared, than technical stuff like how to create and edit. That's the easy bit!

7. Book discussion groups, collaborative projects
English Online Book BackChat
ReaderGirlz
Technospud Projects

8. Podcasts
Importance of oral literacy as a basis for reading and writing
Look at Allanah Ks wiki
Life 'Round Here

How would you use these tools?

Finish - come back to original question
Show podcast Pay Attention
What is literacy in the 21st century? What do you want to do to harness these tools, and student's enthusiasm? How could this work at your school? What's 1 thing you want to go back to school and do now?

Learning@School 08 Conference

2008-01-17T10:23:00.000+13:00

Have just heard that my presentation proposal for the Learning@School 08 conference in Rotorua on February 19-21 has been accepted. Now I just have to prepare it. The presentation is on (quickly looks at notes) Creating Readers using the Web.

The blurb I used was:

Are you a book person or a computer person? Why not have it all! In this interactive workshop we will look at how you can use some of the new social networking Web 2.0 tools to create readers at your school. This is surprisingly easy, fun and free, and you'll have students interacting, discussing books, and even READING them like never before. We'll look at the presenter's experience in contributing to the new National Library "Create Readers" blog; at online reading communities such as LibraryThing, goodreads and ReaderGirlz; and at how you can engage your readers with the cunning use of ICT. Participants will also learn how to create their own own book-sharing wiki.

Now I just have to put this together. No worries!

I'll be in a room with wireless access, and participants will be invited to bring their own laptops and join in.

Definitions of 21st Century literacy

2008-01-09T11:17:00.001+13:00

These ideas, from David Warlick, Judy O'Connell and Darren Draper follow on from my previous blog entry, Reading in the 21st Century

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn"
Alvin Toffler

"For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our students for a future that we cannot clearly describe. ... The best thing we can be teaching our children today is how to teach themselves." David Warlick

This concept, of course is being keenly taken up in NZ schools, especially with work around Information Literacy, Inquiry Learning, and constructivism.

David Warlick further discusses 21st century literacies, in this introduction to his presentation Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century:

"Being literate in this future will certainly involve the ability to read, write, and work with numbers. However, the concept of literacy in the 21st century will be far richer and more comprehensive than the 3 Rs of the one room school house. ... our notions of literacy must expand to address a rapidly changing information landscape where information is networked, digital, and overwhelming.

Being a reader today means being able to "find the information; decode it; critically evaluate it; and organise it into personal digital libraries."

David concludes his presentation with a statement that I've been thinking about a lot. Here it is...
"Stop integrating technology, and instead redefine literacy and integrate that"

Judy O'Connell is an Australian educator and information professional, who blogs as HeyJude. She has created a great slideshow on this topic: "Literacy Remixed in a Web 2.0 World"

Judy refers to Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat, quoting a flat world as "a global, web-enabled playing field that allows multiple forms of collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and work, without regard to distance or geography, and soon even language."

This flat world means that our kids need new communications skill. Not just reading and writing, but reading words, images, sounds, video, interaction simultaneously. To learn new literacies about collaborating and networking, and to create, contribute, collaborate and connect.

This podcast, Pay Attention, was created by Darren Draper of Jordan District Schools, and referred to in Judy's slideshow. It takes the concept of our 21st century students and digital learning further. The podcast draws ideas from several leaders in the field of educational technology, namely Karl Fisch, Howard Gardner, Marc Prensky, Willard Daggett, David Warlick, and Ian Jukes. The statistics are from the USA, but if they don't apply to our students here yet, they will soon. Its well worth watching.

Free Rice

2008-01-07T23:24:00.000+13:00

Just a thought. This site could be great as a warm-up for students before reading or writing.

List of educational blogs

2008-01-06T18:36:00.000+13:00

Here's a great list of educational blogs. Some of them I know, some I have never heard of.

From NZ, I recognise Derek Wenmoth's Blog on the list, and there's Hey Jude from an Australian Librarian. Others I recognise as leading blogs from North America. The page states that only blogs with a technorati ranking of 50 or more have been included.

Using Powerpoint effectively

2008-01-06T18:29:00.000+13:00

Here's some great ideas, that look obvious when you see them, but that aren't necessarily anything like what we actually do...

These are slides from a presentation about how to do presentations.
You can also go here, to hear the oral delivery of the presentation along with seeing the slides.

I found them from this blog posting, from this blog "Do I dare disturb the universe" from Scott Elias, an educator.

Here are some of the ideas:

Don't write down everything you're going to say. YOU are the presentation, not powerpoint.
Don't use slides as a prompter or a handout generator
Don't use lots of bullet points and talk to them. "It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time."
Do use images, and talk to them - not clipart, but copyright commons licenced images, eg from flickr
10-20-30 (from Kawasaki)

10 slides, 20 minutes, all text used 30 points or more

Can use diagrammes/graphs etc and talk to them. Easier than reading text and listening.
People can't concentrate for more than 18 minutes. Have a "commercial break" regularly. Needs to be related to subject.
Get people to be involved - eg "get them writing to get them thinking" starting off with quick jot down of what they want to get out of the session, and stopping for discussion as you go. Ask a question; poll the group; think-jot-pair-share; quick writes

2008-01-06T01:11:00.000+13:00

From David Jakes, http://newtools.pbwiki.com/NYSCATE+Web+2+Workshop

Examples of Web 2.0 tools: The Big 5

Blogs: Remote Access (Example post: http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2007/10/learning-rememb.html)
Wikis Common Craft video (http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english)
Social Bookmarking: Dave's del.icio.us account (http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english)
- Livemarks (http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/livemarks)
Podcasting: Evoca (http://www.evoca.com)
Flickr: Dave's Flickr account | Searching Flickr with Flickr Storm

What does this mean for education and kids? Will this change the landscape of the classroom and the learning that takes place there? How do classrooms become more permeable?

Part A: Understrating a framework for learning with technology

1. The technology supports a fundamental literacy that the school believes in
2. The technology adds value to the learning process | it takes learning to a place that could not be achieved unless the technology had been included.
3. The use of technology is framed within a sound instructional pedagogy.
4. There is assessment data that enables the evaluation of the learning, and of the application of technology, if possible.

Within the context of this framework, it is my belief that the following skills must be developed in students.

Student Skills

Connect
Create
Communicate
Collaborate

Part B: Developing a Personal Learning Network-that's our focus. Educators must live it first, see the benefits, and this can then translate into classroom practice.

----- -----

See also

David Jakes' Digital Storytelling wiki

David Jakes' Blog The Strength of Weak Ties

Digital Storytelling

2007-12-22T01:28:00.000+13:00

Following on from my previous post, this blog entry by Dean Sharski is all about digital storytelling.

He talks about the need to have expectations of quality with podcasts, and not just get excited about the wow factor. There is a link to a couple of exemplars, and a YouTube video which is an excellent movie trailer made by a student (his son) for the book Life of Pi.

An interesting idea - making a movie trailer about a book.

Things I'm Learning about Tagging on Delicious

2007-12-22T00:03:00.000+13:00

My delicious bookmarks are at

http://del.icio.us/DianaDeco/

Think a bit about the tags you want to use so that they are consistent.
A tag can only have 1 word - no spaces. Can use underscores and dashes to seperate words.
You shouldn't use commas between tags, as it treats a comma as a tag!
Putting your tags in a list (rather than cloud) seems the must useful.
You can edit your bookmarks, and change the tags.

Pretty basic, but I'm learning from trial and error.

Here's a good recent link, from a blog "Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech":

Del.icio.us as the precursor to Twitter

Dean Sharski feels that many people like the links posted on twitter. Delicious has been showing other people's links for some time. The post discusses the value of using networks on Delicious, and how Dean Sharski subscribes to his delicious network, and receives updates of their new bookmarks.

One commentor makes the point that it is "Great to get the pulse of what the edublogosphere is up to" by using this networking component 0f delicious.

Here's Dean's tutorial showing how this works.

Here's another tutorial, From David Truss (a Powerpoint presentation) introducing delicious, including this networking feature.

Replies about 21st century readers

2007-12-19T12:09:00.000+13:00

Some lovely replies to my blogpost over on Create Readers about reading in the 21st century.

Principal Tom Sheehan, from St Matthew's, Marton replied, saying "Thanks for asking the question. Not many people really get it - literacy in the digital age means so much more than it used to mean. Our children need to know so much more !"

He left the address of his school blog which is here. Well worth a look, particularly at the children's pages.

Jody Hayes, teacher of this lovely class also replied, and has even mentioned us on her Year 1 class blog, here!

This has taken me on a wee voyage, and I have found some other great classroom blogs:

Rachel Boyd's Room 9, Nelson Central School (Y2-3)

Janet Blaauw's class at Te Ranga Primary School, Te Puke

Room 18, Meadowbank School (Year 2)

Room One Korokoro School, Wellington

Room 3, Te Awamutu Intermediate

Room 18 Writers Blog Taradale Intermediate School

Here's a great ICTPD cluster blog, from Lorraine Watchorn
Following on from this, here's Lorraine and her friends' wiki,
"ICT Infused Inquiry" Learning Community

Report - To Read or Not To Read

2007-12-18T09:38:00.000+13:00

National Endowment for the Arts, November 2007 report
To Read or Not To Read
A Question of National Consequence

This report contains disturbing conclusions about a general decline in reading amongst Americans, and particularly in teenagers. It also shows some clear links between reading for pleasure and reading proficiency, and between reading proficiency and success in life.

Below are some parts of the executive summary. I have concentrated on the sections which have international implications, rather than the specifics of American statistics.

From the executive summary:

Reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement.
• Voluntary readers are better readers and writers than non-readers.
• Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score
better on reading tests than infrequent readers.
• Frequent readers also score better on writing tests than non-readers or
infrequent readers.
(Executive summary, p. 12)

Good readers generally have more financially rewarding jobs.
•More than 60% of employed Proficient readers have jobs in management, or in
the business, financial, professional, and related sectors.
• Only 18% of Basic readers are employed in those fields.
• Proficient readers are 2.5 times as likely as Basic readers to be earning $850 or
more a week. (executive summary, p. 15)

Good readers play a crucial role in enriching our cultural and civic life.
• Literary readers are more than 3 times as likely as non-readers to visit
museums, attend plays or concerts, and create artworks of their own.
•They are also more likely to play sports, attend sporting events, or do outdoor
activities.
• 18- to 34-year-olds, whose reading rates are the lowest for any adult age group
under 65, show declines in cultural and civic participation. (executive summary, p. 16)

Deficient readers are far more likely than skilled readers to be high school
dropouts.
• Half of America’s Below-Basic readers failed to complete high school—a
percentage gain of 5 points since 1992.
• One-third of readers at the Basic level dropped out of high school. (executive summary, p. 17)

Deficient readers are more likely than skilled readers to be out of the workforce.
•More than half of Below-Basic readers are not in the workforce.
• 44% of Basic readers lack a full-time or part-time job—twice the percentage of
Proficient readers in that category. (executive summary, p. 18)

Poor reading skills are endemic in the prison population.
• 56% of adult prisoners read at or below the Basic level.
• Adult prisoners have an average prose reading score of 257—18 points lower
than non-prisoners.
• Only 3% of adult prisoners read at a Proficient level.
• Low reading scores persist in prisoners nearing the end of their term, when
they are expected to return to family, society, and a more productive life.xii
(executive summary, p. 18)

Conclusion
Self-reported data on individual behavioral patterns, combined with national test scores from the Department of Education and other sources, suggest three distinct trends: a historical decline in voluntary reading rates among teenagers and young adults; a gradual worsening of reading skills among older teens; and declining proficiency in adult readers. ie Department of Education’s extensive data on voluntary reading patterns and prose reading scores yield a fourth observation: frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with better test scores in reading and writing. Frequent readers are thus more likely than infrequent or non-readers to demonstrate academic achievement in those subjects.
(executive summary, p. 19)

From the Prefix

"When one assembles data from disparate sources, the results often present contradictions. This is not the case with To Read or Not To Read. Here the results are startling in their consistency. All of the data combine to tell the same story about American reading. The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming. Although there has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear, the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications.

How does one summarize this disturbing story? As Americans, especially younger Americans, read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they have lower levels of academic achievement. (The shameful fact that nearly one-third of American teenagers drop out of school is deeply connected to declining literacy and reading comprehension.) With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the job market. Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement. Significantly worse reading skills are found among prisoners than in the general adult population. And deficient readers are less likely to become active in civic and cultural life, most notably in volunteerism and voting.

The habit of daily reading overwhelmingly correlates with better reading skills and higher academic achievement. On the other hand, poor reading skills correlate with lower levels of financial and job success. At the risk of being criticized by social scientists, I suggest that since all the data demonstrate consistent and mostly linear relationships between reading and these positive results — and between poor reading and negative results — reading has played a decisive factor. Whether or not people read, and indeed how much and how often they read, affects their lives in crucial ways.

All of the data suggest how powerfully reading transforms the lives of individuals — whatever their social circumstances. Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual’s academic and economic success—facts that are not especially surprising—but it also seems to awaken a person’s social and civic sense. Reading correlates with almost every measurement of positive personal and social behavior surveyed. It is reassuring, though hardly amazing, that readers attend more concerts and theater than non-readers, but it is surprising that they exercise more and play more sports — no matter what their educational level. ie cold statistics confirm something that most readers know but have mostly been reluctant to declare as fact—
books change lives for the better."
from Prefix, p 3-4, by Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

David Warlick

2007-12-17T17:21:00.000+13:00

Blog - 2 cents worth
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Presentations
http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?page_id=61

Reading in the 21st century

2007-12-17T11:36:00.000+13:00

Thoughts about creating readers and web 2.0...

What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century?

What reading "counts"?

Boys who read comics, non-fiction and computer game instruction manuals and cheat sheets?

Here's a quote, from the blurb of the book Classroom Blogging, by David Warlick.

"Weblogs are about reading and writing. Literacy is about reading and writing. Blogging equals literacy. How rarely does an aspect of how we live and work plug so perfectly into how we teach and learn?"

Thousands of kiwis have (or have at least started) their own blog. This can, and often is done on many web 2.0 sites, including social networking sites.

Even some year 1 classes are starting to use blogs to develop their literacy.
Mrs Cassidy's Classroom Blog
Voyagers - NZ Year 1 Blog

How can we use blogs as a tool to develop literacy?

Online reading - does reading social networking sites like bebo count? These are currently the some of the most visited internet sites by kiwis. They're all about reading and writing. How can young people's passion for these sites be harnessed to help build literacy? One idea is to create your own network for your book group, using goodreads or ning. Put your favourite books on bebo, myspace or facebook?

What about online games, such as Runescape? Just getting through the tutorial takes a lot of reading. Need to be good at map-reading, and using North, South, East and West for directional skills. Then, any "conversation" between players is in the form of text. Quests within Runescape need a lot of reading. If you don't have a reasonable reading level you can't play this popular game. Opportunity to learn some things - what is tin made out of? Could be followed-up in the classroom. Is being immersed in the world of Runescape the same as being immersed in a good book?

Here's an example of 21st century literacy in action, using digital storytelling. Work out what is special about where you live. Write a script. Think about visual representation of your story. Then, turn this into a wonderful digital story.
Here's the Life Round Here stories from Te Awamutu Intermediate. And here are the ones from Taradale Intermediate School.

2007-12-15T23:05:00.000+13:00

Here's an article from Library Journal online about why we blog. Includes examples of quite a few library blogs.

David Lee King

2007-12-14T16:52:00.000+13:00

David Lee King is a librarian in the States, at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. He has a blog here where " I create, write, think, and speak about library websites and emerging digital technology."

Here are a few interesting sites his blog has pointed me to.

Twtter Explained for Librarians, or 10 ways to use Twitter

The above post has drawn many comments. He looks at what Twitter might be useful for libraries, and sees it as an emerging social tool that he wants to watch.

Here's a PDF keynote presentation (71 slides) from David, at the Salt Lake City Public Library Staff Day. He talks about library 2.0, and how libraries can use some of the 2.0 tools and sites.

One thing he refers to is this:
What if Barbie had a book group? This is an interesting idea for a book review, on YouTube. The review comes from the Topeka and Shawnee Public libraries, on their blog, Papercuts.

See his blogpost here for further links and another presentation from that day.

In this presentation, David concentrates on

blogs, explaining term and showing some library blogs
social networking sites and what you can do with them in a library
- including flickr, YouTube, last.com, MySpace, LibraryThing, twitter
Bookmark managers, and what you can do with them - del.icio.us, furl. blinklist, (don't know the last two)
wikis, with examples, and what you can do with them
Internet Messaging, including meebo, and what you can do with them. David has also blogged about using meebo as a link from an unsuccessful catalogue search - the patron is offered a real librarian to talk to via IM about their enquiry
podcasting or videocasting, with great examples, eg of booktalks, (this is where the barbie review comes in)
and Amazon v OPACs, with some examples of OPACs moving more towards Amazon.

Lots to learn about here !

Technospud projects

2007-12-08T23:07:00.000+13:00

Would you like your students to have the opportunity of joining in with a fun, colloborative international project to help create readers? Have a look at Technospud.

The current project is Salute to Suess.
This wiki is currently a finalist in the edublog awards. Here is the summary from the Edublogs site:
The “SALUTE TO SEUSS” wiki (hosted by Jennifer Wagner) is an online project for the teacher (who is teaching 4 to 13 year olds) to use within their classroom. Each teacher is encouraged to showcase their students’ participation by using a Web 2.0 tool — such as wiki, blog, photoshare, podcast, or more. For many of these teachers — this is their first time using these tools both for themselves and with their students!! There are 214 teachers from 45 U.S. States, 3 Canadian Provinces, and New Zealand participating. The final date of the project is not until mid-December — so the pages change daily as teachers post their projects. 2007 is the 50th Anniversary of the writing of “The Cat In The Hat” written by Dr. Seuss. To celebrate this milestone, this project also had many websites to visit, worksheets, standards, and activities to expand the project even more as the teacher wishes."

The worksheets, resources and weblinks themselves are amazing. Its also great to see Kiwi participation: see Puahue School powerpoint presentations.

A similar project took place earlier in the year about Charlotte's Web. The site contains some great ideas of activities for the book, as well as the contributions made by each participating school.

And coming up next year, will be a collaborative project on Prince Caspian. With the great interest in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the Prince Caspian movie due out next year, this could be a great opportunity to create readers using the web, in collaboration with classes around the world.

Create a Profile of a Book Character on MySpace

2007-12-07T23:59:00.001+13:00

Here's a great idea for making use of teens' interest in social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Facebook etc

This idea came from a discussion about your best 2.0 project on the TeacherLibrarian Network on Ning.

"...an English class had a fine time making MySpace profiles. The assignment for these Juniors was to create a myspace page for a character from Gatsby. This includes completing a profile, an "about me," blog entries, and commenting on their "friends'" pages in character.
In the words of the teacher, "They ran with it in excitingly creative ways, including songs and photos (that was actually the first thing they did)."
http://www.myspace.com/mchs07azgatsby

Have just had a look at the myspace site - it is great! Love the soundtrack and friends' photos.

Here they are - copyright friendly images!

2007-12-07T23:34:00.001+13:00

I have been seeing some lovely powerpoint presentations, using photos to illustrate a concept, with each photo being attributed underneath to its source, often flickr.

Here, from the lovely Joyce Valenza is an extensive list of:

Copyright-Friendly and Copyleft Images and Sound (Mostly!)
for Use in Media Projects and Web Pages, Blogs, Wikis, etc.

Joyce says:
"Most of the media in these collections are in the public domain or are attached to generous copyright licensing. Though you may not need to ask permission to use them when publishing on the Web for educational purposes, you should cite or attribute these images to their creators unless otherwise notified! If you see any copyright notices on these pages, read them for further instructions.
Note: always check individual licensing notices before publishing on the Web or broadcasting!"

Most useful web 2.0 tools

2007-12-07T22:29:00.000+13:00

The web 2.0 world seems pretty daunting at times, with so many different accronyms, and cute little names that I haven't heard of. So I was interested to come across a presentation which focused on a handful of web 2.0 tools - the ones deemed the most important for school administrators:

Il2007 Librarian 2.0:
Supporting Administrators with Web 2.0 Tools

The presentation is by Carolyn Foote, a librarian at a large public suburban high school, Westlake High School, in Austin, Texas. She blogs at
Not So Distant Future
technology, libraries, and schools

Here are some ideas for the most essential web 2.0 tools, sent to Carolyn via Twitter:

Google Docs, RSS, Blogger, Twitter
Blogs, RSS, wikis, twitter, Google Docs
wikis, igoogle, google calendar, zoho docs
moodle, google docs, wikis

Carolyn's presentation focused on:

Blogs, mentioning edublogs
podcasts, discussing tools for these
wikis, mentioning pbwikis and wikispaces, and showing an example of creating a calandar on a wiki (from a connectedlibraries wiki)
other tools - including google alerts, google docs, google calendar, del.icio.us (technolibrary bookmarks), jott, bloglines, pageflakes, bloglines (rss agregrator),
finishing with the connected libraries wiki, which contains a collection of instructions for using different web 2.0 tools in schools

I have bolded the ones I have absolutely no idea about!

Ninging in the rain

2007-12-07T11:10:00.000+13:00

Actually the rain seems to have stopped, but its quite cold and grey outside.

I'm discovering Ning.

"Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds."

So, its a bit like the biggies - Bebo, Facebook, Myspace, but can be set up for your own network of shared interests.

Here's a Ning network called Library 2.0. Well, I've logged in, answered a few questions about myself, now what?

Library 2.0 has some videos which could be interesting to watch, a forum, various interest groups, and invites you to add your own photos, and a blog.

There's also a Ning network for itsig the LIANZA (NZ Library and Information Association) special interest group relating to IT. I've asked to join, but need to be approved.

I guess a Ning network could be set up for regional groups of library staff, or for a particular purpose, like organising a conference.

Aah, here's an interesting network, Classroom 2.0. This looks very well set out with interesting content, and I see its a finalist in the EduBlog awards 2007. Lots of things to learn about here! The section on English looks interesting.

Here's Classroom 2.0's summary of their network for the Edublog Awards:
"Classroom 2.0 was created to provide an easy starting place for educators to be introduced to the tools of Web 2.0, and to encourage them to be part of the online dialog. With over 4,000 registered users, and growing over 100 per week, Classroom 2.0 has become a spawning ground for many other wonderful educational social networks based on the Ning platform, and has also hopefully shown the positive potential for social networking in education at a time when concerns about MySpace and Facebook overshadowed the technology’s pedagogical potential. Steve Hargadon in California, USA."

Looks like there are lots of educational networks here. Ning in Education is all about setting up Ning classroom networks (add free for Grades 7-12). Then theres School2.0, which is deals with broader issues than the more practical Classroom2.0. Look at this post about Social Cataloguing, about LibraryThing.

Another current post on School2.0 takes you to this wiki, which provides web 2 tutorials for educators. This looks really useful, and covers
RSS
Social bookmarks
Blogs
Wikis
Links and Resources

And there seem to be a variety of reading groups and book clubs.
The Sword and Laser - for sci fi and fantasy fans
LITeracy and Technology - putting the IT into Literacy

Here's Kingswear School network, which is also a finalist in the EduBlogs awards.

And finally (for now), a very useful-looking Teacher Librarian network, here.

I'm beginning to like this Ning. But why do I have a headache? Time for lunch.

NZ has great readers, but "long tail"still evident - OECD Report

2007-12-06T14:16:00.000+13:00

New Zealand 15 year old students have scored 5th out of 57 countries for reading in the just published 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report from the OECD. Kiwi students ranked 2nd in terms of the numbers of students reading at the highest level, but the overall rank dropped to 5th because of the relatively large number of students (15%) reading at the lowest level. New Zealand's mean score has not changed significantly since the previous PISA report from 2003.

Although showing that the "long tail" is still evident in NZ students' reading levels, this is a very impressive result. Among the 52 countries ranked below New Zealand were relatively wealthy, well-resourced countries like Australia, Great Britain, France and Germany.

Kiwi kids also did well in Maths and Science.

See NZ Herald story here.
See the Press article here.
And the Dominion one is here.

Read the OECD Executive Summary here.
Go here to look at the full report, downloadable in two volumes. The report focuses on science, and also discusses maths and reading.

BOOKS TOOLBOX: 50+ Sites for Book Lovers

2007-12-06T12:14:00.000+13:00

After reading Joyce Valenza's article on blogging your research process, I want to blog my learning journey about finding out great web 2.0 sites to help "create readers."

Here's the first:

BOOKS TOOLBOX: 50+ Sites for Book Lovers

There's an awful lot of these!