Colette Cassinelli’s edtech VISION

I was re-reading Will Richardson’s book “Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms” today because I am giving my copy to a new techie teacher. Even though I am already familiar with the topic I still found the information interesting and relevant. This time through the names from the examples were familiar from bloggers like Tim Lauer, Darren Kuropatwa and Bud the Teacher. Wow – what a difference a year of blogging makes!

Will discusses the pedagogy of blogging. He writes that “weblogs are truly a constructivist tool for learning”. Student’s construct their own knowledge through reading, writing and responding to one another’s posts. This type of “connective writing” engages students in higher-order thinking. Students are first reading critically and looking for important ideas to share with their audience. Opportunities to make connections and synthesize ideas from other bloggers demands organization and clarity in student’s own posts. The “real audience” reminds students to observe editorial correctness and to continue the discussion beyond the post and interact with users who make comments.

In discussing wikis, Will notes that “the collaborate environment that wikis faciliate can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort”. Like blogs, empowering students by allowing them to create and edit and construct their own knowledge is very compelling and will lead to student engagement.

Besides blogs, wikis and podcasting, Will discusses other Web 2.0 tools like RSS, social bookmarking, flickr and what it all means. If you are looking for a simple explanation of how to go about integrating Web 2.0 tools in your classroom I highly recommend this simple book – plus – when you get it down pat – you can pass it on to another educator!!!

Sidebar: I am getting ready to set up blogs for my classes this school year and am debating which format I am going to use. I use Moodle for my CMS and like the journal module for students to write directly to me but I don’t care for the blog feature. I was just going to use Blogger since we will already be using gmail accounts and Google docs but now am considering 21 classes (mainly for privacy reasons and the having a main entry page). I am seeking input from other teachers who have used it. I like the fact that the students can customize their pages – which will be critical for my graphic design students. Any comments???

Will Richardson reflects in his blog about the nature of School 2.0 and the “arrival” of Web 2.0 tools. He asks the question

Through teaching them to use these tools to publish, are we also teaching them how to use these tools to continue the learning once that project is over? Can they continue to explore and reflect on the ideas that those artifacts represent regardless of who is teaching the next class? Can they connect with that audience not simply in the ways that books connect to readers (read but no write) but in the ways that allow them to engage and explore more deeply with an ongoing, growing community of learners? Isn’t that the real literacy here?

He goes on to state the the Read/Write web really is the Read/Write/Connect/Reflect Web and we need to continue the discussion not so much about the tools – but how knowledge is about connections through individuals.

I appreciate his reflection on using Web 2.0 tools and learning. Many educators get excited about learning new tools and immediately want to integrate them into their curriculum. What I hear Will saying is that we need to stop and think why we are doing this and does this really represent learning (as oppose to just doing). Frank Smith said in “The Book of Learning and Forgetting” that you learn from the company you keep. Educators everywhere need to create a student-centered environment where learners have opportunities to create, interact, discuss, reflect, build, etc … and if that involves Web 2.0 tools – great. But if educators are only using Web 2.0 tools as an digital version of a worksheet or because it is the latest and greatest thing to hit Education 2.0 – then they are missing the mark.