Talking Tech

Ages ago, I posted about tags.  These were keywords that allowed information to be organized and better yet, accessed in a variety of ways.  Sites then were often represented by tag clouds which created visual representations, using size to indicate importance, i.e., the bigger the word, the more often it was used.

Today, I share with you a new related tool with powerful visual implications.

Wordle is an awesome online tool that allows users to create word clouds based on the user’s choice of words.  You can enter a web address and get the cloud represenation of that site.

Imagine an in-class visualization of how certain news agencies cover the news.  How would a word cloud of CNN differ from one of BBC for example?  What words would stand out?

Imagine pasting in a chapter or more of a piece of literature.  Visually and textually, how would Pride and Prejudice look?  Find out.

What would a student’s own essay look like?

We have often argued that Visual Literacy is at the core of a successful 21st Century Learner.  In a world saturated by visual representation, here’s a great tool to expose students to some.

And imagine the discussion that will occur as classmates argue the merit of the cloud and the “worth” of the words that were selected as descriptors.

Do they convey the message of the author?

How do they change or support the way you thought about what you read before you saw the cloud?

What words stand out to you?  Why would that be different to my own?

For fun, I “clouded” a graduation speech I gave years ago.

Cool.

More powerfully, here’s Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Give it a try.

Images created using Wordle

In relative terms, some Web 2.0 tools have been around for a long time. As a result, us technology-types often forget that relative longevity doesn’t translate into people knowing how to use them.

Blogs are a perfect example of this.

One of the original Web 2.0 tools, web logs (you can see where the silly name comes from) have been the poster child of the participatory web. Now everyone with a thought and a computer to write it on can become a journalist, editorial writer, political pundit, sports writer, or budding Bridget Jones.

Blogs are web pages upon which it is very easy to write text and share with the internet.

Add to this the fact that the “style” of blogs is to show most recent submissions over past submissions, while archiving older posts and you can see why it has emerged as a “journal” like environment. Talking Tech - the very site you are reading - is a blog. So I am not going to go into too much detail about how they work. If you are here reading this, then you are seeing what blogs can look like. To see more, follow other links on the sidebar to other blogs.

Instead, let’s look at what makes blogs powerful educational tools.

Let’s start with a key question:

If they are “journals”, what makes them better than pen and paper ones, or a Word document that you store on your computer?

First and foremost, it is the power of linking. Because the site is on the web, you can link to other sites. Perhaps an article you are responding to, a video you are commenting on, or a picture that you are inspired by. You can connect people to information and you can give opinion/review on ANYTHING, sharing the original with the reader.

Second, RSS makes blogs better. Because readers can subscribe and have your newest posts “delivered” to them through a(n) reader/aggregator, the chance for increased readership grows. I’ve explained RSS before, so I’ll leave it at that.

So, great…you can link, readers can keep up, but what makes them powerful educational tools?

One word: conversation.

Blogs have created world-wide conversations. Because posts can be commented on, bloggers can now offer ideas, opinions, or information, and get feedback from their readers. The blog’s presence on the web extends the audience of readership beyond the walls of a classroom, beyond the limitations of a grade level, and outside of the confines of a school.

The audience is the WORLD wide web, and that’s a lot of people. Sure, not all of those people are reading one blog, but if the topic and the writing are meaningful, the audience will come. Teachers can facilitate this with school-to-school relationships or “blog-pal” classes. Parents can get involved and comment on students’ work (not to mention get insight into their writing style, their personality, and the issues they grapple with).

Teachers have used blogs to get information out to students: links to websites, YouTube videos to consider (yes, there is educational stuff on there), articles to read, and/or simulations to try. They have used it to prompt students, “what are your Top 3 books of all time”, “how can you make a difference on global warming?” The key has been to encourage student reflection.

The result has encouraged student conversation.

Kids naturally begin to comment on other kids’ comments. They start to talk. And when carefully monitored and encouraged, they continue that conversation in class too.

Why do blogs belong in education? They belong because they enable writers to enrich their writing with sources, suggestions, and links. They belong because they provide writers with the opportunity for self-expression with an audience. They belong because they allow for that audience to be ANYWHERE.

Here is a video from Frieda Foxworth on reasons to blog with students:

Download Video: Posted by ffoxworth at TeacherTube.com.

So how do you get started?

One thing we often encourage is for teachers, who want students to blog, to blog themselves. Start up your own blog at blogger or edublogs. They are free and they are easy to sign up for and set up. And let me know if you have questions.

Here’s a blogging for beginners video from Frieda Foxworth:

Download Video: Posted by ffoxworth at TeacherTube.com.

Image by dailydog, found at Flickr Creative Commons

Educators today have an incredible array of tools at their disposal to get information, collaborate, and ultimately help students know, understand, create, and learn.

But teachers are busy.

They are busy planning lessons, collaborating with teams, coaching sports, directing plays, sponsoring clubs, meeting in committees, filling out forms, building curriculum, learning new grade programs, communicating with parents, and TEACHING STUDENTS.

Which means that they don’t have time to keep up with the technology changing faster than the speed of creativity (shout out to Wes Fryer) . That’s why jobs like mine exist. It’s why we run PD sessions and why we send out HowTo’s and such.

And it’s why this blog exists. Because you have to get the message and the training out in as many ways as possible to ensure that it’s heard by as many people as possible.

So come back…it’s been awhile, but it’s time to get back on this.  Read past posts on tags, podcasts, and RSS.   Then come back and read future posts on blogs, Ning, Roxer, and Firefox add-ons.

And let’s bring Web 2.0 to the people, where it belongs.