Web 2.0-Webspiration

I have been using the program Inspiration for about the last seven years and love it. I am a big fan of visual representation of thinking and learning. I use it personally when I am writing and I love to introduce it to my students.


Being a Language Arts teacher I find that students have great ideas but they get lost in translation. A program like Inspiration can keep them focused and on task. There is nothing better for the visual learner than a good graphic organizer. So what does this have to do with Webspiration?


Webspiration is the new version/concept from the Inspiration people. What makes this different and Web 2.0? First let’s look at what Web 2.0 is. The definition from Wikipedia (a web 2.0 concept itself) is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Definition

To some, "Web 2.0" might suggest a new version of the Internet, but in reality refers to a second generation of web development and design, which facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mash-up and folksonomies.


That said, Webspiration opens up the possibilities of working with more people with an online collaborative visual thinking and outlining tool. The education possibilities are now open to collaborative work across the street or across the world. Webspiration is like a wiki where multiple people can work on the same document and post their changes so that others can view and edit each other’s work.



The exciting thing about Web 2.0 is that we become active participants in our online experience. It is not just a one-way street but also a portal that we may enter and participate. We can be active participants and not wait idly by waiting and searching for someone to post what we are looking for. We can boldly go where no man has gone before (metaphorically speaking)!

I see Webspiration as a great place to have our students be able to work more efficiently with others. It combines the ability to visually organize one’s thoughts ad ideas and be able to share them with other collaboratively. Students working on projects together struggle to stay on task and organized usually because of the scope and size of a project. Webspiration gives them a tool that they can work on together to get and stay organized throughout a project.

Webspiration: http://mywebspiration.com

Second Life

“We’re not in Kansas anymore!”

I bet if you look hard enough you will even find the flying monkeys. Second Life is a different sort of place. I had been familiar with the concept, as I have done some reading about it. My wife is in advertising sales and she has had Second Life come up in conversations with clients. I read a few articles about how people were making money in Second Life and how people were find their true loves in Second Life.

Second Life is a combination of social networking, role-playing games, fantasy and real world business wrapped up into one slick video game interface. As I set up my avatar (not that hard because I play Wii with my kids) I realized that you could be anyone you want. That is probably the appeal for many people in the real world to have an alter ego that they can create. You can live out your dreams and fantasies in a “relatively” safe environment. I spent a little time trying to get familiar with the functions and the groundwork of the place before we met in class.

I enjoyed the group experience of class and found that having someone with knowledge as our guide was extremely helpful. The struggle at first was trying to figure out who everyone was. There were a lot of people and at first with our second life names we are anonymous. But as soon as I “found” my classmates that I knew, it became more comfortable. Like when you first walk into a new class you look for that familiar face to know that you’re not alone, it is comforting.

As much fun as I had traveling to different sites on our field trip I am trying to figure out how we can use this as an educational tool. I can see that some of the sites are very informative and have a lot of information that is useful but how do I keep the students on task? If they are anything like we were last night they will want to change their appearance and “chat” and wander off. Not unlike a conventional field trip.

Here I am on my magic carpet. I finally figured out how to

fly it!

I guess I am just going to have to spend a little more time there. We had just a small taste of how big Second Life really is. I think the experience is better when you are not alone, the social networking part. There are a lot of places to search and visit and hopefully I will run into some of you there. I will be the tall guy with hair! :-)

See you in cyberspace!

Criteria for the Evaluation of Web-Based Materials

Everyday more and more material is being put up on the web. This information comes in all sorts of styles and flavors; fact, opinions, stories, videos and much more. Some of this information good, but a lot of it bad. So how do we know what is “good” and how do we teach this to our students?

First let’s look at the term: good. Good is a relative term that I use for quality information that is accurate and reliable. Anyone can post on the Internet so as a consumer we have to be careful of what we choose to believe. In the past most of us assumed that the information that we amassed was legitimate. We trusted that the writers were professional that gathered the facts and that there were checks and balances before an article made it into the newspaper or a story was seen on the news. But with the advent of the Internet those checks and balances have disappeared so we as consumers must be more diligent and responsible when it comes to choosing the information that we use.

It all starts with our pre-search. What are we going to be looking for? Are we looking for facts, opinions, statistics, do we want it to entertain or inform? Once we know the purpose then we can have a better idea of where to look for the best information.

The key is to try to find the information from a reliable source. This is where it begins to get a little tricky. What is reliable? Look for a source that is reputable, one that has proven over time that their information is valid and correct. For the students it should be sites such as the Worldbook online, Time for kids, NetTrekker and biography.com to name a few. As teachers we can and should find these web sites before assigning a project. Also when we look at reliability can we check the information that is being presented? Look for multiple sources that support the same information, double check the facts and understand what is opinion.

We also need to know that a site like Wikipedia is very informative but it can be edited and revised by anyone. The term Wiki means that it allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by its users. That doesn’t mean that the information is not valid but as a consumer we need to be able to justify and check the information from other sources too.

We also need to make sure that the information is timely. Information on the web is updated all the time. Is the information that you have the most recent and the most accurate? Just because it is most recent doesn’t always mean it is the most accurate. That is an important distinction that we must address to the students. Just because it is newer doesn’t always make it better. If we are looking for historical information it may not matter when it was authored but if we are researching about today’s economy or scientific gains on cancer then timeliness is important.

Lastly, I think we need to use our common sense. This is hard for our students because they do not have the experience and knowledge that we have. We must rely on what we already know and not be so lazy as to take and trust the first piece of information that we come across. Our students love to use Google and only look at the first listing that appears. If it seems too good to be true then it probably isn’t! We cannot believe everything that we read. We need to be conscientious when it comes to our information.

Remember that anyone can post on the Internet. You don’t need a license or a degree, just a computer. I am living proof of that!

Description and evaluation of a WebQuest

This week I chose to focus on the description and evaluation of a WebQuest. I have been watching my daughter do WebQuests all summer during her High School Chemistry class. I have looked through many of them and some have been better than others. A couple have been regurgitating information while others have pushed her to think, evaluate and analyze.

I have been teaching Language Arts and Reading for the last five years and wanted to see if there were any good WebQuests for LA/Reading. I have come to the conclusion that most of the WebQuests seem to be designed for science and social studies with some math thrown in for good measure. Some of the LA/reading WebQuests are really social studies/history lessons in disguise. They ultimately get the students to think and learn about a different time and what it would be like to live there and how it differs from today’s society.

I chose to evaluate a WebQuest about the middle ages: http://www.iwebquest.com/middleages/Default.htm
The end product is a story that will teach your peers about the middle ages. Basically it is an historical fiction Webquest. I am all for teaching the students how to write historical fiction and this web quest does a poor job of getting the students prepared for the task at hand. Besides that many of the links were broken I was looking at the over all setup of the task rather than all of the elements involved. The students were going to have to perform their story since many people in the middle ages were not able to read or write. I felt that the focus of the Webquest was on this aspect more than the content involved. I thought one of the purposes of a WebQuest was to give the students all of the resources they needed rather than have them search blindly on the web.

One of the parts of this web quest is to create a multimedia presentation of their story. I felt that this web quest did not give the students material to learn about the middle ages to be able to write a good historical fiction story. It became more of a drama project than a history/writing endeavor.

I was disappointed after initially thinking this may be a good way to teach historical fiction writing.

I guess the idea of an inquiry based quest for reading has to involve some history to have the students be able to evaluate and compare/contrast today’s society. But it does seem that Webquests work best for Social studies and science to have students learn about a subject (like volcanoes or Rome) and then use their own ability to evaluate and synthesis information to discover how and why civilizations thrived and died and what the earth might look like without volcanoes erupting.

The value of Internet resources for education

Everyday more and more information is being put on the Internet. It is an amazing concept to be able to find almost anything that you may want or need. But with that lay the inherent problem: Is all of that information accessible and accurate?

From a teaching stand point there are so many valuable resource at the click of the mouse. It is great to be able to find and share information with colleagues anywhere at anytime. The problem arises in having to search through so much information to find what you are looking for. Even narrowing your search and using keywords you still have to sort through pages and pages of junk. There have been many frustrating hours spent searching for some information but just not being able to find it or finding the information, saving the link, and then when you try to retrieve the information that it is no longer there. I think that is even more frustration than not being able to find the information in the first place.

I grew up in a different generation before the Internet and remember my first programming class in COBAL using punch cards and putting the phone handset into a cradle. But I digress and show my age. The Internet has grown very quickly and not everyone is on the same page. Many of our students are very computer savvy but don’t really understand about quality of information over quantity of information. They can make a PowerPoint or edit photos or build a web site but they do not know how to find what they need.

Are they lazy, uninformed, or inexperienced? It is probably a combination of all three. What I have experienced is that the students today are into instant gratification. If they cannot find what they are looking for immediately then they get frustrated.

Being an educated adult I am aware that everything on the Internet is not always accurate. For our students they are not as knowledgeable and willing to check their sources for accuracy. Students will look for the easiest way to get their answer. They tend to choose sites that may or may not contain correct information. My students live and die using the first page of Google and Wikipedia. Don’t get me wrong; they are very valuable resources to begin a search but not the ultimate end point.

Our goal as teachers and consumers of the Internet is to let everyone know that it is a great resource, a tool. We need to realize that if we don’t educate how to use the tool then our students will never be able to reach their potential. You don’t just hand someone a hammer and saw and hope for the best!