The unending Web.20

Within my course on information technologies for learning, we have been looking at the different possbilities for integrating technology into the curriculum.  The possibilities are endless and as a friend put it just today – “Sometimes it feels as if we are chasing smoke.”  It is hard not to feel overwhelmed by the options.  Do you podcast, wiki, blog, take a virtual tour, develop a digital story, webquest…?  How do you decide which one is the best option?  How do you keep up with the technology and the changing possibilities?  Another colleague answered the question today with “You have to make sure you let the learning drive the technology rather than letting the technology drive the learning.”

So how do we get back in the driver’s seat?  Integrating technology demands comfort, confidence and creativity on the part of the teacher or teaching team.  We need to start with the tools which are the most comfortable, develop our confidence and look for creative ways to use them.  Staying in the driver’s seat is aided by asking the right questions when planning for a new area of learning.  What do we want students to learn, how can we best facilitate this learning, and finally which technology am I comfortable with that can aid this learning?

I have been working on a blog and wiki project with my husband’s German classes. We chose these technologies because of my familiarity (confidence) with them and because of their ‘affordances’ (Kress Literacy in a New Media Age). Blogs and wikis allow for collaboration between individuals and groups.  You can manipulate both written and visual text.  Blogs and wikis are excellent tools for language instruction.  The language goals were taken from his usual non-technologically integrated program (comfort).  We chose to add a wiki (creativity?) to the project to facilitate groups working together and add the ability for on-going editing by the teacher.  We are beginning to reflect on the process – what worked, did the students learn the vocabulary and grammatical structures that were the objectives of the project, what parts of the process were made visible through the process, what parts were rendered invisible?

These questions remind me of the questioning toolkit which was developed by James Mackenzie at FNO.  As teacher-learners, we need to keep coming back to the essential questions – why are we changing how we teach, who benefits from the change, who loses as a result of the change?

Integrating technology into the curriculum is a necessary part of the new literacy environment.  Doing the old stuff in new ways is the first step in becoming new literacy teachers.  We will not all become Clarence Fisher in a sudden and dramatic way but I suspect that Clarence’s digital classroom was an evolutionary process and not a flash of lightening.  We drive on the familiar road and take a detour now and then into unfamiliar territory.  This is how we expand our knowledge, comfort and confidence.  We will never see the whole world on our own but as we extend our understanding, we may find that there are others on the same road we are and we can share the discoveries.  Clarence Fisher mentioned that on his blog today.  His students rely on the work of others to extend their understanding.  I need to learn to do the same.

Setting up a Wiki

Late last night I was working on a brand new wikispace for my husband’s class. As keen as I am on trying new literacy practices, it is easy to get bogged down in the details.

First hurdle – what was the username and password?  It sounds simple but we had set up the site up a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’ t for the life of me remember what we had used. To complicate matters, we had orignally signed up for a blog with edublogs.org and had received a free space on wikispaces. I had initially tried to set up the wiki and blog there but ran into some snags and moved to WordPress.  So there I was trying to sign in and not sure what my username was and which password we had chosen. I got logged in but then found I was not administrator of the site for which I wanted access. Back to the drawing board! Finally, we found the email from wikispaces confirming our site and the all important username and I chanced to remember password and I got to work.

Second hurdle – I wanted to set up a series of pages for the students to work on. One for each group. I added the page but it didn’t appear in the sidebar as I had expected it would. After some searching around I figured out the navigation editing tool. First to make it list the pages I had added and then ohh! you need to make them into hyperlinks yourself! Finally, I had the page set up the way I wanted it.

Yes the technology is simple but you need to have practice and get used to it. I can’t imagine trying to do this while working full time in a classroom. I have the time (kind of) and the energy (sort of) and its the focus of my project in a class I am currently taking, I have to work it out to have completed my project. How much harder it would be if I had to work on all of this in my all-too-sparse planning and preparation time and as far as that goes my division gives more than most (thanks guys).

As I struggle through some of the small stuff complicating the use of technology tools, I wonder about the student use of these tools. My husband mentioned that he wants the current unit using these wikis to last two weeks. We don’t yet have permission forms from all the students and I will not invite them on to the blog and set them up as members of the wiki until those are in place. Two weeks - we need permission, we need access, we need to know how to use the tools, we need to use them effectively to produce improved understanding of German. I think maybe two weeks is not quite enough time but I know they learning the vocabulary and strutures of German are the point here. It’s an interesting balance. I know the first try is just that a first try. I’m cautiously optomistic but I wonder whether we are setting ourselves up for the kind of problems Vicki Davis outlines in Mistaken Identity of Blogging. I’ll let you know how it goes!!