Podcast Review and Notes: Thoughts on Web 2.0 by Burks Oalkey II

URL: http://www.online.uillinois.edu/oakley/mp3/Web2.0_podcast.mp3
I looked at several podcasts before I chose one I wanted to report on. A new world opened up for me related to podcasts. It was difficult to choose only one of the podcasts that I listened to though because they were all interesting. The title of the podcast I reviewed is: Thoughts on Web 2.0 done by Burks Oalkey II and published in November of 2005, from the University of Illinois Online. This podcast is about the “read-write” web. I had no idea what a podcast was before I took this class and neither did I realize that podcasts have been around since about 2005. The way that I would use this podcast in my Information Literacy class or in a workshop with other staff members in the library is to listen to the podcast and then have a discussion about what Web 2.0 is. Students use many Web 2.0 tools and perhaps don’t even realize that the computer world is calling them Web 2.0 tools and my colleagues (other librarians and staff) are very interested in learning about the Web 2.0 tools. They have mentioned to me that they would like it if I would do a workshop just explaining some of the tools I have learned about when the new semester starts in January of 2009.
I would like to give a comparison of what we call Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 and how Web 2.0 is much more collaborative, more of a place to share information and community, more open to everyone and much more participative and also how information is freely given and used. I would like to show colleagues that there is a tremendous amount of educational information available in podcasts and I would also like to show students the same thing. I don’t believe that teachers realize what educational opportunities are out there concerning podcasts and I don’t believe that a lot of students realize the educational aspect of podcasts either. It would be great to use podcasting in my Information Literacy class.

Mod 8B Voicethread.com Global Cooperation Project

I believe that the web 2.0 tool, Voicethread.com would be a great choice to use when implementing a global cooperation project. Voicethread transforms media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting. I would use this tool in my Library 102 Information Literacy class. The class is a 5 week long class. We anticipate having the class as an online class allowing anyone to sign up for it. There are 5 modules in the Library 102 class. The modules can be put up as a video and then teachers and student would be able to collaborate. It would be great also to get students from other countries signing up for the class. We see students signing up from other countries in some of the online classes that our college teaches. In the class, there would be instruction and research and then the participants would use Voicethread to help reinforce what was learned in the classroom, for question and answering and for the discussion part of each class. This would really enhance online learning and be a wonderful collaboration tool. I think the best way to try this out to see if it would work the way I think it might, would be to pilot a small group and try it out.

Mod 8 Comparison of Websites for Global Collaboration

For Mod 8 I compared TakingITGlobal < http://takingitglobal.org/>
and Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboaration (CILC). http://www.cilc.org/c/community/collaboration_center.aspx. I will first discuss TakingITGlobal, and then I will discuss Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CLIC).
TakingITGlobal is an online community that operates in an increasingly global and interconnected world. It is a non-profit organization with headquarters located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has 15 core staff and also a team of over 50 coordinators working in either a part-time or full-time capacity. In 2000, with a small team of volunteers, Jennifer Corriero and Michael Furdyk launched the TakingITGlobal.org online community. Using this portal allows our young people, our educators and others to find inspiration, access information and get involved and take action on a global level and also on a local level to improve our communities. It helps people to see how we can all work together toward similar goals no matter where we are located in this world. I signed up to be a member of TakingITGlobal. Three significant themes of TakingITGlobal are: Inspire, Inform and Involve, and three significant aims of TakingITGlobal are to 1) Strengthen the capacity of young people as leaders and citizens ; 2) Foster cross-cultural dialogue and understanding ; 3) Increase awareness and involvement in global issues. As a charity, TakingITGlobal works with partners that include United Nations agencies, major companies and youth-focused organizations. TakingITGlobal launched TIGed.org in 2006. TIGed.org provides a unique set of online tools designed to help educators make use of technology and bring global education into their classrooms. There is an enormous amount of information in TakingITGlobal and I realize that this short review is a very small percentage of what it offers. I believe that it will take putting it to use to realize the wealth of information and globally collaborative projects that can be accomplished. I am an advisor for Phi Theta Kappa which is an international honor society for the two year college. When I reviewed TakingITGlobal I realized that Phi Theta Kappa could use it in many ways in the fundraising efforts we put forth all academic year. I also thought about using TakingITGlobal for many of the classes that are taught here at the community college where I am a librarian. It contains blogs and discussion boards that would help students realize the global perspective instead of the narrow world that they sometimes see. I plan to share this with my colleagues.
The next review I did was for Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC). This global collaboration organization supports and advances education through videoconferencing and other collaborative technologies. It is the place for educators to meet, create a collaborative environment and share their reflections. CILC is a non-profit organization that offers professional development, and consulting services. Using CILC inspires collaboration between students, classrooms and educators. It is also rated based on educator evaluations. One librarian who uses CILC, stated, “It’s like bringing a field trip to the people and allows for a more equitable experience. This extends knowledge that can not be achieved in the traditional classroom.” It is a cost effective and borderless way for schools to incorporate creative instruction within a solid curriculum and also for educators to share their ideas and their own culture. CILC’s mission is to build integrity, innovation, stewardship, collaboration and leadership. CILC also offers professional development programs. The CILC community includes K-20 Education – educators, administrators, technology directors and others. CILC has an RSS feed that you can put on your own homepage to receive information. I can imagine using CILC for professional and collegial pursuits. I was not able to find, from the website information, when CILC actually started and who started it. Perhaps the information is there, but I could not locate it.
In comparing TakingITGlobal and Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboaration (CILC). I believe that TakingITGlobal would be a better global collaboration site to use. The two sites had many similarities though. They were both non-profit web sites and supported education and global collaboration, and each supported professional development. TakingITGlobal seemed to be more well-rounded than CILC. I liked the altruistic beginnings of TakingITGlobal and the background of how and why TakingITGlobal was founded. CILC also creates a collaborative environment, but my gut feeling and preference would be to use TakingITGlobal.

Comparison of Twitter and Spoink

I am comparing Twitter and Spoink. I feel like I don't understand enough about each one yet, but so far I like the Spoink FAQ's better than the help I found in Twitter. In Twitter's help area you type in what you are looking for and then hope someone else has asked a similar question. I found that much more frustrating to use than Spoink's FAQ's. I couldn't find out from Twitter how to upload a picture from my cell phone or a file or the web. In Spoink, in the FAQ area, it answered it right there. I also was able to do a Podcast (amazing to me!) in Spoink. I can't figure out how to do that in Twitter. In my opinion, I can see that Twitter would be a good mostly for communication using text. Also in my opinion, Spoink seems to offer more tools, such as podcasting, sending pictures, and videos than Twitter. Twitter may offer those tools also, but they seem hidden to me. I will continue to check out both Twitter and Spoink. I have had a bit of difficulty in Twitter in the "following" and "followers" area. I believe that it is just not crystal clear in my head yet. I can see where each tool would be helpful as an instructor to let students know information right when you needed them to know, such as a class being cancelled or a homework assignment being clarified, or a neat web tool to help with an assignment, or breaking news for a class discussion. Just my two cents...

Microblogging and Education

The article I chose to review about microblogging and education appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, February 29, 2008 issue. The article title is: “Forget E-Mail: New Messaging Service Has Students and Professors Atwitter.” I looked at several articles, but found this one very interesting because it related to the college environment. An assistant professor of emerging media and communication at the University of Texas at Dallas, David Parry, reluctantly tried Twitter and now calls it “the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I’ve ever done teaching.” That statement really hit home for me. As educators, we are always trying to find ways to connect with students. For myself, before taking LAI684, I did not realize how much Web 2.0 tools can have a positive, and far reaching effect on students and teachers alike. It seems that it is the kind of connection teachers used to have when the schools were smaller. Using a microblogging tool like Twitter will encourage students to be more accountable and also for teachers to communicate more often with their students. It reaches beyond the classroom walls into the daily life of the teachers and students. That helps make school not so much “out there” so to speak. It is an ongoing, lifelong learning tool. As a librarian, I teach a lot of Information Literacy classes. I am beginning to see and get excited about how I can use a microblogging tool for the classes. Students need answers quickly and it seems as though this kind of tool would be helpful in that aspect.

Young, Jeffrey R. "Forget E-Mail: New Messaging Service Has Students and Professors Atwitter." Chronicle of Higher Education 54.25 (29 Feb. 2008): A15-A15.

The Distant Librarian RSS feed

I found a link to an article from The Blog Libific in The Distant Librarian which is one of my RSS feeds that I just added to my Bloglines account at: www.bloglines.com/public/campanella. The article is about federated searching using library databases and Google. Federated searching allows someone to search several databases at one time. It is a wonderful tool for a person researching something to be able to search many databases and an internet search engine all at the same time and review the results retrieved. But Google does not want libraries setting up federated searching and showing the Google results along with the library database results. Google does not want a researcher to get to Google results without going through the Google page first. Some people believe that Google sees federated searching as a competitor and does not want to see their results alongside results from other content providers. Perhaps Google is most worried about showing their advertising products that support their business model, and that is why they will not allow their search results to show alongside other database results. I found this article so interesting because our library staff just had a meeting the other day and we discussed federated searching and how search results would be displayed and we discussed Google in our conversation.

The Learner of Today is like an octopus

The octopus has its central body and its arms are like branches stretching out in many directions. The learner of today has its central body and extending out from that that are all of the different aspects of learning and the tools available to learn in today's world. Each of the branches represents one of those tools or types of learning. I couldn't use an octopus as my example in the old way of learning because in the old way, we learned in much more of an individual way. In George Siemens article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, he states "Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity."

Siemens, G. (2005). "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age." International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. Retrieved August 19, 2008.

Social Networking

http://library20.ning.com/

I picked "Library 2.0" as my social networking group because I am a librarian and am interested in Library 2.0 tools for information literacy classes that I teach and also to use in supporting our distance learning students. I am a librarian in a community college where our students are commuting students and many students are taking online classes exclusively. I believe that the library 2.0 tools will be beneficial in helping us to support our library users. Participating in this group will be beneficial to me because I can connect with other librarians who are probably in the same boat as I am. Also, Bill Drew, who created Library 2.o social networking group on ning is a community college librarian at a college not too far from my school.

Your Library - More Than Meets the Eye

3 Ways I can use Blogs In My Information Literacy Class - Library 102

1) Post my syllabus, class assignments, due dates,semester calendar listing any vacation or other days when school will be closed.

2) Use the blog to have class collaboration on assignments, a place where students can interact with each other and the instructor. I can see a benefit also in having a blog to collaborate with my colleagues who are teaching similar courses in college or in high schools.

3) Have students keep up on assignments even when they miss class or I have to cancel a class. I believe that using the blog will encourage students to be more accountable. I also believe that students will have more of an ownership in the class because of the interactiveness of the blog. It is also a great place for students to post assignments.