Is it OK to Publish Unfinished Ideas?

My experiences in traditional education suggest this is NOT okay!

The traditional publishing process involves edits, rewrite, re-edits, more rewriting and even more re-edits and rewrites before the publication of the “final product”.

… and often this “final product” is not really final. The author may be struggling to meet deadlines (like handing in an assessment task) or their ideas later change.

This concept of writing suggests that writing (and indeed the development of ideas) is a linear process.

Clearly, in my opinion, this is NOT the case. It is very much cyclical in nature with ideas constantly being challenged and reviewed. As a teacher, one of our roles is to challenge students ideas.

But why should this role be exclusively the teacher’s domain. Getting peers to review can be just as – if not more – powerful. Like it or not students listen to their peers – something they don’t always do with their teachers.

When I recently suggested my Year 10 students publish their unfinished work and seek others’ opinions – they immediately baulked at the idea. They were concerned that others would simply steal their hard work rather than comment and suggest improvements.

I then posted a Blog entry asking the question:

      “Is the best way to protect your work, to publish it for all to see?”

and asked the boys to comment.

The boys raised a number of interesting points:

• by sharing your work during the production process, all can see the origins of your work
• you are able to draw on others’ ideas through their feedback
• they are able to self evaluate their own work by comparing their own work to others’
• all are able to input into the originality of the work.

This last point triggered a class discussion where the boys were raising the point that they know some students “always” (not sure its always but that’s their words) simply copy and paste work from the “net” and achieve good marks consistently. By publishing work openly the boys were challenging each other to the origins of the work. One boy even posted a comment that said…

     “Hey. That piece of work came from http://www.nameofsite….”

I believe that for too long too many good ideas never saw the light of day because we were afraid of putting our thoughts our there because they were incomplete, partially formed or we didn’t have all the answers.

Today through the power of the “Net” and Web 2.0 we can get our ideas out there easily, whether they be text based, audio or video and get feedback from others so that we can continues to evaluate, change or perhaps reinforce our own thoughts and ideas and maybe even help someone else.

Module Ten - And Now The End Is Near... (Web 2.0)

Wikis really sum up the best of Web 2.0 as it relates to 21st Century Learning. They are all about collaboration!

Essentially wikis about collaborating to create a shared document or collective knowledge. In my classroom I am always trying to get students to understand the concept of sharing and the difference between sharing and copying. When doing any sort of project based work I encourage students to share their knowledge. If i share something I find – and someone else does the same we are halving the work for each other!

One of the great advantages of Wikis is the ability to track changes. Provided you set them up correctly, the administrator has the ability to see who is making changes and what changes they are making. Within the classroom situation it proves to be a great way that students can monitor each others’ contributions.

It has also been an interesting exercise for me in seeing students actually stop one another from “copy and pasting” from other sources as they are constantly checking up on one another.

The other beauty of Wikis is they are not restricted to a physical classroom. Contributions can be made by anyone with appropriate access. The mother of all Wikis – Wikipedia – is a great example of what can be achieved through collaboration and self monitoring.

Web 2.0 tools are constantly growing and evolving. part of this natural evolution is that previously free sites ask payment – some add advertising – and then along comes a free one to replace what was there pr along comes a completely new technology. It is important in education that we as teachers are constantly evolving with the technologies – that we remain open to change and new learning. That we continue to explore the educational opportunities presented to us by Web 2.0 and beyond…

Module Nine - Let's Get Connected (Web 2.0)

I have only really become a fan of social networking via Web 2.0 technologies this year when I joined amongst other things – FaceBook. So why – after much resistance to be honest – did I join FaceBook? Or maybe the real question is why did I not set up a FaceBook account earlier.

I hate to admit – it’s kind of uncool – but the main reason was out of ignorance. Like many of my vintage, I heard the many(??) horror stories (how many are in fact urban myths) about FaceBook. About identity theft and gossip and … well I am sure we all have a story to tell to convince others about how “bad” it is.

Why did I join? Well I do not like making judgements out of ignorance. Besides I consider myself to be a fairly sensible individual with a good understanding of privacy and online common sense. I have also used online messenging services (such as ICQ) for many years. I was also keen to engage in at least one of the social networking environments my students were spending so much time. What is the appeal? (By the way I DO NOT engage with students in this environment)

Armed with knowledge I created my account and made sure I set as much privacy as I believed important and started to create my online network.

I know have over 400 “friends”. My use of the term friend is simply the expression used in FaceBook to describe someone with whom you share. I would not consider many of these people true friends and as such do not share the sort of information that I would share only with my closest friends.

I have found the whole experience VERY rewarding as I have managed to stay in touch with many acquaintances made around the world through my basketball and wheelchair basketball careers.

I have also taken to the use of Twitter. Whilst my tweets feed my FaceBook account I mainly use Twitter for Professional Contacts and Professional Social networking. Through the tweets of people I am following I am able to discover great readings and resources in areas that interest me and am then able to share these with my “followers” by retweeeting or simply tweeting good material i find.

The Twitter environment is one that is constantly changing and my list changes. Some people who I followed early on now only seem to tweet about their favourite coffee. If i don’ want to hear about it I simply stop following. I am in control!

In keeping with my previous posts – Twitter helps me by keeping me abreast of current trends in 21st century learning. As well as reading the likes of Mark Pesce, Will Richardson and Kevin Honeycutt, I also keep up to date with news from the Board of Studies, stay abreast of ABC news and have a laugh via tweets from Rove and Will Anderson.

It’s all about balance.

Module Eight - Pushing Rather Than Pulling (Web 2.0)

One thing we all understand about 21st Century living (in my opinion) is that we are all time poor. There is never enough hours in the day to do all we want.

For me one of the more difficult tasks relates to staying up to date with current information re 21st century learning and also staying in touch with latest technology trends – whether that be with my treasured iPhone or technology in general. Besides my “professional” interests I want to stay in touch with what’s happening on the world basketball stage (FIBA), the world wheelchair basketball news (IWBF) together with current news.

There is no one site I can go to that covers MY interests and i no longer (did I ever???) have the time to trawl through a range of sites to see if there is anything new.

Enter the world of RSS…

For me nothing new in this module as I have been using RSS feeds for a while now. I also have my own Google Reader feed. The only difference between the average user (perhaps???) is that I use my mail program to automatically download my RSS feed so that I can preview this information even when i am offline and “flag” to follow up later.

Do I read everything that comes through my RSS data feed. More often than not – NO!I don’t have time to read it all! But the summary receive enables me to quickly skim – sometimes read in depth – and more often than not – book mark in my delicio-us for later consumption when i set aside my reading time!

Module Seven - mmmmmm Delicious (Web 2.0)

The first time I was introduced to delicio.us I just did not get it!!!

… but back then I also tended to work less collaboratively and was no where near as engaged as I am in a Web 2.0 World.

Since re-establishing my delicio.us presence earlier this year I cannot believe I lived without it!

One thing has changed for me this year. I now receive far more information across my virtual desktop (read computer). I am using Google Reader to help track recent posts relating to 21st Century Learning and also am constantly receiving a Twitter feed – with most of the people I am following have a similar focus of education reform and 21st Century Learning.

Through these sources (together with the more traditional mailing lists to which I subscribe) I am constantly inundated with information. Often too much to read there and then.

Enter delcio.us

If I see something that catches my eye and I do not have time to read it there and then, I take a few moments to enter it into my delicio.us account. Later when I have time I can go back and follow the link.

Another powerful feature is the ability to “tag” items so that i can call up bookmarks based around specific topics like articles relating to negative use of social networking sites or science related sites.

The real power was brought home to me one day when I was away from my computer(s) and was speaking to a primary school principal about a great website for primary school cybersafety. I was able to quickly access my delicio.us account from my iPhone and find the site for the Principal.

When we add in the ability to “follow” other delicio.us users we really start powering along. Rather than starting a Google search for resources, I can go to one of the people I am following who has an interest in the area I am searching and I can start by looking at sites they have bookmarked. This is a great way for KLA areas to keep track of GOOD web resources.

At school, I have encouraged staff to set up delicio.us accounts and for KLA groups to meet to decide on useful tags that can speed up access to resources for specific topics. Instead of everyone working in isolation – all can contribute! we don’t have to constantly re-invent the wheel.

Right now I am still feeling my way with student use – not too sure why I am hesitant – but I believe that I will have an account setup for next year whereby I can easily share resources with students. I know this can be done with myclasses however, delicio.us just makes it easy for an all in one solution that is easy to manage.

Feel free to add my to your network http://delicious.com/mbw_61

Module Six - Creating and Communicating (Web 2.0)

Well unlike previous units – this module introduced me to something new. I had not experienced Glogster before. Glogster certainly introduces a new dimension to blogging in that it may well appeal more to our visual learners as a way of recording their reflections. I can also see it as a great too when working with Visual Arts or even Music students.

Bubbl.us was introduced to me by some of my Year 9 students and has proved to be a very useful tool to enable students not only to mind map – but to do so in a collaborative environment. In a class where group work is common and planning is a pre-requisite of project work – bubbl.us provides an ideal environment ofr students to share their ideas.

Students are encouraged to include me as a “friend” within their tasks so that I can also monitor and provide feedback.

Module Five - YouTube - The Bane of a Teacher's Life? (Web 2.0)

It’s amazing how often I hear of YouTube being blocked in schools. In fact how many of the great web 2.0 tools are blocked. Often the blocking of such sites is a local issue and not a system decision.

Another problem occurs when students are accessing YouTube clips while they are working. These are often music clips and whilst students may in fact be on task while they are listening to the clips it puts a strain on network resources. But banning access is NOT the answer. The answer more lies in educating students into being responsible network users. As Chris Morris recently tweeted in a conference back channel “You don’t teach children to eat correctly by locking the ‘fridge”.

We are still exploring the uses of YouTube type applications in Education. Sites likeMathTV.com provide a fantastic resource for students as they can find multiple explanations of how to complete mathematical problems. Of course teachers are now able to easily create their own versions and post to YouTube. Below is an example posted by Juliette Pantaleo from St Christophers, Holsworthy.

This sort of use of YouTube not only allows students to review a classroom explanation but it also allows parents to see the teacher’s explanation so that they can reinforce the same methods when attempting to “help” their children with homework. It also allows absent students to catch up on missed work. The next extension of this is publishing to Apple’s iTunes, maybe when a K – 12 channel is opened up for Australia.

Last year as part of the 2008 iLe@rn project, a simple but innovative use for YouTube was demonstrated whereby videos were posted by teachers to explain current assessment tasks.

We are only exploring the possibilities – but one thing that I believe is a given. YouTube and similar sites are an exciting part of the 2.0 Teacher’s arsenal!

If you are interested in further reading and examples of the use of digital storytelling this site at the University of Houston provides some great reading.