Powerful Blending: Using Web 2.0 to Interact, Create, and Assess

Workshop Details

• Offered at the SITE Conference Monday, March 26, 2007, 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
• Abstract: Web 2.0 technologies offer powerful and diverse options for learners to interact, create content, and assess the outcomes of the learning process. Blended learning environments which combine online as well as face-to-face instructional settings can provide more differentiated learning opportunities as well as rich options for assessment. This workshop will introduce participants to several web 2.0 technologies and instructional activities that can support these goals.
• Outline: Social bookmarks (del.icio.us) will be explored as a way to individually and collaboratively locate and share web links within a growing and powerful user network. Tagging will be introduced and practiced, as a way to index content and locate similar websites tagged and shared by others. Blogs and blogging tools (Blogger and Wordpress) will be explored and compared to highlight the strengths and limitations of the environment and these tools for writing, publishing, and collaboration. Wikis will be explored (WikiPedia, Wikispaces.com, PBwiki.com) as environments for collaborative document creation, with individual contributions documented and time/date stamped. Feed aggregators (Internet Explorer 7 for Windows and Bloglines) and blog search engines (Technorati) will be explored as tools to track blog conversations (both posts and comments). Asynchronous audio collaborative tools (YackPack, Vaestro, Springdoo) will be explored as voice-enabled communication tools for different types of learner interactions: one to one, one to many, threaded vs unthreaded and public vs private dialogs.

R/W web defined and differentiated

1. We increasingly live in an attention economy where time is precious (in limited supply) and information is abundant (often overwhelmingly so.) In this context, tools which help us efficiently access and consume new information are vital. Collaboration is increasingly unchained from traditional limitations of time and distance thanks in large part to read/write web or web 2.0 technologies.
2. Lawrence Lessing's view on cultural changes: The 20th Century was predominantly read-only (RO), but the 21st Century includes both read-write (R/W) and a new RO (See his September 2006 Wizards of OS 4 keynote available in video and audio formats in the conference plenary sessions archive for Friday.) The new read-only includes more abundant and narrowly defined channels of information. (Think of the iTunes music store and podcasts.)
3. Read/Write Web defined as \"web 2.0\" in WikiPedia: "a perceived second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users."
4. Read/write web tools focus on web-based tools (server-based rather than client-based.)
5. Web feeds (XML, RSS, ATOM, etc) are essential for many read/write web applications including blogging and podcasting. FEED READER software, sometimes called "web feed aggregators" function somewhat like a digital newspaper by PULLING information shared via web feeds to users. This contrasts with PUSH technologies, like traditional websites which users had to visit separately to get new information. Now aggregators can compile new infrormation/resources from multiple sources simultaneously.
6. People have been posting audio and video online for many years. So what is the BIG DEAL ABOUT PODCASTING? What makes a podcast a podcast is its WEB FEED and the SUBSCRIPTION option that provides. An audio or video file posted to the web that is NOT inside a "web feed" is technically NOT a podcast.
7. Where do commercial Course Management Systems (like Blackboard/WebCT) options fit in along with other Content Management System (CMS) options? WikiPedia has an extensive, updated CMS list. Free / open source Course Management Systems like Moodle and Sakai are available and in use by thousands of educational organizations. WikiPedia articles about Moodle and Sakai provide more background. Do faculty and students need to use other read/write web tools for instruction?
8. Reasons for using Web 2.0 versus or in addition to CMS alternatives?
1. Transparency leads to different interactive dynamics and publishing quality (it changes conversations)
2. Availability of the tools for everyone (esp. in K12 but also higher ed, not everyone has access to Blackboard, a Moodle server, etc.)
3. Plugging learners into online conversations is the most powerful thing we can do as instructors and co-learners.

Blog reading (subscribing, commenting, starring and sharing)

1. I recommend using the FireFox web browser (FREE) on all computer platforms (Windows / Macintosh / Linux) for its feed subscription options as well as security benefits. Google Reader is the news reader / web feed aggregator I recommend. There are lots of reasons why they are great!
2. Detailed instructions about using Google Reader (as well as Internet Explorer 7 for Windows) are available.

Social Bookmarks (del.icio.us)

1. Most basic uses of the web: Locate and share information on websites
2. "Traditional" (if we can use that term to describe something just a few years old) methods for saving websites included saving bookmarks or favorites to a local computer's hard drive using a web browser. This was great but inherently limited, since those saved websites could ONLY be accessed on ONE COMPUTER with the ONE WEB BROWSER in which they were saved.
3. In contrast, social bookmarking involves the use of web-based services to save and share Internet bookmarks. Social bookmarks are MUCH MORE POWERFUL because they allow MULTIPLE COMPUTERS to access them, MULTIPLE PEOPLE to access them, and through tagging (adding metadata) lead to the organic creation of folksonomies of web links.
4. Collections of web links organized by their tags are sometimes called tag clouds. Examples include:
1. The current del.icio.us tag cloud: 
2. The current Flickr tag cloud:
3. My del.icio.us links shown as a cloud
5. WikiPedia's updated list of social software has a list of over 20 different social bookmarking services.
6. My favorite (and the tool I've invested in, with over 2800 saved and shared bookmarks to date) is del.icio.us. I like del.icio.us' ease of use, the large user base which makes social sharing / networking / discovery of similar links very powerful, and its support of RSS standards. My del.icio.us network is a dynamic list of links shared by others whose interests are close to mine. It's always easy to find great, new, web resources in my del.icio.us network! :-)
7. To get started using del.icio.us, register for a free account.
8. Add the del.icio.us browser buttons to the web browser(s) you use most often to make it easy to add new URLs to your account. This page describes other options for bookmarking with del.icio.us (including a FireFox extension.)
9. Feel free to add me (wfryer) to your del.icio.us network!

Wikis and Collaborative Document Creation

1. Wikis defined in WikiPedia: a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a site, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (the original wiki) WikiWikiWeb and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.
2. WikiPedia and MediaWiki
3. Free Wiki Environments
1. PBWiki (Peanut Butter Wiki)
2. WikiSpaces (free upgraded Wikis for K-12 educators)
3. WikiPedia's updated list of wiki software
4. Google Documents (doesn't track changes like a wiki, better for more private / small scale collaboration, requires email addresses)

1. Coventi Pages (permits threaded conversations to be added to documents)

Framework for Tools by function (and pedagogy)

- Synchronous, Non-Interactive

-- LECTURE

-- Student presentations w/o Q&A

- Asynchronous, Non-Interactive

-- digital story publishing (including podcasting)

-- digital story file conversion: Zamar (also convert online files like YouTube videos)

- Synchronous, Interactive

-- Live multi-user document collaboration

-- audio conferencing (1:1 and multiuser)

-- video conferencing

-- whiteboarding

-- web conferencing

-- instant messaging

- Asynchronous, Interactive

-- blogging (can support DS publishing)

-- audio interaction and collaboration

To do:

- create online concept map for framework (via Brian Crosby)

Functional Tool Taxonomy:

Blogging

- Blogger

- Wordpress

-- Wordpress.com

-- Edublogs.com

- Class Blogmeister

- eLgg (?)

- iWeb

Concept Mapping

- Mindomo

- other web based one

- Client-based

-- Inspiration

-- cMapTools

-- Smart Technologies program

Collaborative Document Editing

- Coventi Pages

- Google Documents

- Wikis: PBWiki, WikiSpaces

Live multi-user document collaboration

- Google Documents

- SubEthaEdit (client)

Digital Storytelling: Audio-Only

- Podomatic

- YackPack

Digital Storytelling: Photos and Audio

- Bubbleshare

Digital Storytelling: Video

- publishing: YouTube, Google Video, more

- Editing video:

Audio interaction and collaboration

- YackPack

- Podomatic

Multiuser web conferencing

- Free web-based options

- Elluminate

- MacroMedia Breeze

Multi-dimensional graphing tools to capture these relationships?