Managing Online Resources with del.icio.us

When I think back to my beginnings with the web over ten years ago, I remember my growing list of bookmarks that inhabited my browsers. Eventually I created web pages to keep track of links and tried to keep things organized the best I could.  As a classroom teacher I eventually developed subject area web sites that contained links within the content I shared with my students, and my students became the hunters and gatherers of interesting and informative web sites that helped us learn and grow.

Wikis became a good place for me to quickly add developing lists of links over time, but it always seemed that my bookmarks and favorites became scattered on various computers that I used on a regular basis. Exporting these links helped, but it always seemed I had a mess on my hands!  Often, as every teacher knows, time was the issue, and I would find that as time passed when I finally got back to sorting my links, over the summer, many were 404 and no longer found!

As a new educational technology specialist I now had the time to search for and organize web resources as part of my service for teachers; however, the key to valuable resources is working with teachers to find things that they need to embed into their curriculum.  This process has to be streamlined, simple, and manageable, and I have focused my attention on del.icio.us as a possible answer to our challenge.

Now, what is del.icio.us:  ”del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else’s. You can use del.icio.us to:

• Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes, and more, and access them from any computer on the web.
• Share favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and the del.icio.us community.
• Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone’s favorite — they’ve already done the work of finding it. So del.icio.us is full of bookmarks about technology, entertainment, useful information, and more. Explore and enjoy.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website — the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return. You can even browse and search del.icio.us to discover the cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved — which is made easy with tags.”

I have used del.icio.us personally for awhile now, but as with any list of links, they must be managed, sorted, and updated to be usable.  Over the summer I decided to share del.icio.us as a resource in my “Utilizing the Internet” workshop and it is proving to be a valuable resource.  The teachers I worked with, so far, helped to brainstorm an idea of creating a central repository of online resources based on their del.icio.us lists.  The process has begun.

A big plus with del.icio.us is that you can access your links anywhere you have an internet connection.  If you are on the road and find a great site it can be added via your smart phone, laptop, or any internet device!  A great feature of del.icio.us is tagging and the ability to search for other links based on the tags you create. This enables the social networking part of del.icio.us and makes for effective gathering of related links.  The tags also foster organization of content and help to easily put together a repository of information related to grade levels and subject areas.  You can also subscribe via RSS to various del.icio.us pages to keep up on added resources over time.  As one adds users to their network, a collaborative effort is facilitated as teachers easily can help build a repository of resources shared across the del.icio.us site while simply creating and sharing their personal list of sites.

To get things started I have begun gathering resources I have collected over time and have focused on the elementary grades at this point.  I put together some web pages to serve as the gateways to grade level and subject area information, but the key will be inviting teachers on board to share their personal resources. Teachers are the experts in their fields, and my goal is to facilitate the organization of the resources they find valuable for their students.  With ten elementary schools in our district, I know as teachers share their information it will be beneficial to all staff.

The potential exists to not only collaborate with teachers within our own district but also with educators around the world.  That is the power of such social networking sites, and this resource is there for the taking with only the cost of time.  Time is always an issue, but I believe that through collaboration the time will pay off for teachers and students.

The following link is our initial repository of links:  NPPSD Online Resources.  It is a work in progress, but I am excited about the potential and power that it will have in our district.  If you have a del.icio.us account, please add us to your network!  We are all in this together, and  as we share we can save valuable time that can be spent working with our students.

How have you used del.icio.us in education?  Please let us know!

The Engaged Classroom?

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)…

I have gone through the process of writing a new AUP for my school district. I wanted to share some of the resources that I used along the way. The challenge has been to include Web 2.0 technologies into the mix of things while leaving some flexibility to mature and grow with these ever changing tools. What have you done in your districts to meet your AUP challenges?

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html

Institute of Educational Sciences United States Department of Education http://165.224.221.98/pubs2005/tech_suite/app_A.asp

United States Copyright Office http://www.copyright.gov/

United States Department of Education Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

United States Department of Justice (ECPA) http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/wiretap2510_2522.htm

Learning to Change…

Update:  The video is no longer available.  Click this link to read Chris Lehmann’s views on the video.

Video by Pearson’s for CoSN for use in public advocacy:

“School of Everything”

This is an interesting idea and site: School of Everything. “The Big Idea” for the site is as follows:

THE BIG IDEA

“Our current education system was designed in the industrial revolution to prepare people for factory work. The world has changed a lot since then - and the time has come to rethink education from the bottom to the top.

At School of Everything, we believe that learning is personal, and starts not with what you ’should’ learn but with what you’re interested in. So we’re building a tool to help anyone in the world learn what they want, when, where and in a way which suits them. Putting people in touch with each other, not with institutions.

This isn’t about e-learning. There are lots of great online tools, but not much beats being in a room with someone who wants to teach you the thing you want to learn.

Millions of people already make a living as self-employed teachers. But that’s just the start: think of all the underused skills that exist in any neighbourhood. From active retired people, to teenage whizz-kids, to hobbyists in their garden sheds, there are people everywhere who could gain satisfaction, confidence - and maybe even a new career - from passing on what they know.

We don’t mind whether you teach for money or simply for the love of a subject - we think the world should be full of people sharing what they’re passionate about.

Our goal is to do for education what YouTube has done for television, or what eBay did for retail: to open up a huge and fertile space between the professional and the amateur. A space where people teach what they know and learn what they don’t.

It’s this vision of a bottom-up learning system that gets us excited. We’re very new, but we’re growing – and we’ve got big plans.”

iCue from NBC…

Click here to take the tour!

A List of Links to Web Resources…

I am sharing the following list that I gathered at the NETA conference.  Many of these tools I have used, but there are a few I plan to try out and share my thoughts on over the coming days.  For now, I share the raw list in case you are interested in giving them a try along with me.  Let me know your thoughts and experiences so that we can learn together.  Thanks!

• http://www.toolsfortheclassroom.com
• http://del.icio.us
• http://bloglines.co
• http://www.flickr.co
• http://www.picnik.co
• http://www.jumpcut.co
• Google Docs http://www.google.co
• http://www.vyew.co
• http://www.gcast.co
• http://www.pbwiki.co
• http://www.wikispaces.co
• http://www.ning.co
• http://www.linkedin.co
• http://www.skype.co
• http://www.powergramo.co
• http://www.epals.co
• http://www.cilc.or
• http://www.ecoach.co
• http://www.jingproject.co
• http://scratch.mit.edu
• http://www.expressocorp.com
• http://www.apple.com/itune
• http://audacity.sourceforge.net
• Memories on the Web http://www.codejam.com/slideshow/mow.ht
• http://www.pageflakes.co
• iGoogle http://www.google.com/i
• http://www.gliffy.co
• http://www.zoho.co
• http://www.imbee.co
• http://www.skrbl.com

NETA Day 2

Had a great day at NETA yesterday.  Excellent breakout sessions, good networking, and there are some great things going on around the state.  I hope to get to the vendor floor to look at the various offerings in more detail today.  I am hoping to get to some digital citizenship sessions today to bring back information  to our district.  Again, my notes can be found at my PBWiki:  http://hokanson.pbwiki.com

Flickr Video!!!

Flickr now does video! As their blog states:

“Video! Video! Video! The rumours are true and “soon” is now. We’re thrilled to introduce video on Flickr. If you’re a pro member, you can now share videos up to 90 glorious seconds in your photostream.

90 seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.”

Click the following for Flickr Video FAQs

Load ‘em up and share ya’all!

A Picture from Space & MIT Open Courseware

I thought this picture was great (Click it to see it bigger or go here), and it caused me to reflect on us down here on the good planet earth. I have been quite busy it seems for the past year, and as over 600 articles pile up in my RSS reader, as April 15th looms closer and closer (It is my youngest daughter’s birthday too so I’m excited about that part), and as life seems to zip by at an ever increasing pace it takes a picture from space to give a little bit of perspective from up so high to way down there or here depending upon if you are in the space station or not. If I do have readers on the space station, thanks for stopping by during your busy schedules and I would recommend that you not stop by anymore and just stay focused on your space station duties!

Speaking of time, I have been debating what I could enroll myself in via MIT’s Open Courseware. What a great opportunity, as there are with many universities now. A visit to iTunes U opens up many lessons to be had and learned. That is what I like about this “new” world, it is smaller, flatter, and it is easier to get around. It brings us closer together, if we make time to do so. That is what I need to do: make the time, shape the time, capture the time. A focus on things that matter most is the key. Peace!

Also, go here if you haven’t as of yet (PBS Frontline special “Growing Up Online”).  We really need to address digital citizenship!  Things are happening each day and we need to help young people navigate this digital world.

New Tales

My daughter Heather and I have continued our podcasting adventure with two new tales for your listening pleasure. The purpose of this is two-fold: Heather and I are having fun sharing our tales for posterity, and we are providing some examples for a creating and publishing online media class! I plan to tweak these podcasts using Audacity and spicing them up a bit with music, pictures, etc. We shall see what comes to pass. The fun part of publishing online is the ability to be creative with what you want to share and how you want to share it. For instance, an actual “Heather Tale” web page or blog would be a great repository for these tales. The whole idea is to generate ideas with your “stars/students” and audience; so, let Heather and I know what we could do to jazz up our podcasts, and in the meantime enjoy our raw, unedited tales as told in real life!

A Brand New Heather Tale (As of about 9:30 p.m.)

Heather’s Tale

Daddio’s Tale

Sprout: “Create sophisticated and dynamic interactive content!”

Sprout is a new way to produce interactive content online. Here is what they say at their site:

How It Works

“With Sprout, you can create sophisticated and dynamic interactive content with sprout in three steps, as follows:”

BUILD

“Building a sprout is easy. Choose from dozens of pre-built templates or start from scratch. Drag-and-drop shapes, text, images, video, and more. Then add components such as slideshows, jukeboxes, and countdown clocks, as well as interactive services such as chat (Meebo), phone (Ribbit), fundraising (ChipIn), and more. Once you’ve got your content in place, use advanced editing and navigation tools to perfect your sprout.”

PUBLISH

“Publishing your sprout is easy, too! Just click “publish” and then cut and paste your sprout code into any Web page, or use the “quick post” feature to automatically place your sprout into blogs and social networking sites. For more advanced options, publish your sprout via any of our distribution partners, including Clearspring, Gigya, and Spring Widgets.”

MANAGE

“Once your sprout is published, your audience can copy and spread it to their Web pages and communities. You can then track usage stats such as how many copies were made, how many times your sprout was viewed, and more. You can also edit your Sprout, and ALL copies of your sprout will be instantly updated! Add or change content as needed to keep your audience engaged and informed.”

MISSION STATEMENT

“Sprout’s mission is to make it quick and easy for anyone to build sophisticated multimedia web content.”

I’m going to give it a try. Share what you create here!!!

Creating and Publishing Media Online

I am teaching a workshop on creating and publishing media online.  The following are some online resources that I have found to be good places to post content.  What are some that you all recommend?

YouTube

Google Video

TeacherTube

Quia

Flickr

Del.icio.us

Slideshare

School Notes

PBWiki

Wikispaces

WordPress

MOODLE 

Library of Congress Photos on Flickr

A visit to David Warlick’s 2¢ Worth tipped me off that the Library of Congress has some beautiful pictures posted in two collections on Flickr: 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s.  What wonderful images and great subjects to use in the classroom!

My iPod Touch: An Update

As did many others, I updated my iPod Touch today with the new features. I had not expected the $19.99 update but reluctantly paid for apps I had hoped for on the iPod Touch. I really like the addition of mail and notes, and these are features that I know I will use repeatedly. I wish for a working Flash player as I browse the web, and I believe such a player is needed especially if one is inclined to use this device in a classroom setting. Where I am, we have the standard online assessments that I would like to try out on the iPod Touch; however, without Flash, accessing the assessments are limited. I see this as the type of device that will become prevalent in the near future, and if affordable may become the answer to portability challenges schools face when it comes to sharing limited computing equipment. What do you think?