Finding a Way into the Networked English Classroom

I was out of the English classroom during the 2007 and 2008 school years, a time during which I perceived a digital revolution in reading and writing in and out of school settings. Barraged by blogs, wikis, social networking, Twitter, Ning (and a variety of other oddly-named Web 2.0 platforms and programs), it seemed to me that the world of the book and the notebook (or is it Kindle and iPad?) had become suddenly passé.

The truth is, of course, that there was nothing at all sudden about this digital revolution. Rather, it had been in full swing well before 2007, but I had not begun to find my professional entry point to the ongoing exploration of the potentials and pitfalls of the new communication age.

Discovering such an entry point—an intersection of that with which you’re already familiar and that which you and students need to know more about—is a valuable professional gift to give yourself and your students. In this week’s blog, I’ll share a partially realized version of one of my entry points (along with what I’ll do better next time) and offer with some resources that might facilitate the development of your own entry point.

At the end of last semester, a business/careers teacher asked our school librarian and me to facilitate a session for his students on verifying the credibility and usefulness of a web resource for a research project. Awash in ideas on how to best use a single fifty-minute session to launch into such a huge topic, we decided to play on our strengths as savvy navigators of search engines and the content they deliver us by adapting ideas from the ReadWriteThink.org resource “Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation.” As part of the lesson, we conducted carefully constructed think-alouds on how we’d use a search engine and evaluate sources using a variety of strategies.

As their ticket out the door, we asked students to tell us one thing they learned about using search engines to find content and how to evaluate a source once they find it. Their responses, unsurprisingly, revealed enormous gaps between Internet-savvy students who surf thoughtfully and intentionally…and those who seem not to understand that Google itself is not a content source.

(Case in point: As we tried to demonstrate the importance of cross-referencing sources, one particular student logged into Wikipedia and changed the entry we were about to project to contain significantly erroneous information. Much of the rest of the class was baffled, and our well-rehearsed think-aloud took a spontaneous diversion into a real-life example of the fallibility of Web-based research.)

When I deliver similar instruction with more time and to my own students, I’ll definitely keep the think-aloud component to model my processes for searching and evaluating, but I’ll also add a follow-up activity that I’m borrowing from some middle school colleagues. While students are engaged in the first steps of independent inquiry, I’ll meet with each of them for just a few minutes as they search and evaluate a site. Prompting them to engage in a scaled-down version of a think-aloud with five or so targeted questions, I’ll be able to uncover what the entire class still needs to know, what some individual students still need to know, and what I still need to learn about effective information navigation.

I’ll be the first to admit that my entry point into instruction in our network world is a relatively simple one. Or at least it seemed that way until I discovered how much I take for granted about the background knowledge and thought processes behind a basic Google search. You may already know the right entry point for your own students, or you may not know where to start. Either way, here are some NCTE resources that can get you going:

• Check out Sarah Kajder’s fantastic new book, Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students. You’ll see cases of real teachers finding their way in the networked classroom and a framework and resources to get started (or further along) yourself.
• Enroll in Bill Kist’s web seminar The Socially Networked English Classroom: Web 2.0 in the English Classroom if you’re ready to move beyond Google to blogs, wikis, and social networks.
• From ReadWriteThink.org’s new professional development section, in the Reading Online strategy guide you’ll learn how online reading differs from offline reading and strategies to build and reinforce the skills that online reading requires.
• Looking for a sustained examination of what 21st century curriculum and assessment looks like? Interested in tapping the rich resources and collaborations made available in a 21st century learning community? Consider enrolling in Pathways for 21st Century Literacies.
• Don’t feel you have to do any of this alone! Check out the conversations in the NCTE Ning where you can learn about social networks while participating in one!

How to Move Closer to School 2.0

William Kist’s “From Web 2.0 to School 2.0: Tales from the Field” includes vignettes of teachers across the United States using digital technologies to connect students to one another and to the texts that they explore.

The remarkable thing about the activities Kist describes is not the technology the teachers use. The social networking tools he discusses are widely available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia are part of everyday conversations. They’re mentioned on television and radio regularly, seen in newspaper ads and on billboards, and even plastered on the sides of products you pick up in department and grocery stores.

It’s not availability that makes these social networks a significant tool in the classroom. Simply adding digital technologies doesn't guarantee an empowering, student-centered pedagogy. Read the recent Edutopia article “Skip the Sub and Teach with Twitter” to see what I mean. The teacher in the article functions as the traditional sage-on-stage. She’s just controlling the class from a distance, even down to the point of telling a student to stop talking. Twitter could easily be replaced with a telephone and the same teaching would have resulted.

To move closer to School 2.0, teachers and students need to rethink the classroom. I recently watched the GRITtv interview Clay Shirky: The Social Media Revolution, which colleague Chris Boese blogged about. GRITtv Interviewer Laura Flanders captures the challenge of building School 2.0 when she asks Shirky, “How do we help new tools really be voices for new ideas and new populations and new ways of looking at things and not the same old power struggles?”

That’s the question we need to ask in the classroom: How can we use social networking tools, or Web 2.0, to bring out new voices and ideas, rather than repeat the same old power struggles and pedagogy? What steps can we take to bring the social media revolution to the classroom (and not simply digitize the sage-on-stage tradition)?

There are three important things we can do in response that will help us rethink the classroom and move closer to School 2.0.

1. Ask Students for Suggestions

When we look at the classroom, we often see only what’s obvious. We need to see the wider range of possibilities. The solution is simple. Just ask students to list the social networking tools and technology they have access to and then ask them what they could do with these tools in the classroom.

We need to ask students to help us see the classroom in new ways, ways we have never thought of. This kind of rethinking and re-envisioning is the crux of the social media revolution. To show you what I mean, let me borrow a quotation from Boese’s blog, related to how Twitter works:

The simplicity of Twitter, of course, is its genius. It has the power to do so much by doing so little. But that’s not the only thing that’s simple about Twitter. The service itself was only intended to share 140-character messages with the world. Its significance is its evolution. Everything from @replying and retweeting to using hashes and symbols can be attributed to the users. It has brilliantly allowed users to define it – almost entirely. As Shirky points out, “Most of the uses of Twitter were not imagined by the designers of the service – they were managed by the users of the service.”

When we ask students how they would use social networking tools in the classroom, we encourage them to take the step that Twitter users took. We ask them to imagine ways of communicating that we haven't thought of—and we encourage them to take the steps necessarily to make that communication happen.

2. Look for Roadmaps

New directions require new roadmaps. Don’t panic when you find you don’t know how to do all the things students want to try in the classroom. Look to the work of other teachers already on the way to School 2.0.

Kist links to a number of tools you can use in his article. You may pursue your own dedicated Ning or contribute to an existing resource like Wikipedia. Either way, consider Kist’s descriptions of how these tools have been used can serve as potential models for the classes you teach.

Additionally, check out resources on the ReadWriteThink site:

• Try the Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet lesson plan to work through online safety concerns.
• Use the Modern-Day Interpretation Projects from the Star-Crossed Lovers Online  lesson to encourage students to rethink the texts they read. The handout is general and can be used with any text (not just with Romeo and Juliet).
• Build class wikis with A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs.
• Invite students to tell stories in podcasts with the Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization lesson plan.
• Create persuasive podcasts with Campaigning for Fair Use: Public Service Announcements on Copyright Awareness.
• Get started with blogs by asking students to keep Weekly Writer’s Blogs.

Finally, look for support among other teachers. Join the NCTE Ning and ask your questions (or share your fears). Chances are someone will be able to help you!

3. Encourage and Support Trial and Error

There’s no one right way to do things when you’re working with social networks. What works for one person (or class), may not work at all for another. You will only find the best fit if you are willing to try, retry, rearrange, modify, and customize the ways that you use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.

Look back to that quotation from Boese’s blog. What has made Twitter an active social networking tool isn’t its original design, but Twitter’s evolution in the hands of its users. Twitter users try out new tools and new ways of encoding their messages all the time. The techniques that work best stick. Ways that don’t work are dropped. When something better comes along, people switch and begin using it instead.

It’s the same for those of us moving toward School 2.0. We’ll only find the best ways to use social networking in the classroom if we are willing to evolve. We have to help students develop, test, and rethink their use of digital technologies, and we have to remind them constantly that there is no one right way to use social networks. School 2.0 is one place where it has to be okay to fail. Indeed, it’s a place where failure is actually a sign of progress.

Rethink. Evolve. School 2.0.

Kist tells us that ”In this new media age, it seems we are all not only constantly recipients of messages but creators of them as well.” That simple truth is also secret of School 2.0. Once we invite students to help us rethink and evolve the ways we communicate in the classroom, we can move closer to School 2.0. And when that happens, students are no longer simply “recipients” of educational messages and literacy instruction. They are, in fact, “creators” of education and literacy as well. That shift is ultimately what moves us all closer to School 2.0.

21 Great Library Links (with Related Classroom Activities!)

Online library sites offer teachers wonderful resources—and you don't need to schedule a trip to the library to use them! From storytelling to writing and literature, you can find materials that will get students engaged and clicking at these sites:

Look for the stories behind the photos
Share photographs from these sites and challenge students to search the images for clues about the lives, dreams, and treasures of the people pictured. Use the photos as a springboard for narrative stories that go beyond the image to what's come before or what will come next, or ask students to embark on research projects that explore the historical moments that the photos capture. If your resources allow, students can embark on their own documentary photography projects. Using these photos as models, have students take photos (or even record videos) of the people around them and document the stories behind the photos they take.

1. "The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (New York Public Library)
2. Ellis Island Photographs (New York Public Library)
3. Photographs of America from the Great Depression to World War II (Library of Congress)
4. Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar (Library of Congress)
5. Picture This: Family Photographs of Everyday San Francisco (San Francisco Public Library)

Record your own history
Remind students that everyone's story matters with these personal narratives and oral histories. You'll find transcripts and audio recordings that tell the story of people who see and do remarkable things as part of their daily lives. Use the materials on the StoryCorps website to ask students to record histories of their own after exploring resources from these collections.

6. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 (Library of Congress)
7. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936–1940 (Library of Congress)
8. Eyewitness (National Archive)
9. From the Home Front and the Front Lines: A Special Presentation of Original Materials and Oral Histories From the Veteran's History Project (Library of Congress)

Look at the creative process
Writing can be a downright messy process. Show students that even great writers scribble and revise in complicated ways by sharing a notebook or original draft from one of these collections. Ask students to look not for the perfect sections of text, but for the places where the thinking and rethinking shows on the page. Rather than simply comparing these first drafts to the authors's later polished versions, have students compare the creative process behind these writers's drafts to their own efforts as writers and thinkers.

10. Walt Whitman Manuscripts (New York Public Library)
11. Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass (Library of Congress)
12. The Notebook of William Blake (British Library)
13. Emily Dickinson manuscript material (Boston Public Library)
14. Langston Hughes Papers (Yale University)

Explore literary manuscripts
You probably don't have access to literary manuscripts in your school library. No matter. You can find examples online. Take any manuscript for a work that you're studying and ask students to consider how the original text compares to the mass-produced copies in your classroom or school/public library.

15. Beowulf (British Library)
16. Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Huntington Library)
17. Shakespearean Book Folios Online (University of Victoria)
18. John Milton's Paradise Lost (The Morgan Library)
19. Jane Austen's The History of England (British Library)
20. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground (British Library)
21. Jean de Brunhoff's Histoire de Babar Maquette (The Morgan Library)

 

Looking for the Stories behind Wikipedia Entries

Last Thursday, my Blackberry's message light began blinking as I was waiting to pick up my sister. A news alert had arrived to tell me that Michael Jackson had died.

Ten or twenty years ago, I would have turned to the television and newspapers to find out what was happening in the world. Today, I first read breaking news on my Blackberry, in status updates on Facebook and Twitter, and during discussion in IMs and chat rooms.

Once I've heard first details, I usually hop over to Google News and search for details instead of waiting for special reports and news updates on television or the radio. The news articles usually lead to more questions, so I often jump over to Wikipedia next to find answers.

I'm not alone in this process. Last Thursday, so many people went to Wikipedia for more information about Jackson's death that Wikipedia set a new traffic record:

In the 7 p.m. hour alone Thursday, shortly after Mr. Jackson’s death was confirmed, there were nearly one million visitors to that article. (In fact, for that hour more than 250,000 visitors went to the misspelled entry “Micheal Jackson.” Even his brother Randy Jackson had 25,000 visits that hour.) [Source: The New York Times]

While millions of people were reading the Jackson page, hundreds were editing the Jackson entry to add details about the pop singer's death as they were released and to increase the overall information in the entry.

The constant editing and public control of sites like Wikipedia challenges teachers to find new ways to talk about historical documents and research. Wikipedia entries are like any other historical document students might read. They may seem like absolute truth, but there are many different versions of the stories that they tell. Our job is to teach students that they must always look for the stories behind documents.

Try these ideas to teach students the importance of looking for the stories behind Wikipedia entries:

1. Explore sample entries with students, and make sure that they understand how Wikipedia entries are written. Share articles like the Telegraph's "Michael Jackson’s death sparks Wikipedia editing war" to spark discussion of how the collaborative authorship of the articles shapes the "truthfulness" of the information.
2. Read the New York Times article"Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia"and Fast Company article "Wikipedia and 'The New York Times' Suppress Facts to Save Kidnapped Journo" together, and ask students to discuss how truth and trust are affected when stories are omitted and details are changed.
3. Review CNET's "Debate: Can the Internet handle big breaking news?" and ask students to take up the debate themselves.
4. Check out the third bullet point in the Young Adult Library Services Association Blog entry "Critically Thinking About Teens and Technology" for some additional ways to discuss and explore online resources related to Jackson's death.
5. Ask students to predict how Wikipedia entries can evolve after reading the CNET article "Why video can transform the Wikipedia experience."

 

The Assessment Gap: 21st Century Writing and Standardized Testing

The snow from winter storms is melting, and the persuasive writing lesson on ReadWriteThink.org is holding steady as the number one “most e-mailed” lesson. These are sure signs that it’s almost standardized testing season, and students across the country are getting ready to write for thirty minutes or so (and/or take a multiple-choice grammar and editing test) to demonstrate their level of proficiency as writers.

I’m part of the teaching generation that experienced standardized writing tests not only as an educator, but as a public school student as well. I vividly recall the day, and it must have been around this time of year, that my eighth grade language arts teacher announced that we would be participating in a brand new test: the state writing assessment.

I’m sure we wrote for other audiences and purposes in that class, but I confess that I don’t remember those assignments. I do, however, recall spending weeks learning how to budget time, read a prompt, focus an opening paragraph with a preview statement, elaborate on three points of support with plenty of detail, and end with a conclusion that restated that opening paragraph. (I can even recall the topic I wrote on: Why people should move to Kansas City). I dutifully mastered that mode of writing and, as the years went on, I found myself able to rely on it, relatively unchallenged, throughout high school.

We’re at a complicated point in literacy education right now, as the influence of testing (and the testing industry) is as strong as ever. For the foreseeable future, we’ll measure (“officially,” anyway) our students’ ability as writers with assessments that have no authentic audience and no rhetorical purpose other than to invite efficient evaluation by a nameless, faceless reader.

This phenomenon continues even as we see a staggering proliferation of authentic, self-sponsored writing made possible through user-friendly, Web-based publication technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites. It’s exciting to be part of an era that affords teachers and students the opportunity to write and publish in a medium such a blog to a real audience with relatively little technical know-how or effort. It’s also exciting to think that we’re part of the teaching generation that has the opportunity (and, I think, the responsibility) to figure out how use these new technologies to help students become more effective writers and to write ourselves (and, not insignificantly, to learn more about how and why people write).

I wonder about the implications of the growing disconnect between standardized writing assessments and the kinds of writing students see and participate in online themselves. Are teachers finding ways to use these new technologies to energize students and promote more effective writing, even on writing tasks that are so drastically different in form and function? Or are a blog and a timed writing test so different that the result can be only further disengagement as students see an even greater divide between the kinds of writing they do and the kinds of writing they see as being officially valued?

Perhaps more simply put: Is it enough to change our instruction to incorporate online writing technologies, or does this revolution in writing make even more urgent the need to rethink how we assess our students?

Wordle and the Inauguration

Remember Wordle? Extremely popular last July, the site makes word clouds from text passages. As the introduction on the site's homepage explains:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Don’t dismiss it though. For English teachers, Wordle is far more than just a simple “toy.” It’s a great analysis tool, as I reported last year.

A post last week on the ReadWriteWeb blog reminded me how wonderful the tool is at providing a snapshot of the key ideas behind a message. Author Marshall Kirkpatrick shares word clouds for President Obama’s inaugural address alongside clouds for George W. Bush’s, Bill Clinton’s, Ronald Reagan’s, and Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural addresses.

Take a look at the largest words in the images, and the issues that each president focuses on are obvious:

President & Speech	Most Frequent Word
Obama 2009	nation
Bush 2005	freedom
Clinton 1997	century
Reagan 1981	government
Lincoln 1861	Constitution
Lincoln 1865	war

The words alone are only part of the story, but they can point student readers toward the speeches with more information. The Wordle clouds are a remarkable prereading tool. First look at the map with students and discuss the words that stand out. Why would the speaker focus on those words? How do they predict the speaker will use them? What senses of the words will the speaker avoid? As they begin reading the addresses, students can look for the key terms and see whether their predictions were accurate and make note of how key words are used in different contexts within the text.

If you have already discussed Obama’s address with the class, why not try the Wordle clouds for inaugural poems? There have been four poems written for U.S. presidential inaugurations, and there are a number of resources available for teaching these poems, including an Education World lesson, a Teacher Vision lesson, and a BITs post.

Begin your exploration of the poems with Wordle images like this one of Alexander’s poem, or one of the other images linked below:

• Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem (2009)
• Miller Williams's inaugural poem (1997)
• Maya Angelou's inaugural poem (1993)
• Robert Frost's inaugural poem (1961) and the poem he recited

Ask students to explore how the words that stand out in the clouds for the poems might predict the themes and symbols that will be developed in the poems. As students analyze the poems more deeply, connect the poets’ use of repetition and word choice affects the message of the poems.

No matter how you use Wordle images, they're a great tool for exploring the ways that writers use words—and if the analysis engages students in a bit of fun, that’s okay. Go ahead and call Wordle a toy. That won’t stop students from engaging in a good bit of critical thinking!

Use Doodle to Cast Your Vote

Trying to plan a time to meet friends at the Annual Convention in San Antonio? Want the class to choose a destination for the next field trip? Need to choose the best day for an after-school committee or club meeting?

No matter what you’re trying to decide, Doodle is a free online tool that makes it easy to gather preferences from teachers, students, families, and anyone else you want to connect to. Whether you need to schedule an event or choose among several general options, you can use Doodle to accomplish what you want simply.

So how does it work?

1. Go to the Doodle website.
2. Create a login (or login if you are already set up.
3. Choose either to schedule an event or set up a poll.
4. Name your survey and enter all the options.
5. Click finish.
6. Check your email for a link to the survey.
7. Send the link out to everyone you want to respond.

That’s it. Doodle does all the tallying for you. People who respond do not need to set up an account or even have an email address. Just give them the URL. That’s all that’s needed—which makes it a nice choice for school systems where students cannot post personal information online.

When your survey is complete, you can print out the results or export them to a spreadsheet or PDF.

Wondering how you might use it? The options really are extensive. You might schedule any of these events:

• Convention, affiliate, or assembly meetings
• Student-teacher or parent-teacher conferences
• After-school study sessions
• Teacher inquiry/study group meetings
• Committee or departmental meetings
• Professional development workshops
• Extra-curricular meetings or special events

The Poll tool in Doodle can be used for anything students might vote for in the classroom:

• Literature circle texts
• Collaborative research topics
• Name for a class pet
• Class rules
• Expectations for an assignment (class-generated rubrics)
• Field trip destination
• Next read-aloud text
• Favorite characters, texts, or authors
• Movie to watch at a class party

Doodle can help with any decision you need to make. If you can state the options, you can use Doodle to gather opinions and come to a conclusion. Because the tool is Internet-based, it’s perfect for distance ed and online courses as well as for finding ways for colleagues spread across a region, the nation, or the world.

If you have Internet access, you can cast your vote with Doodle!

Tell Me about Your Convention Session

The 2008 NCTE Annual Convention is only 3 weeks away. Before you know it, you’ll be in San Antonio attending sessions, giving presentations, and connecting with friends and colleagues.

How can you get your presentation underway now, before those 3 weeks fly by? Simply log on to the 2008 NCTE Annual Convention Ning and follow the instructions to post information about your session.

Once you kick off the discussion in the presentation forum, you’ll be able to

• Build interest in your session before you even pack a suitcase! Share details about your presentation for other attendees who are looking for more than the online program tells them!
  
  
• Post longer materials and additional resources—anything from a bibliography to a PowerPoint presentation. Don’t print out copies. Just point people to the materials online.
  
  
• Introduce yourself with your profile page. Use your Ning Profile to tell people who you are, where you teach, your educational interests, and more.
  
  
• Share session materials with educators who won’t be in San Antonio. We’d all love to attend the Annual Convention, but realistically we know everyone won’t make it. Use your discussion forum as a way to reach out to colleagues who are interested in your topic
  
  
• Get reactions from friends and colleagues to the ideas and materials you’ll be sharing. Why wait? You can start the discussion now, and include related information during your session in San Antonio.
  
  
• Point to other resources you’d like to attendees to know about. Are you a member of an NCTE affiliate or assembly? Do you do work with the National Writing Project? Want to encourage others to participate in educational events and advocacy? Just share the details in your session’s discussion forum.
  
  
• Distribute follow-up materials and information after the session easily. Once your presentation is over, you can post any additional information or resources right in your session’s discussion forum.
  
  
• Invite people to share their related handouts and URLs after the session. Session attendees mention similar projects or useful websites? Just point them to your discussion forum to post the details.
  
  
• Ask for feedback and responses to your session. Want to hear what others have to say? Use your session’s discussion forum as a space for ongoing conversation about your presentation.
  
  
• Document your participation in the session. When you’re gathering resources to share with your administration about your trip to NCTE’s Annual Convention, everything will be in one place!

Just visit the 2008 NCTE Annual Convention Ning to share details on your presentation—and read about the many other sessions that will take place in November in San Antonio.

Tips on a Good Blog Entry

You're starting out as a blogger. You have a blog set up. You know how to work the blogging software. But how do you write an entry that gets read? Here are ten tips that make a blog entry grab readers:

1. Choose an attention-getting and accurate title.
   Like a newspaper headline, a good blog title draws readers in. It’s your chance to convince a reader to take a look at what you’ve written. But no bait-and-switch! Make sure that your title reflects the content of the entry.
   
   
2. State your opinion clearly.
   Take a stand and make it clear. Your blog isn’t the place for meandering. If your opinion isn’t appropriate for the general public, choose a different subject. If you wouldn't stand up in front of your colleagues and share your opinion, don’t post it on your blog.
   
   
3. Back things up with specific stories and examples.
   Once you state your opinion, explain it. Share stories or examples that show why you hold your opinion. The advice we give students applies: Show. Don’t Tell!
   
   
4. Keep it short.
   You have a few seconds to catch someone’s attention. People rarely read all of longer posts. Focus on one specific topic, state what you have to say, and end the post.
   
   
5. Chunk your text.
   People read webpages quickly. They scan more often than they read every word. Because of the way people read on the Web, it’s best to use short paragraphs and lists to chunk your content.
   
   
6. Use visual clues.
   Headers, boldface, use of color—all these visual clues help people scan and read online. As you chunk your text, make the key ideas and sections obvious with visual clues. As readers scan a page, they’ll linger on these highlights.
   
   
7. Include photos, video, and/or audio.
   Take advantage of the multimodal nature of the Internet. Use photos, videos, and audio recordings to help make your point. These multimodal additions draw readers’ attention and can emphasize your points.
   
   
8. Link to outside sources.
   Add examples and explanations to your text by linking to outside resources. Studies have shown that links build ethos by indicating that the writer is connected to the greater blogosphere and web.
   
   
9. Go with an informal, first-person style.
   No need to use formal, academic prose. Go ahead and use words like I, me, and mine. Be conversational and informal. You’ll draw in more readers.
   
   
10. Proofread!
    Take the time to reread your entry before you publish it. Use a spellchecker if one is built into your blogging software. Little errors can slow readers down. And when your readers are other English teachers, they’re bound to notice any typos.
    
    

TiddlyWiki: Your Own Portable Wiki

Wikis are a great way for small groups and classes to create collaborative web-based documents. They’re meant to be highly hyperlinked documents and their content history and open editing tools allow groups to compose together as the wiki grows organically.

There are times though when you need something smaller—the structure of a wiki is fine, but you need something more individual and better suited to smaller topics. TiddlyWiki is a simple, personal wiki that offers a lot of benefits for the classroom with a tight technology budget:

• No Internet access required for the writers or readers.
• Free, open source tool.
• Works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
• No server needed.
• Customizable using a variety of plugins.
• Do everything within a standard Web browser.
• Built in support for searching and tagging.
• Translations available for Spanish, and other languages.

The technical profile is great, but what about pedagogy? TiddlyWiki supports process-based writing—students can write, revise, and edit as needed, and basic text formatting (like bold and italics) is supported. The TiddlyWiki Timeline keeps a list of all the chunks of text (tiddlers) that have been changed, in reverse chronological order (e.g., most recent changes first).

The built-in features in TiddlyWiki make it a rather simple tool to use. All content is saved in a single HTML file. Students can save their files on jump drives, CDs, or a local or school hard drive. Files can also be emailed as attachments or uploaded to a web server.

Students would need to know a bit about how wikis work. Knowledge of simple HTML formatting would be ideal as well. After a bit of experimentation however, most media-savvy students would be able to use the tool.

That brings us to how you might use a portable, personal wiki in the classroom. TiddlyWiki is described as a microcontent tool. It’s ideal for shorter, focused kinds of writing. While a regular wiki would be useful for a class encyclopedia, TiddlyWiki is great for a single encyclopedia entries or a collection of related entries.

Students might use a TiddlyWiki for any of these projects:

• Book reports—compose different sections of the TiddlyWiki for characters, setting, plot, themes, and so forth.
  
  
• Literary analysis—break out different aspects of any literary element (or compare several elements).
  
  
• Research journal —create a page with notes and bibliographic information for each primary and secondary source.
  
  
• Reports—make the standard sections of a research, lab. technical, or business report into pages in a TiddlyWiki .
  
  
• FAQs—publish frequently asked questions, as part of a research project or book report alternative.
  
  
• Class Notes—take notes for each class session on a new page in a TiddlyWiki.
  
  
• Journals and blogs—make a new page for each journal or blog entry for an electronic option that requires no Internet access.
  

That’s just a start. Once you try TiddlyWiki, you’re bound to think of other options—as well as ways you might use it as a teacher. You might use the tool as a paperless option for sharing class assignments and handouts for a specific unit. By customizing the basic TiddlyWiki file, you could create a template for a project that students might use to publish their work or as a prewriting organizer.

Here’s what you need to get you started with TiddlyWiki:

TiddlyWiki Site

Homepage for the tool. You’ll find the download file, examples, additional tools, and help files.

TiddlyVault

The site for TiddlyWiki plugins to change the appearance and navigation as well as to add tools.

TiddlyTools

A great resource for tips, suggestions, and tutorials for TiddlyWiki.

 

TiddlyBackpack

A customized, simpler version of TiddlyWiki.

Dropbox: Your Online Filing Cabinet

Ever in the classroom and realize you want a computer file that’s at home? I know it’s happened to me. Dropbox provides a fast, simple solution that can help you and students.

Dropbox, which went public last Thursday, bills itself at “the easiest way to share and store your files online.” So far, they live up to that reputation for me.

What Does Dropbox Do?

• Provides you a free 2GB Internet storage folder.
• Works just like any file folder on your computer—you can drag, drop, copy, delete, and so on.
• Keeps all your files up-to-date automatically on multiple computers.
• Lets you access your files from any Internet or mobile browser (yes, from your cell phone).
• Includes public and shared folders, so you can share files with everyone or just the people you identify.
• Keeps other files hidden from the public.
• Organizes photos in simple galleries for sharing.
• Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

How Does Dropbox Work?
View the Dropbox Screencast for a fast video overview or walk through the webpages on Dropbox’s features for all the details.

It’s really simple:

1. Download the Dropbox application.
2. Create a login.
3. Start adding files to your Dropbox folder.

Really. That’s it. If you want to access the files on another personal computer, you can download the application and simply sign in.

Or just use the Web interface. That’s right. No download is necessary once you’ve set the program up on your personal computer.

How is Dropbox Helpful to Educators?
Once you try Dropbox, you’ll have no trouble thinking of uses, but I’ll brainstorm 10 ideas to get you started:

1. Store handouts and assignments in Dropbox at home, and you can get to the files when you’re on a computer at school. Change a file at school, upload it to Dropbox, and you’ll have the fresh file at home.
   
   
2. How about uploading your convention presentation so you have a ready backup?
   
   
3. Place copies of files in public or shared folders and give students the URL. No excuse for lost or missing assignments when everything is available online.
   
   
4. Have students sign up for their own Dropbox, if your school's Acceptable Use Policy allows. They can easily move their files between home and school computers too.
   
   
5. Need an online portfolio space? Have students create a shared portfolio folder for their work. Set it up so that only peer group members and you can access the files.
   
   
6. Work on more than one platform? Have both a Mac and a Windows machine? No more nuisance moving files back and forth on CDs or USB jump drives. Just drag a file to the Dropbox on one machine, and you can get to it on the other machine. Platform doesn't matter.
   
   
7. Upload a collection of photos students need for a project, and you have a ready gallery to share (without having to worry about the problem files on Flickr).
   
   
8. Collaborate with a colleague on an article about a teaching strategy you both use. Store your files in a shared Dropbox folder and you can both access the files easily.
   
   
9. Compare different versions of a document, as a writer yourself or with students’ drafts. Dropbox keeps an archive of changed files, so you can easily step back to an older version.
   
   
10. Have a certain set of files or tools you like to use? Maybe specific extensions for Firefox? Save them on Dropbox and it’s easy to keep your different machines synched. You don’t have to be all scholarly about it. The Dropbox folks report that some people use their folder for mods and customizations for games like World of Warcraft.

Have another idea?
Please share. Dropbox has a lot of potential. The 2GB size is limiting, but if you are careful and only place current files on the system, it should be a nice way to keep things available, no matter what computer you’re sitting at.

 

Finding Safe Videos for the Classroom

Video and film play a vital role in the 21st century classroom, and online access makes them easy to find and use. This 11th grade modernization of Snow White on YouTube demonstrate readers theater and could be used before students composed their own modern readers theater versions of fairy and folk tales:

My very favorite Schoolhouse Rock short, Conjunction Junction, is available on YouTube anytime I want to do a mini-lesson on conjunctions work “hooking up words and phrases and clauses.” If I’me teaching Hamlet, a quick search on YouTube will turn up Sir Laurence Olivier’s performance of the “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy, ready to share with the class.

The problem with YouTube, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, is that there are also a lot of very inappropriate videos on the site. It’s a difficult site to turn students loose on because of the amount of guidance needed. In many districts the site is banned outright by network firewalls.

This is where sites like TeacherTube and Teachers.tv come in. Think YouTube for teachers, and you have the idea. Teachers upload student-created videos, their own instructional videos, tutorials, in-service and conference presentations, and demonstrations. TeacherTube has an American feel. Teachers.tv is the UK spin on the idea.

You’ll find resources like a book talk on the 2008 Newbery Award winner, a promotion for book clubs, and the Alphabet in American Sign Language on TeacherTube. And you’ll find a collection of videos for English and media instruction on Teacher.tv.

In addition to these two general sites, there are some specific online video collections that can be used in the classroom:

• The Moving Image Archive at the Internet Archive
  Find collections of videos arranged by genre. Some will be inappropriate; however, specific collections such as Youth Media, Classic Television Commercials, and the September 11 Television Archive have materials you can embed and use with students.
  
  
• C-SPAN
  The C-SPAN website offers more than just political news and current events. Booknotes and BookTV have video interviews of non-fiction authors. C-SPAN Classroom is includes videos on Civics and U.S. government that can provide background information and content-area resources. Presidential Libraries offers biographical information through recordings of twelve presidents.
  
  
• Google Video
  While the main Google Video site is open to uploads, you'll find specific collections suitable for the classroom behind the front page. The National Archives videos include NASA History, World War II newsreels from United Newsreels, and Department of the Interior Motion Pictures from 1917–1970. The University of California, Berkeley videos include a handful of recordings from the Lunch Poems series, featuring readings by poets such as Li-Young Lee and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Here are some final tips to help ensure that everything goes smoothly:

• Always, always, always preview the entire video before sharing it.
• Be sure that you’ve obtained permission from families and your administration.
• Watch for “related” or “popular” video links that may appear near the video you plan to use.
• Embedding a video can avoid some problems, but remember that sites like Google and YouTube include links to “Related Videos” in the video screen as well.
• Check the comments that accompany a video. The video may be suitable, but spammers and trolls may have filled the comments with inappropriate language or links.
  
  

Social Networking: The Ning’s the Thing

What’s a Ning? What’s a social network for that matter? And how can a teacher use them? All important questions. I’ll start with the most general and move to the most specific.

What’s a social network?
You have lots of social networks, even if you are rarely online.

• You might have a group of friends from college you stay in touch with.
• Maybe you participate in a local book club that gets together every month for discussions.
• The colleagues you teach with may work with you in a teacher-study group.

All of those scenarios describe social networks. Online, social networks connect people who share common goals or interests. Facebook and MySpace are general social networks. Specific networks might connect family members, fans of a television show, or people who have the same hobby.

The Common Craft Show video on social networks, which I mentioned last month, is a must-see if you’re unfamiliar with social networks and how they work:

So how does all this connect to Ning?
Ning is an online social network platform that allows you to create your own customized social network.

You can decide on who is invited, what they can see, and what they can do. You can create a Ning site for anything. There are a number of features available, and a basic site is free.

NCTE has created a Ning site for the 2008 Annual Convention. You’ll see the NCTE logo, links to the convention website, and information from NCTE members. There are videos, photos, and podcasts.

If you join the 2008 Annual Convention Ning, you can post information about your presentation, chat about sessions you want to attend, and connect with friends before you arrive in San Antonio, during the convention, and after convention is over.

So Ning is just another social network, like Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn. What makes it different is the ability to customize the features to meet the needs of a specific group of people.

How can a teacher use a Ning social network?
Use a Ning to connect students in a private social network! What could you do for language arts, writing, and literature classes?

• Set up discussion forums based on literature circles, peer writing groups, different class periods, and so forth.
• Create groups based on student interests—book clubs, favorite genres, other content areas.
• Upload alternative book reports created as podcasts, videos, or photos.
• Ask students to write their reading logs or journals online, using their own personal blogs.
• Post information for students and their families in a shared space.

And unlike Facebook, a Ning network can be set up so that it is private and open only to invited members. Using the network tools, you can invite only the students in your classes. You can monitor the members in the administrative tools on your Ning network. The network can also be set so that you can approve people before they join.

That’s not all. You can control many of the features, so that the social network meets the needs of your students. You can do all of the following:

• Create all groups yourself, or leave it open to members
• Approve groups, so that nothing off-topic shows up
• Approve all photos and videos before they are posted
• Delete any groups or discussions that are inappropriate
• Ban members from the network if necessary
• And reverse any of these decisions with a click of a checkbox!

In some scenarios, you can leave the site more open. It’s nice to know, however, that you can lock things down if you need to. Try to do that on MySpace!

Join in and Explore the Options
If you want to see more, please join us on the 2008 NCTE Annual Convention Ning. Whether you plan to go to San Antonio or not, you can sign up and join in the discussions! If you have any questions, my member name on the Ning is tengrrl. So logon and friend me!

 

FeedMyInbox: Keeping Up with Feeds by Email

I’ve shared information on a number of sites and tools that can help you keep up with RSS feeds, but maybe you want something simpler to help you keep up with a blog or podcast. FeedMyInbox is a fast, efficient web-based tool that may be just what you’re looking for.

The tool is so simple that I’ll walk you through the 5 steps it takes to set up. But first, let me explain that the site does for you. You find a blog or a news site that you want to keep up with. Enter some information on the FeedMyInbox site, and that blog's entries will show up in your email inbox.

Why is that useful?

• Perhaps you just don’t want to add another tool to the list of things you keep up with.
• Maybe new technology like RSS feeds is making you feel a little overwhelmed and you want a “baby step.”
• It could even be the case that you are all set up with FriendFeed and AtomKeep, but there are a few feeds you need to make sure that you see as soon as they’re published (for instance, the blog of a friend or colleague, district school closing information, university security announcements).
• In the classroom, you might be looking for an email alternative for families and students who sometimes forget to visit the class blog where you post assignments and updates.

FeedMyInbox can take care of all these situations. You enter your information and forget about it. The feed for that blog post or newspaper will come to your inbox just like any other email message. Let me show you how simple it is. You can click on any of the images below to see a larger version of the screenshot.

1. Identify a blog or another site with an RSS feed that you want to follow. I'm going to use this blog as my example.
   
   
2. Go to the FeedMyInbox website and enter the address of the blog and the email address you want to receive the updates, and click the Submit button.
   
   
3. You’ll see a message telling you to go check the email account that you entered for a confirmation message.
   
   
4. Open up the email message and click the confirmation link, and then save this message for later. You can reply to it in the future if you need help.
   
   
5. You’ll see a message telling you that the feed has been added.
   
   

That’s it. The next time the feed you’ve subscribed to is updated, you’ll get details in your email inbox. It’s simple. It requires no extra downloads and no additional websites to keep track of. Once you’ve set it up, you’re done. Slick, huh?

How to Streamline Your Social Updates

Last week, I talked about websites and software that can help you keep up with your colleagues all in one place. These social aggregators collect updates from a variety of social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) and present them all on one organized webpage. Set one up, and you easily keep up with what your friends, family, and colleagues are saying online.

That’s only half of the challenge of social networking though. What can you do to make sure that everyone sees what you have to say without visiting a dozen social networking sites? Social aggregators can help you here too.

Many of the tools that I mentioned last week not only allow you to read updates from all your friends in one place but also allow you to post updates to multiple sites. You write one updates, and the social aggregator pushes that update to all the networks you want. If you’re primarily interested in microblogging, for instance, a tool like Twhirl will allow you to post your 140-character update to your account at three different sites—Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce. You’ll find other aggregators that allow you to both read from multiple sites and post the same update to those sites. The most universal tools I’ve found are Ping.fm and AtomKeep.

Ping.fm is to posting your updates what FriendFeed is to reading details from all your social networks. Once you’ve signed up for an account on Ping.fm, you can post a single update to over twenty different social networks, including Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, and Twitter. Settings in Ping.fm keep track of whether a network only posts microblog updates, status updates, or full blogs. And not only does this site streamline and organize the way you post updates to your friends and colleagues, Ping.fm allows you to send you posts by instant messages, from your cell phone, and from a Facebook application in addition to sending your posts from the Ping.fm website. It’s a great tool for simplifying the way you keep in touch with everyone. The site is still in its beta stage, so you need an invitation code. Use code “vivalaping” to get started.

Now that you’ve simplified the process of posting updates, what do you do when your homepage address needs to be updated on all those social networking sites? Who wants to visit all of them just to change that information in a profile. Here’s a secret: Set up AtomKeep and you won’t have to. You just enter your profile information on the AtomKeep site, and then you can sync your details with nearly thirty different websites. You may be worried about security, but no worries there. The site is not automatic. You tell it when to update another site, and you must enter your usersname and password each time, so your profiles should stay relatively safe. A word of caution: pay attention to the details that you enter for your profile and where you update. You may have a private website that you do not want to share on Facebook, for instance. AtomKeep has no way of knowing to exclude that website when it syncs things for you. The best rule of thumb is to only put information in AtomKeep that you would post on every site you add to your account.

So there you have it—FriendFeed from last week’s post and Ping.fm, and AtomKeep this week. Together the three sites should make it far easier to keep up with the Web 2.0 world. They’re all web-based and all free. Set them all up now, and you’ll be able to keep up with friends, family, and colleagues even when you’re busy in the classroom this fall!

How to Streamline Your Social Networks

This summer, I’m exploring a variety of Web sites and tools that you can use in the classroom and/or for your own professional development. Each week, I’ll talk about how it works, point out related sites, and discuss classroom connections. This week, I focus on social networking aggregators, tools that streamline the time you spend on social networking sites. And if you’re not sure what social networking is, the Common Craft Show has a fast video explanation that will make it all clear.

Time to get caught up on what your colleagues are doing? That means you need to check all your friends on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Blogger, LiveJournal, Digg, YouTube, Flickr, Plurk, Technorati, and delicious. Just the thought of all that is overwhelming, and it’s likely to take the entire evening to get all those sites checked—and that’s if you re lucky. Some nights you only get through two or three of the sites before you run out of energy and head to bed.

A social aggregator could make this process much easier. Rather than going to all those different sites, you could go to one that included updates from all those different social networks. 8Hands is one aggregator tool, which compiles information from your friends on ten different networking sites (like Facebook and LiveJournal). You just download and set up the 8Hands application, login, and catch up on everything in one place. This demo from the 8Hands site shows the features that the site offers:



While 8Hands is a tool you download, there are plenty of social network aggregators that you visit using your web browser. Friendfeed is one of the more popular of these sites. Friendfeed gathers postings from over forty different social networking sites, including blogs, image sharing sites, social bookmarking sites, and microblogging sites. Friendfeed creates a single RSS feed from all those sites, allowing you to view everything in one place.

If you’d like more organization for your social network aggregator, you might try SecondBrain. Not only does SecondBrain aggregate twenty-five sites, but it also allows you to arrange the information in folders, or collections. SecondBrain is still in beta and is a bit clunky, but its ability to categorize your networking sites may make this site useful in the future.

For my own connections, I’m sticking to Friendfeed for now. There are numerous other sites and tools out there though. For more alternatives, check out The 19+ Social Network Aggregator List from MakeUseOf and 20 Ways To Aggregate Your Social Networking Profiles from Mashable. And come back next week, when I’ll talk about how aggregator sites can streamline the way you post information to friends and followers in your social network.

Mind Mapping Graphic Organizers

This summer, I’m exploring a variety of Web sites and tools that you can use in the classroom and/or for your own professional development. Each week, I’ll talk about how it works, point out related sites, and discuss classroom connections. This week, I focus on a variety of online resources for mind mapping.

Mind maps are not new to the language arts and composition classroom. In fact, they have been in existence for centuries. You’ll see them labeled with various names—mapping, clusters, webbing—and combination terms such as mind webs or cluster map. These graphic organizers most frequently have a single label in the middle of the map with related ideas spinning out in a connected pattern. Here's an example I created using Bubbl.us:

If you’re unfamiliar with this graphic organizer, be sure to check out How to make a mind map® in 8 steps for some tips. While the page refers to a specific software program, the general information in the tips can be applied to any way of making mind maps, even old fashioned pencil-and-paper techniques.

You can buy software like Kidspiration or Inspiration that is designed to make mind maps, but I want to provide some options for free and limited use tools that you can use without buying anything extra or paying a fee for a service. Each of the tools listed below includes all the basics you need to create general mind maps:

• Bubbl.us: Free Internet tool, supports collaborative mapping
• Ekpenso: Free Internet tool with Google Gears and Adobe Air versions
• FreeMind: Free open source tool, once installed does not require Internet access
• Mindmeister: Free Internet version allows 6 maps, supports collaborative mapping
• Wisdomap: Free Internet version allows 3 maps
• Mindomo: Free Internet version allows only 7 private maps (unlimited public maps)

Some of these tools include more sophisticated resources, but all include the most basic tools you need. If your school or district policies require that you use a tool that does not include a login, try the ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool.

For example maps you can share with students, be sure to visit TopicScape’s Directory of Mind Maps, which points to maps specfically on literature. Mappio provides a wider variety of example maps. The site allows visitors to upload and share their own maps as well. Both sites are directories. In other words, they point to maps on third-party sites. Many of the literature examples are on the Inspiration website for instance. The maps at these two example sites are often more sophisticated than the free tools will allow students to create, but they do show the range of options for mapping well.

Even if you choose not to have students do mind mapping in class, these example sites point to resources that you might use as you teach specific topics.

• The Inspiration Map on Wordworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” can provide plenty of places to begin discussion and inspire analysis.
• The Shakespeare Biography Mind Map could be used to organize an overview of the playwright’s life or as a resource as students analyze and explore Shakespeare’s works.
• The Poetry Mind Map can structure analysis and discussion of any poem as well as provide scaffolding for students as they review poetry independently.

Wordle: Word Maps for Fun and Analysis

This summer, I’m exploring a variety of Web sites and tools that you can use in the classroom and/or for your own professional development. Each week, I’ll talk about how it works, point out related sites, and discuss classroom connections. This week, I focus on a text cloud program called Wordle.

You have probably seen a tag cloud. It’s a collection of the tags for a blog that uses larger and bolder fonts for the tags that are used most frequently and smaller regular fonts for the tags that are used less frequently. Tags between the two extremes are sized based upon where they fall on the spectrum. You can see the Tag Cloud for this blog over in the right sidebar, below the names of the Editors.

Wordle applies the structure of tag clouds to any chunk of text you'd like to analyze. The site includes a gallery of examples, which you can browse through to choose some appropriate to choose with students and colleagues. Perhaps you could use The Declaration of Independence as part of your discussion of colonial America, for example. There’s also a search that will help you find examples you might share. Remember that the tool is open to the general public, so there may be inappropriate texts in the Gallery.

I’ll admit that the tool is addictive. I found myself creating map after map. First I created a map of the homepage of this blog. Because the tool can make a map of any page with an RSS feed, all I had to do was give Wordle the blog’s URL, and the tool generated a map of the 150 words I’ve used most frequently:

Using the pull-down menus included with the map on the Wordle page, I played with the font, the colors, and the layout of the map until I arrived at one I liked. Wordle uses Java to work its magic, so you may need to update your version of Java for the tool to work. The FAQs on the site include suggestions and a link to the downloads.

Why is this a useful tool for English language arts and composition teachers? It’s fun, and anything that encourages writers to play with words is a good choice for the writing classroom. There’s more to it than that though. Ask students to use Wordle’s ability to analyze a chunk of text to create clougs for texts that they are writing. To test it, I pasted in the first chapter from my book (Designing Writing Assignments), and after a little playing with colors and layouts, I had this cloud:

The top 150 words were exactly those that I would have wanted. The four largest words in the cloud (students, assignments, curriculum, and writing) are exactly on target for the focus of the chapter and the book as a whole. Students can try a similar analysis and look at the words they use more frequently to see how they represent their writing.

The tool is robust enough to handle most texts that kindergarten through college students are likely to create. The manuscript version of my first chapter is twelve pages long and contains 2850 words. That length is far more than the average for most student papers.

Naturally, I didn’t stop with my own writing. I tried some literature as well. Here’s a poem I’m sure you’ll recognize:

After reading “The Raven,” students could examine how the cloud represents the story that the poem tells. Most will recall the repetition of key words such as raven and nevermore, but will they notice that the word soul is used more frequently than tapping and rapping?

As I looked at the cloud for “The Raven,” I couldn’t help feeling that I had created a piece 21st century text in its own right. I’m not sure where I want to use that image, but I really like it and may use it elsewhere. Fortunately, Wordle’s creator, Jonathan Feinberg, gives all rights to the images to the creators and even allows them to make money with them. See the FAQ for more details.

I can’t help sharing one more that I created. Here’s Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech:

If I wasn’t sure that I had a new text when I created the cloud for “The Raven,” I was absolutely sold when I saw this one. I might use the image as an introduction to the speech, but it could just as easily be used as an intro or culminating text for a unit on the Sixties and Civil Rights. This may be my favorite image so far. I adore the size difference between the word freedom and the word jail (look for it under and to the right of the word will). I could spend exploring the ways these words flow and relate. If I could, I’d blow it up to poster size and add it to the wall in my office.

Wordle is a fairly basic site, but the results are anything but basic. Go play. You’ll catch the bug too.

Podcasts: The 21st Century Version of the Radio Show

You’ve probably heard or read the word podcast. Radio and television shows urge their audiences to subscribe to their podcasts for the latest updates. Newspapers suggest readers visit their podcast pages to find digital connections to the stories they print. Podcasts do not have to be published by mass media organizations however. It’s just as likely though that you’ll find a podcast by a colleague, your public library, or students you’ve taught.

To provide some background, let me explain what a podcast is. A podcast is a series of audio broadcasts that is distributed using an RSS feed. You can think of it as the 21st century version of a radio show. In fact, many radio stations and radio production companies post their radio shows online as podcasts. Chicago Public Radio, for instance, posts episodes of This American Life as podcasts, and my local public radio station, WILL-AM, posts podcasts of all the daily agricultural reports.

I should note that people do misuse the term podcast. In technical terms, an individual audio file that is not distributed by an RSS feeds is not podcasts. It’s just a basic audio recording. Such stand-alone audio files can be useful and fun, but for this week, I’m focusing on legitimate podcasts only. True podcasts provide new, ongoing resources while single audio files are one-time publications.

You subscribe to the RSS feed of a podcast and then download and listen to each episode using an audio player like iTunes or Windows Media Player. You can find complete instructions for the process using iTunes from the Apple website.

For an even better explanation of podcasts and how they work, watch this video from The Common Craft Show:



Now that you know what a podcast is, how do you find ones that you are interested in? If you use iTunes to listen to podcasts, you can visit the Apple Store, click on the Podcasts link, and begin finding the latest podcasts that have been published. There are similar ways to find podcasts in other audio players, but I use iTunes.

There are online sites you can visit to explore directories of podcasts. You can search through and find anything you like on sites like these (listed alphabetically):

Podcast Alley: http://www.podcastalley.com/
Podcast Pickle: http://podcastpickle.com/
Podcast Ready: http://www.podcastready.com/

There are also sites that list educational podcasts, such as the Education Podcast Network (http://epnweb.org/).

You can also seek out podcasts at the sites of professional organizations that you already know as well. Organizations like the American Library Association, the International Reading Association, and International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) all have podcasts that might interest you.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share details on two monthly podcasts published by ReadWriteThink each month: Chatting About Books: Recommendations for Young Readers and Text Messages: Recommendations for Teen Readers. In Chatting About Books, host Emily Manning chats with kids, parents, and teachers about the best in children’s literature for ages 4 through 11. Discussions include reading tips and fun activities to do with children before, during, and after reading.

Text Messages podcasts provide book recommendations that adults can pass along to preteen and teen readers. Each episode features one in-depth recommendation plus suggestions of several other related books, audiobooks, or films that will engage and excite teen readers.

If all this discussion has gotten you thinking about how you might use podcasts with students, find some extra inspiration in the English Journal article “The Book Report, Version 2.0: Podcasting on Young Adult Novels.”