Which Web Works West (I mean Best)?

Over the summer, one of our courses was Web-based learning, and at the end, we had to create a tele collaborative project. Mine centered around six-word stories, helping students learn the power of words when they're chosen judiciously and purposefully. Supposedly the first six-word story was written by Hemingway, who, when asked what was the best thing he ever wrote, replied: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." That can be interpreted so many ways. A book of six-word stories came out a couple years ago, and I've had my students write them for a while. This would have all been done through a website that teachers would be able to join, and it would be monitored. I would have been the one designing and managing the site, which would have been accessible to teachers around the world.

With a Web 2.0 tool, like a wiki or a blog, getting everything up and running would be much simpler than building a whole website. I could go to PBWorks, start a wiki, and get a number of other site "administrators" to help with ensuring the content is appropriate. And where the website would have only allowed uploading of text, with a wiki, I could more easily allow people to add videos or audio, instead of just the text of their six-word stories.

The biggest benefit of the Web 2.0 tools is the ease both for me and for those who wish to contribute and benefit from the site. The biggest challenge would be maintaining the quality of the wiki and ensuring that content is appropriate. I'd have more control with a blog, where comments would require approval, but that also means more work, and I think a less user-friendly environment, because with a wiki, I could set up pages for stories on different topics or involving different categories.

Video killed the podcast star

So, podcasting was fun. The GarageBand software was easy to use, and the plethora of free sound effects would allow anyone to make a pretty professional-sounding podcast with very little practice. Video required a bit more skill and, since my group was using software on my Mac instead of the PC-based software, it also required a lot of Googling to answer questions. But answers were easily found, and, again, the software made it easy to add effects, transition, title slides, etc., that resulted in a well-edited end result. Of course, that was just the practice public service announcement (we got permission to be a little bit irreverent in our promotion of the ITS graduate program at George Mason University.)

The creation of our advocacy wiki PSA went well, to a point. One of my group members had a great idea that was pretty easy to put into a script and a "treatment." We uploaded our video, changed out some sounds, learned how to put certain audio over other. When we wanted to do a picture-in-picture effect, I found instructions on doing it online, and another group member created the "thought bubble" images. The thought bubbles went in easily, and then it all fell apart. The still images were making the video freeze, and then the iMovie program crash. When I reached the point I was ready to throw the computer out the window, we called it quits for the night, and I promised my group I would figure it out and put the finishing touches on the video.

Which brings us to today. Specifically, about four-and-a-half hours ago. After lots of online research, lots of failed attempts, then basically recreating the whole 30-second movie, I got it all to work (though not exactly the way we wanted) and to export into a .mov file. You can see the source of my frustration here:

I think there is great potential for using video in the classroom. It's fun. It gives students exposure to media literacy concepts like camera angle, sound, etc., and another form of literacy to practice encoding and decoding. But it also has its drawbacks, like technical errors. It just reinforces the idea that teachers MUST be prepared for just about everything, and must know the programs they're using inside and out. And, though we had the opportunity to practice with the tool a week earlier, still learning the tool while completing the final objective is a bit too much of a challenge for my students.  If I'm going to use this tool with my students, I need a great deal more practice and lots of backup plans for overcoming roadblocks that may get thrown in our paths.

A blog about ???

There's no specific assignment for this week's blog, so I'm using it as an opportunity to try to synthesize some of what we've ben doing this semester. This past week we were able to buy our caps and gowns for graduation, and today (March 9) we're 68 days away from graduation. On Thursday night in class, we were supposed to create short videos to promote the ITS program. My group decided to take an irreverent tone, and we mostly complained about all the work we have to do. And while not every single assignment has appealed to me, working on our wikis on all the topics we've learned about and compiling my portfolio has given me an opportunity to reflect on just how much we've learned over these past two years.

Maybe it's because I didn't initially go to school to become a teacher, and there's a lot about teaching and learning that I should have known coming into the program. And maybe all that stuff has been just a good refresher for my classmates. Regardless, I know I am a better designer of lessons than I was. I am more reflective than I was. And I'm gaining confidence to become more of a leader.

I thought teaching alone was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. But teaching AND going to grad school is much harder. But my students are reaping the rewards, and that's really important to me. It has challenged me and stretched my skills in everything from time management to creativity. It has helped me see (and work to improve) my weaknesses and recognize my strengths. It has shown me that there is never just one way to get at accomplishing a goal, whether it be a goal for myself or an objective for my students.

I've also met some really great people. So, all in all, I'm glad I did this.

An addiction? An illness? Or harmless entertainment?

Last week, my journalism students proposed an article about Social Media Anxiety Disorder, or SMAD. According to The Huffington Post, the creator of the term is "Julie Spira, author of "The Rules of Netiquette." (Just a note that SMAD is not an actual, medically recognized condition at this point.)" Symptoms are as varied as freaking out if you forget your power cord to recharge your device during the day to taking your device into the restroom with you. (So that's how all those iPhones wind up sitting in rice to dry out!) Others say they're neglecting their children or losing relationships because they spend so much time on the phone/tablet/whatever.

I really got into Facebook after I decided not to go to my 20th high school reunion. They set up a page for the Class of '88, and it was fun to see how people were doing, and how their lives turned out. It also kind of makes me chuckle to myself that I'm now "friends" with people who wouldn't give me the time of day when we were students together. I don't consider myself to be suffering from SMAD, but I do participate in some habits that I shouldn't. I'm guilty of looking at my phone during a meal with friends to see if there's anything interesting on Facebook. And I do check my phone at school (usually in the bathroom). But I'm able to go whole blocks in school without it and even an entire evening. My students, however, can't seem to, and that does concern me.

There's not only the issue of giving away too much information to strangers. Though I think our children are more educated about that now, horrible things still happen when children are taken advantage of online by preying adults. And I also worry about cyber bullying and students airing all their dirty laundry (breakups, makeups, hookups, and mistakes) online, without the real understanding of how that could all come back to haunt them. Our school started a "pause before you post" campaign, just asking for the very basics of impulse control. Are you sure you want that out there for all the world to see?

I do think there is some educational value. Students are reading and writing, though sloppy text-style writing makes me nuts when I see it in a formal paper. I have to keep reminding students that their pencil won't automatically add apostrophes in contractions or capitalize your i when it is used as a pronoun. And, yes, I have had a student turn in a formal paper with text abbreviations such as u and ur.

But I know students also use it to talk to one another about assignments or to share questions and answers to help one another prepare for a lesson. And I think that an understanding of other people and the rest of the world is available through social networking. A news item might creep into your news feed or a take on a topic that you'd never considered before. There's also the fact that it is a good way to disseminate information to a lot of people very quickly. For example, there were bomb threats four of five days last week at a high school/middle school in the county where I teach. The schools are connected, so both have to be evacuated when something like that happens. Two of the days, the evacuated students had to be held on buses because it was too cold to keep them outside. Parents were able to learn quickly that their students were safe, but also that the buses would be delayed in much of the county as a result of that. While that's not really an educational benefit, it does point to the speed and breadth of information that can go out over social networking sites.

I do think schools have a responsibility to help students learn to use social networking responsibly. Pause before you post was a decent idea, but it was a one-and-done. Counseling did it, gave everyone little pins, and then it just dropped off the radar. Like anything like that, it needs reminding.