23 Things

Introduction

23 Things is a collection of assignments or small exercises to explore and expand your knowledge of the Internet, Web 2.0 and 21st Century Learning.

Why 23?

23 Things was modified from the PLCMC Learning 2.0 Program which got the idea for the program from 43 Things. The 43 Things website is a social networking site where users create accounts and then share lists of goals and hopes. Sort of a "bucket list", if you will.

What do I have to do? Do I have to be a super techie?

The exercises and assignments range from watching a video to creating a wiki. All 23 Things are provided with detailed instructions and examples. 23 Things does not require eating any gross foods or competing in any ridiculous challenges. And you do not need a high level of tech skills. If you need help there are many people around to assist and working with colleagues is highly encouraged.



Things #1 - Get acquainted with Moodle

Moodle is an open source e-learning platform. It is used to teach many different types of classes. Moodle is most known as an Open Source LMS (Learning Management System - similar to Blackboard and WebCT). Many schools are using it to either offer online or hybrid courses or as a digital space for face to face classes where Moodle can be used as a secure site to submit homework, view online resources, or have online conversations with classmates. Moodle also has modules that allow students to take quizzes, surveys, or participate in a classroom wiki. All of these activities can be monitored for progress, grading and appropriateness.


Things #2 - Introduction: Living, Teaching, and Learning in the 21st Century

If you have read the book The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman you are tuned in to how our world is changing. What will be required by our students when they finally leave our classrooms? How have our schools changed, our workforce changed, our world changed since you graduated high school?


Things #3: Information Literacy

The American Library Association defines information literacy as a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed, and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."
There is literally a ton of inaccurate information on the web, masquerading as expert reference. Our goal is to teach our students how to separate the grain from the chaff.
Activities will focus on using OSLIS (including the Gale databases and Citation Maker) and Wikipedia in research.
For those not yet familiar with OSLIS, this is the Oregon School Library Information System, a gateway for the internet that is designed to assist Oregon students and teachers find appropriate and accurate information for student research projects.


Things #4: Digital Citizenship

Cyberbullying...digital etiquette...plagiarism...these are just a few of the topics included under the umbrella title of "digital citizenship." Technology has provided society with a plethora of means to communicate, collaborate and participate, but along with these tools come great responsibility. Digital citizenship, in its most basic form, refers to the concept of appropriate use of technology. However, it is a much more complex set of ideas than that phrase suggests.
Our goal with this "thing" is to introduce the idea, and to kick-start the process of creating responsible digital citizens.


Things #5: Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a term that summarizes numerous tools presented on websites that are used daily in the technology world of the 21st century. Some familiar examples are YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, Delicious, Edublog, Ning, Skype, and Google Docs. These applications on the Internet allow for interactive collaboration and creativity between the teacher and the students.

The term Web 2.0 was coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, and refers to a perceived second-generation of Web-based services, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users (Wikipedia)

Thing #5 will get us better acquainted with Web 2.0 and help us understand how the web has changed from a one way communication tool to a two-way communication tool that promotes collaboration and communication.


 Things #6 - Blogs

Wikipedia defines a blog as follows: "A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log or weblog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles, most often in reverse chronological order." For the most part blogs look very much like regular web pages. The difference being that a blog allows readers to respond.

Classroom 2.0 defines the act of blogging as "the posting of journal-like pages to a website. While these pages can contain photos or media, they are primarily focused on the easy ability to post written thoughts to a website." In a school setting blogs are about communicating. Teachers and students can write about their experiences and then other people can respond with thoughts and ideas from their own perspective.

Teachers can use blogs in many different ways, within many different subject areas. Probably the most common way to use a blog is to improve writing. However this is not the only possibility. Blogs can be used to collaborate on projects, to reflect on work completed, to dialogue with students, and much more...


Things #7: An Introduction to Wikis

A wiki is a true Web 2.0 tool that encourages collaboration and sharing of ideas. Groups of people can work on a common document and edit the content simultaneously. Most websites are one way (read only) but a wiki is two-way (read and write). Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is the world's largest wiki.


Things #8: RSS - Real Simple Syndication

RSS stands for real simple syndication. RSS is probably one of the coolest Web 2.0 tools out there. With so much information out on the web it is almost impossible to keep current on the newest information from your favorite websites and blogs - unless of course you use RSS.

If you follow several different blogs, without RSS you would have to visit each of them to see if there was new information posted. This would take too much time (boo!). But by subscribing to a site’s RSS feed, the information is brought to you at a central website location (yea!). This way you can keep up on news, blog posts, sports stories, weather, and even email. It saves you time and allows you to keep tabs on a huge amount of information from all types of sources.


Things #9: Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. Once you set up your free account and begin saving web bookmarks, you'll be able to access them from any internet-connected computer or mobile device.

Picture This… You are a 4th grade teacher and on your computer you have a huge collection of internet sites bookmarked. You have them categorized and organized into different folders within your Favorites for easy access and reference. You are so proud of yourself for being so efficient. That is until you find yourself at home or at a conference and you want to get to those websites. Where are they? They are on your school computer – darn!!! If only you could access them! Well with delicious (del.icio.us) or diigo you can, because all your bookmarks are saved out on the delicious site not on your computer. No matter where you are you can access your sites!

Delicious and diigo also allows users to organize sites in a much more comprehensive way. Using delicious, websites can be "tagged" with different descriptive words for various categories or topics that the website might cover. For example, there might be a useful site about dinosaurs. With delicious that website can be saved and “tagged” with the words dinosaurs, science, fossil, Jurassic, etc.

There's more. With delicious other people's sites can be explored. This is the social aspect of delicious. Users can add people to their network and then view what these people are saving. Users can also send websites to the people in their network. Imagine if teaching teams or schools used delicious. They could share their sites and access each other’s site. The same holds true for kids. Teachers can use delicious to compile websites for kids to access. And as students find useful sites they can add them to their teacher’s network.


Things #10: Cloud Computing

Simply put, "cloud computing" refers to services/storage which can be accessed from the internet via virtually any computer or mobile device, regardless of where the user is. Popular examples of cloud computing include Google docs/apps, Microsoft Outlook Live, Apple's MobileMe, Dropbox and many more.

One of the more popular cloud computing examples is Google docs. The Commoncraft video below explains it very clearly, but in short it’s an online word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and survey/form-creation tool. It is very much like a wiki in that documents and projects can be shared and edited by several different people.

So why would you use cloud computing instead of the software on your own machine? A few reasons:

# You can create a file on any computer, and access it from anywhere you have an internet connection, on any device...desktop computer, mobile devices, etc.
# Many are cross-platform, meaning they can be used on PC's, Macs or other operating systems.
# In the case of Google Docs, it looks and feels like tools we are used to – Word, Excel, Powerpoint - and if you use Microsoft's Skydrive, that's exactly what you get.
# Cost: software such as Microsoft Office is expensive! Using the online web app versions costs nothing for students and staff of districts that are signed up to use them.
# Many schools in Oregon are using either Google Apps or Microsoft Outlook Live.
# Students without computers at home can still access their files by going to a friend's, grandma's, or a public computer.


Things #11: Rubistar

The next tool to explore is Rubistar .

Rubistar is a one stop rubric search engine and rubric creator. At Rubistar, teachers can create a rubric for just about anything or search for rubrics that have already been created.


Things #12: Educational Images

Pics4Learning: Tired of trying to find a site for students to use to locate pictures? Flickr, Google and Bing images are great places to find pictures, but many school districts block access to them by students. Even if students can get there, inappropriate images can sometimes sneak through. One alternative is Pics4Learning. This site might not have as many pictures as the others but it is a safe destination for students. And in the true Web 2.0 form you are able to contribute pictures to the site (remember collaboration and sharing is the name of the game).

Search Creative Commons: This is a licensing agency, not a search engine, but teachers and students can use the search page within Creative Commons as a launch-pad to find images that are labeled for reuse. Through this page, teachers and students can access Google Images, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, etc. Through this site, Google Images allows you to filter your results by license in the left column, which is very handy.


Things #13: Google Earth

Google Earth is a wonderful resource and fun tool for all.

It has uses in many content areas: social studies, language arts, science, math, foreign studies, and more.

Some possible uses include:

* locating positions and places on maps
* geocaching (like a navigational hide-and-seek or scavenger hunt)
* practicing measuring skills
* writing of descriptions of places, logging new search criteria, adding comments to a "guest book"
* developing new ideas for field trips or walks around the school
* practice using a GPS device

And for all of its power, the amazing part is, it's free...


Things #14: Demonstration of Learning/Presentation Tools

The presentation phase of learning is vital. It cements understanding for students and provides an opportunity to celebrate the processes of research and creation. There is no shortage of technology tools to help in presenting learning projects, the most common of which is Microsoft PowerPoint. Below are several web 2.0 tools which echo, extend, or reimagine the functionality of PowerPoint.

A unique benefit of each of these tools is the ability to embed your presentations into your blog or wiki. (You can, of course, simply link to the online version of the presentation.) When you create a PowerPoint for a lesson, upload it to one of the following tools and put it on your website to share with students, parents, and colleagues. Students can even add comments to your presentation. Another helpful component of publishing presentations online is that you sidestep the issue of computer operating systems or software versions.

Slideshare, SlideRocket and AuthorStream are online PowerPoint-style tools which allow you to upload and publish existing presentations and slideshows. You can upload your PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote or PDF files, tag them, embed them into your blog or website, browse others' presentations, and comment on individual slides. What's more, you can create content tags for your presentations which will be indexed by internet search engines and show up in search results. They’re a great way to share your ideas with others, or to learn from other people. And they’re completely free.

Voicethread is a very exciting tool for telling stories, interacting, and collaborating. It is like a blog, podcast and photo show all rolled into one. VoiceThread allows you to upload images, video, and audio into a sequence of pages or slides. Viewers are able to post comments - either as text or audio - in response to the content of your VoiceThread presentation. It can be very useful in collaborating with other classes or your PLN. If you sign up for an account using your school email address, you can set up a more feature-rich "pro" account as an educator for free.

Prezi offers a significant departure from the presentation tools we've looked at so far. It has a much more non-linear interface and incorporates zooming, rotations, and other moves to transition from element to element. Students will love the kinetic quality, and teachers will appreciate how easy it is to modify "slides" and sequences. Again, finished Prezis can be embedded in websites and shared with others.

Glogster combines multimedia creation with online digital posters which students can create and use in presentations. The graphic elements offer a wide range of customization and expression for students to match the medium to the content. As with the other tools, Glogster creations can be embedded in websites, wikis, and blogs.

Scrapblog offers a variety of digital media products, from online scrapbooking to cards, calendars and photo books. It's probably more under the category of "digital storytelling", but can be used as a presentation tool as well..


Things #15: Photo Sharing

Photo sharing is another tool that will allow teachers and students to be creative. These sites will allow you to upload photos, edit photos, create slide shows, and share your slide shows with students and parents. These creations can then be embedded within blogs, wikis, websites, and of course Moodles. Some of these sites are totally free and others charge for certain features. There are multiple uses for both teachers and students with these Web 2.0 programs, imagination is key!

Things #16: File Converters

File converters allow you to change the formats of files. For example, Youtube videos, which are in flash format, can be downloaded and saved to use at a later time.
Options:
Zamzar
Convert Files
Switch

Watch this Zamzar Voicethread to see how you can convert Youtube videos at home and bring them to school to support teaching and learning.

If you want to skip this Voicethread then just visit Zamzar's faq page to learn about what it can do.

And don't forget to bookmark Zamzar or add it to your del.icio.us favorites. It is one of the coolest and most useful tools out there.

Click on the big triangle in the middle of the screen to play a sample Zamzar Voicethread


Things #17: Digital Media 1 - Locating/Viewing/Using

Using digital media in the classroom is just one way to bring a subject to life, but how do you know what sources are reliable and acceptable and easiest to use by both educators and students? This topic delves into the rich world of media available to educators online today. By the time you finish this topic, you will feel much more comfortable searching for and using digital media in your classroom.

Discovery Educator Network - The DEN

When most people hear the words Discovery Education they probably think of United Streaming (now called Discovery Education Streaming). DE Streaming allows teachers to download video clips, create and view lesson plans and quizzes, and build and share writing prompts. It is an awesome resource for the classroom. But Discovery Education offers much more that DE Streaming. It also offers the Discovery Educator Network (DEN).

Here is the official definition of the DEN:
"The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is a global community of educators passionate about teaching with digital media, sharing resources, collaborating, and networking. With over 25,000 members providing professional development to over 250,000 educators worldwide, the DEN connects teachers both on-line and in-person. Discovery Educators have exclusive access to a wide range of resources, professional development activities, networking opportunities, exclusive Discovery Educator events and more!"

Like DE Streaming, the Discovery Educator Network is a tremendous resource that connects teachers from around the world so they can share and collaborate.

Learn360 is a digital media streaming site that has over 58,000 media resources, for all grade levels, available in these formats: videos, shorter video clips, images, speeches, newsreels and audio files, as well as 25,000 articles from the concise Britannica Encyclopedia. In seconds you can download an example of nearly anything you have been discussing with your students.

You can access a generic Learn360 account by signing in with this:

Login: o2student

Password: Student360

WatchKnow is an index of over 15,000 online educational videos drawn from other online video services such as YouTube, TeacherTube, Hulu and others, crafted into a directory of over 3,000 categories. The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom and to students at home 24/7. You can us the intuitive directory or search by subject and age level. Video titles, descriptions, age level information, and ratings are all edited for usefulness. The site is maintained as wiki system, guided by teachers.

TeacherTube and SchoolTube are online communities for sharing instructional videos. Its goal is to provide an educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. TeacherTube includes content-focused video to provide background or additional information on learning concepts and skills, as well as professional development videos aimed at teachers.

YouTube is a brilliant video-sharing site that allows educators access to the world's largest warehouse of videos on the web. A teacher can search the site for a topic of interest and find anything from home videos to television programs or even full length movies. Of course, many of the videos are not school appropriate, so previewing is a must. Another point for consideration is that movies are usually broken into short clips, which can be inconvenient, but is not a deal breaker.


Things #18: Digital Media 2 - Video Resources

Just watch a little of this video - it's classic!


This lesson will help us identify some video resources that we can use to assist in our daily instruction and to expand our own personal learning. Below, you will find a list of websites that provide videos. They include resources for both personal and professional use. Three very popular sites are Discovery Education, TED, and TeacherTube.


Things #19: Digital media 3 - Authoring/sharing

Intro: Digital audio and video are powerful means of communication. Teachers can create video and audio using tools that are ubiquitous in our culture. Personal devices like cell phones, digital cameras, and iPods make it easy to capture digital or audio. Sharing these media is nearly as easy. We'll explore these in the following activities.


Things #20: Online Survey

ToolsOnline surveys are a unique way to gather information from a group quickly and easily. There are a variety of websites out there that can be used to create and host the survey. Teachers can use these tools in many ways- with students and/or colleagues. Students can use these tools to gather information for projects. Administrators can use these same tools to coordinate and collaborate with staff and other administrators. Survey results can not only be collected via a computer, but using SMS/text messaging as well. Something like using a clicker-based response system, but with a tool that most teachers and students have with them most of the time: a cell phone.


Things #21: Social Networking: Twitter and Facebook

What is it? An Online Social Network is, in its most basic sense, simply an online collection of the people with whom you communicate. Friends, family, professional colleagues...they're the individuals you stay connected with and seek for interaction, advice or ideas. Twitter and Facebook are two of the most popular and highly used social networking tools.

Twitter is a microblogging application that allows users to tell others in their network what they are doing.

Say what? Microblogging? I don’t even macro-blog! Well, don’t get hung up on the concept of blogging because it is more than that. It is kind of like blogging, kind of like emailing, kind of like instant messaging, and kind of like a bunch of other things.

What Twitter is really about is creating your own PLN – Personal Learning Network. Think about who is currently in your PLN? Your network probably includes the teacher next door, the people in your grade level or subject area, a couple teachers from another school and maybe a few people out of the area - all the people you interact with on a professional or personal level.

Twitter takes that network and expands it so it becomes global! So instead of just being a network of teachers that are geographically close you can now network with teachers around the world. Twitter provides teachers with a global resource for help, advice and feedback (and sometimes venting).

Consider the following…what if you were a 4th grade teacher and you followed other 4th grade teachers around the globe using Twitter? Wouldn’t it be cool to read about the things they were doing and to have them available for help, advice, and feedback? Twitter makes this happen.

Facebook is part of the digital fabric of American society today, which is why we as educators should not only be aware of it, but also be familiar with it and perhaps even use it. Thus, we will be able to help our students successfully traverse the mine field of social networking sites. Put simply, Facebook allows friends and acquaintances to keep abreast of current events (down to the minute, at times!), view pictures and even blog through the "notes" section. Some users also enjoy the games and quizzes that are available through the site as well.

Using Facebook as an educator is controversial, but following specific guidelines can help. "Friending" students is generally frowned upon by most districts, and should be avoided. However, becoming "friends" with students who have graduated is fine and both parties are usually happy to be able to stay in touch. Pitfalls can be avoided by making sure that pictures and posts are all school appropriate and are above reproach. Realize that it's quite difficult to retract something posted online in a moment of poor judgment. Note: please be aware of ALL district policies regarding personal conduct outside of school hours.

Another alternative aimed strictly at the education market is Edmodo. It's very similar to Facebook, but its primary objective is to connect teachers, students and parents.


Things #22: Mobile Computing

A student walks into the classroom carrying her cell phone. She scans a bar code on the calendar and receives instructions for an assignment she missed the day before. She then sends a bulk text message to her student work group to get caught up on her group's project and gets an email from one of her group members containing notes she needs. She then responds to an online survey from her teacher about which book she wants to read next, and then sits down at her desk for ten minutes of silent sustained reading in her e-book!

Cell phones in school can be a distraction and a safety hazard, but in the scenario above, the student has had six interactions with students, teachers and classroom materials in the time it takes most students to sit down and get a book out. Schools have tried banning cell phones and limiting cell phone usage, but the fact remains that cell phones are here to stay and can provide vast opportunities for collaboration and interactive learning in the classroom.

And cell phones aren't the only form of mobile computing. Tablets like the iPad, smartphones such as Droids, iPhones and Blackberries, and eReaders like the Kindle and Nook all fall under this umbrella, too.

Things #23: A Plethora of Things

# Thinkfinity: Enhance learning with free educational resources, lesson plans, and interactive activities.
# Wordle : 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. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
# Tagxedo : Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.
# Dropbox : Dropbox is a Web-based file hosting service that uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders using file synchronization across a variety of desktop and mobile operating systems.
# Only2Clicks : Only2Clicks allows you to have your entire bookmark collection in one place. Access it from your home desktop, office laptop, airport lounge or using the optimized iPhone interface. Access your links anywhere, anytime. Only2Clicks allows you to organize your frequently visited web sites in tabs.
# LiveBinders : LiveBinders is your 3-ring binder for the web. Collect your resources, organize them neatly and easily,present them with pride. This is another free service.
# Springpad : Springpad is a free service that gives you a place to save anything you want to remember—on the web and on your phone. A desktop app is coming soon.
# Evernote : Evernote is a collection of software and services that allows users to collect, sort, tag and annotate notes and other miscellaneous information. It's available on the web, as a desktop application for Mac and PC, and as a mobile app on many devices, including iOS, Blackberry and Android.