Open Content and Ethics

            The way that information is disseminated at will without verification through the use of the internet is enough to give any good educator a second thought before incorporating this material into their classroom environment.  Another part of the dilemma with utilizing internet resources in the classroom is the copyright/infringement issue that can occur.  In today’s society, there are so many new technologies that are engaging people in information sharing for not only social but also educational materials- with the ability to protect their information and the safety to use the information they are “borrowing.”  Open content is one of the new “hot topics” in education, the concept of sharable materials on the web for educator use for FREE is one way to reduce teacher workload and in turn hopefully also teacher burnout (Johnson, Adams, & Haywood, 2011, p. 23).  “The movement toward open content reflects a growing shift in the way academics in many parts of the world are conceptualizing education to a view that is more about the process of learning than the information conveyed in their courses.  Information is everywhere; the challenge is to make effective use of it” (Johnson, Adams, & Haywood, 2011, p. 22).   Content is available for many subjects and at various levels, kindergarten-college.

An excellent website that addresses one of the main issues with open content (copyright) is Creative Commons.  Creative Commons offers an excellent resource for people to “share, use, and even build upon a work you’ve created” under the security of a Creative Commons license that allows you to modify the work to suit your needs.  This website protects the research, education, and culture that are on the web though a set of copyright licenses and tools that work alongside with traditional copyright laws.   Many well-known websites such as Google, Public Library of Science, and Wikipedia utilize Creative Commons licenses to help protect their work.

I played around with the open content site Connexions and examined the Human Anatomy and Physiology resources.  I was amazed to see that it was materials designed for two-semester anatomy and physiology course, and available free online! The table and print versions were available for a low cost also.  I spent some time “flipping” through the chapters and interactions, I am amazed by not only the credentials on the list of contributors but by the book layout, content, and activities.  

Another application of technology that is becoming more widespread in the classroom is the development of electronic books.  “Electronic books have the potential to transform the way we interact with reading material of all kinds, from popular title to scholarly works” (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine & Haywood, 2011, p. 8).  Electronic books are just what they sound like: books that instead of paper are read on the computer, tablet, e-reader, or smartphone, which not only saves space in the book bag but enhances convenience.  Early obstacles in the way of widespread adoption, especially in academic institutions include: “scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management issues” (2011, p. 9), but have been minimalized or diminished over time.  Electronic books are now able to incorporate graphs, figures, illustrations, vides, and interactive elements; as well as, offer the capability to annotate, comment, and link with the touch of a button or finger swipe (2011, p. 9).  The copyright issues and formatting problems that troubled this concept early on in the game have seemed to have resolved and e-books are being more widely used in all arena’s, simply because they offer more in the way of learning than traditional print books do.  Everything (interactive activities, assignments, graphs, etc.) being in one place truly mainstreams and organizes the teaching and learning.   To me as a student and avid reader, the capabilities of electronic books have way surpassed what I could ever imagine with my printed textbook, saves my back too from that heavy book bag!!

 

References:

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

 

"In the Clouds"

This week exploration of cloud computing, tagging, and social bookmarking was very interesting and interactive. For someone who is very active in technology, I was really surprised about how many new things are available that could be so easily implemented within the classroom. 

Cloud Computing Sites:

Nanoogo[beta] is the first cloud computing site that I explored.  It is set up for two distinct populations: teachers and parents with activities designed for in the classroom and in the home.  This website “is an online platform used by kids to write stories, create original artwork, and express their unique talents” (Nangoo.com); and is completely free to sign up.  This site engages students in collaborative work to create presentations, newsletters, research papers, and even subject specific projects.    This site offers an amazing opportunity to incorporate technology as well as collaboration and enhance critical thinking and creativity skills.  What I liked the best about this website was the separation of classroom and home activities.  The designers really gave parents an opportunity to enhance their children’s educational experiences by featuring a peer rewarding system as well as a parent monitoring system where the parents can interact with words of encouragement. 

The second site, Memrise, was very unique and interesting with a lot to offer.  This site has so many different topics set up an online learning environment format that I can’t even tell you how many there are.  The topics range from math and science, to foreign language, entertainment, and professional & careers and everything in between; each is set up with an interactive activity that allows for knowledge acquirement and learning.  I spent some time on the German Vocabulary activity as German was my minor in College, and I can tell you the interface as it is designed to promote learning through a variety of well-studied and respected methods.  This site offers the opportunity for self-directed learning and for students to actually learn the material at their pace and in a fun manner.  I would highly recommend the use of this site in a variety of ways.

Finally, I examined OpenStudy, a site designed to a collaborative environment that connects students with other students in a way that is similar to traditional tutoring with a twist.  This provides a forum for questions and answers, in a huge variety of subjects and grade levels.  Instead of providing answers, the goal is for those who know the answer to guide those seeking help to it.  This system offers medals for achievements  which helps to keep users engaged.  Each group has at least one moderator, (in reality usually several), that helps to ensure that the groups are running smoothly and the environment is conducive to learning.  This was my least favorite of the three, but I can still see the benefits; especially because of the 24/7 availability of students to go online search through questions that have been asked and post their own. 

Summary: Cloud Computing, tags, and social bookmarking are all very interesting topics that I have had some experience with.  First, cloud computing is such an awesome feature to use with higher education especially, and I love that I am able to work with my students even when we are not in the same state to get things accomplished on research projects and other various tasks.   Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011), stated that  “the reason cloud computing is so relevant in the near-term horizon is that is has opened doors for more flexibility, more space, more collaboration, and ultimately, more creative uses of Internet resources for educators to incorporate in their classrooms” (p.12), which is so true.  The collaboration and creativity that comes from these online sources is amazing and truly helps students to engage in and develop higher order thinking skills.  I found the diigo social bookmarking to be a very interesting and awesome tool. I really, really love the functionality of it and its capabilities.  Being able to bookmark, screen shot, annotate and then open the same document on my iPad to take with me on the go makes my life so much easier!   Many of us from the early Facebook days think of tagging in terms of “who’s in the picture” or “who are you with when…” but the broader definition is “labelling and tagging are carried out to perform functions such as aiding in classification, marking ownership, noting boundaries, and indicating online identity” (Tag, metadata, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29).     #Hashtag is gotten very popular on sites like Instagram and Twitter, but is not limited to social contexts.  Labels and tags are becoming more popular in a lot of other sites, such as Gmail and iTunes; and tag clouds are the hot new thing.  In education tags clouds can be used for personal narratives, classroom polls, compare and contrast, student profiles,  and vocabulary.  This concept helps students to identify the keywords and gives them an opportunity to construct the “story.”  All of the technologies discussed this week are great additions to the educational field and allow for easy implementation and monitoring. 

Diigo: The diigo group that I decided to follow was “Education Research.”  Upon exploration, this group provided good resources on a variety of topics in education and people’s current research, research that they have read, and future research.  This made the information easily accessible and will help to keep me updated on the current “hot topics” and research.  This was a no-brainer choice for me!

 

References

 

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011

         K-12 Edition.  Austin, Texas, The New Media Consortium

Tag (metadata). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29

Tag Cloud Site: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/embracing-messy-learning-joshua-block

 

Blogging & Twittering

As someone who always been big into technology and the unlimited capabilities that is provides, I find blogging to be one of my most favorite concepts- especially for education. The countless opportunities offered to student and educators through blogging is unheard of prior to the development of this concept; students and educators are able to communicate with experts and experience a more well-rounded education through the broader worldview offered by blogging.   “The combination of social interaction and meeting an expert in a subject provides avenues for deep learning,” and for years school systems have been utilizing field trips for this type of interactive learning (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Smythe, 2009).  In the face of budgetary issues, field trips have become fewer and far between, but alas technology can fill this gap, especially the use of blogs.  As experts many more experts are blogging these days, it is much easier for students to interact with them; reading their blogs and commenting, watching podcasts or other audio/video clips that are relevant to the topic.  Blogging does not only benefit students, it is also a way for educators to share their knowledge, solicit ideas from other educators, and discuss current hot topics with their peers and colleagues (Hargadon, 2009, p. 2).   

The concept of Twittering is something I never truly bought into, but now really see the interest and potential of it.  I can see the benefits of being able to share a link to a research study, communicate important messages to parents, and connect with mentors quickly and easily.  Other benefits include that Twitter is pretty user friendly, and could be easily used as a way for students to communicate with teachers, each other, and people around the world, which offers another way to enhance well-rounded education (Rosenthal Tolisano, 2011).   One of the best ideas I have seen in the literature in support of the use of Twitter is the concept of facilitating a discussion by posing a question; the limited characters keeps it short, sweet, and to the point, so it would be an asset in facilitating a direct discussion.  After reading the articles and watching the lectures, Twittering is something that I will explore more, and because a lot of my students are already using it, it would be a simple communication tool to implement for them.  On my Twitter, I decided to follow the Toledo Blade because I really enjoy keeping up with the latest news stories and I like the short descriptions with links to the longer story. It makes it very convenient to read what I want to read and bypass what I do not.

 

References

Hargadon, St. (2009).  Educational networking: The important role web 2.0 will play in education. http://audio.edtechlive.com/lc/EducationalSocialNetworkingWhitepaper.pdf

Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., and Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Rosenthal Tolisano, Silvia (2011). Twitter in the K-8 classroom  Globally Connected Learning. http://www.scribd.com/doc/63331406/Twitter-in-K-8-Classroom-Globally-Connected-Learning