Chapter 6 The Social Web Learning Together

     I found this chapter very interesting but it is very unclear to me how I can use the social web ssuccessfully in my math classroom to improve education.  I was very interested to see how, for example, Twitter could be used in the classroom.  So I went to the website Twitter For Teachers .   At this website I found a video on using Twitter in the classroom.  I was turned off becasue it looked like a college classroom which is much different then a middle school classroom.  The students were using twitter to tweet opinions, issues, and other quick thoughts which they may be less likely to say out loud in the classroom.  Good for college but risky for middle school students.  For personal use I could see using Twitter to find other people who are tweeting about a book I'm reading maybe to get thoughts like I would get in a book club.

     In chapter 5 there was a significant description of how to use social bookmarking web sites for searching more eficiently versus using other search engines.  The bookmarking services are a community of people who join and and then save links and tag them with their own keywords.  I checked out delicious.com  http://delicious.com/ and searched for George Babbitt who is the main character in the novel I'm reading and got zero results.  That was surprising because when I googled George Babbitt I got many results.  This result indicates to me that the website is not yet populated with many links.  Sooooooo, I'm not quite sure why it is better to use a social bookmarking web site for searching then a high powered search engine like google.   

Chapter 5 RSS

     In chapter 5 I learned about how to use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) web sites to more eficiently manage all the information available to me on the internet so I can use the web more effectively for finding and reading information of interest.   I like the idea of setting up an RSS site for me that allows me to search for and find information on a particular topic and then to get notifications when new information on this topic is available.  For example I have a large interest in lesson study research.  So I could set up a feed for "math lesson study research" that will provide links to newly published work on this subject.

     I went to http://www.bing.com/search?q=tinyurl.com%2F2x7zhs&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC website to check out RSS sites.  I felt most comfortable with the RSS website Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page.  So I went to Google.com/reader web site and noticed that the weblogs I am following for this class were already shown.  That was cool.  I played around a little and entered "Lesson Study" search using the Add a Subscription button and found many interesting articles and videos on Lesson Study.  I did find it a little overwhelming with all the "digging" down through all the articles that I could do .

     I'm starting to get concerned that using all this internet technology for reading and writing to the internet could become a full time job.  Between managing a weblog and a wiki and an RSS site I imagine could require a great deal of time every day.  For me, I usually shut down down if I find something to be overwhelming and therefor I will then do none of it.  Also, I enjoy reading books and magazines.  I find that I am more efficient reading books and magazines to find information.  Maybe an RSS site will help me but I am concerned that I will find it to be to time consuming to manage and keep checking.  I find checking my email is time consuming and sometimes I wonder if I would find my life to be better if I didn't have email to check or voice mails to check or texts to check and now I will have my RSS to check.

Chapter 4 Wikis: Easy Collaboration For All

     Chapter 4 is about Wikis.  The quote by Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.  That's what we're doing." made the value of wikis comprehensible to me.  I quickly realized that a Wiki is a website that allows every person who enters the website to input additional information.  Clearly the issue with such a website is that if every one can anonymously enter information there is no way to know what information is accurate and what information is not accurate.  However, the evidence shows that the information in Wikipedia is highly accurate because the pier editing causes the "bogus" information to be edited out.  I used Wikepedia to look up information about the town I grew up in (Carmel, NY) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmel,_NY.  I noticed that in the news and events information there is more about Carmel now and Carmel in the recent past.  There was very little information about Carmel from the more distant past.   This indicates to me that the people making the entries are younger and only familiar with the recent history and not familiar with the past from when I was growing up.  Also, it indicates that these people are not doing "research" to find out the full history.

     I like the idea of making a classroom wiki of 7th grade math information and problem solving.  The students can provide the input and pier edit the classroom wiki.  I love the idea that the students have to negotiate with each other on the validity of the information.  The wiki could become another resource for the students to use in addition to their notebook and text book.  The students could input "cool" math virtual manipulative and other videos or podcasts.  The students could input  problems that they want to pose to the class or questions that they have and concepts that they are not sure about.  Similar to a blog the wiki could become a great place for me as the teacher to assess what the students comprehend and what some of the students are still working on and need more time with.   Also, I could imagine that the classroom wiki could have a chat room box for on line discussions.

Chapter 3 Weblogs: Get Started

     Chapter 3 was about how to use a weblog in a classroom.   I find that reading about how to do something is difficult and in only a general way useful to get an idea about how to create a weblog.  I need to do it, like we did in class.  That is how I learn best.  Kerri's lesson last week was what I need.  Thank you Kerri.  I was most interested in the security and safety section on blogging with students.  This is still a little unclear to me.  It is clear to me that I need to have a thoughtfoul plan about using a classroom weblog that is interactive with my students.  I will need to inform administration and the studnet parents of the plan and get approval before implementing it.  The author mentions a safety tool called RSS for monitoring student activity on the weblog, which I am very interested to learn about .
    Reading this chapter motivated me to search the internet for math classroom weblogs.  I found many blogs to look at to help give me ideas of what can be done.  I learned that you can post videos, or cartoons or songs or poems or links to math sites etc.  This could be valuable for providing alternative presentations of concepts for students that need more processing time and different presentations fo the concepts.  I also learned how the weblog can be used to get feedback from the students.  They can answer poll questions, they can input their own music video, they can input questions in the form of posts etc, etc.  The work I did to look at example classroom weblogs was very valuable to help me synthesize my thoughts on how I could use a classroom weblog.  A good example was Ms. Ionno's 6th grade class room weblog http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/ionnoj/.   Her layout was easy to work through.  I could link to websites on pie day, on how to solve equations with multiple variables, I could read her posts on upcoming tests, homework and stuff going on  in the school & I could read posts by the students about their learning.  I decided the weblog is a great source of information for the students.

Chapter 2 Weblogs Pedagogy & Practice

     Reading chapter 2 in our textbook was very valuable for me because I was able to see and experience actual classroom weblogs.  While the focus on the reading was on classroom weblogs was for ELA & literature type courses, there was an example of a weblog used in a AP calculus math course.      The AP calculus math course weblog was for the 2007-2008 school year.  The weblog had a large amount of class information.  It had a wide variety of many student and teacher entries including polls & assignments posted by the teacher, slide shows & podcasts on concepts and lessons posted by both the students and the students, feedback on the course posted by the students and many other varied links.   While the posted information was interesting and valuable for the students and the teachers, I found, given the way my mind and brain work, that it was a bit overwhelming for me to be able to efficiently work my way around the information.

     While reading chapter 2 I became excited in thinking about how I might implement a weblog for my classes.  I had lots of great ideas but most of my ideas centered around student entries.  When it came to student entries I kept getting hung up on issues of security and safety.  Mostly I thought about how do I keep inappropriate entries including links and blogs being posted by the students.  I guess I could set up an approval process but then I have to invest a significant amount of time doing this.   The inappropriate entries by the students could include safety issues where the students enter personal information on their blog that could cause issues.  Maybe our class can discuss this issue and come up with good solutions.

Chapter 1 The Read/Write Web

     Reading chapter 1 in our textbook was very important for me because it clarified how the world wide web has transitioned from a read only source of information into a read/write communication tool.  I use the web almost exclusively for reading information and not entering information.  The most experience I have in using the web as a read/write tool is using the weblog site for my fantasy football league, using a blogging website for a differentiated instruction on-line course, and occasionally writing blog entries about an article I read on a magazine/newspaper journal site and then emailing them to friends and/or families.   Between our first class and reading chapter 1 in the textbook I am now ready to embrace the internet as a read and write tool for sharing information.

     My mind has been racing with ideas how I can use the internet web to better communicate with my students.  A major area that is lacking in communication with my students is students often do not like inform me when they do not understand how to do the work we are doing, have questions and explaining how to do the work.  I am thinking that if the internet web is a blend of anonymous and named communication entries it could be powerful for giving the students a communication tool that they will feel comfortable using for communicating with me, especially since most of them regularly actively communicate on internet web blog sites.