Transliteracy is defined on Wikipedia as

The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. The modern meaning of the term combines literacy with the prefix trans-, which means “across; through”, so a transliterate person is one who is literate across multiple media.

Ryan Nadel, in an interview on Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning, defines transliteracy even further:

“The most fundamental notion of transliteracy is the ability to adapt. It’s creating a literacy and fluidity between mediums that’s not tied to space or modality.”

I agree with Ryan: Transliteracy is closely related to “fluency“:

• the ability to know when to use one media over another
• the ability to move effortlessly between media
• the ability to comprehend, build upon, and remix different kind of media
• the ability to relate, communicate and connect via multiple forms of media
• moving between media feels: intuitive, unconscious and smooth

Let me share a transliterate learning opportunity with you that I created (Art, iPads, QR codes, Language Arts and Digital Storytelling)  in collaboration with our Art teacher, Mrs. Gutterman and the 4th grade classroom teacher, Mrs. Teitelbaum?

During Art class, fourth graders adapted Vincent van Gogh’s chairs and placed things on and  around them that were important to them.

In Language Arts, students wrote a script, explaining their choices of what they drew and why it was important to them.

We all gathered in the library to record their script as an audio file on the iPad. We used the AudioMemos app (free) to record. Students then emailed the wav file to me.

1. I then converted the .wav files to mp3 files with Garageband, since I did not know if all mobile devices would play .wav files easily.
2. These files were then uploaded via FTP to our school’s server
3. I inserted the URL of each mp3 file into http://goo.gl
4. Clicked on “Details” to get to the generated QR code
5. Saved the QR codes as an image file

I inserted the images into a page and then printed the QR codes out for the Art teacher to attach them to the original art work.

Now anyone with a QR scanner on their Smartphone, iTouch or iPad walking by the art work, can scan and listen to the student artist’s audio reflection. The next step was to create a poster to catch the attention of the visitors and parents walking by and give a short explanation of what to do with the QR code

If you are looking to weave global awareness & collaboration into your elementary school classroom, consider participating in the

Teddy Bears Around the World Project

For the forth year, Teddy Bears from around the world are contributing images about their travels, traditions and customs to this blog.

Currently, there are contribution from the following categories:

About the Project:

Teddy Bears Around The World started as a project with a school mascot called Jose,  the travel bear, who enjoyed roaming the world, getting to know new places and meeting interesting people. The Teddy Bears Around the World blog provides the space to hang out and communicate with different teddy bears around the world to hear more about their lives and adventures. This will allow our students to see each other’s countries, customs and traditions through the eyes of our teddy bears and open their horizons through a more global perspective.
The idea is to have an ongoing exchange (no deadlines, no pressure) to contribute stories, photographs, videos or podcasts.

These contributions can be from the teddy bears point of view or from the students’ point of view telling a story ABOUT their teddy bear. We could have seasonal posts or specific story starters, such as:

• Teddy celebrates Thanksgiving in USA (other country specific holidays)
• Teddy is going to the movies
• Teddy’s Eve tradition
• Teddy and his favorite foods
• Teddy looses his first tooth
• Teddy watches TV
• Teddy’s favorite fairy tale
• Teddy celebrates his birthday
• Christmas trees around the world

There is no need to send a Teddy Bear to another school or teacher. All you need to do in order to participate is to register via the Contact Form, integrate writing and documenting (via images, videos or audio) the adventures of your own class’ teddy bear.

• Fill out the form.
• You will be contacted (at the e-mail you supply in the form) to submit an image of your Teddy Bear.
• Once the image has been submitted and has been approved, it will be placed on the Teddies of the World Gallery Page and a placemark will be created on the Where in the World Map.
• You will then receive a username and password for this blog to upload your own posts AND that allow your class to comment on other teddy bear’s posts.
• Your posts could be about life in your part of the world. They could include traditions, holidays, day to day life , school events, etc.

So how about it? Are you an elementary school teacher who wants to get involved in a project that practices:

• writing skills?
• media skills?
• collaboration skills?
• geography?

and exposes your students to

• local & community awareness?
• global awareness?
• being globally connected?

Should Teachers Be More Like Conductors? This bog post from 2009 took me to the following TED talk by Itay Talgam.

Although I am not a musician, nor listen to much classical music, I was mesmerized. This TED talk was geared towards organization leaders, but I so agree with Tania Sheko, that it seemed to directly speak to me as an educator.

Click to enlarge image

I am quoting the following passages that made the connection to teaching and the classroom for me:

The magical moment, the magical moment of conducting. Which is, you go on to a stage. There is an orchestra sitting. They are all, you know, warming up and doing stuff. And I go on the podium. You know, this little office of the conductor. Or rather a cubicle, an open-space cubicle, with a lot of space. And in front of all that noise, You do a very small gesture. Something like this, not very pomp, not very sophisticated. And suddenly, out of the chaos, order. Noise becomes music.

Carlos Kleiber clip:

But what about the conductor? What can you say the conductor was doing, actually? He was happy. [...] he’s spreading happiness. And I think the happiness, the important thing is this happiness does not come from only his own story, and his joy of the music. The joy is about enabling other people’s stories to be heard at the same time.

You have the story of the orchestra as a professional body. You have the story of the audience as a community. Yeah. You have the stories of the individuals in the orchestra and in the audience. And then you have other stories, unseen. People who build this wonderful concert hall. People who made those Stradivarius, Amati, all those beautiful instruments. And all those stories are being heard at the same time. This is the true experience of a live concert.

Richard Strauss clip:

Did you see him turning pages in the score? Now, either he is senile, and doesn’t remember his own music, because he wrote the music. Or he is actually transferring a very strong message to them, saying, “Come on guys. You have to play by the book. So it’s not about my story. It’s not about your story. It’s only the execution of the written music, no interpretation.” Interpretation is the real story of the performer. So, no, he doesn’t want that. That’s a different kind of control.

Herbert von Karajan clip:

[The players] look at Karajan. And then they look at each other.  [...] And after doing that, they really look at each other, and the first players of the orchestra lead the whole ensemble in playing together.

And when Karajan is asked about it he actually says, “Yes, the worst damage I can do to my orchestra is to give them a clear instruction. Because that would prevent the ensemble, the listening to each other that is needed for an orchestra.” [...] Meaning that you know you have no authority to change anything. It’s my music. The real music is only in Karajan’s head. And you have to guess my mind. So you are under tremendous pressure because I don’t give you instruction, and yet, you have to guess my mind. So it’s a different kind of, a very spiritual but yet, very firm control.

Carlos Kleiber clip 2:

I’m opening a space for you to put in another layer of interpretation. That is another story. But how does it really work together if it doesn’t give them instructions? It’s like being on a rollercoaster. Yeah? You’re not really given any instructions. But the forces of the process itself keep you in place. That’s what he does. The interesting thing is of course the rollercoaster does not really exist. It’s not a physical thing. It’s in the players heads.

And that’s what makes them into partners. You have the plan in your head. You know what to do, even though Kleiber is not conducting you. [...] And you become a partner building the rollercoaster with sound, as you actually take the ride. This is very exciting for those players. [...] It is very tiring. Yeah? But it’s the best music making, like this.

Carlos Kleiber clip 3:

What happens when there is a mistake?

Again you see the beautiful body language.  And now there is a trumpet player who does something not exactly the way it should be done. Second time for the same player.  And now the third time for the same player. When it’s needed, the authority is there. It’s very important. But authority is not enough to make people your partners.

Carlos Kleiber clip 4:

Kleiber not only creates a process, but also creates the conditions in the world in which this process takes place. So again, the oboe player is completely autonomous and therefore happy and proud of his work, and creative and all of that. And the level in which Kleiber is in control is in a different level. So control is no longer a zero-sum game. You have this control. And all you put together, in partnership, brings about the best music. So Kleiber is about process. Kleiber is about conditions in the world.

Lenny Bernstein clip:

You need to have process and content to create the meaning. [...] Lenny Bernstein always started from the meaning [...]  you can see the music on his face. You can see the baton left his hand. No more baton. Now it’s about you, the player, telling the story. Now it’s a reversed thing. You’re telling the story. And even briefly, you become the storyteller to which the community, the whole community, listens to. And Bernstein enables that. Isn’t that wonderful?

I am preparing a pre-conference workshop for Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston at the end of the month. The title of my workshop is: Orchestrating the Collaborative Classroom

Collaboration is one of the most sought after skills in the 21st century. How do you transform your classroom into a collaborative community where each student is empowered to contribute and to take ownership of their learning? How do you become the conductor of an orchestra full of “unique instruments and musicians”?

This session will share examples from the classroom where students take on “jobs” to become part of that orchestra. We will look at and play with different “instruments” that are uniquely tailored to encourage collaborative work. Participants will explore how they can use classroom time as rehearsals in order to prepare their students for a 21st century concerto.

I think snippets from the above video will spur some great conversations…

This is the follow up post of the survey results I shared in “Do Student Jobs in the Classroom Affect Learning?”

The concept of the Digital Learning Farm is based on Alan November’s work.

Years ago, when farms dominated our landscape, children were responsible for performing meaningful jobs that were vital to each family’s success. Depending on their age, children would care for animals, repair farm equipment, prepare food to sell at local markets and more. Children were essential to the very survival of the family. At the same time, these jobs taught children the value of hard work, leading them to become more productive citizens within their communities as adults. [...]

If our children are to grow up to make important contributions to our society,it is essential that we provide them with powerful tools and experiences across the curriculum. This will require a new culture of teaching and learning that engages students as contributors.

The Digital Learning Farm

I have taken Alan’s call to engage students as contributors to heart. Coupled with the desire to put learning, not passing quizzes and exams, at the heart of a classroom learning community, I keep 21st century skills, literacies and Digital Learning Farm’s roles to empower our learners in mind at all times.

Mr. Curran outlines on his Classroom Blog of Room 302, the different teams and responsibilities his students participate in each week. I love the thought that went into setting his teams up and by the look of his blog the consistency he integrated the roles into his classroom (instead of being a one-time project).

• Official Scribes–Each week the official scribes take notes on the things we are reading and learning. They post these notes to an internet page that everyone can view if they want to review what we’ve been doing.
• Global Collaboration Team–This team is in charge of making contact with classrooms around the globe. They will be emailing other teachers and classes, trying to make as many contacts world-wide as possible. They will also be managing any projects that we’re working on with other classes. Finally, they’ll be keeping track on several maps so that we have a record of where the schools and people we’ve contacted live. Oh, and they’ll have a blog they have to post to, too!
• Society Contribution Team–This team will select a fundraising project to work on. To do this, they will use the website www.kiva.org. Kiva is a site set up for donors to locate projects around the globe to help to fund. (e.g. building a school in a poor town in Africa, etc.) Once they choose a project to help, they’ll manage the fundraising. Oh, and they’ll blog about it, too.
• Research Team--We have a class of curious thinkers. And they have lots and lots of questions. Every week, the Research Team will collect our questions and post them to our class “Wonderwall.” Then they will help find the answers to those questions. They’ll also be given certain research tasks along the way to complete so that they build their research skills.
• Learning Documentary Producers–Each week this team will produce a “learning documentary” of all the things we’ve learned about and done during those school days. They’ll produce a podcast and post it to the web so that everyone can see the exciting things we work on from week-to-week.

The following are references to websites and blog posts that show The Digital Learning Farm concept with its roles to empower student learners in action.

Ethical Treatment of Animals (7th Grade)- Contributors to Society, Researchers, Collaboration Coordinators, Curriculum Reviewers

7th graders wanted to learn and understand how humans in our society treat animals today. To gather the information, they interviewed two veterinarians and representatives of different associations and local businesses concerning their research. They hope that the people that take the time to read their website will benefit from the information and then pass it along to another person. Their  hope is that their research will help inspire people to treat animals with respect and understanding.

Navigating our Classsroom Blog Tutorial (2nd Grade)- Tutorial Designers

After the classroom teachers started to use a classroom blog as the primary means of communication between school and home, the importance of teaching parents how to navigate the new blog environment. Second grade students took it upon themselves to create a video tutorial for their parents explaining to them the basic blog vocabulary and navigataion of their classroom blog.

Quality Commenting (3rd Grade)- Tutorial Designers, Collaboration Coordinators, Contributors to Society

The first Seminole Swamp Morning Show. Students interviewed several bloggers of our school community to learn about quality commenting. They formulated questions, storyboarded, wrote scripts and recorded a news show to share with the world.

Jacksonville: For Kids by Kids (3rd Grade)- Collaboration Coordinators, Contributors to Society, Curriculum Reviewers

As part of their unit about “Our Community”, students wrote a script and recorded a video to suggest places to visit and things to do in Jacksonville, Florida. Recommendations for kids by kids.

Jacksonville Reads (3rd Grade)- Collaboration Coordinators, Contributors to Society

In the third installment of the Seminole Swamp Morning Show, students interviewed members of our city’s community regarding their reading habits and their favorite childhood books. From the mayor of Jacksonville, a police officer, a chef, a 100-year old man to the city’s baseball team’s mascot.

Math Tutorial Designers (4th Grade)- Tutorial Designers, Contributors to Society, Curriculum Reviewers

We asked our students to create a tutorial explaining multiplication to peers, future fourth graders of our school, etc. We started out with a lesson on Becoming good Tutorial Designers to show them examples of tutorial design techniques as well as to give them an understanding of the importance of clear and precise step by step directions.

Florida Explorers (4th Grade)- Researchers, Official Scribe

4th graders created a storybook, using Mixbook , where students contributed different parts from a common storyline. Students collaboratively worked on ideas for a possible storyline and how each explorer would be represented and how groups would be able to research and contribute their portion of a story.

Christopher Columbus Creates 21st Century Explorers (5th Grade) Researchers, Contributors to Society, Curriculum Reviewers, Collaboration Coordinators, Official Scribe

Follow along an “upgrade” process from textbook to globally connected learning. Students connect via email, face-to-face interviews, online surveys, Twitter and Skype with people from around the world to learn about different perspectives of one historic figure. They research, analyze and share their learning in a

Facebook Pages for American Revolution & American Revolution Myths (5th Grade) Researchers

Students showed their research and knowledge about historic figures of the American Revolutionby creating a fake facebook profile page. Since the students are under the age of 13, they created them offline in a PowerPoint slide, which we later uploaded to their classroom blog. In addition to the Facebook pages, the class  created a Snopes- Urban Legends inspired video. What myths about the American Revolution could they debunk? Students used the a range of programs (their choice)  to produce a short intro video

It’s About Learning Style and Collaboration (5th Grade) Official Scribe, Researchers

5th graders experiment with different types of note taking as part of creating “Official Scribes” for the classroom while taking into account the students’ different learning styles. From individual note taking with paper and pencil, individual note taking on a word processor, collaborative backchanneling to visual note taking (on SmartBoard and paper)

Tutorial Designers- Empowered Learners- Contributors (5h Grade) Tutorial Designers

We divided a 5th grade class into two groups (Quantity vs. Quality) and asked them to create a Grammar tutorial/practice for “Contractions” with the SmartBoard notebook for the first graders of our school. The Quantity group had to create as many separate tutorial/practice slides as possible, while the other group was told only to turn in ONE slide with a perfect tutorial/practice.

Taking Notes- Summarizing Information (2nd Grade) Official Scribe

2nd graders are learning about different communities. As they are watching a video they are learning to take notes in different ways. From paper, pencil and clipboard to “screenshooting” visuals that will be organized and categorized in a Venn Diagram.

Backchanneling-Movie Watching-Note Taking-Information Scribes (Middle School) Official Scribe

Middle School students watch a movie about copyright as they are using Today’s Meet as a backchannel tool. Collaboratively they create the “perfect notes”, then review the content by formatting, editing and organizing the information.

Take a look at these third graders who are creating their own “textbooks” on LiveBinder (3rd Grade) Curriculum Reviewers, Contributors to Society

Michael Thornton decided to have his students create their own “textbooks” using Livebinders.  ” The class and I go over the curriculum and/or standards.  We discuss what it is they are expected to learn.  Now armed with that knowledge, they find websites that fulfill what is expected of them.  In addition, they search for websites that engage, enlighten and enrich their learning.    This year my students created four unit “textbooks”.  I am going to continue this process with my new students next year.  In addition, these current textbooks are adaptable and will change with time.  This was a specific request from my students.”

If you have written about or documented “The Digital Learning Farm” in action, please leave a link in the comments. It is important to gather examples and resources to model for others.

As promised here is the follow up video to the trailer from my previous post Bringing a 1:1 iPad Program to China. I am back in the US now and am trying to sort through and make connections to my experiences from the past 2 weeks.

Taking videos and pictures while we were traveling in China… has helped me tremendously in reflecting on these experiences. Choosing the right images (from over 1000 files between Mike and my Flickr account) and then editing the movie was an integral part of my learning experience.

1:1 iPad Initiative in Wuhan, China from langwitches on Vimeo.

What are your thoughts when viewing the video? What parallels can you draw to education in the US? What implications do you see for the global future of our students?

I can’t stop thinking about Digital Storytelling and its role in schools of the future. Digital Storytelling naturally weaves through so many 21st century upgrades to the curriculum. The importance of being able to tell a story, the skills to be able to tell a story digitally, is increasing with the need to

• disseminate the story further and reach a wider audience
• amplify our voice to an authentic audience
• make our story available in different media channels

As the tools for digital storytelling are becoming more sophisticated and at the same time easier to use, in terms of mobility and price, the opportunity to produce a quality, professional looking story are within the reach of “even” elementary school students.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a Green Screen for under $20 (Chromakey muslin background) and pinned it to the wall in my room.

Students were naturally curious about the green screen and immediately got excited as I showed them what was possible with test recordings of them… sending them to the moon… making them stand in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris… all without even leaving our school campus.

The third grade teacher immediately jumped on board as she was preparing her Social Studies unit on “Our Community”. We decided that students would create another episode of the Seminole Swamp Morning News Show.

In addition to creating a storyboard and writing the script for the show “Jacksonville for Kids by Kids”, students had to think of an appropriate setting by choosing an image that would replace the green screen they would be filmed in front of. Their imagination was not limited by any field trip budgets or time constraints.

Collaborative Storyboarding with Screenshots

We practiced a few times in front of the green screen to show kids how to interact with the “not visible to them” background as I was filming them.  They got the hang of it pretty quick.

Take a look at the final video and pay special attention to the Florida map and the alligator a the zoo. I chose to use the webcam in my macbook to directly record into iMovie in order to minimize any movement while filming. We also tested out different clothing colors on students to see which ones would work best with the green screen. Bright pink, white and purple seemed to be a great combination, while green and blue had some issues to transform students into see-through ghosts.

Take a look at the finished story of our third graders (news show format) to teach others about the community they live in. Remember again, that the green screen and iMovie was just the tool to get the kids excited and motivated while at the same time supporting their creativity in script writing.

As a former World Language teacher, I know of the importance of hearing the target language as much as possible. In order to internalize a new vocabulary word, you have to hear it at least 70+ times. By hearing I mean not only the sounds of the letters that make up the word, but also the context the word is embedded in… the melody of the sentence that embraces that word… the words that lead up to it and the words that follow it to make meaning and conclude the sentence.

When learning a language, it is especially important to attach a feeling to a word in order to make meaning of how it will be used in the future with maybe other words surrounding it than the ones originally learned. It is equally important to give language learners the opportunity to practice using the words, sentences and melodies and help them be comfortable in pronouncing them and feeling and hearing them come out of their mouth.

Recording a podcast and the EDITING of the podcast is a great tool, especially for language learners to play with the mechanics of the language. It gives the learners the opportunity to see their voices, read the sounds, manipulate the sequence of sentences, sounds can be deleted, edited, emphasized and re-arranged similar than a word processing program can do this with the written word.

Our second graders were learning the story of Purim a few weeks ago. Their teacher and I planned to have the students record the story as a podcast to be shared with their parents on their classroom blog. Students had had experience with podcasting the previous year as they produced Flat Stanley and a Magic Tree House podcast as first graders.

Their Jewish Studies teacher worked with each of them to write individual parts in Hebrew to create a script of the Purim Story. Collaboratively the class had to make sure that the entire story was told between them.

Then we started recording them in Garageband. We recorded each student’s sentence, but were careful to record the sentences completely out of order.

The children loved listening to their recordings over and over again. Once all the parts were recorded it was time for the students to edit the podcast file and move each clip into the correct order to tell the story of Purim.

Putting audio clips into order

We connected the computer to the SmartBoard which allowed students to come up to the board to use their fingers in order to find a certain place in the recording, play, pause, start, listen and decide to which position the clip should be moved to.

Listening Comprehension

Again, I would like to emphasize that this project was NOT about using Garageband (the tool). It was NOT about producing a podcast (the genre) . This lesson was about writing a script, listening, comprehension, collaboration, speaking skills, and fluency in the target language. The tool allowed us to manipulate sounds, re-listen, think critically and logically about the best way to present the story- all in the target language. The genre allowed us to share our work, amplify our reach, gain an authentic audience and motivate students to create and be creative.

Even if you don’t speak Hebrew, take a moment and listen to  these 7 and 8 year olds. Listen to their fluency, melody and motivation in their voices. Maybe you want to leave them a comment to let them know you “heard” them.

We are intensifying the quest to empower our learners by allowing the students to become contributors to their classroom learning community. Our model is Alan November’s six roles he outlines in The Digital Learning Farm.

One of these roles is The Tutorial Designer.

Alan asks :

“Who do students go to when they are having difficulties completing a homework assignment?”

Most of them will call a friend to explain to them what to do. By taking advantage of how students often understanding something better or are more willing to listen when a peer explains something, the idea of becoming tutorial designers comes in.

Not only will the student watching/listening to the tutorial benefit, but also the student creating the tutorial will benefit by breaking their own knowledge into smaller pieces and teaching it to someone else.

Students don’t seem to be natural tutorial designers.How were we going to approach teaching good tutorial design to 4th graders?

I was in luck! Kim Cofino just happened to blog about a lesson she had done at her school, Students as Teachers- Sixth Grade Tutorial Designers. As always she has produced an incredible outline of her thoughts, implementation and pedagogy behind the lesson.

I decided to start out with an empty PowerPoint and ask students how they defined a “Designer”. After leading them into Kim’s inquiry based activity with three papers, I started taking photos of the students doing the activities and placing them in order into the PowerPoint slides. We also typed  observations students came up with after completing the activity.

As one class period came to an end and the lesson continued the following week, we used the PowerPoint to review what we already had learned about good tutorial design. Students helped me put images taken onto the correct slide and move them in the correct order in which they happened.

It did not occur to us until later, that we were also creating a tutorial- a step by step instruction- on HOW to teach Tutorial Design to elementary school students. Students identified techniques that they had liked from the video examples that we had watched together, such as

• details
• images (are worth a thousand words)
• color coded words
• make sure instructions are in order

We will meet next week again for students to take the next step, get into groups and start designing a tutorial which will focus on explaining “Multiplication” to someone else.

Alan November’s article Students as Contributors: The Digital Learning Farm has inspired me in my professional life beyond words and guided many of my research and actions in the classroom and professional development since then.

We have come full circle as globalization quickly becomes the norm, and it may now be essential for our students to compete with peers from around the world. Today, we can restore the dignity and integrity of the child as a contributor. Across the country, pioneering teachers are providing students with new roles that have students making contributions to their learning communities. We have powerful, easy-to-use tools such as screencasting and podcasting that give students opportunities to contribute content to the class. At the same time we can also provide them with rigorous and more motivating assignments and better prepare them to become more productive in our new global economy.

You can read the following posts on this blog where I shared thoughts and examples of students as contributors:

• Tutorial Designers- Empowered Learners- Contributors
• Unpack, Upgrade and Bring your Lesson into the 21st Century
• Students as Meaningful Contributors

I wanted to share yet another example of The Digital Learning Farm in action with you.

Mystery Call

Fourth graders had a blast with a “Mystery Skype”. Two classes connected without knowing WHERE each one was geographically located. The idea was, by asking targeted questions, to find out the city we each lived in.

This mystery-type-call was a lot of fun and reinforced critical thinking skills as well as collaboration, communication and geography skills!

We stated the rules at the beginning of the call:

1. One class starts asking a question to determine the geographic location of the other class.
2. Questions can only be answered with “Yes” or “No”.
3. If the class who asked receives a “Yes” answer, they continue to ask another question until they receive a “No”. It will be the other class’s turn then to ask a question.

On our end, we gave students different jobs to help figure the location out.

Questions & Answers

• Q & A: students were in the “hot seat” asking and answering questions in front of the webcam

Scribe

• Scribe: Student who wrote the clues we received on the board to keep track of positive and negative responses

Researchers

Researchers

Researchers

• Researchers: Students were ready and waiting with Google Maps open on their computer or with an atlas to take the clues received and narrow the search down and to feed information to the Q&A speakers.

We had a blast trying to figure each other’s location out and learned that we need to learn to ask good questions that will narrow possible answers down. We also learned that we all need to work together (Q&A, researchers and scribe) and communicate in order to solve the mystery of our Skype connection’s location. Here are some of the clues we figured out: Our skype mystery connection lives:

• in the USA
• where it is cold right now
• in the North of the USA
• does not live in North Dakota
• in Michigan
• about an hour from Detroit
• close to a lake
• in a small town

We needed some help to continue finding their exact location: We received the following clues:

• they are close to the border with Ohio
• the first part of their city’s name is a “baby sheep”

Our mystery class was from Lambertville, Michigan!

Part I of Using Social Bookmarking in Schools and with your Students attempted to point out the skills and  literacies involved and required when using social bookmarking tools to its full potential. I looked at the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy as well as 21st century skills to see where social bookmarking fit in.

Part II takes a deeper at the skills involved when using social bookmarking, gives specific examples of how schools, teachers and students can use social bookmarking for learning and reiterates that it’s not about the tools we use but about the skills we try to instill in our students.

How can we take advantage of Social Bookmarking in our schools?

Once you have decided on a social bookmarking service, it is time to look at the reasons how you could and why you possibly should use social bookmarking in your school and/or in your classroom. Remember that it is NOT about the tools we use with our students, but the skills we are exposing them to and want them to get proficient in.

Alan November in Curriculum 21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs (ASCD, 2010) talks about six new roles for developing empowered learners. Social bookmarking allows your students to be researchers, which is one of these six roles. It can be the perfect venue to make students meaningful contributors to their own learning as November advocates.

Adapted from Alan November (pp.188-193), Curriculum 21 (ASCD, 2010) by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.

Teachers and Schools can:

• organize, filter and bookmark resources for their students
• categorize bookmarks for specific classes, projects, grade levels, units, lessons, areas of interest (Take a look at top five reasons for using social bookmarking by Vicki Davis)
• use a common group tag or hashtag to share resources of interest to all students in the same level class across sections (Thanks to @lrosen)
• reinforce lessons on primary vs. secondary sources. Discussion of what makes high quality sources. Periodic (informal) reviews of collected and shared bookmarks by students (Thanks to @kyteacher)
• use social bookmarking to collect sources & evaluate the information together with students. The goal is to find credible & relevant sources (Thanks to @learnfromcarson)
• extract and use the same tags as experts in a field. It feeds “Phd” quality links to students (Thanks to @coolcatteacher)
• create a school account on one of the social bookmarking sites and come up with specific tags for your school, ex.”MJGDS_science”, “MJGDS_language_arts”, “MJGDS_5thtgrade”, “MJGDS_parent_resources”.
• share these “specially-created-for-your-school” tags with school’s faculty, asking them to start using these tags when their bookmark with their own account.
• share a “parent_resource” tag with your parent community to subscribe to or embed the RSS feed of the specific tag on your school website.

Students can:

• need to evaluate and interpret information
• tag bookmarks (their own and/or the ones collected by their teacher)
• summarize bookmarks (their own and/or the ones shared by teacher)
• take advantage of “experts in the field” (by subscribing to their RSS for specific tags)
• learn to search for relevant information beyond “googling”
• collaborate with other members of a study group (local or global)

We can’t assume that by simply giving students access to a social bookmarking classroom or school account, they will automatically know how to research, evaluate, tag, categorize or annotate. You can read on Bill Ferriter’s DigitallySpeaking Wiki that:

Many of today’s teachers make a critical mistake when introducing digital tools by assuming that armed with a username and a password, students will automatically find meaningful ways to learn together. The results can be disastrous. Motivation wanes when groups using new services fail to meet reasonable standards of performance.

Continue reading on the wiki and you will find, in Alan November’s fashion, assigned roles to students as they bookmark and annotate. Bill Ferriter does an incredible job in outlining these roles and makes several handouts available for teachers to download:

• Handout_SocialBookmarkingRoles.pdf
• Handout_SharedAnnotationRoles.pdf

Shared Bookmarking Roles:

The Original Thinker:

Any group of students working together with social bookmarking applications depends on having a healthy collection of weblinks worth exploring. The Original Thinker’s role in a social bookmarking group is to bring content to the collective table by searching for websites connected to the current topic of study. [...]

The Reliability Cop:

The Reliability Cop must know everything that there is to know about sniffing out websites that just can’t be trusted and they must be willing to review every website that your social bookmarking group spotlights as worthy of continued study. When they find sites that are “fishy,” it is your Reliability Cop’s job to delete them from your shared collection. [...]

The Connector:

The Connector’s role in a social bookmarking group is to be on the constant lookout for links related to these kinds of secondary themes. Without Connectors, social bookmarking groups will struggle to build the kinds of background knowledge necessary for understanding their primary topics. [...]

Johnny Opposite:

Johnny Opposite’s role in a social bookmarking group is to make sure that personal biases don’t taint the quality of a set of links by intentionally searching for sites that represent alternative viewpoints on any hot-button issue that a group is trying to explore. [...]

The Mind Reader:

The Mind Reader’s role in a social bookmarking group is to poke through these tag libraries looking for sites that may be valuable. [...] Essentially, the Mind Reader is looking into the collective brain of other users of social bookmarking services to tap into materials that their group may have missed. [...]

The Cleaning Crew:

Understanding the important role that accurate titles, clean descriptions and common tags play in efficient learning, the Cleaning Crew is constantly reviewing the bookmarks added to a shared collection and polishing incomplete entries.

Bill continues by reminding educators that the final goal of educators is not to teach them the technical “know-how” behind one web tool or another, but to expose them to “powerful learning” techniques that ‘depends on the quality of the conversation that develops around the content being studied together”. He lists yet five more roles for students to take on as they use annotation tools.

Shared Annotation Roles:

Consider introducing the following shared annotation roles to your students before they begin using Diigo for reading together. Doing so will ensure that shared annotation experiences result in the kinds of high-level thinking that you expect:

Captain Cannonball:

[...] With a critical eye and an understanding of a group’s interests and responsibilities, Captain Cannonball should find four or five key points in a shared reading to highlight and craft initial questions for other readers to consider. Captain Cannonball’s choices are important. The success of a shared reading often depends on the quality of the first comments and questions added.

The Provocateur:

[...] The Provocateur’s role in a shared annotation group is to stir things up a bit, challenging the thinking of peers in the conversation. Directly responding to comments made by others, the Provocateur works to remind everyone that there are two sides to every story.

The Middle Man:

[...] The Middle Man’s role in a shared annotation group is to carefully consider the different viewpoints being shared in a conversation looking for connections. Middle Men are often the glue that holds contentious conversations together.

The Author’s Worst Nightmare:

[...] Bringing a healthy dose of skepticism to the conversation, the Author’s Worst Nightmare looks to question statements made and conclusions drawn throughout a shared reading. While groups may eventually decide that an author’s assertions are spot-on, the Author’s Worst Nightmare’s responsibility is to make sure that every point is put through the fires of shared reflection.

The Repo Man:

[...] The Repo Man’s role in a shared annotation group is to carefully monitor conversations, looking for summary points that define exactly what it is that a group learned together during the course of a collective reading. While the Repo Man’s real work begins as a conversation is ending, he or she must stay “in tune” with the thoughts and ideas being shared as a conversation develops in order to identify important “takeaways” that a group can learn from.

Bill’s DigitallySpeaking Wiki contains a wealth of resources and downloadables for you to explore around the topic of social bookmarking with students. I encourage everyone to click their way to the wiki and explore.

How are you using social bookmarking in your school and with your students. Please share.