Virtual worlds may present real concerns

Generally, I stay away from discussions about the virtual worlds, such as Second Life, because I don't really understand them or why someone would want to create an avatar. David Warlick, however, recently addressed the utility of virtual worlds in a recent post regarding literacy development, and this immediately piqued my interests.

Second Life has been described to me as many things, but I think it simply comes down to the fact that it is a virtual place where internet users can create a virtual "self" in order to participate in a virtual world and interact with other avatars. In fact, NPR reported that last week's worldwide stock market roller coaster ride even managed to ripple through the virtual world as well. Whether or not the creation of alter egos in a virtual world is beneficial or harmful to the well-being of students, I am still unsure, but this issue of literacy development should concern us all.

Warlick notes that students learn the skills of navigation, interaction, presentation, and communication, and while I agree that all of these skills are important to the success of students, I wonder if Second Life is the best arena for this type of learning. A virtual world probably innately includes a different collection of literacies, but I question whether there exists a point at which we should be trying to teach some of these skills in more tangible settings. I believe many of these literacy skills can be sharpened via blogs, but will the allure of blogging among adolescents someday fade and be replaced with virtual worlds where participants can create virtual selves? I guess I worry that students may invest themselves in a virtual world so much that they will begin to lose touch with the real world and the fundamentals of "real" person-to-person interaction.

However, I must admit that I am a little intrigued to hear more about Second Life's potential creation of an educational world. Aren't you?

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Image Citations:

Remeta. (2007 December 29). Second Life logo. Remeta's Photostream. Retrieved on January 27, 2008, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/remeta/2146826566/

Lamar, N. (2007 February 27). Second Life avatars in world literature. North Lamar's Photostream. Retrieved on January 27, 2008, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/blazingdaze/404848910/

Blogs as branches from the same the trunk of thought

Will's unsuccessful attempt at finding student "bloggers" (writers) reminds me that there is still a lot of teaching and learning to be done on fruitful classroom blogging. While I cannot attest to the strengths or weaknesses of the blogs Will received from his Tweeting, I acknowledge the fact that Will's evaluation of student blogs was most likely fair and appropriate, given his professional background. If future teachers hope to incorporate blogs into their classrooms, perhaps there should be more of a focus on how writing is different from blogging.

Blogging is not simply writing online. Although blogging does ask students to produce text, it additionally provides a means for collaboration through hyperlinks. In a standard classroom, teachers provide writing prompts to students with the expectation that students will each write their own individual responses. When teachers read the assignments, they more than often look to see whether students succeeded in sustaining a thorough, complete argument. But what if teachers could evaluate a student's ability to continue a discussion rather than to complete one?

Every teacher wants to foster a safe learning environment where students feel comfortable sharing ideas in front of their peers without the fear of ridicule, and most teachers will give students the highest marks on persuasive and analytical assignments as long as the evidence supports the thesis, regardless of a teacher's bias. However, shouldn't teachers also strive to reach a shared understanding to some degree? Wouldn't a longer conversational thread (via a blog ;) )help in building this shared understanding? In the event students were providing hollow discussion tracks, teachers could step in to challenge or redirect thought. Now, I'm not suggesting that teachers lecture from the pulpit on the one, true interpretation of a text, but what I am intimating is that teachers should, perhaps, reconsider how they assess student thinking.

Being part of a conversation, as blogs enable its users to do, is a skill that all students should develop.

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Image Citation:

Mrhayata. (2008 January 3). Tree trunk. Mrhayata's Photostream. Retrieved on January 22, 2008, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhayata/2161899616/

Fresh prespective brought by student teachers

With the recent debate on social networking producing numerous threads of discussions throughout the blogosphere, I have decided to create a thread of my own. I believe social networking has a place in the future of education, and I think teachers as well as students can mutually share in positive growth fostered by social networking sites and tools. Where years ago each individual scattered around the world had difficulty sharing messages with broader audiences, technology has now created seemingly limitless pathways to connect these nodes and persons from every country in the world. Finally, the pathways are easily accessible and anyone can provide commentary and original thoughts on virtually any topic of discussion.

Although I do not consider myself to be in the same edublogger social circles as Ewan McIntosh, Danah Boyd, Will Richardson, David Warlick, etc., I believe I do bring an important perspective to the blogosphere as a young student teacher who realizes the title of "student teacher" will most likely remain an integral part of my identity as an educator. Many edubloggers recognize their roles of "learner" will never disappear, but I think actual student teachers who are at the early stages of their careers have a fresh, unique perspective on education, that is, its state, direction, reform, practice, etc. Student teachers should begin to enter the conversations about educational technology and Web 2.0 now while their practice is undergoing, perhaps, some of its greatest maturation processes. I challenge student teachers across the country to weigh-in on issues discussed in the most popular and visited edublogger blogs in the blogosphere. I challenge my peers and colleagues, local and international alike, to share their questions, thoughts, fears, and advice with each other in hopes of creating a network created and sustained by student teachers.

The venue for these discussions and collaborations is underway, and I hope to begin to contact student teachers across the States and abroad shortly. Until then, increase the number of subscriptions in your aggregators to the point where you have enough resources to read daily about the conversations and debates taking place in the world of education.

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Image citations:

Lakerae. (2005 August 6). Earth n America plus. Lakerae's Photostream. Retrieved on January 20, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/lakerae/31756773/

Christos_m2001. (2007 July 18). Earth - globe. Christos_m2001's Photostream. Retrieved on January 20, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/christos_m/846651493/

Who needs journal articles?

Scott McLeod presented some interesting analysis today in his blog. He points out that blogs have the potential to reach much larger audiences than academic journals. For example, his blog could potentially attract 4,200,000 people per decade; whereas, articles written by the same author in academic journals may only draw 166,667 people per decade. By the end of his post, McLeod poses the following question:

Why would anyone who wishes to actually reach educators and hopefully influence change in schools not be blogging?

Well, I simply agree. Blogs have the potential to reach wider audiences, but only if their authors take them seriously. According to StatCounter, I only attract about 15 unique users a week, but if I advertised my blog in local education newsletters or encouraged my colleagues to provide material for the blog, then maybe I could create a larger readership. Blogs serve as a medium of communication that links many people, and if we could create a virtual arena for discussions to take place, perhaps more educational endeavors could be begun. Perhaps, more ideas of reform could be discussed. The possibilities are endless.

I will end with McLeod's final question:

Why haven't more faculty caught on to this?

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Image Citation:

Automania. (2006 February 10). Spider web gravity well. Automania's photostream. Retrieved January 16, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/automania/97936640/

Classroom Blogging Resources

Today, I want to provide an array of excellent sources for blogging in the classroom. As teachers continue to think about integrating blogs into the classroom, I believe it to be essential for teachers to remain up-to-date on what types of research and studies are being completed on blogging.

Eide, F., & Eide, B. (2005, March 2). Brain of the blogger. Eide Neurolearning Blog. Retrieved January 4, 2008, from http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/brain-of-blogger.html

Ellison, N., & Wu, Y. (2008). Blogging in the classroom: A preliminary exploration of student attitudes and impact on comprehension. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 17(1), 99-122.

Kahn, E. (2007). Building fires: Raising achievement through class discussion. English Journal, 96(4), 16-18.

Lee, S., & Berry, M. (2004) Effective e-learning through collaboration. In T. Freedman (Ed.), Coming of age: An introduction to the World Wide Web (pp. 19-24). Ilford, England: Terry Freedman Ltd.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Macgill, A., & Smith, A. (2007, December 19). Teens and social media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Penrod, D. (2007). Using blogs to enhance literacy: The next powerful step in 21st-century learning. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Sifry, D. (2007, April 5). The state of the live web, April 2007. Sifry’s Alerts: David Sifry’s musings. Retrieved January 4, 2008, from http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html

Warlick, D. (2005). Classroom blogging: A teacher’s guide to the blogosphere. Raleigh, NC: The Landmark Project.

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Image Citation:

Krisde. (2006 May 18). Before high piled books, in charactry, hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain. Krisde's Photostream. Retrieved on Janurary 15, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristimeador/148787241/