Now it’s no secret that I’m a huge supporter of the WordPress blogging platform.  I don’t usually “preach the joys of Worpress” during my inservices because I personally believe that everyone should always have a chance to make up their own minds, it is my software of choice.  WordPress comes in many different flavors from the hosted WordPress.com, to the host your own WordPress, or even the multi user WordPress Mu.  It is this last option that currently has my attention – and has exciting possibilities for the classroom.

WordPress Mu (pronounced mew) is a program that a person can download for free and install on a webserver of their own, or to any of a number of webhosts you can purchase space from (personally I like using Tera-Byte for web hosting…).  Using this software you can set up multiple user accounts with access to as many blogs as you’d like, all from one convenient interface.  Your users would just go to one log-in page, enter their information and be able to post/edit/publish/comment/administer whatever blogs they have access too, depending also on their access levels.  Pretty basic stuff once it’s all set up (and setup isn’t that difficult really… I’ve been asked before to create a vid cast showing how easy it is to do… and one day, I promise I will).  Now this isn’t what I’m excited about.  I’ve been using this setup with different schools for a couple of years now.  The really cool stuff is coming down the pipe….

All versions of WordPress allow users to enable plugins to add features to their sites.  These are just mini programs designed to add functionality to your blog.  For example: on the Classroom I’m using an enhanced Tag Cloud plugin (to allow me to change the colour and order of my tags), a spam catching widget (too stop spam comments from ruining the site) and the Share This plugin (to make it easier for people to add articles to their social bookmarking sites, or e-mail a post to their friends).  There are hundreds of different plugins out there – and as I’ve joked about in the past, give me a good programmer and an engineer and I can get WordPress to wake you up and make you eggs every morning if you’d like.  And it’s thanks to these plugins that magic is going to happen.

Allow me to switch gears for a moment and talk about social networking.  Social networking is becoming more and more popular as they allow people to connect and easily share everything over the net.  Some of the more popular SN programs include Facebook, Myspace, and Ning.

Now I know I’ve just sent up a bunch of red flags in the minds of some educators.  Facebook is dangerous!  We can’t let our kids use that or anything like it in school!   In fact a lot of school boards all over the world automatically block these sites and programs, so that kids can never access them from school.  I have always had a problem with this.  In Edmonton we take our kindergarten students to a place called “Safety City“.  Here students learn, in a controlled environment, the safe way to cross the street and to interact with vehicles.  Most people would say this is a great idea and totally endorse the idea.  We also train some of our upper elementary students as “Patrollers“.  These students watch over the little ones, making sure they cross the street safely and obey the rules of the road.  Again, a great idea.  Well if we train our children to follow the rules of the road in such a manner, then why don’t we for the information super highway???  We don’t totally ignore the fact that we have roads and traffic – blocking all views of it from our schools, then expect them to handle themselves responsibly when they leave our doors and are no longer our responsibility.  Then why do we do that for some of the more “dangerous” aspects of the ‘net?

People can (and have) argue that you “need” to be able to cross the road in our society – you don’t need to use the Internet – and especially facebook.   But that’s not totally true!  Companies are starting to use Web 2.0 tools as part of their regular business practices, and that includes social networking.  It’s a quick and effective way to share/distribute information and stimulate discussion.  As a part of my professional practice I am a member of the Ning Social Network Group Classroom 2.0.  I get feedback from teachers around the world on how to use Web 2.0 tools effectively in my classroom. So why don’t we teach our students how to use these tools in our classrooms?

The simple answer is control.  We can’t control who sees our sites, and how can respond to what our children are doing.  As I said before, Safety City is a controlled environment.  We need to set up the same type of system for our students with social networking. Enter Buddypress.

Buddypress is a series of plugins for WordPress Mu that will turn this blogging system into a social networking platform. It’s amazing.  When it’s released we will be able to custom create our own social networking environments and have complete control with who has access to the information posted.  Also because the the system is plugin based we don’t need to enable all the features.  Extended profiles for example may not be something you want to have your students do (though from an internet safety education stand point – this is where most students mess up and get hit by the proverbial truck on the information super highway…).  You have total control.  This system would be hosted on your servers, with you as the administrator.  Any one caught abusing the system, you block them.  They can’t just make a new account because you’re in control.

This idea gets me really REALLY excited.  But wait – we’re not done yet!

Both WordPress and Buddypress are owned by a company called Automattic.  Automattic also makes a forum program called BBpress.  This forum software can be configured to work with WordPress logins (though it can get a bit tricky at this point).  They are also developing another plugin for WordPress called Blicki which will allow your blog to have wiki features.  I am totally Geeking out about this!  When everything is all said and done you can have a school website 100% under your control where staff and students can login with one username and password and have access to blogs, forums, wikis, and a social network.  All of which can easily be managed from one admin panel.  Now doing this would not be for the tech weak of heart – but for those with some web skill this has some major possibilities…

But wait I’m not done!  Using other plugins like Custom Branding and by creating your own WordPress Themes you can totally configure the site to meet your school’s needs!

Let me just try one more time to explain what you’d have..

1. Blogs and all the great things that go along with them including podcasting
2. Wikis to use as a collaborative creation environment
3. Forums to have all questions answered
4. Social Network to teach students how to safely use the technology, and provide a move collaborative online environment to help them learn together.

Now I know the system wouldn’t be perfect, and there are always challenges when working with any technologies…  but the potential for educational value is enormous.  I haven’t even started on the differentiation that could come from this.  This is big!  But only if we have the imagination, the desire, and the resources to make it happen.  Thanks to Automattic – the resources part just became a little easier…..

Where to begin… This has been a roller coaster month for me – just so many things to do, papers to fill out, and technologies to master. But I can proudly say that today my students had no problems logging onto the system and using their laptops. And they loved it. They have bought into the idea whole heartedly. These are “their” laptops. They’ve taken ownership, and are extremely pumped to start using these systems in class.

But it wasn’t easy to get to this point – and honestly, I was surprised the kids were as excited as they were. This was our third “launch” of the program – and the first 2 were flaming messes.

No matter what we did, and what troubleshooting measures I took things went wrong. At first only a handful of kids could log on. I didn’t have the correct log in information (my fault on that one – I could have checked their folders on the server for the correct log in names). Next, when we tried again the following week – they couldn’t access the internet, or the appropriate profiles. But now – we’re good to go!

But this brings me to my rant for this week – which I shall title: When tech goes wrong!

The biggest problem with technology is that it frightens most people. And no one wants to be around something that frightens them.

I remember my Jr. High shop teacher – Mr. Porter. He also frightened most people. He was a gruff and stern man, who was quick to discipline, but if you knew how to handle him, and stayed calm, he was one of the greatest men you’ll ever meet. Long after I left Jr. High I still saw and talked with Mr. Porter. However others weren’t so lucky – they got off on the wrong foot with Mr. Porter right way, and ended up disliking him the whole time. Technology is EXACTLY like that.

People are willing to try something new and exciting – but if it doesn’t work the first time, they’re hesitant to try it again. And if they do and it STILL doesn’t work – that’s it. It’s toast. That’s why I was so nervous about all these false starts.

Teachers went away for the summer thinking that when they returned they could start with the technology right away. We altered plans and modified assignments, went to the conference got all hyped up – and then came to school. And nothing was ready. So we replanned and reworked things – and then were told we’re good to go. And we weren’t. Told that problem was fixed – and another popped up. It was frustrating to say the least.

And it’s not anything that could have been for seen. There is no one we can point the finger at and say “you’re to blame”. It’s just the nature of the beast.

I’ve heard “Well the techs should have had it all ready!” The thing is ITS is crazy busy right now with the EDU switch over, all the interactive whiteboards that have entered the system, the WMT project, staff zone, not to mention just the normal start of the year duties. Add to that the fact that there was massive staff movement this year, and everyone wanted their files NOW – there’s just too much for them to have all done by September 1st. You couldn’t pay me to be a tech right now. Our tech called it the “September to Remember”.

If we start playing the blame game we get teachers complaining about the “lazy techs – who hold onto their servers tighter then Gollum to the ring” (my preciousssssssssss), the techs grumbling about “know it all teachers and their unreasonable demands” and no one getting anywhere. Just more frustrations, and the technology not getting used.

Luckily that really wasn’t the case here – but I’ve heard too many stories to know that it’s been happening. Yes we’ve had problems, and frustrations. But, at least at Highlands, we’ve taken the time to take a step back, take a deep breath, and work out the problems calmly, knowing that it can and will work.

And if today’s session was any indication, it does and will continue. And both staff and students couldn’t be more excited.

And now I’ll get off my soapbox.

 My “question” today is why do we give techs such a hard time?  I was talking with Danny about this a few weeks ago (and I’m hoping he’ll weigh in on the conversation) and he had some great insights into the issue.   As teachers we have some crazy (though I think brilliant – but I might be a tad biased) dreams for what we want the technology to do.  We read about some obscure program somewhere and figure it’ll solve all our problems – and then turn to the techs and tell them to make it happen.  As Danny pointed out we don’t think about how this might (or might not) be compatible with other software.  And 9 times out of 10 we don’t care.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard (and possibly said) it’s my system – if I break it, I’ll just pay the tech to fix it.  But do we ever really take the blame?  Or do we just blame the tech for not doing it right in the first place?  The techs have quite a bit to do, and in most cases many schools to do them in.  They’re also mandated to have the systems running 99.99% of the time – which is what everyone wants, but is a hard number to hit with the limited resources of our schools.

I was at a conference this summer, and as a joke one of the presenters characterized techs as lazy, possesive people who only want to make things easy on themselves.  And while most people laughed, only 2 spoke out on behalf of the techs (sorry folks, ashamed to say I was a laugher…).  I took it as  a joke, but then I started to think – stereotypes come from somewhere.  Some people somewhere must actually belive that.

Now I’ve got too many close friends who are techs to believe that, and the more I think about it, the more I admire them.  When things work, we take it as that’s how it should be, and that’s their job – no thanks required.  When they don’t… well they couldn’t get out onto site fast enough, even if they lived in the building.

We need to work together to get the job done right.  We need to be a team.  The best tech I ever worked with listened to my dreams, then worked with me to find the solutions I needed.  He protected the system’s intergrity, but never told me no when I had a suggestion.  I heard a lot of  “can’t do it that way – how about”, but never no.   It’s teamwork that got Highlands laptops up and running – and it’s teamwork that’ll keep school systems running smoothly, while still pushing the limits of educational technology…..

My preference is a social bookmarking tool called http://diigo.com. With diigo, you can highlight, add stick notes and make your comments private or public. (Randy Lyseng, Lyseng Tech: Social Bookmarking, November 2006)

After listening to Randy praise Diigo at every opportunity, I finally started playing with the site (and corresponding program, more on that in a bit) this summer (I know Randy – I’m slow to catch on…)As I started to play with the system, my mind started reeling with all the possibilities. First off, like any other social bookmarking tool, Diigo allows you to put all your favorites/bookmarks in one “central” location. Students can access them from ANY computer in the world (talk about the new WWW: whatever, whenever, where ever). They just open up your Diigo page, and there are all the links. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Diigo’s power lies in it’s group annotations. That’s right, people can now write in the margins of webpages. You can highlight passages of interest, write notes, and even write a blog entry directly from another webpage, quoting passages right from the original text. Sounds great – but to do all that it must be complicated right?

Nope. To use these advanced features all you need to do is run the Diigo software. This can either be done using a bookmarklet or by downloading and installing the Diigo toolbar. While both have basically the same features, the toobar is less finicky, and allows you to use contextual menus to access features quickly. I also find the toolbar’s highlighting and sticky notes to be easier to read. Ok fine… I can leave notes on webpages – so what?

Here’s an example. I’m thinking about having my 7B’s record radio plays. I’ve looked them up online and found many scripts from all the old classics available. However many also contain the old endorsements from tobacco and other companies. So I go to a play that I’d like to my students to record and highlight the old commercial. If they’re using diigo when they access this page they’ll see the same text highlighted in pink, and when they mouse over the highlighted text they’ll get a hidden message from me – “I’d like you to write a new advertisement for this section. What other advertisement do you think we could write for here? Write an ad for a virtue or trait that you think is important. For example – “Here’s a news flash for every person in Canada. It’s about a sensational, new kind of personality that will make you the envy of all those around you. It’s call trustworthiness. Why with just a pinch of this great product….” They now have a writing assignment to go along with the recording of the radio play.

Adding assignments is just one possibility. You can ask questions about the site, or have students carry on conversations about the text. Perhaps about the validity of some information. These notes can be made private (for your eyes only), public, or for a select group of people. You could use the same webpage for multiple classes, and have a different set of sticky notes for each one! Diigo will also create a separate webpage for each group you create, helping you organize your bookmarks/notes further! This technology is useful for any class, but I think is a must have for any group trying to organize something along the lines of the 1 to 1 project. I’m hoping to convince all the core teachers to set up a group page for their classes, and organize their book marks there! I’ve already started one for my 7B Language Arts Class!

One of the first questions I was asked when I started looking at this site, and more importantly at the bookmarklets and toolbar was is it secure? Will it bring spyware onto our systems? How about stability? I’ve currently been running the Diigo bookmarklet and toolbar on 3 different browsers, Explorer, Firefox, and Safari (sorry, there’s no Safari toolbar yet), across 4 different computers and 2 different platforms with no problems. I’ve also run every virus and spyware scan I can think of, everything checks out clean. I’ve also done an extensive internet check, and can’t find any major problems reported by anyone else. To my mind it’s an absolutely fantastic tool for use in the classroom. Thanks Diigo! And thanks Randy for pointing me in the right direction!

Other links reviewing Diigo:

• Solution Watch: Diigo Launches – More then Just Bookmarking (http://www.solutionwatch.com/474/diigo-launches-more-than-just-bookmarking/)
• Solution Watch: Diiggo: Social Bookmarking and Annotation (http://www.solutionwatch.com/303/diigo-social-bookmarking-and-annotation/)
• Tech Crunch: Diigo is a Research Tool that Rocks (http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/02/diigo-is-a-research-tool-that-rocks/)
• Recommended Web Tools: Diigo Review: Robust Social Bookmarking (http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/527/diigo-review-robust-social-bookmarking/)
• CNet: Diigo Review (http://reviews.cnet.com/online-software-services/diigo/4505-9239_7-32082352.html?tag=txt)
• .Net Addict: Review of Diigo (http://dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/diigo.htm)

Download Video: Posted by jsdt4 at TeacherTube.com.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying we need to do everything with technology – technology can break down, power goes out, devices can be lost – our brains are the only things that are always with us, and must be refined and developed to overcome any challenge put to us. But that’s not to say that we can’t use technology to help develop those neurons and inspire our students – to keep them engaged. At the 2007 Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention Bill Belsey stated that research has been done proving that the current level of technology that students are exposed to on a daily basis has changed they way they learn and process data. He refused to say whether or not this was a good thing – just that it was a fact, and that as teachers we would have to find a way to modify our teaching to better reach this new student mind set.I couldn’t agree more. We need to spend less time complaining about how much our children are using this technology, and start to use it ourselves to help reach and engage them. Sadly it’s not going way, it’s getting cheaper, more portable, and easier to use all the time. As teachers, we need to adapt or move out of the way. Expecting kids to “power down” and “unplug” when they get to school is crippling their learning potential. They have spent a large portion of time mastering these tools, and then we expect them just to forget that expertise and do it a different way. Yes, traditional skills are important – but they must be taught along side with the new technological skill set that children today are developing.

“…consider the growing gaming industry, now drawing more revenue than motion pictures. People, especially the young, are being drawn away from the passive consumption of information from TV and radio, by more interactive forms of entertainment. The player is telling the story thought his interactions with the game’s information environment. Teenagers are actually beginning to play their games with other teenagers over the Internet and recording the game play by using video editing software that came preinstalled on their computers. Then they edit the captured game play into stories that they share video files over the Internet. J. Allaard, Cooperate Vice President of Microsoft, calls this generation the ReMix generation, because they access, select and capture content, and then remix the content to suit their needs. It is a generation who wants control over the information and use it to accomplish their goals.” David Warlick, Classroom Blogging, 2005, pg 21

There are many different ways we can use technology in the classroom to reach our students and teach traditional skills. One of my personal favourite ways to do this is via blogging and podcasting. A whole world of educational possibilities is opened with these technologies.

“What is important to us, as educators, is the direct and conspicuous relationship between blogging and literacy. It is about writing and reading – communicating. If we can tap into the sudden notoriety of blogging as a cool thing to do, giving our students authentic assignments of finding, reading, and evaluating blog-based information within the context of curriculum, and then make them bloggers, communicators with a broadening audience, then we may do a more effective job of teaching literacy, both in the traditional sense, and within the context of an emerging new definition of literacy in a networked, digital information environment.” David Warlick, Classroom Blogging, 2005, pg 15 -16

The key to using technology in the classroom is to remember that the technology is just a tool – nothing more then a pencil or an overhead. For years students were taught orally. Then thanks to the invention of written language that all changed. Do you think scholars back then debated the merits of using tablets for teaching?
I know what I’m suggesting isn’t easy. As teachers we’ll have to redevelop our lesson and units to incorporate technology. We’ll also need to learn how to use this technology ourselves (I’m still trying to figure out wikis myself). It’s a huge shift in our educational pedagogues – but in an age where youtube is a viable forum for political debate, our students need to be as prepared as possible for the future…