Honor Moorman's Posts - Classroom 2.02024-03-29T05:51:39ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoormanhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1950040276?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1elvecxocjcs2&xn_auth=noAdventures in Web 2.0: Introducing Social Networking into My Teachingtag:www.classroom20.com,2009-06-26:649749:BlogPost:3578982009-06-26T17:00:00.000ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoorman
I’ve shared a bit in previous posts about implementing a Ning to enhance the <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/internship.htm" target="_blank">Internship Program</a> at <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/index.html" target="_blank">The International School of the Americas</a>. It’s been a challenging and rewarding adventure. And this past spring I wrote an article about that journey, which has just come out in…
I’ve shared a bit in previous posts about implementing a Ning to enhance the <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/internship.htm" target="_blank">Internship Program</a> at <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/index.html" target="_blank">The International School of the Americas</a>. It’s been a challenging and rewarding adventure. And this past spring I wrote an article about that journey, which has just come out in <a href="http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/resources/horace/horace.html" target="_blank"><i>Horace</i>, the Coalition of Essential Schools’ Quarterly Journal</a>. At the time of this posting, the article hasn’t been uploaded to the website yet, so I’m attaching it here as well.<br />
<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1922796094?profile=original">Horace_25.1.pdf</a><br />
Hope you enjoy!Internet Publishing and Copyright Considerationstag:www.classroom20.com,2009-02-26:649749:BlogPost:3523262009-02-26T04:00:00.000ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoorman
This week, <a href="http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/smagad/">Mr. Maddox</a> and I co-taught a lesson about copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons in the age of the Internet. As Mr. Maddox said, this lesson was designed to help students “get rich and stay out of jail.”<br />
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Mr. Maddox started by asking everyone to listen to a few seconds from a song by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Talk_(musician)">Girl Talk</a> to see how many bits and pieces from other musicians they could identify.…
This week, <a href="http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/smagad/">Mr. Maddox</a> and I co-taught a lesson about copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons in the age of the Internet. As Mr. Maddox said, this lesson was designed to help students “get rich and stay out of jail.”<br />
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Mr. Maddox started by asking everyone to listen to a few seconds from a song by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Talk_(musician)">Girl Talk</a> to see how many bits and pieces from other musicians they could identify. (The only one I recognized—<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taylor">James Taylor</a>—was the one least often identified by the students, which made me feel old.) Since Girl Talk’s whole shtick involves creating music using samples from other songs, this raised the questions of the day about what is legal and appropriate use of someone else’s intellectual property or artistic material.<br />
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As another potentially controversial example, I shared the first ten minutes of <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/jonathan_harris.html">Jonathan Harris</a>’ <a href="http://www.ted.com/">TED Talk</a> called “<a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_harris_tells_the_web_s_secret_stories.html">The Web’s Secret Stories</a>.” In this video, he explains how his “<a href="http://www.wefeelfine.org/">We Feel Fine</a>” project scans the Internet for instances of the phrase “I feel . . .” and pulls the accompanying text and images into his computer program, which projects the information in a variety of dynamic visual formats. We discussed our thoughts and reactions to this project and I noted that some students thought this project was a bit invasive, while others felt that anything posted on the Internet was fair game.<br />
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Given that so many students are on Facebook and MySpace, we next asked them to read key excerpts from Facebook’s Terms of Use, which have been getting quite a bit of media attention lately after they were changed and then changed back to a previous version as a result of the recent brouhaha.<br />
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The “<a href="http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=97eeae6788aa3348e553">Think Before You Post</a>” video from <a href="http://www.bebo.com/Safety.jsp">Bebo Safety</a> makes the point that anything you post on the Internet can be saved and redistributed by anyone who has access to it. On the other hand, just because we’re able to copy and paste words and images posted by others, doesn’t mean it is ethical or appropriate to do so.<br />
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The second part of our lesson had to do with <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a>, the nonprofit organization dedicated to “provid[ing] free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry.”<br />
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We watched and discussed the “<a href="http://creativecommons.org/videos/get-creative">Get Creative!</a>” video introduction to the concept of Creative Commons—how it got started and what they’re trying to do. Since “You can use <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_11">CC</a> to change your copyright terms from ‘<a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_7">All Rights Reserved</a>’ to ‘<a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_10">Some Rights Reserved</a>,’” we also looked at the <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_14">different kinds of limitations</a> that <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_12">creators can put on their work</a> such as <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_15">attribution</a> only, <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_16">non-commercial</a>, <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_19">no derivative works</a>, and <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works_21">share alike</a>.<br />
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A multitude of web content is now licensed using Creative Commons, including third-party content on the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/copyright/">White House website</a>, photos on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons">flickr</a>, and our <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">Internship Ning</a>.The Blogosphere is Callingtag:www.classroom20.com,2009-02-21:649749:BlogPost:3523142009-02-21T04:00:00.000ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoorman
I’ve been a little surprised and, honestly, a little disappointed that so few students have started blogging on the <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">ISA Internship Ning</a>. In <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?month=01&year=2009">January</a>, there were 9 blog posts written by 5 different students—more or less the same students who wrote the 14 blog entries that were posted in…
I’ve been a little surprised and, honestly, a little disappointed that so few students have started blogging on the <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">ISA Internship Ning</a>. In <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?month=01&year=2009">January</a>, there were 9 blog posts written by 5 different students—more or less the same students who wrote the 14 blog entries that were posted in <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?month=12&year=2008">December</a>. Without more students blogging, there also aren’t enough people reading and responding to each other’s posts. And although I’ve been reading everyone’s posts, I’ve hesitated to comment on them because I’m really hoping for student-to-student discussions more than teacher-to-student discussions.<br />
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So now that we’ve returned from our adventures in Washington, D.C., I thought I would check in with everyone about the blogging option and encourage more people to try it—not only as a way to write their reflections about their internship experiences, but also as a way to share their observations and ideas with each other and to get feedback and comments from one another.<br />
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We started with a video introduction to blogs—“how they work and why they matter.” <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs">“Blogs in Plain English”</a> is one of the many fun and informative videos from <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/">Common Craft</a> that explain new technological tools, such as <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english">RSS</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english">wikis</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/video-social-networking">social networking</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english">social bookmarking</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/photosharing">online photo sharing</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/podcasting">podcasting</a>, and so on.<br />
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Then we talked about the role of blogging in our lives and in the lives of people we know. For example, <a href="http://englishteacherteacher.blogspot.com/2007/12/hello-edublogosphere.html">I created a blog</a> last year when I was working with pre-service <a href="http://englishteacherteacher.blogspot.com/">English teachers</a>, and my stepfather recently started blogging as part of his job as a <a href="http://blogs.lib.tcu.edu/blogs/specialcollections/">special collections librarian</a>. Students shared examples of friends and relatives who blog about their jobs or their professional areas of expertise, as well as others who just blog for fun about their hobbies or personal interests.<br />
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And then there is the phenomenon of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism">“citizen journalism”</a> in which average, everyday citizens—in addition to professional journalists—are making significant contributions to the information stream using blogs, YouTube videos, etc. If you went to the <a href="http://www.newseum.org/">Newseum</a> while we were in DC, you might have seen the <a href="http://www.newseum.org/news/news.aspx?item=nh_DIGI081020&style=f">“Old School Meets New Media in 2008 Presidential Campaign”</a> exhibit about the role of the blogosphere in the recent election.<br />
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Traditional journalism and citizen journalism are clearly converging, as all the major news outlets are encouraging their viewers to contribute comments to their blogs; television news anchors post blog entries in real time and read viewer’s responses on the air. And this past weekend, I happened to see a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/09/obama.conference.transcript/index.html?iref=newssearch">headline on CNN</a> that read “Blogger Gets the Nod: Obama calls on Huffington Post,” referring to a reporter from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/">The Huffington Post</a> (a web-only newspaper that relies heavily on blogs and user-posted content) being recognized at a presidential press conference for the first time.<br />
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Blogging has been integrated into many of the websites and tools we use every day. Have you ever noticed that when you open a new document in the latest version of Microsoft Word, you are asked to choose between “Blank document” and “New blog post”? And when you are searching Google, you can easily narrow your search by selecting “Blogs” from the pull-down menu under “more.”<br />
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Certainly, blogs are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to find and share information, opinions, and more with each other—and with the world. In the video <a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm">"The Machine is Us/ing Us”</a> that we watched last semester, there was a screenshot of this August 2006 article claiming that <a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1025_3-6102935.html">“There’s a blog born every half second.”</a> And who did <i>Time</i> magazine name as Person of the Year in 2006? <a href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html">You!</a><br />
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(If you want to find out about the current trends in blogging, see the <a href="http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">“State of the Blogosphere”</a> report on <a href="http://technorati.com/">Technorati</a>.)<br />
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So I said to the students, “ . . . here we are in 2009, isn’t it time for you to take the plunge and start blogging? The <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">ISA Internship Ning</a> is the perfect place to get your feet wet, exercise your blogging muscles, and become a member of the exciting ever-growing blogosphere.”The Pros and Cons of Social Networking in Educationtag:www.classroom20.com,2008-12-21:649749:BlogPost:3523132008-12-21T00:00:00.000ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoorman
As a follow-up to the lesson I described in <a href="http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/student-ning-launch-21st">my last post</a>, <a href="http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/smagad/">Mr. Magadance</a> and I facilitated a student debate about the pros and cons of social networking in education.<br />
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In “<a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm">The Machine is Us/ing Us</a>,” <a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/about.htm">Michael Wesch</a> demonstrates how digital/hypertext/the…
As a follow-up to the lesson I described in <a href="http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/student-ning-launch-21st">my last post</a>, <a href="http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/smagad/">Mr. Magadance</a> and I facilitated a student debate about the pros and cons of social networking in education.<br />
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In “<a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm">The Machine is Us/ing Us</a>,” <a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/about.htm">Michael Wesch</a> demonstrates how digital/hypertext/the web is no longer just linking information; web 2.0 is linking people . . . people sharing, trading, and collaborating . . . and “<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html">We are the web</a>.”<br />
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Wesch concludes with the suggestions that, “We’ll need to rethink a few things: copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetorics, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.” I would add to “education” to that list.<br />
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Using the <a href="http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/123">debate at Economist.com</a> as a primary resource, we considered both sides of the question about whether or not “social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom.”<br />
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I was interested to note that although most students agreed with the proposition in favor of social networking, closer analysis of both sides of the argument resulted in stronger convictions both for and against the proposition.Ning Launch and 21st Century Literacy Lessontag:www.classroom20.com,2008-12-14:649749:BlogPost:3523092008-12-14T22:00:00.000ZHonor Moormanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/HonorMoorman
Last week, I launched the <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">ISA Internship Ning</a>—a community for my students (12th graders at <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/">The International School of Americas</a>) to share their career-exploration <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/internship.htm">internship</a> experiences with one another. This week, I had the chance to teach a lesson in which I tried to help them understand how participating in a professional social network fits into the…
Last week, I launched the <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/">ISA Internship Ning</a>—a community for my students (12th graders at <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/">The International School of Americas</a>) to share their career-exploration <a href="http://www.neisd.net/isa/internship.htm">internship</a> experiences with one another. This week, I had the chance to teach a lesson in which I tried to help them understand how participating in a professional social network fits into the larger context of what's happening technologically and globally, and why it's important for them to practice these 21st-century literacy skills. Afterwards, I posted the following recap of my lesson, so I thought I would share it here as well:<br />
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<b>What’s the Big Idea Here?</b><br />
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As we saw in <a href="http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/06/did-you-know-20.html">Did You Know? 2.0</a>, we are living in exponential times, and the rapid changes brought about by technological innovation and globalization have propelled us into a 21st-century reality full of new challenges and opportunities. If we accept Thomas Friedman’s proposition that <a href="http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat">The World is Flat</a>, given the existence of “a global web-enabled platform for multiple forms of sharing knowledge and work irrespective of time, distance, geography, and increasingly even language” (<a href="http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266">MIT World video</a>, May 16, 2005), we might also agree with him that, “<i>how</i> we educate our children may prove to be more important than <i>how much</i> we educate them” (<i>The World is Flat</i>, p. 309).<br />
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With the increasing prevalence and power of mass collaboration—as described in <a href="http://www.wikinomics.com/book/">Wikinomics</a>, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/">The Wisdom of Crowds</a>, and <a href="http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/">Here Comes Everybody</a>—it’s no surprise that educational organizations like the <a href="http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120">Partnership for 21st Century Skills</a> and the <a href="http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS">International Society for Technology in Education</a> have identified information literacy, creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and digital citizenship as <a href="http://www.edutopia.org/images/graphics/fea_collabage_walls_newskillsstat.jpg">key skills needed for 21st century citizenship</a>.<br />
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Innovative educators around the world are sharing ideas about how to best help students develop these 21st century skills. I certainly agree with the prevailing sentiment that engaging students in blogging, social networking, and other web 2.0 technologies is paramount. But I was curious to see what the students would say, so I asked them to read one or two of the short articles listed below and then discuss their reactions.<br />
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<a href="http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23562_1">“The Prose of Blogging (and a Few Cons, Too)”</a> by Rama Ramaswami<br />
<a href="http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23225">“Text Unto Others... As You Would Have Them Text Unto You”</a> by Matt Villano<br />
<a href="http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22014_1">“Five Don’ts of Classroom Blogging”</a> by Julie Sturgeon<br />
<a href="http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22567_1">“The Fight Against Cyberbullying”</a> by Chris Riedel<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/blogging-purpose">“Blogs, Blogs Everywhere: Does Everyone Need an Internet Journal?”</a> by Jim Moulton<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/teacher-blogs-online-media-law">“Blog Safe: Avoid Common Web-Publishing Pitfalls”</a> by Maya Payne Smart<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/blogging-history">“Blogging Is History: Taking Classroom Discussions Online”</a> by Helena Echlin<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/how-use-social-networking-technology">“How To: Use Social-Networking Technology for Learning”</a> by Fran Smith<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/social-networking-interactive-job-market">“By the Numbers: The Facebook Edge”</a><br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/social-networking-employment-skills">“From MySpace to My Job: Online Interaction Prepares Students for Employment”</a> by Chris O’Neal<br />
<a href="http://www.edutopia.org/collaboration-age-technology-will-richardson#">“World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others”</a> by Will Richardson<br />
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The readings and discussions uncovered some of the questions and complexities surrounding this new educational landscape and revealed important issues to consider as we developed the <a href="http://isainternship.ning.com/profiles/blogs/acceptable-use-policy-for-the">Acceptable Use Policy</a> we will be following as we use this site.<br />
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I’ve created the ISA Internship Ning as a place for students to develop and practice the skills needed for 21st-century citizenship and life-long learning in an authentic and meaningful context, based on the real-world issues and experiences that interest them. And from what’s been happening on the Ning just in the first week, it looks like the potential for this space to help students develop <a href="http://www.danpink.com/wnm.html">A Whole New Mind</a> is great.<br />
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Thanks so much to all the students and teachers at ISA for participating in this exciting new endeavor!