For Thing #3, you’ll want to start building your blog or customizing it. How you use your blog and who your audience is will determine what features you put in it. If your blog is only going to be active for this project then you’ll only need the basics. Even so, there are some things you can do to customize it:

• Change your theme from the default
• Embed a photo in a post (and describe it in the post)
• Write a post about a favorite educational web site and link to that site within the post
• Add 5 links to your blogroll
• Moderate any comments to your posts

For Thing #3, you must:

Do all of the activities listed above, AND post to your blog about what worked, (Please remember to call it Thing #3) what didn’t, any frustrations, what you did to solve any problems you had, etc. Let us know what you discovered or learned. If you are not new to blogs, try the Extension Activity.

Note: Blog Themes

You might have noticed as you change the theme that not every theme has all of the same features as the default theme. Some of you might have thought you broke your blog . The features are found by going to the Appearance menu option on the Dashboard in the sidebar on the left. After clicking on Appearance, you’ll see an option for Widgets. You can click and drag on the widgets (features) you want to have in your sidebar from the Available Widgets box into your Sidebar(s) area.

If you’ve lost the Meta widget and you don’t have the ability to login to get it back, add “/wp-login.php” to the end of your blog address and it will take you to a window where you can login. After logging in, be sure to go to Appearance and drag that Meta widget over to the sidebar.

Extension Activity

• Instead of adding a picture to a post, create a Text widget and a quote or your favorite saying in the Text box.
• Insert a counter into a Text widget to track how many visitors your site gets. You can find a free counter widget at http://www.blogcounter.com. Another counter widget you could try is clustrmaps.

Credits – If you are taking this course for grad credits or SB-CEUs, Jennifer Sleeper should already have your registration paperwork. These forms were emailed last week to participants who indicated they were seeking credit and they were due last Friday.

Blogs – There is a link to each participant’s blog on the right. Make sure that the link works correctly for your blog and email the course administrator at 23things@muskegonisd.org if there are problems. If you are new to this version of Wordpress MultiUser, go to http://blogs.muskegonisd.org and look at the left sidebar under Pages. There you can find some Help Documents and Help Videos.

FAQs – Read over these before beginning the course, even if you think you don’t have any questions.

Tips for Success – These tips will help you along your journey. Read them carefully.

Support – There is no tech support for the participants of this course. If you have computer issues, please ask your district tech support. If you are having trouble with a concept introduced in the class, ask a colleague in your building or ask someone else in this course.

Pace Yourself – This course is designed for self-motiviated learners. We will monitor blog posts and track assignments but will not nag or pester participants to complete the “things.” Your blog is your record of completed things.

Sometimes, like on message boards, users could write and leave information, but it was not easy to do and pretty rare for most non technically savvy people.  This first Internet, also called “Web 1.0″ (after the habit software developers have of numbering their software) is also called the “Read Only Web” because most users could just read information.  The programming language of Web 1.0 was HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and slow internet speeds also meant that uploading files would take a very long time and was not worth the effort.  So, users read information.

Then in the late 1990’s, some websites emerged that let users do more.  People could list and rate products and sellers on ebay.  People who read books could write reviews on Amazon.  Web users could now “write” on the Internet and leave their personal thoughts behind.  This was the beginning of Web 2.0, although the term was not coined until September 30, 2005 when entrepreneur Tim O’Reilley released his article “What is Web 2.0:  Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.”

Now, many websites like Wikipedia, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter allow web users to share information.  The programming language of Web 2.0 is XML (Extensible markup language and another closely related language called XHTML) although users don’t have to know programming language to use Web 2.0 tools.

Web 2.0 has influenced web media in profound ways because people now no longer want to just read web pages but interact with them.  We call websites that bring us back to use them continually, “sticky” web pages.  The most highly trafficked sites allow their sites to interact with other sites and allow readers to comment and communicate with other readers.  For example, news articles in the Wall Street Journal let a reader send the link to Facebook or Linked In, two popular networking websites.  (Vicki Davis, author of the Cool Cat Teacher Blog)

This second generation of web-based services and software is characterized by its user-generated content and its capacity for facilitating collaboration and sharing between users. In the past we were primarily consumers of information, but Web 2.0 allows us to also be producers of information using tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and media sharing.

Our tech-savvy students, who have never known life without the Internet, use these new tools daily, but mostly outside of school. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has stated, “Today’s education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how they learn.” When students use 21st Century technologies, they are able to meet their intrinsic needs to form communities, ask questions, and earn audience and attention. Today’s students will spend their adult lives in a multitasking, technology-driven, diverse world, and they must arrive equipped to do so.

How can we as educators harness the power of these new technologies to engage and motivate students in the classroom? And how can students effectively use the tools to create, communicate, collaborate?

To complete Thing #1, you must:

A. Read the article “A Day in the Life of Web 2.0″ by David Warlick (click on the title to open it). This article gives an excellent description of the application of Web 2.0 tools in a middle school setting.

B. Watch the video, “Pay Attention”
Watch the following video and think about how it relates to your use of technology in your teaching. Are you using any of these technologies or are these ideas completely new to you? Could you begin implementing some of the ideas described?

If you are unable to watch the embedded video above, click on this link to go to YouTube. If the link doesn’t work for you, go to YouTube and search for “Pay Attention”.

C. In your blog, create a post titled “Thing 1.” After reading the article and watching the video, write a post with your reactions to the article and the movie. You can use the questions above to get started, but please don’t limit your reaction post to just those questions.

For Part A of Thing #2, read the wiki page on Educational Blogging at http://supportblogging.com/Educational+Blogging . Write a response in your blog. Title the post Thing #2, Part A.

Here are some links to some educator blogs. For Part B of Thing #2, choose two or three to explore and write about in your blog. Title the post Thing #2, Part B.
•    Give us the name and link to the blog.
•    Tell us why this blog stood out to you.  Why would you consider it exemplary or a “best practice” type of blog?
•    Did you get any ideas for how you could use a blog in your classroom or practice from this blog?  If so, please share.

A Really Different Place

Miller’s English 10 Classroom Blog

Speaking of History

Extreme Biology

Welcome to Room 8

The Buddha Said…

Kindergarten Blog

25 Days to Make a Difference

A Difference

Mrs. Buboltz’s English Blog

History is Elementary

Risley Roarer’s Blog

The KinderKids’ Classroom

Google’s search engine is only a small part of the Google picture however. There are many products available to users and most of them are free, although several require that you register for a Google account.

Since Web 2.0 is all about collaboration, we’re going to be exploring some of the Google products that facilitate collaborative efforts. Using easy-to-use online tools, people around the world can work together in ways never before possible. Specifically the ones we’ll use here in Thing #4 are Google Docs and Maps. Reader and Picasa will be visited in subsequent Things.

Google Docs

Google offers collaborative workspace with Google Docs, their online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor.

With Google Docs, you can create, store and share in a secure, real-time environment. That means you and your friend in, say, Australia, can be editing the very same word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation online – at the exact same time. You can work on the same document from any computer – home or school – without having to email it to yourself or without putting it on a flash drive. Students can use Google docs in the same ways.

Watch and learn more about this collaborative tool.

If you are unable to watch the embedded video above, click here. If neither of those options work for you, go to YouTube and search for “Google Docs in Plain English.”

The other tool that we’ll explore in Thing #4 is Google Maps.  Here’s a brief video introduction from YouTube.

If you are unable to watch the embedded video above, click here. If neither of those options work for you, go to YouTube and search for “Google Maps Introduction.”

For Thing #4 you must:

• Create an account in Google. To do this, go to http://www.google.com and click on Sign In. You’ll see a login window and just below that you’ll see a link to create a new account. If you already have an account, there’s no need to create a new one, just use your existing login information and sign in.
• Spend some time exploring Google Docs. Try creating a new document, presentation, or spreadsheet. Try uploading one from your computer into Google Docs. It takes awhile to get used to the feel, but it will make sense the more you play with it. At any time, you can click SHARE and give others access to your files.
• Spend some time exploring Google Maps. Look at the map in Satellite, Traffic, and Terrain views in addition to the normal map view. Find an area that has some Street view pictures to see how that works. (To access Street View, click on the person icon near the compass and drag it over to the map. Blue lines on the maps indicate areas that have street view shots.) You don’t need to be logged in unless you want to use the My Maps feature in Google Maps.
• Post your thoughts in your blog. How might you use these tools in your personal and professional life? What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)? Were the maps accurate? Did Street View in map give you any concerns?

Extension Activity

To continue your explorations in Google:

• Use Google Docs to create a Presentation. Share with others so that as you are giving the presentation, they can use the chat feature to give you feedback as you present.
• Login to Google Maps and click on My Maps. Create a personalized map with embedded pictures, video, and links.  Share with someone. (The facilitator’s google account address is dzoellme@gmail.com.)

One way that connections are made is through comments. Commenting is a very important feature of many Web 2.0 applications, including blogs. For new bloggers, it can be thrilling to receive that first comment from some random, unknown reader. It suddenly changes the way we feel about our blogs and our writing. We become more invested, more careful of what and how we write, because now we know someone is reading. Think about what this means for students.

While you may be doing this 23 Things project independently, you are a member of this online community who have come together to learn about Web 2.0. What are your fellow learners doing? How do they feel about this project? What new things have they discovered? For this Thing, you will reach out to other members of your community and make connections.

To complete Thing #5, you must:

• Read these two online articles on commenting.
  • Lifehacker’s Guide to Weblog Comments
  • How to Write Intelligent Comments on Blogs
• Take some time to explore a few of your fellow participants’ blogs (listed on the right). Leave a comment on 3-5 different blogs.
• Post to your blog. What do you like / dislike about leaving comments? How did you feel when you received your first comment? Why do you think commenting is so important in online communities? What might this mean for students who share their writing online? Are you a member of any online learning communities?

Extension Activity

• Join an online community such as Facebook or MACUL Space. You don’t have to be a member of MACUL to join MACUL Space.
• Join Second Life.

Bookmarking - We have all saved our Favorites or Bookmarks while browsing the internet. Sometimes we take the time to organize them as we save them, in folders that we have created in the browser. The problem with this method of saving websites you want to revisit is that you’ve saved them only on one computer and only the person who has access to that computer can access those Favorites. Teachers have shared that they email themselves a Favorite so they can access it from another computer…not a very efficient way to manage your work.

Online Bookmarking – A more efficient method is to use an online bookmarking site such as Backflip or ikeepbookmarks. These free sites allow you to create an account and save your favorites in subject folders that you create. You can then access your favorites from any computer with internet access. Your favorites can be made public or private so you do have the ability to share your favorites with others by giving them the url of your account. One issue with this method is that typically a web site favorite might fall into several subjects areas. You would then have to save it several times, to as many folders as subject areas it might fit into.

Social Bookmarking -  With social bookmarking, you save your favorites online but instead of organizing bookmarks into a subject folder, you can assign them multiple labels (tags) so they can be associated with a number of topics. Your bookmarks can be shared publicly or you can save them as private – viewable by only you. Social bookmarking is especially powerful in that you can search what others have found useful. There are a number of social bookmarking sites. In Thing #7, we’ll be using one called Delicious (formerly called del.icio.us)

Tagging – Tagging is the process of assigning keywords or “tags” to online content. In the same way you stick labels on physical objects, you use tags to label digital elements such as web links, blog posts, photos, or other user-generated content. Once you assign a tag to an object, you can easily find that object later by searching the tag. You can assign multiple tags to a single object, and different people can assign different tags to the same object. Tagging is very “Web 2.0” because it supports social networking, sharing, and empowering users as well as producers of information. Tagging represents a significant shift in the way digital data is sorted, saved, searched, and shared in the 21st century.

Other terms related to tagging are folksonomy and tag cloud. Folksonomy is derived from “folk” + “taxonomy” and is very different from traditional subject indexing. Perhaps the most important strength of a folksonomy is that it directly reflects the vocabulary of the users. A tag cloud is simply a visual representation of a collection of tags with font size representing frequency of use.
Here is a Tag Cloud from the Delicious account of Diane Zoellmer. You can easily see which tags are used most frequently in the collection of favorites.

For Thing #6, you must:

• Read this article on Social Bookmarking.
• Before you start saving and tagging your own bookmarks, read this.
• Also read Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging.
• Respond to these prompts in your blog – Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?

No need to create your own account yet – we’ll do that in Thing #7.

Watch this video to learn about Delicious.

If you don’t see the video, click here to link to it. If neither of those options work for you, go to Delicious and search for “Searching Delicious” by mayerc46.

This video will help you set up a Delicious account. If you already have an account, you can skip it.

If you don’t see the video, click here for the link. If neither of those options work for you, go to Delicious and search for “Creating a Delicious Account” by mayerc46.

The last video for you is shown below. This one will help you to add bookmarks to your delicious account.

If you don’t see the video, click here for the link. If neither of those options work for you, go to Delicious and search for “Adding Bookmarks to Delicious” by mayerc46.

For Thing #7, you must:

• Watch the videos embedded in this post.
• Create a Delicious account.
• Populate your account with at least 10 web sites.
• Write a post in your blog describing your experience setting up and/or using delicious.
• Put a link in your blog (in the Blogroll or Links section) to your delicious account.
• Please remember to use Thing #7 in the title of your post.

Extension Activity:

• Think about how creating a “common tag” with colleagues might be useful. For example, if a group of educators at Montague HS wanted to work together to gather links on information literacy, they could agree on a common tag such as “mhs+il”. Then, when they searched delicious for mhs+il, everyone’s links would appear. Would this be useful? Post your thoughts in your blog.
• Here’s another video to watch from Kathleen Gilroy, CEO of the Otter Group.
• Read this article on “The Seven Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users“.

In this Thing, we’ll look at subscribing to blogs and using an aggregator to manage those subscriptions. After setting up an RSS account, you will subscribe to your favorite blogs and other sites that publish new content on a regular basis (like news headlines). You could subscribe to as many blogs as you like – even hundreds – but then, all you have to do is visit one site and be instantly updated on all that is new on all your favorite blogs. Watch this video to understand more about how RSS works.

If you are unable to see the video that’s embedded above, click here. If neither option works for you, go to YouTube and search for “Video: RSS in Plain English” by leelefever.

There are a variety of RSS services (aggregators). One of them is Bloglines. It’s a useful aggregator because it stores your RSS account online so that you can access it from any computer. You can make a portion of your RSS account public so others can see which blogs and sites you read. Have a look at these three public Bloglines accounts listed below. You can discover what blogs and sites they read by clicking on the list on the left. Content appears on the right. (Tip: you may have to click the small + on the far left to open the folders and see the blogs listed inside.)

Steve Dembo Ed Tech Guru, Discovery Education 

Jackie Campbell Wayne RESA

Will Richardson Author of Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts

Watch the video below to learn how to create your RSS account. Then go to Bloglines and get started. If you don’t see the embedded video, click here or go to YouTube and search for “Bloglines Registration” by dixon9090.

Once your account is created, you will want to make some folders where you will keep your feeds. Create these four folders: (1) 23Things, (2) News, (3) Misc, (4) any topic of your choice – personal interest, subject area you teach, etc. This video will walk you through organizing folders. Note: After you create your folders, they will seem to disappear — that’s because they are empty. They will appear once you subscribe to blogs in the next Thing.

If you don’t see the embedded video, click here to go to YouTube or search within YouTube for “Bloglines Folders” by jamicamFMB.

For Thing #8 you must:

• Watch the videos in this post.
• Create a Bloglines account. Include the address of your bloglines account in your post for Thing #8.
• Create four folders in your account.
•  Reflect on Thing #8 in your blog. (Please remember to use Thing #8 in the title.)
  • Did you run into any speed bumps setting up your account?
  • It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogs out there – how do you handle information overload and how do you think RSS might help with that?

There are several ways to subscribe, we’ll look at three different ways in this Thing.

1. Using the Subscribe button.

If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here or go to YouTube and search for Subscribing with RSS by jamicamFMB.

2.  Copying the URL.

If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here or go to YouTube and search for RSS Sbuscribing – Part 2 by jamicamFMB.

3.  Using the Bloglines button.

If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here or go to YouTube and search for RSS Subscribing – Part 3.

For Thing #9, you must:

• Try using all three methods to add feeds to your Bloglines account.
• Add at least 10 feeds to your Bloglines account.
• Subscribe to at least two feeds from the blogs of other participants in this class.
• Create a blog post about your experience and your biggest learning that has occurred with regard to RSS feeds. Here some questions to think about …Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?  Which was more confusing? What kind of unusual feeds did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? You don’t have to respond to all of these questions – these are just some suggestions.
• Include the address of your Bloglines account in your post – NOTE – it is not http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs. After you create your account, you have to go into the settings and change your settings to Public, then type in your username for the account.
• Please remember to include Thing #9 in the title of your post.

Extension Activity
You can continue adding other feeds that interest you. There are several ways you can locate RSS feeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites — look for RSS feed icons that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation of the site.

• Check out the top “Edublog” award-winning blogs.

Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:

• Topix.net – This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlets RSS feeds for information, not weblogs
• Syndic8.com – Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
• Technorati – Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in.
• Google Blog Search – See what appears when you search “Educational Technology“