Free & Easy:Cool Social Networking Tools

for the Classroom

MaryAnn Karre (with thanks to Beth Sullivan)

October , 2007STETS Conference,

Owego Apalachin Middle School

Goals:

Present a number of free, easy to use tools and their applications for education

Demonstrate each exampleOutline educational usesGet it done in one hourAvoid overwhelmingShow you where to go for more!

What is the Web 2.0?

Not the same old WWW

Read / Write web

Culture of participation

Collaboration the key

Why bother?

Not the same old safe old “But everybody is doing

it!” Welcome to the world Bring some excitement to

the class!! Accountability to new

audience

Precautions

Firewalls Walled areas Editing Choose tools wisely Teach Netiquette And safety

Some Web 2.0 Examples:

Blogging and vlogging RSS feeds and

aggregators Podcasting Wikis VOIP - Skype Social Bookmarking –

favorites sharing Photoblogs - Flickr Folksonomy – “Tagging” …..new ones every

day!!

Start with Social Bookmarking

Real power of Read/Write Web (Will Richardson) Store and share – collaborative process

10 billion pages of info on Web – or more?? Becomes more difficult to locate info More types of info available

Can retrieve favorites from any computer with Internet access

Social Bookmarking Save favorites easily Share with others – either public or

private Share others’ bookmarks Locate by topic or user Access limitless number of links, videos

books, photos similar to your favorites

Can share sites, books, music, photos, movies – more!

Bookmarking depends on Folksonomy

Otherwise know as “Tagging”New taxonomy – replace librarians??Better than indexing – users make

own tags – common languageFlexible and dynamic – not staticUsed with websites, documents,

photos, presentations, videos – anything searchable!

Where do I find Social Bookmarks?

Furl.net Saves snapshot of

page Archives page! Can sort into topic

folders Locate other users

with common interests

Subscribe to other users’ Furl folder!

Use RSS or email to subscribe

Where can I find Social Bookmarks?

Del.ici.ous Saves links, not

content Simpler than Furl Tag is most important

– comments not searchable

Can link to tags – del.icio.us/tag/yourtag

No email required to register

Want more?

43Things.com – what do you want to do with your life?

Buddy Marks – store and share bookmarks De.lirio.us – like Del.icio.us Digg – news and videos Shelfari – share books LibraryThing – catalog your books and share Reader2 – share books, movies and more Last.fm – music tagging Technorati – navigate blog posts BlinkList – tag sites and list on personal Blink

website Multipost Bookmarklet Tool – tag to many sites at

once Wists – Social shopping!

How do I use Social Bookmarks?

Assign readingsTrack student researchBuild database with studentsShare with colleaguesResearch with other schoolsSend interesting links through RSS

feedsProfessional development

Social Bookmarking – Further reading

Social BookMarking Faceoff – comparison (2006)

Education World - Sites to see

Common Craft Show – cool and easy video

“A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.”

Wikipedia

(Think FaceBook, MySpace and others!)

• Staff development

• Student engagement

• Audience

• Comments and feedback

• Keep families informed

• Connect with the world

• Google blogspot – easy to use

• Think.com – good for elementary students

• 21classes.com – educational blogs

• Squarespace

• Wordpress

Compare Blogs

http://www.weblogmatrix.org/

A wiki is an online collaboration tool that allows multiple users to edit and view changes quickly.(Wiki Wiki means = Quickly in Hawaiian)

Collaboration

• OM Teams

• Grant Writing

• Reports

• Vocabulary

• Link Lists

• Literature Circles

• KWL’s

Share lesson plans

“(iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was coined from "iPod," the predominant portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are mostly verbal, they may contain music.”

TechWeb

To podcast, you To podcast, you need:need:• Computer

• Microphone

• Software – Audacity is free and works well

• Easypodcast.com

• Someplace to put your podcast on the web

• Audience – share reports and performances

• Review – record lesson for absentees

• Reports – more exciting than paper

• Interviews

• Homework Help – Mike Breed’s

• Classroom centers

Connect your classroom with the world – for free!!

Share PHOTOS!

PhotoBloggingUses tags to sort and shareDiscuss and comment Send photos to aggregator, Weblog

or Webpage

Where can Photo Share?

Flickr.com Free up to 20MB

– 100 images/month Need valid email Can restrict access Easy to upload – with or without email Add notes to parts of images! Create albums Create slide shows More current than media

Have fun!

GeoBloggers – combines Flickr and Google Maps

Great Flickr Tools CollectionMore Flickr Tools – including soduku!FlickrReplacr Bookmarklet – replace

words with images from Flickr

How can I use PhotoSharing?

Find images to supplement lessons Annotate historical photos uploaded from other

sources Photo “field trips” Writing prompts (Flicktion) Illustrate digital stories or poetry (“Chicago”,

Sandburg) “Remix” using Paint or photoediting tools Leave annotations blank as test Share field trip and class activity photos with parents Share discussions about photos – subscribe to RSS

feed

Too much to keep up with????

RSS to the RESCUE!!! Really Simple

Syndication Uses Aggregator to tame

avalanche of information Like using Netflix vs

going to video store “subscribe” to feeds from

blogs, wikis, podcasts,Flickr,

del.icio.us, news sources, stores……

Where can I find RSS feeds?

BloglinesfeedreaderGoogleReaderNewsGatorMy Yahoo

Want to read more about RSS?

AWESOME simple video explaining RSS and how to start!

50+ Ideas for Teachers – with written instructions

Use RSS in the classroom:

Monitor student blogsKeep up with news, weather, sportsProfessional developmentWebsite searchesMonitor others’ Del.icio.us listsKeep research up-to-the-minute

What to expect in the future??

Personally-tailored news stories delivered instantly – No more news services

Personal shopping – Amazon suggests purchases according to prior choices

Second Life – virtual interactionEducation through interactive gaming?

In case you want more….

WebWare Top 100 sites

Go2Web2.0 Slideshare Common Craft

Show video!!

Find this presentation…

http://mannlibrary. blogspot.com