Get ready for spring teacher camp!

Chris and I just can’t get enough! 3D GameLabhas been in closed beta just over four months, and we’re now starting to prepare our next spring teacher camp, fully online, of course!  March 26th-April 15th.

Last August, we opened 3D GameLab to the public with our first summer teacher camp. Camp lasts over a three week period. Teachers, instructional designers, and other educators interested in the experience and design of quest-based learning joined us in quests, synchronous events, games, virtual worlds, Skype, desktop video conferencing, and more. Our summer campers have now started bringing in their own students, and our players are using the platform in very creative ways.

Check out how these teachers are using 3D GameLab:

• Lucas Gillispie: WoW in Schools
• Slade: “GameLab ‘Better than Facebook” for 7th Graders”
• Samwise: Using 3D GameLab in My High School
• Leigh Zeitz: Learning to Game by Gaming to Learn

Stay tuned for more GameLab stories and news!

Online is an Opportunity for Innovation

**Disclaimer:  This is not an endorsement, critique, or debate over Tom Luna’s Students Come First legislation.  Rather, my goal as a teacher and researcher directly involved in K-12 online education is to share my personal reaction to the legislation and resulting community outcry.

Over the last several weeks, Idaho has experienced a tumultuous journey in its efforts to reinvent the K-12 public educational system.  As of last evening, Idaho State Superintendent Tom Luna had two bills pass the Senate and move on to the House.  I anticipate the third will soon follow.

Mr. Luna’s plan is built on the Digital Learning Now! campaign, launched by Governor Bush in Florida.  In reviewing the campaign, I support the overall intentions and rationale behind the platform (though not all components of Mr. Luna’s plan).  It’s quite unfortunate, however, that the implementation of campaign principles in Idaho legislation was coupled with simultaneous massive teacher layoffs, and thus, much of the public framed online education (a computer) as a replacement for a teacher.

Our educational system is in a crisis, it has to change in dramatic ways, and as a society, we all have to wake up.  I think in terms larger than reform, the entire system needs innovation by people who are willing to take risks and do things outside the normal way of doing business.  When I take this stance with academics, I’m often pushed on what empirical evidence I have that shows online education “works” to justify such a change.  This is an interesting question for at least three reasons:

1.  Online education is many different things, what exact type of online education are we discussing?  Highly interactive and blended learning that involves rich media and mobile learning options, both synchronous and asynchronous communication with kids assuming roles as independent producers and creators of their own knowledge; televised lecture where students sit passively and take notes while the teacher is the main individual allowed to talk and make meaning; or an online course that is fully text-based with lots of pdf files that are downloaded, read, and then the student is quizzed? The spectrum of online learning options is huge, and there is a lot we do know about these different options and their outcomes for learners.  It’s unfortunate that we get into black and white discussions about “online education” working or not working.  A more informed stance would be to inquire and understand what learning modalities and tools are appropriate and available for a given context and the educational needs within that context.

2.  There is a research base, which you can read more about here and here, however, many skeptics like to question the validity and reliability of the research, both from a scientific and political perspective (nothing new here, post-positivists, post-modernists, and politicos have duked it out for years).  I do acknowledge the research base in K-12 online is still developing as the field continues to develop, and as new research methods and technologies emerge.  However, it doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about K-12 online learning.  If we don’t engage in methodologies such as design-based research and the use of data mining strategies, where we simultaneously research as we design and then re-design, then we wait around for years for scientific results to continue to make their way to the public and policy stage.  And at that point, guess what?  We have a whole new set of technologies on our hands that have shifted our culture yet again that need researching.  Who’s not sitting around waiting?  All those other countries that are out-producing and out-educating Americans, as well as a few savvy online schools such as Connections Academy or Florida Virtual School that are serving hundreds of thousands of kids around the world.  When pundits argue we must wait to change schools until we have more scientifically randomized controlled studies, I keep wondering how we ended up with our current educational system given all the existing educational research on educational effectiveness, and what makes them think waiting for more of the same will change anything?

3. Why are people fighting to keep a system that is so terribly broken? Over 30% of kids in America never receive a high school diploma, over 7,000 kids drop out of school every day, and over $1 billion dollars per year is spent on college remediation.  This has been going on for many years.  Folks, that is not ok.  That is a crisis and we can’t ignore it by fighting to keep things the way they have always been, or shuffling around minor pieces.   The system needs a major rethink for a digital age where we know no geographic boundaries, and where technologies evolve at a dizzying pace.

Innovation can provide us opportunity to address challenges in new ways.  For example, through the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, 100% of kids in Idaho have access to hundreds of online courses as part of their learning day.  This option never existed before the creation of IDLA. Whether students live in a large district, or in a remote rural area, any Idaho child can take AP Biology courses, dual credit college courses, or learn Mandarin Chinese, if they so choose.  That innovation has solved a real problem of access for many kids in smaller districts and rural areas that didn’t have the resources to provide such specialized courses (I hear the voices now, the “my friend’s son took a fill-in-the-blank course online and said it was horrible, they never talked to the teacher, and just filled out worksheets.”)  Yes, people do have bad experiences online, just like they do in live classrooms—just ask those 30% who never graduated from high school.  The development of standards and major accountability layers over the past several years has shifted online education from a fly-by-night operation into a full-fledged standardized and accountable system that often has better data about student learning than regular schools, because online learning behaviors, activities, and outcomes can be tracked and analyzed using data and text mining techniques that provide visual data and feedback in real time.

For those of us who work in K-12 online education, we are aware that online education, in most cases, is much more than a child sitting in front of a computer that spews out robotic curriculum and multiple choice quizzes.  From our interactions with many tens of thousands of kids and teachers, we reportedly hear first-hand that K-12 students in online or blended courses can have life-changing experiences, feel empowered, re-energized in their learning, and learn to become accountable for their own lives and career path as they head toward college. Those narratives also serve as an important form of data as we triangulate our findings.  Online education options can help students develop independent learning behaviors in a way that a forced day/time/curricular experience never can.  Online learning continues to grow at heady rates, so one has to question why….only several states have requirements for online learning options, and most of those have been enacted recently.  Yet over 2,000,000 kids do choose online courses.  And the blended education movement (part online, part live classroom) has taken major hold across the country.

I would like to see our state become a national leader in innovative learning by exploring options for keeping educational revenue in the state, or better yet, bringing revenue into the state from other states for our innovative learning offerings.  In full disclosure, I want to acknowledge that our department has had contracts with online providers, including IDLA, Connections Academy, and others, providing them online teacher training or evaluation services.  Here are a few ideas:

• Online and blended curriculum is king.  Everyone around the globe needs it.  Why not pass legislation that allows IDLA, or any other innovative educational program, to package its curriculum and re-license it to other schools around the world?  In other words, start acting like a funded enterprise and less like a welfare program reliant on state dollars.  This could generate millions of dollars in a very short time period.  And we could rehire many of those teachers who were laid off to serve in new roles as blended learning or online course designers, teacher trainers, course facilitators, learning coaches, just-in-time tutors, and other emerging roles in education.
• Create legislation that allows schools in Idaho to provide online professional development to teachers around the globe, for a fee.  Work with the universities to provide continuing education credits.  Once these programs are developed, they can also be re-licensed to other organizations that want to buy professional development programs.
• Provide more technology innovation funding opportunities to local partnerships between schools, business and universities to research and develop state-of-the art learning technologies that can be used in our own schools, and again, licensed to other schools outside the state.

In other words, let’s stop being passive consumers who spend state dollars on education, and instead let’s invest in training our own people to become innovators and leaders who develop the next wave of education, and then make smart business decisions with business leaders who can make that education available to others.  While some might argue this utopian vision isn’t possible or desirable, I can let you know we live it on a daily basis in our self-support graduation program in educational technology.  We haven’t relied on state appropriations for over six years, we pay our own bills, and hire many people both in and outside of Idaho who would never have jobs otherwise.  It’s fun (and sometimes frustrating) to be at the cutting-edge of our field, but this very nature of our positioning is what creates our greatest success.  And we have more effectiveness data than any other department in our college, including e-portfolios showing learning performance outcomes aligned to national standards, video reflections on students’ personal and professional growth, course/graduate/alumni survey data, learner behavior outcomes tracked inside our learning management system, graduation and retention rates, learner satisfaction data, and more.  Innovation involves strategic risk and acceptance of the potential for failure.  We don’t get it right 100% of the time.  But we do build in cycles of R&D to understand why something didn’t work, so we can modify it and try again.

While innovation can seem very exciting to those involved directly in its development, outsiders to the innovation can often feel threatened to the point of becoming hostile.  In our work to innovate education, in our state and around the globe, my goal is to work together with all involved and interested parties, including teachers, parents, children, policymakers, organizations, and state and private schools (online or not), to understand multiple viewpoints that can help inform and influence the development of the educational innovation effort as it moves along.  From my perspective, it does involve “online” or “blended” education in a myriad of forms that should be contextualized to whatever local needs and resources might exist.  I look forward to the challenge, and invite you to join me.

There’s an App for That!

Join us for a live interactive tweetchat on mobile learning at this year’s SITE conference, hosted in Nashville.  Hear presenter key points, ask questions, and share resources!

There’s An App for That!  The Role of Mobile Learning in Education
Mike Searson, Westley Field, Lisa Dawley, Carl Owens & Chris Penny

Wednesday, March 9, 12:45 PT/2:45 CT/3:45 ET
Join this facilitated session in Twitter by following #mlearningsig http://tweetchat.com/

Abstract: Contemporary mobile learning devices, supported by small programs called Apps, andusually enabled by access to dual wireless environments (3G/4G and Wi-Fi) allow for powerful and authentic “anywhere/anytime” learning. Panelists will share their expertise with mobile devices as learning tools, addressing the following topics:

• an overview of mobile learning
• case for mobile learning
• types of apps
• opportunities for learning
• future possibilities
• Q&A

#1 Lino it & Wallwisher: Online Stickies

Today’s Web 2.0 site for discussion is Lino it. I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this one but immediately thought that there may be some fun ways to incorporate this into some great classroom activities.

Essentially, Lino it is “…an online web sticky note service that can be used to post memos, to-do lists, ideas, and photos anywhere on an online web canvas.” It is a virtual bulletin board that you can fill full of stickie notes. I find myself wondering how 3M didn’t come up with this first.

Lino it is very similar to Wallwisher in that pictures (graphics), videos, clippings from the web and text can be posted to your online virtual bulletin board. Lino it also advertises that you can attach files to your stickies.

As a fan of post-it notes in the classroom, the potentials of an online service are fascinating. In my English class, I often had students use them to make notes in their novels as part of the active reading process. These “stickies” could then be taken out and placed in their journal for further discussion and reflection. They could also be posted around the room on chart paper for other members of the class to comment on in comparison with their stickies. This strategy always works quite well but is a very personal strategy in that only those who make them can see them (unless of course they physically share with others).

The cool thing with lino it and Wallwisher is that the notes are can be easily shared and commented on by a much wider audience by the very nature of the web. This allows for a much wider pool of collaborators – different classrooms in the same school, in different schools, in the same city, different cities, and beyond. Also, the multimedia power of the web allows videos and internet sites to be posted to the bulletin board. You can’t do that with cork and sticky paper.

The walls can be easily linked to from websites and blogs, thus making them part of a wider conversation. And, as each canvas has its own URL, people can easily find and contribute to it. This would be a great way for student to conduct research (especially if in a group). They could collect their information and post it to Lino it and their partners could do the same.

Have you used Wallwisher and/or Lino it in your class? How do use it?

Some Ideas for using Lino it and Wallwisher in the Classroom

Online Collaboration
Brainstorming
Research Collection
Main ideas of a unit or concept
Listing elements of a novel (i.e. theme)
Back channeling discussions
Exit Cards (Post lesson/task Assessment – Reflection)
Diagnostic purposes (Activate prior learning)
Self and Peer Reflection

Other Posts on this topic

How to use Wallwisher in the classroom

http://sharetheaddiction.edublogs.org/2010/09/17/wall-wisher-%E2%80%93-online-brainstorming/

A Wallwisher to play with – http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/interface

Nineteen Interesting Ways to Use Wallwisher in the Classroom

Creative Classroom Applications with Lino it

http://linoit.com/users/hpollack/canvases/Creative%20Classroom%20Applications

Another Great Tool – Lino it

http://www.logicoolsolutions.com/learnDoMasterChallenge/?p=1213

Web 2.0 Apps for Education – One a Day!

Okay – call me crazy – call me nuts – well, you get the point.

I’ve fallen a bit behind on my blog posts so, starting tomorrow, I am going to review one Web 2.0 tool a day for a year – that’s 365 tools. I know what you’re thinking…but, Aaron, there’s like a zillion applications on the web! I know, Iknow, but they’re not all good (are they).

I find at least one new application a day that I find neat through happenstance, Twitter, article, or word of mouth. I tend to put these applications in my bookmarks or just forget about them all together.

Anyway, I want to add a contextual twist. I’m going to give some ideas for how to use them contextually as well. Now, that’s ambitious! This is where I need your help. I will post the application and some curriculum / classroom ideas and I would love if I could get some discussion going with my PLN for other uses and ideas. Two heads are better than one and dozens are even better Cross-curriculum links will also be awesome.

So watch for the posts and please help me with the context for classrooms. So many sites review applications and tools but offer little in the way for how to use them. It’s ambitious but we can do it. After all, Dragon Dictation on the iPhone was built for this

Tomorrow: Lino It – Online Stickies

72 hour challenge: help teachers and win $$

Hi friends, please share ideas with other educators, and possibly win some $$ while you’re at it.  We’re testing a new suggestion and rating app on TeacherStream called VoxBox.

72 HOUR CHALLENGE!: Describe a successful digital strategy for engaging kids in learning.
Leave your suggestions and rate others. http://bit.ly/b3oftM

Top-rated ideas will be announced on Wednesday, Nov. 3.

1st place: $100
2nd place: $50
3rd place: $25

The Future of Virtual Worlds and EdTech Island

Four years ago, Chareen Snelson and I sketched an inital layout of EdTech Island on a napkin (ok, it was a piece of paper, but the idea of napkin sketch is appealing).  Since that time, EdTech Island in Second Life has grown to become a major educational initiative in our program, providing training to teachers and instructional designers in virtual worlds.  We’ve offered approximately 14 graduate courses there to-date, hosted many workshops and speaker events, and provided space to the public for building, teaching, and temporary educator housing.  Chris Haskell has become the island manager, and we’ve also added an an additional island, CAVE, to support our partnerships with iNACOL, AECT and ARVEL SIG.

If you follow news on virtual worlds, then you may be aware that Linden Labs has recently closed Teen Second Life, and opened Second Life to ages 13+.  Prior to this time, Second Life had been an 18+ only virtual world.  As if that change didn’t cause enough speculation among educators, even more recently Linden Labs made the decision to cut discount pricing made available to educational institutions.  The natives are now in an uproar, looking to make decisions about whether they will maintain a presence in Second Life, or make a mass migration to other virtual worlds.  Some are questioning if the life cycle of virtual worlds has come and gone, and whether it is time to just pull out all together.

Question #1:  Are virtual worlds dead?
In a nutshell, an emphatic “no.” Virtual world registered user accounts are estimated at over 1 billion, half of those belonging to kids 5-15.  KZero, an organization that tracks the virtual world growth across sectors, also reports approximately 300 virtual worlds in existence, with numbers growing to over 800 in two years.

Nic Mithim, CEO of KZero, was kind enough to provide me with recent reports and radar charts to help address our first question.  It’s easy to see why many educational faculty might think virtual worlds are dying or dead, because there aren’t many new educational virtual worlds being designed for that age group. In the below section of a radar chart, showing different market sectors of virtual worlds by age, note the large amount of educational virtual worlds showing up in the 10-15 age bracket, in particular.

In case that information isn’t quite sinking in, here’s another graph from 2009 that shows the population using virtual worlds by age.  Note the skinny green line at the top represents adults.

Some parents and educators have ethical issues with virtual worlds.  From my perspective, the worst ethical stance we could take is to turn our heads away as if these environments didn’t exist.   It appears we better get busy in schools figuring out how to educate kids on safe and appropriate use, and learn how to use them to our advantage for educational purposes.  That implies teachers need training and support to not only understand what a virtual world is and how they operate, but how they can serve as leaders and role models with their students, as well as design instruction that draws on the best attributes across these environments to promote engaging learning.

This past week, Claudia L’Amoreaux was kind enough to set up a meeting with Jori Clarke, CEO of Idea Seeker Universe. Jori took us on a tour of Idea Seeker Universe, and explained several of the educational projects that are embedded in this 2D virtual world environment.

I was really impressed with the Chicago Field Museum project, where kids could go on a scientific expedition to photograph and study animals.  Even more impressive was the “My Garden” project, where kids could grow and harvest food in realistic timelines, learn to combine ingredients from their food to make actual recipes of healthy food, and earn rewards such as the ability to dance by making a healthy drink.  Jori reported that kids would group up to make healthy drinks so they could host dance parties.  This project illustrates how we can leverage the fun and social elements of virtual worlds to help instill basic concepts of food growth and preparation to many kids who can be distanced from where their food is grown and how it is prepared.

From all available data, usage of virtual worlds is continuing to grow across all markets.  To see a great example of a fun and educational world for very young children, take a peek at Jumpstart, with a reported 20 million users.

Question#2: What is the future of EdTech Island?
Edtech Island will continue to evolve along with technological innovations and the needs of our audience.  Right now, we have renewed our island through December 2011, plan to offer two graduate courses this coming spring semester, and have GA and faculty support allocated to our sims.  We will remain as long as there is an interested audience in our work, and we are able to sustain management and research support for our activities there.  For an academic department, those decisions are typically made on a year-by-year basis.  Annie Jeffery is hosting bi-weekly events which you can view on our calendar.  I hope to see you there.

Technological Acculturation

The benefits of technology for enhanced student engagement and student achievement are endless and without boundary. I truly believe that we can use technology as a key tool to differentiate our teaching / learning process and to meet the individual needs of students within any diverse classroom. Not only can we better serve the multiple intelligences of students, but we can serve them within the world they are so familiar. As excited as I am about the digital revolution and its role in education, I have found that there are equally as many that are skeptical, and some that are just downright intimidated or afraid.

Right off the bat, it is difficult to incorporate large amounts of technology into any classroom on a regular basis due to the budget constraints that plague public education. There just isn’t enough money to go around. This reality continues to cause barriers in regards to technological access for students and teachers.

That being said, the number one barrier to the seamless integration of technology into the teaching/ learning process, and for assessment / reporting, is the cultural mind-shift that is necessary to make it work. As an English teacher, the curricular, and traditional emphasis is literacy. The definition of this often rests within the traditional confines of written text. My vision of an English department maintains this imperative skill, but extends the concept of literacy to the more prevalent 21st century multiple, and emerging (multiple) literacies that are a product of a digital age: graphic/visual literacy, oral/gestural literacy, and digital/media literacy to name a few. The digital world has changed the way we read, receive, and interpret any text (written or otherwise) and has important implications for the way students construct or write their own texts. Understanding these emerging literacies, their effects, and the real world of the student, will help all of us, as educators, to better meet the needs of our students, engage them in their studies and, ultimately, enhance their achievement.

This video highlights the dawn of a necessary mind-shift in educating the 21st Century Student

In essence, we need to acculturate ourselves to a new reality, a new ethnography, and a new world. In anthropological terms, our students are no longer passive observers of curricular content. They are active participants – part of a digital participatory culture. Let’s engage our students as collaborative partners in the teaching / learning process. As a collaborative team with a shared committment, we can all work to better engage our students and increase their ability to reach their potential through achievement. Let’s start the shift!

Some Interesting Resources:

Alexander, Jonathan. Digital Youth: Emerging Literacies on the World Wide Web (New Dimensions in Computers and Composition). New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2005. Print. (Hampton Press)

Collins, Allan. Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America. New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2009. Print. (Amazon)

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press, 2008. Print. (Amazon)

Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning). New York: MIT Press, 2009. Print. (Amazon)

How Google Buzz Compares with Facebook, Twitter and Blogging

In the last couple days, I had an interesting conversation about the validity of online textbooks inside Google Buzz that I have never before experienced using any of the three major sources of social networking that I normally participate in: Twitter, Facebook or blogging.  With all of the negative buzz Google has been getting this week, thought I would take a look at a few positive points.

Proximity
Expansion
Enhancement

1.  Since Buzz is basically in your email, the proximity to one of our major starting points while online makes carrying on the conversation pretty easy.  The conversation below looks much more like one that we would have on a blog, but since many of us are not logged into our Feed Readers all the time, the ease of conversation is amplified due to the closeness of the email starting point. I understand that many Twitter users are also logged into an application allowing that to be a form of ground zero, but Buzz offers something Twitter does not.

2.  Buzz doesn’t have a character limitation like Twitter so it is much easier to expand on ideas…..like when we comment on blogs.

3.  Facebook allows for great conversations as well, but many people in the edublogosphere and in my online based PLN tend to use Facebook to have long conversations with their friends and family members, not their learning community.  I have very few education based discussions on my Facebook page and my non-ed friends don’t really have long conversations about accounting or real estate sales on their Facebook walls either. By following people in Buzz that you also follow on Twitter or from reading their blogs, you can have more enhanced conversations with those people in a place that increases access to the stream of communication.

This will also allow friends of mine who don’t participate in my PLN, but that I email, to join or just look in on conversations that I am having with my professional world (if they are so intrigued) and that may finally change their opinions of me from high school.  Or not

In reverse is where I see the problem.  What happens when my friends and family start using Buzz?  Will I really want my professional contacts to see that side of my life, I try to separate them using privacy settings on Facebook, so I will have to wait until Buzz gets fully developed to do that as well.

Yes I said the magic word regarding Buzz, privacy, there was really no way to leave it out of this post considering all the talk of privacy concerns this week.  I do not feel comfortable posting all the full names of the people involved in the inspiring Buzz conversation so I have taken some time to remove their last names.  There is something slightly different when they don’t have an @ in front of their name that makes me feel like I am almost violating secrecy by posting a full name here.

I have done my best to demonstrate the positive conversation in Buzz that prompted this posting but at the same time keep things semi-private.

This conversation continues here, here, here and here.

This was from less than two work days of conversation.

Evaluating Blogs for Teachers and Students

Well, its been a long haul, but I think that I’m finally ready to post my evaluation of some blogging platforms that can be used by teachers and students. There are literally *tons* of platforms available…this is just a few….(not an exhaustive list by any means) and some of the benefits/rationales for their use.

Google Blogger
I have used blogging extensively in my secondary classes and have mostly opted to use Blogger (most in part to its simplicity). Blogger does, however (and unfortunately) have some “adult oriented” content on its site – these are indicated by “Mature Warning” screens (but only if the user sets it to do so). If questionable content is discovered without a warning, Blogger does ask that they be informed (as do most hosts). Whereas this is not a huge issue for secondary, elementary teachers and parents may not approve of this. This is not, however, to say that the questionable content is easy to find, mind you. It is, however, there. For ease of use and integration of other Google applications, it is excellent.

Click Here for a step-by-step guide for setting up an account on Blogger.

Audience: Google Blogger is easy to use and understand. I have always found it to be a great place for new bloggers to start. The skills learned in this platform are easily transferred to others. Inserting YouTube clips can be a little challenging for some as the embed code needs to be pasted in the HTML view. WordPress has a more intuitive system. Blogger is easy enough for elementary students to use (keep in mind that some Google blog sites feature inappropriate content, but these are not easy to find and is really no different than the rest of the www). This is a great starting platform for secondary students. Keep in mind that students must set up a Google account to use Blogger (alternatively, teachers can do it for them). Google Accounts may need to be unblocked if it is in your board (usually the result of Gmail being blocked as an email platform).

WordPress
WordPress is a wonderful blogging platform. It looks and operates beautifully – very professional in appearance. As with other platforms, WordPress has a number of templates that can be applied to suit the tastes of the blogger. One HUGE benefit, at least to me, is that you can change your template at any time and all of your material is retained and reformatted. This is not possible with Google’s Blogger. The internal interface of WordPress is a bit more intuitive than Blogger’s, yet more complex at the same time (this is partially due to greater abilities to customize). WordPress provides statistics of daily visits and a ton of “widgets” that can be added to customize.

WordPress also has a hosted version of their software (Click Here) that allows you to have your own domain (hosted by companies such as Go Daddy or BlueHost). Domains usually cost anywhere from $1.99-$9.99 and you can get a hosting package for about $6.99 per month. This feature is for more advanced users but can be customized as a virtual classroom where each student gets a unique email and access to the site).

Audience: The learning curve is a bit steeper (especially for the blogging newbie) and I would consider it more advanced to Blogger’s novice/intermediate levels (suited more for secondary students).

Both can be as accessible or as restricted as the user wishes.

For more elementary students, easier to use platforms would be preferable.

In this case…

Posterous
http://posterous.com/ is great for simplicity. You can post virtually anything here by email. (i.e. http://mrsdunfordgr3.posterous.com and http://aaron-frwe9.posterous.com/)

No need to create an account – post directly from your email account by sending to post@posterous.com. After sending your email, you will receive a message with a link to your new blog. Messages sent to Posterous via email from the same email initially used will appear on the same blog that was created with the first message.

Audience: This platform would be a great starting point for someone new to blogging or for those of younger ages where simpler is better (elementary). I don’t think that secondary students would get much out of this platform – it would, perhaps, be suitable for simply posting information with very little customization.

My New Favourite
Tumblr
http://www.tumblr.com is similar to Posterous in that you can email your posts directly to the site (one of the few that support this).

In essence, it is a hybrid of Twitter (microblogging) and more traditional Blogging – you can post short messages (longer ones, too) and can do so from a multitude of sources (i.e. text, video, audio, email, etc.). Tumblr even has an app. for the iPhone. Log into your Tumblr account and from the dashboard you can post photos, text, quotes, links, chat, or audio messages. There are a ton of 3rd party Tumblr apps. as well (Click Here).

Why Everyone loves Tumblr – http://www.tumblr.com/why-tumblr

Additionally, Tumblr has a web browser add-on (Bookmarklet) that allows you to share things you find on the web quickly by clicking a button (similar to Evernote – a virtual online notebook service)

Tumblr also has a Facebook App, the iPhone App previously mentioned, and a call-in service that allows you to send an audio post directly to your blog (1-866-584-6757). Click Here for the Tumblr “Goodies”.

Tumblr will easily allow students to contribute to their blog while they are doing research or simply surfing the web. They can add a brief comment of analysis, question, concern, or conversation, and then move on. It wouldn’t even feel like they are doing work or contributing to their assignment. Allowing posts from a variety of platforms (i.e. email and phone), and allowing sharing in other platforms (Facebook and other Blogs) increases versatility to blogging and takes the “work” out of it.

Audience: I see this as suitable to both elementary and secondary. It is fun for both levels of student and injects a new dynamic to blogging. The ability to post a variety of different message types (text, image [still & moving], and audio) serves multiple-intelligences and learning styles perfectly!

Ning
ning.com is a blogging/web platform with a social aspect (i.e. http://students4it.ning.com)

Ning is a hybrid of a blog (with a website feel and interface) combined with Facebook.

With Ning, the owner of the site can invite members (i.e. students) who then become part of the Ning community (i.e. a virtual classroom in this instance). These members can upload photos of themselves and participate directly in the learning community by posting blogs, joining discussions and chats, and creating their own “walls” within the environment (much like Facebook). In fact, the interface of Ning is so similar to Facebook, and therefore familiar to students, that they can’t help but be engaged.

The Ning platform could serve really well as a place to create a feeling of belonging to a true learning community.
The benefits for the teacher is that all student’s contributions to the Ning are contained with the teacher’s community. There would be no need to seek out the student’s separate blogs to follow them as they would be present within the class Ning itself.

Audience: The Ning interface is relatively easy to use and would be suitable for both elementary and secondary. One downfall for using this interface for elementary students is that all members must be over the age of 13 in order to have an account. Ning is a US site and, therefore, must comply with the FTC (Federal —) and COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), which restricts the online collection of personal information of children under 13 (Click Here). The FTC’s web site has extensive information on COPPA. See especially FAQs at www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.htm and FTC’s “Kidz Privacy” pages at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/index.html.

Canada has no laws relating to children’s privacy and the Internet. In spring 1999, the CRTC (the government agency charged with regulating Canada’s broadcast industries) ruled that they would not attempt to regulate the Internet. Instead, Canadian companies are expected to follow voluntary guidelines.

In Canada, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has created a voluntary privacy code for the Internet. Although these principles don’t specifically apply to children, it’s assumed that kids are covered by them. The Canadian Marketing Association’s Marketing Guidelines for Children(which are also voluntary) includes a few stipulations that relate to the collection, transfer or request of personal information from kids by marketers.

From the great lesson plan, Online Marketing to Kids, from the Media Awareness Network.

Want to use Ning with Middle School Students?
Check out http://education.ning.com/forum/topics/1027485:Topic:40246

A great Ning for Educators is http://education.ning.com/

Edublogs

…is powered by WordPress!

A number of teachers use Edublogs, but they automatically embed advertising in the text of your blogs (single lined hyperlinks are user created, double line hyperlinks are generated advertisements) if you don’t pay their fee (Read my analysis of Edublogs Here).

Edublogs is powered by WordPress and has a “Campus” feature that allows schools to sig-up (and pay) for a solution for teacher and student blogging within the institution.

The Free Edublogs version is the one that inserts advertising into the posts.

Like Ning, Edublogs enables the users to create a class blog (a learning environment) and then invite users to it.

Audience: As Edublogs is the WordPress interface, much of what I posted earlier in this blog pertains. That is not to say, however, that younger students can not use it (just that it may be a bit difficult). Keeping the tasks simple and only using parts of the interface will help with the initial learning curve. Here are some student examples as posted on the site, The Edublogger:

Check out these Class Blogs (Secondary & Elementary)
http://theedublogger.com/check-out-these-class-blogs/

Whew…….

That wraps up this analysis, but by no means provides the final word. More and more blogging platforms are showing up each day and the amalgamation of one social network with another continues to grow. Needless to say, children of all ages are spending more and more time on the internet. They think, learn, and socialize through a natural interface with technology. The most recent research from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life project indicates that 93% of teens go online regularly, and that portable and wireless devices are preferred (CLICK HERE to read the “Social Media and Young Adults” report).

Two Pew Internet Project surveys of teens and adults reveal a decline in blogging among teens and young adults and a modest rise among adults 30 and older. In 2006, 28% of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 were bloggers, but by 2009 the numbers had dropped to 14% of teens and 15% of young adults.

Even though the most recent research may suggest that teens are not blogging regularly on their own, it remains a wonderful interface to use with student in an educational setting, allows them to read, write, evaluate and share their ideas in a collaborative setting that is both digital and dynamic. From The Edublogger:

Important parts of the blogging process include encouraging students to:

1. Read each others posts
2. Interact and comment on each others posts by challenging each others thoughts and views
3. Write posts in response to each others posts

For all of these reasons, Tumblr takes my “Coolest Blogging Platform” award for this week. It has multiple posting options, plugins, and apps and integrates a microblogging aspect with an easy to use customizable interface. With the growth of Social Networking sites for teens, the integration of these with blogging platforms (i.e. Ning) will be the hook that engages and stimulates our students and their learning.

What do you think? Use a different blogging platform? Like to share what you are doing with your students?

I’d love to hear what other educators are using and how they are using it. I constantly get questions from curious teachers and the one missing link is the practical application.

That’s all for now…..
Share your thoughts……