Read/Write Web 2.0 : Part 2

As promised, here is the second part of links and explanations related to last Friday's lectures.

In the second half of the lecture, I moved on to talk more about social networking tools, specifically:

• Online bookmarks
  
• Tagging
• Photo sharing (Flickr)
  

I had originally intended to talk about Wikis, but again since time was against me, I decided miss this out. However, wikis are interesting, and potentially extremely useful in education. The most famous example of a wiki is the Wikipedia. The idea of a wiki is that anyone can contribute to and edit a set of web pages. This is how Wikipedia works. It is an encyclopaedia that is written by its readers. As it says on its own help page:

"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by its users (in over 200 languages worldwide). Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and its contents are free and open."

There are some concerns about the consequences of this way of creating an encyclopaedia. Is such information reliable? I have written about this in the past and I am no longer as skeptical as I was. If you want to look into it further, try watching Jon Udell's screencast which, among other things, shows how the Wikipedia resists vandalism and develops in scope and accuracy over time. You may also like to read an article from Nature that gives a reasonably favourable report on Wikipedia's accuracy when compared to Britannica. Also of interest is a Wikipedia Lesson Plan. Another example of a wiki is Wikibooks. I don't think the world of educational publishing has to worry about Wikibooks, but what if a class produced their own text book for the course you were teaching? Perhaps different people could be given responsibility for making an initial entry on a topic and then the rest of the class could edit, correct, add examples etc. as their understanding develops. The end product may not be as good as the school's text books, but the process of producing the wikibook could be extremely valuable. What do you think?

The first tool I did demonstrate was online bookmarks, specifically del.icio.us (there are others, but del.ico.us is the one I use most often despite its silly name). If you have ever saved a favourite/bookmark when browsing the web, it is very easy to see just how useful it is to to access a saved set of bookmarks from any machine. I used my del.icio.us bookmarks as an example. I showed the collection of links I had created for a digital video class which meant I could give the class a single web page to visit and all the links they needed could be accessed and I could keep it up to date - much easier than giving them a paper handout with hard to type web addresses that I can't update for them if a resource moves, disappears or can be replaced with a better site.

I also used my list to introduce the idea of tags. The tagging feature of online bookmarking tools make it much easier to organise and find bookmarks. Instead of having to choose a single folder in which to store a bookmark, you can add a number of descriptive tags. For example, I could tag the Jon Udell screencast mentioned above with JonUdell screencast tutorial and Wiki, allowing me to easily find the link by clicking on a tag or by entering the tag as a search term. Del.icio.us makes it easy to add tags as it lists all the tags you currently use and suggests others have used to describe the same site. My guide to del.icio.us gives a step-by-step introduction and makes a number of suggestions on how it could be used in education. Download the guide and sign up for del.icio.us... and remember to leave a comment here if you use it with a class - let us know how you get on.

Champion Blue,
originally uploaded by DavidDMuir.

From tagging bookmarks I moved to tagging photographs, but really I wanted to show the educational potential of online photo sharing. I demonstrated Flickr by showing a picture of my dog Blue. I used various tags on this picture, but the one I highlighted was that it was the geotags. These specify where a photograph was taken and can be linked to tools such as Google Earth and Google Map. Are you going on a school trip? Do you have links with schools in other parts of the world? Do you want to show children places, or buildings or geographical features of interest to your subject? Take a photograph, geotag it and tell the children how to find it with a map tool! If you are interested, Make: Blog has a good guide on how to geotag photos.

Other potential uses of Flickr were also demonstrated including a getting to know you exercise, an example of a photograph being used to stimulate discussion about computer lab layout {sorry, I had messed up the previous two links... but I think they are fixed now} and a brilliant example of an art class sharing what they have learned about a piece of art. If you can't think of an idea where a visual image can be used a a stimulus for discussion or comment in your subject - you are not thinking hard enough! To add notes or comments to a photograph, you have to create a Flickr account, which you can do for free. There is good online help at Flickr and teach42 has provided list of Flickr related tools and ideas. If you use Flickr with a class, leave a comment here to share what you did and let us know how successful you were.

Another long post, but I think that gives you links to most of the stuff I talked about. That only leaves the promised links to the video of our lectures. You have been very patient and I think you've earned this:

• My lecture on social networking tools
• Ewan's lecture on blogs and podcasts and Web 2.0 and educational uses for all of the above!

Don't forget that Ewan has already posted a version of his presentation on his own blog.

Let me know what you think. Are these videos helpful or interesting? Was it good to get the links and further ramblings here too?

Tags: Jordanhill | teacher education | lecture | Ewan McIntosh
| wiki | del.icio.us | Flickr | tagging

P.S. I'm still marking essays... honest!