Using Social Tools to Promote Literacy

Melissa Jacobs-Israel, Coordinator

Elizabeth Naylor-Gutierrez, Coordinator

NYCDOE – Office of Library Services

Blogs

A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Why Let Our Students Blog?

Blogging in Education

• Visit My Class

• Imbee

• Edublog

• Bloglines

• Good Reads

• Learning 2.0

Visit My Class

imbee

Edublog

Bloglines

Good Reads

23 Learning 2.0 Things…

MySpace Debate

More than a third of teachers surveyed said MySpace and other social networking websites have disrupted their school’s learning environment, according to a National School Boards Association survey.

Source: National School Boards Association

NEA Today; March 2007, Vol. 25 Issue 6, p16-16. 1/4p

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=99674114

Podcasts

An audio (or video) program in a compressed digital format, delivered via an RSS feed over the Internet to a subscriber and designed for playback on computers or portable digital audio/video players, such as the iPod.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/podcast

Podcasts as Student Projects

Assignment: The President of the United States will be visiting the midwestern and western states to find a new residence. To help him decide where he will live, he will be downloading and listening to podcasts.

Create a podcast that will convince the President to select your state.

http://spsmidweststates.blogspots.com

Podcasts as Learning Tools

• Education Podcast Networkhttp://www.epnweb.org/

• China Podhttp://chinesepod.com/

• Podcasts for Educators, Schools and Collegeshttp://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/index.php

• Podcasts for Teachers (PFT)http://www.podcastforteachers.org/

MoreAboutTechPod.html

Videos

Teachertube.com - an online community for sharing instructional videos

http://www.teachertube.com

Zamzar – free online video conversion

http://www.zamzar.com

Wiki

A wiki (sometimes wikiwiki) is a website that allows anyone (with permission) to edit any page and to add new pages. Wikis are unusually collaborative because all participants can, in the typical case, edit all, or nearly all, pages on a wiki.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Wiki

Wikis

Teachers First Wiki Walk-Through

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

StudySkills

http://studyskills6.wikispaces.com/

Landmark HS Civil Rights Wiki:

http://schools.wikia.com/wiki/Civil_Rights_Class

Embrace Social Tools

Social Tools are Not the EnemyMillions of students have a MySpace

presence, use blogs, post podcasts, use wikis and interact with the world through social networking tools.

We can use these tools in education and embrace the technology our students are most comfortable with…not to mention we will be way cool!

Next Steps…

Let’s figure out how to use social networking tools in the Library…