Participating in the conversation

I was reading a recent post on my Google Reader about comparing the difference between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee to those who just soak in media and information and those who give back. I can't find the original, but I did come across this one. Basically, the idea is that the Sea of Galilee is one of the most fertile places on earth fed by the Jordan River, rainfall and Springs. The Dead Sea, also fed by the Jordan, is so named because of its high mineral content and that no water drains out of this lowest place on earth. The difference is that
"the Jordan River flows into the Sea of Galilee from the top and flows out the bottom. It is as if the Sea of Galilee receives and gives. The Jordan River, then, flows into the Dead Sea and never gets out. Its as if the Dead Sea receives but does not give. The Dead Sea receives and keeps and, I think, this seeming selfishness is what makes the Dead Sea, dead. On the otherhand, the seeming generosity of the Sea of Galilee is what made it the exact opposite of the Dead Sea."
I spend so much of my time learning and trying to master that I do not give back and perhaps participate in the conversation. As a teacher/learner who is an introvert, I am very content to receive and unwilling to share and give. To make this work I will try to share more of my thoughts, experiences, and connections to what is out there.

21st Century Skills

Here are some links used in our faculty meeting on looking at the 21st Century

Video of Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity
Video "Did You Know" by Karl Fisch
Common Craft Show "RSS in Plain English" Visit Commoncraft.com for other helpful Web 2.0 skills

Here's another video from mwesch at Kansas State.The purpose of the video is to"explore the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively."

If Real Life were like Facebook

I found this from Ewan McIntosh. Do our kids think these social network interactions are just like face-t0-face friendships?

picture of jenny

Here is a picture of Jenny taken in Maine from a friend of mine.

Thinking about far away

I'm playing with Flikr today. I long to get back.

Social Bookmarking

I have been asking around, and I haven't found anyone at school using social bookmarks. Actually, when I ask my students, I have not found that they are using bookmarks at all. If they use a site, they cut and paste or print it (and that is without print preview to avoid unnecessary pages).

I would like to introduce social bookmarking to our faculty. First, there are web bookmarking services, such as Google Bookmarks, that allow web users to store bookmarks on the web, rather than on their computer or network. This does allow freedom to access one's bookmarks from anywhere. Social bookmarking sites add to the service by allowing users to organize, share, and search bookmarks. These bookmarks may be marked private but really work and become public when they are marked public. One may tag, or label, sites with one's own method of identification. I will discuss tagging is detail at a later date, but tagging allowis users to organize and search bookmarks without using the "folder" approach. What also makes social bookmarking work is that programs, such as del.icio.us will then show how many others have bookmarked that particular site. One can then view and link to other people's bookmarks. Another feature is that users can rate and add comments to their bookmarks. One advantage and possible disadvantage is that human beings are classifying and rating sites rather than leaving it up to the internet "spider" programs of the search engines. I can see great possibilities of students using social bookmarks. Imagine working on a project on Queen Hatshepsut of Ancient Egypt. Doing a normal web search and bookmarking worthwhile sites, but then seeing who else bookmarked the same site or sites. You can then see what other sites on Egypt or Hatshepsut they have bookmarked and recommended. They are essentially becoming collaborators on your project.

This is just another feature of how older Internet features are evolving into Web 2.0. I will say using social bookmarks may seem awkward at first, but there may be uses for you.