The Moss-Free Stone

I am very excited to get to hear Will Richardson today at TCEA. He is discussing the various aspects of today’s world that are putting pressure on us as educators, such as evolving technology, changes in occupations, the availability of information like never before, etc.

Some numbers he shared:

• 2,000,000 blog posts daily
• 75,000 Youtube videos added daily

The bulk of the session will focus on ways we can use the available tools and writing in safe, effective ways.

Interesting statement on the effectiveness of blogging–Will stated that he probably used only about 10% of what he learned in college, while he has learned from/used 100% of what he has learned through blogging. He believes we are making a mistake by not taking advantage of the medium if we do not use read/write tools as educators, because we are failing to connect to a network of others who share the same concerns and who are a valuable resource.

He just shared a great story of his own students’ blog on the book The Secret Life of Bees. This amazing product actually comes up before the author’s own site in a web search! The site has attracted visitors from around the world, including the author herself. As a result, the author contacted the students and initiated a discussion with them via the site. What an incredible testimony to the power of publishing a quality product to a worldwide audience!

Other examples include student blogs on the ravages of AIDS in Africa, the college experience (Sam Jackson), and much, much more. MySpace is another example of the way a sense of community can develop through online writing.

Collaboration

Will stated that, in his opinion, Wikipedia is the most important site on the Internet at this time. This is not because of the content, but because of the collaboration–facts/truths are negotiated. The discussion tab, in particular, gives great insight into the discussion that goes on between users as they seek to create the description of an entry.

He also just pointed out the fact that, in the past 2 minutes, over 500 changes were made to Wikipedia, another example of its incredible, dynamic nature.

Another tool he is demonstrating is Google Docs, which is an online word processor application. This is one of a number of such tools that allow users to collaborate on projects with users around the world, almost in real time.

The Flat Classroom Project is another great example of a collaborative project that makes great use of not only writing tools, but images, video, and more. This site, which was set up by Vicki Davis, a teacher in Camilla, Georgia. It is a wiki that students in her class and a partner class in Bangladesh use to discuss developments that “flatten” the world, a follow-up to a class reading of The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. For anyone who is interested in seeing all that is possible with the collaborative, read-write web, this wiki is a must visit.

Adding Meaning

One major advantage of the tools that are available now is that students can create products that are infinitely more valuable and meaningful than simply turning in another 5-paragraph essay. Examples Will shared included a public service announcement about wearing seatbelts, written by a student whose parents died in an accident. Another was a video about forms of insomnia for a science class, written in the form of a rap and posted to YouTube.

Podcasts are a tremendous tool, and can be very effectively used with writing instruction. Students use the entire writing process to create quality scripts for the podcasts.

Lulu.com is another cool tool. This site allows students or any other visitor to self-publish their own books, then offer them for sale on Amazon.com!

Role Models

Will believes (as do I) that the key to all of this is for educators to use the tools themselves. He encourages us to write about what is important to us, whether it is pets, baseball, education, or whatever. The key is to begin writing, start forming networks, and get to know the tools. He recommends a simple blog as a starting point. He also says that it may require making a choice between spending time learning the tools and spending time doing something else, maybe something that is growing irrelevant in our evolving world. Great point to make the next time someone tells me, “I don’t know how you have the time to learn about all of this!”

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