For a food loving person like myself a web tool called del.cio.us was too good an opportunity to miss!
Del.icio.us is a must have web tool called a social bookmarker. It radically changes the way you browse the web and share good links with other users.
Setting up a free account is very straight forward, but choose an username that you are happy to share with other people. Then download the del.icio.us software including buttons that will display on a google toolbar.
Everytime you find a useful website add it to your del.icio.us list. You need to give it one or more tag names. This will enable you to sort through all your links. If it is a popular site with other del.icio.us users you will be given a suggested list of how they have tagged it.
Why bother using Del.icio.us? The main advantage of using del.icio.us over just using internet favourites or bookmarks, is that your del.icio.us list can be accessed as a web page wherever you are.
It is also possible to add your del.icio.us list to a personalised google homepage or onto a google desktop sidebar.
With a bit of fiddling around, you can add your list to a blog. You can see mine displayed as a cloud. The tags with the most links are in a larger font.
Lastly, you can share your list with other people. To view my list go to del.icio.us and type in the username communicty, or click here
JISC initiated a study involving a combination of examination of data from longitudinal studies and new research to see whether the “Google Generation” (post-1993) approached research tasks in a significantly different way to people from previous cohorts.
They define six types of behaviour:
Horizontal information seeking. A form of skimming. “Around 60 per cent of e-journal users view no more than three pages and a majority (up to 65 per cent) never return.”
Navigation. People in virtual libraries “spend as much time finding their bearings as actually viewing what they find.”
Viewers. Users spend typically four to eight minutes looking at e-books and e-journals. “New forms of ‘reading’ are emerging as users ‘power browse’ horizontally through titles.”
Squirreling behaviour. Research shows academic users “will squirrel away content in the form of downloads [but] there is no evidence as to the extent to which these downloads are actually read.”
Diverse information seekers. One size does not fit all, in terms of attributes such as gender or status.
Checking information seekers. “Users assess authority and trust for themselves in a matter of seconds by dipping and cross-checking”.
The report suggests “There is little direct evidence that young people’s information literacy is any better or worse than before.” However, it finds important themes:
The apparent facility of young people with computers “disguises some worrying problems.”
“The speed of young people’s web searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information…”
“Young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and thus find it difficult to develop effective search strategies.”
They tend to use “natural language rather than analysing which key words might be more effective”.
Faced with a long list of results, they find it difficult to assess relevance and “print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them”.
Although they begin to focus on the use of “virtual libraries”, many of the insights have wider implications, such as:
“Children (especially) tend to make very narrow relevance judgements by considering the presence or absence of words exactly describing the search topic: as a result they miss many relevant documents and end up repeating searches. Information seeking tends to stop at the point at which articles are found and printed, especially for younger users, with little regard to the document content.”
They also examine some of the suppositions about the Google Generation (p18-20), finding many are myths. For example, “They prefer quick information in the form of easily digested chunks, rather than full text” is just as true of older people. The researchers brand the idea that “they are expert searchers” a “dangerous myth”.
The report goes as far as to question the whole notion of a Google Generation:
“A 2007 survey by Synovate finds that only 27% of UK teenagers could really be described as having the kind of deep interest and facility in IT that the label implies. The majority (’average Joes’, 57%) use relatively low level technology to support their basic communication or entertainment needs and there is a substantial residuum of 20% (’digital dissidents’) who actively dislike technology and avoid using it wherever possible.”
To summarise, “Our overall conclusion is that much writing on the topic of this report overestimates the impact of ICTs on the young and underestimates its effect on older generations. A much greater sense of balance is needed.”
A new survey by online polling company YouGov Plc, on behalf of RM, underlines just how technology is changing the way young people in Britain learn.
This year’s RM “School Gate Survey” questioned 1,501 11-16 year olds across Britain, and examined their thoughts on the impact of IT on their learning and the value they place on it.
The results
93% of 11-16 year olds with computer access at school surveyed do at least some or all of their homework on a computer/ laptop.
78% of these prefer doing homework on a computer or laptop to pen and paper
50% of 11-16 year olds surveyed would like to spend more time learning at home
49% own their own laptop or PC
77% use the Internet every day
93% of 11-16 year olds surveyed feel that technology has helped them to learn more
The results of the research found that 93% of 11-16 year olds feel that technology has helped them to learn more and 78% of those with computer access at school said they now prefer doing their homework on a computer or laptop rather than on paper. Further, 93% of respondents do at least some or all of their homework on a computer.
The survey also revealed the extent to which young people are engaging with the Internet, with over three-quarters (77%) of those questioned using it every day, and 21% using it once or twice a week. This is supported by the fact that half (49%) of the respondents own their own laptop or PC.
With this access has come a desire for enhanced flexibility in where young people learn, and a dissolving of barriers between home and school. 50% of those young people surveyed voiced a desire to spend more time learning at home.
Other technologies
Young People’s engagement with technology doesn’t stop with computers. New technologies and social networking sites are widely enjoyed, with 60% of respondents using Facebook/ Myspace and/ or Bebo, 66% playing video games, 69% a mobile phone, 65% an MP3 player and 51% using a digital camera. There is a strongly expressed interest in using these for learning, with 30% saying they would like to use video games to help them learn, 20% an MP3 player and 18% social networking sites.
When asked what aspects of learning they thought would most help them get a good job in later life, a majority (70%) chose technology, backed by having a supportive family (83%) and a good teacher (84%).
In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn’t just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can’t. He describes the rising role of serious amateurs (”Pro-Ams,” as he calls them) through the story of the mountain bike.
This awesome application allows you to upload a presentation and quickly add a commentary.
It also enables other users to add comments of their own. The possibilities with this tool are endless.
This video clearly explains how the communication of information is evolving from writing on a piece of paper, to text on a webpage, to creating your own videos. It also explores how this ever expanding mass of information is being searched, sorted, tagged, mashed up and made into something new.
I’m always on the look out for ways to bring more relevant themes into ICT. I’m also keen to bridge the gap between the ways students use computers in school and at home.
A project that my school is doing on SEAL (social, emotional aspects of learning) provided the ideal opportunity to update our first unit in Year 7. They used to create presentations about their family and hobbies, but this was rather dull and the content of what the students produced did not teach them anything new. Instead we used an emotions tree diagram with people showing a variety of different emotions and asked the students to create presentations showing which five characters best summed up their own personality.
I needed to find a way to enable my pupils to share their ideas and use the best language to describe their emotions. The solution came in the form of edublogs.org. This free, educational blog site allowed me to quickly put up an idea on the web and then invite my students to contribute comments (see examples). This is a safe and easy way to use web2.0 as there is no need to generate accounts and the comments are moderated by the teacher before they go live on the Internet.
To add a global dimension to our research, I created a project page on elanguages.org. This DfES funded website enables teachers around the world to link up and collaborate ideas and resources. I soon had a response from Apeejay School in New Delhi. You can imagine the cries of excitement when my students were reading their comments and found phrases written by Nikita, Dhruv, Eashan and their classmates in India! They were also surprised to find out how similar they felt about school life in both countries.
Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person who is scared to climb higher up the tree: I feel like this person when I am in a class that I am not so good at, so I must cling on to hope that I will still get a good result! Krissi, UK I feel like this image when I am feeling low, because then I feel helpless and alone in this world. Kavisha, India
Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person at the top of the tree: I feel like this person when I do well at lessons and get it right because I have tried really hard. Zak, UK I feel like this person when I’ve overcome all the obstacles in my work and I feel on the top of the world. Ujval, India
There has been a marked difference in the engagement of my students in creating presentations about their emotions towards school life rather than their families and hobbies. I have also been surprised at how personalised their phrases are. I have realised that SEAL is an interesting theme to explore with my students. It also teaches them valuable lessons about positive attitudes towards learning and the need to understand themselves better.
Often in ICT, we concentrate more on how to create a product rather than the message that it is trying to communicate. However, I am convinced that allowing students appropriate time to generate quality content on a theme that is relevant to their own lives leads them into producing a better end product and consequently better progress.
Resources Update MyTree – I’ve made this unit to replace the About Me powerpoint project. The students are given a diagram of different emotions and they write phrases to descrbe how they feel in different school situations. They then share their ideas by contributing comments to a series of blog posts. Finally they create a powerpoint presentation about the different aspects of their personality (example).
9.2 Online Survey – This unit enables students to compare the lives of young people in the UK and USA. We are hoping to involve students in other countries too this year for a global survey. Students then analyse the data using pivot charts and write a report to explain what the data proves.
MyMoney – This unit enables students to research real current accounts for teenagers and do some market research into how they save and what they spend their money on. They create a series of products including a billboard advert, leaflet and an audio advert. This unit is currently under construction.
Events
I’m organising a SSAT Seminar with Ian Noble on practical uses of teaching ICT with new technologies including web2.0 and VLEs. The event is at the Eastern Leadership Centre in Cambridge on 15th November. For more info and how to book click here.
Websites to check out MindMaps, FreeMind and Bubbl.us are three excellent examples of online planning and brainstorming tools. I have seen several schools using them very effectively to plan DiDA projects.
For a food loving person like myself a web tool called del.cio.us was too good an opportunity to miss!
Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person who is scared to climb higher up the tree:
Often in ICT, we concentrate more on how to create a product rather than the message that it is trying to communicate. However, I am convinced that allowing students appropriate time to generate quality content on a theme that is relevant to their own lives leads them into producing a better end product and consequently better progress.
Resources Update