CEDO 535 - Facilitating Collaboration using Web Tools - Wk 2

     We still talked a lot about blogs this week but we also started a more in depth analysis of Wikipedia and Wikis in general.  So here is Wikipedia in a nutshell for me: Wikipedia is a good resource for information - no doubt.  The information is as accurate as you might find almost anywhere else.  I can get past the oddball additions that some people make to entries that don't seem to contribute any value to the post.  I can get past people adding things in sometimes inappropriate places in the entry ruining the organizational logic of the entry.  What I can't get past (and all of my teachers feel the same way) is exactly what I stated above: it's almost as accurate and credible as other sources.  Teachers will never get over the fact that wikipedia entries are formed by anyone and that you could write anything and as long enough people agree with it or it can't be refuted it will stay part of the definition.  Here is a video of Stephen Colbert as he explains his word of the day...WIKIALITY.  If you're familiar with Colbert you'll understand that he is being sarcastic but you still get that thought in the back of your mind that there is the possibility of an inaccuracy like that happening in Wikipedia because of the way it is setup.  I would ideally like to convince my teachers to at least allow students to use Wikipedia to gather info and potential sources by looking at citations from contributors but I can't, in good conscience, recommend Wikipedia as a cite-able source.
     Last week I started a blog concerning our potential implementation of iPads in the middle school next year.  I opened it up to our current 6th and 7th graders and I posed a specific topic starter question.  The idea is to get additional feedback from the students themselves so that we can add that to our justification of this 1:1 initiative.  Students are required to respond to my question(s) every 2 weeks.  I went over examples of thoughtful responses and tried to model a few more responses that showed a higher level of thinking than just saying "I think iPads would be cool".  While I am happy to have the students blogging, I haven't really tapped into the full potential of using blogging.  The best thing about blogging in education is the collaboration aspect and I haven't really fostered that in this situation.  I could've gotten these same responses by having them fill out a Google form every two weeks.  Two days ago, however, a student responded to another student's post.  THAT is what I'm looking for!!  I will wait and see what happens as the responses keep coming in but I'd like to do something with a topic that is maybe easier for students to start responding to each other.
     Twitter...ugh.  We had to sign up for a Twitter account.  I signed up for one and that is pretty much as far as I got.  I hate the whole concept of Twitter and I still have yet to see it's value in education.  It is way too overbearing for me.  I remember the feeling I had when we did the Posterous pic-a-day thing where it just hung over my head each day.  Well, Twitter is even worse which is why I never started using it in the first place.  I suppose the idea here is to follow someone who does useful Twitter posts.  I honestly have enough Google calendar reminders, apps running, etc in my life where I don't want to see my devices bombarded with Twitter updates or people posting - useful or not.  And if you're not willing to have immediate Twitter updates given to you, which I'm not, then it is not going to be of any use to you.  I picture the profile of the person who can use Twitter the most effectively as this: single, no kids, frequents coffee shops or bistros, is always looking for something to do, has lots of extra spare time.  That is the opposite of where I'm at right now.  Gotta suck it up to do this paper though so send me a Tweet!!