Musings: Web2.0 includes???? (May#7)
So what prompted these musings? There is a school I work with in Sydney, St John Bosco College, that runs a wonderful day for their Year 11 students and I came across something in their booklet that make me think.
First, I run a study skills session with the group. Then they break into smaller groups for the school’s GROW program (Glossary Research Organised Writing) where they work on writing styles, identifying key terms, marking criteria, supporting evidence, using scaffolds for writing, and advanced research skills. It is a really impressive program and takes into account the sort of navigation literacy skills that students need.
While waiting Year 11 to arrive, I was flicking through their booklet and came across a section ‘How Web 2.0 Savvy are you’. I quickly jotted down a few points to see whether I was savvy as the Year 11 students:
Am I comfortable using the Internet. Yes.- Do I have a web page. Yes.
- Do I read blogs. Yes.
- Do I write a blog. Yes.
- Do I have a Myspace etc page. No. Doh!
- Do I use YouTube. Yes.
- Do I use podcasts/vodcasts. Yes.
- Do I subscribe to RSS Feeds. Yes.
- Do I use Flickr or similar. Yes.
- Do I read/write wikis. Yes.
So I felt pretty good about how I would compare to a web savvy student. Mind you, 6 months ago prior to this subject for uni I would have only been able to answer yes to 3 of these!
But I started thinking - what else should be on this list? What else do we expect a Web 2.0 afficiado to be comfortable with?
One of my classmates John, will be pleased to know I have discovered in this reading even more new terms: ‘perezhivanie’. Vygotsky (1994) found that the development of a child depends on the way the child experiences a situation in the environment, ie. how it relates emotionally to a certain event and coined this as perezhivanie.
I have a theory. I think a TRUE blogger blogs because a true blogger can’t help themselves. I am basing this theory on nothing more than my personal observations (very scientific). A month or so ago prior to starting this course I had nothing to ever do with blogs and no knowledge of blogs (other than having heard of Perez Hilton as a celebrity gossip blogger). I had no idea there were serious blogs out there or blogs that could be useful - I guess if I ever thought about them I thought they were simply the mad ravings of a tea-cosy headed geek. But the moment I set up this blog I was hooked. I am attempting to keep this blog more of an educational discourse on all things e-learning (of which blogging is certainly a feature) rather than my musings on everyday life (I am afraid if I started rambling all my thoughts about things like how people drive in Sydney, our tax system, our politicians, my new lounge room furniture etc etc I would never stop). But I can see how it becomes an addictive process…..IF you are a certain type of person.
Then when I looked at my enormous cloudtag I had to stop and really think about how I planned to use this tool. Did I really need a tag on ’students’ for example? Some of the generic terms were not really going to be of much use to me. So I stopped and really thought about how I would use del.icio.us (should have done this at the start I guess but the problem was that I until I had used the tool I didn’t really understand how it worked or its potential). I then went back and rationalised my tags, thinking carefully for each link as to what purpose or categories I would like to access this link from. This took some time as often a new thought would occur and I would have to go back and add that tag to a number of the links. I think with use I will be more effective in my initial selection of tags but I would love to hear any tips from experienced del.icio.us users as to the best way to make use of this amazing tool. I’d also be interested to hear if there are any users who became disillusioned with it - after all, as the photo shows, we all have different ideas on what is delicious!