Computer Corner:

This is not Your Father's Kind of Web (Spring 2007)

 

by Carol S. Holzberg

 

 

"The world of educational technology is changing so dramatically, the transformation will alter the landscape in which teachers teach and students learn." Perhaps you've heard this pronouncement before -- when television, overhead projectors, desktop computers, wireless network access, or one-to-one laptops each entered the classroom? Yes, but now the change is exponential and the pedagogical shift so compelling, its adoption requires "the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the re-evaluation of prior facts."¹

 

The new model, dubbed Web 2.0, integrates computers, Internet access, and online (no-charge) social networking tools. The emphasis has moved from a focus on technology and its commercial products to a radically more intelligent process of non-linear, extremely social, and highly participatory curricular engagement, regardless of time and place. Our students take this digital state of being for granted. They immerse themselves in it daily; it's all-encompassing. But educators like me (born long before Sesame Street, Instant Messaging, and MySpace) are just beginning to awaken to its awe-inspiring implications.

 

Driven by users rather than by commercial content makers and software developers, the constellation of new technology consists of "systems that harness collective intelligence."² Characterized by products in a state of "perpetual beta" because users now have "permission to play around with things, to work on them as people are watching, with the help of people,"³ teachers and students have become creators of content, not just consumers. As O'Reilly points out: "Web 2.0 thrives on network effects: databases that get richer the more people interact with them, applications that are smarter the more people use them, marketing that is driven by user stories and experiences, and applications that interact with each other to form a broader computing platform."⁴

 

We've slipped into a digital age where electronic products can no longer be dubbed "state of the art." Instead, they have become open, constantly evolving windows of shifting content.

 

The significance of Web 2.0 for classroom instruction is HUGE! Consider the following digital facts:⁵

?         One billion people around the globe now have access to the Internet.

?         Nearly 50% of all U.S. Internet access is now via always-on broadband connections.

?         In the first quarter of 2006, MySpace.com signed up 280,000 new users each day and had the second most Internet traffic.

?         By the second quarter of 2006, 50 million blogs were created?new ones were added at a rate of two per second.

 

How does this play out in education? Here are just two examples.

 

Example #1: Studying another culture

Rachel Zucker, a history teacher at Burlington High School (Burlington, MA), partners with teachers and administrators from four public school districts in greater Boston (Burlington, Malden, Lynn, and Winchester) and the private Beaver Country Day School to create Pathways to China (http://www.pathwaystochina.org/xowiki/ and http://www.burlington.mec.edu/hs/pathwayschina.htm), a comprehensive program offering Massachusetts students in grades 8-12 an exciting opportunity to study Chinese culture, history and society through a combination of classroom instruction, travel and online learning. The partnership applies for and receives a six-figure grant with funds from the Massachusetts DOE and the Freeman Foundation (http://www.gcir.org).

 

In an effort to improve her students' understanding of China today and immerse them in authentic Chinese culture, Rachel posts a classified advertisement at no charge on Craigslist Beijing (http://beijing.craigslist.org/) and Craigslist Shanghai (http://shanghai.craigslist.org/), explaining that she is looking for high school teachers in those cities interested in having their students become e-mail pen pals with her American students. She receives many responses, but explains:

I would only respond to teachers using a school e-mail address, just to weed out any individuals with unsavory intentions. After communicating with several teachers, I picked one from each city (those with the best English) and we randomly matched up our students. Some students got really into it and others did not, on both sides of the world...but those who invested some time were rewarded and we look forward to meeting some of these e-pals in China as we are going in a few days, April 11 [2007]!

 

Rachel is a 21^st century teacher who recognizes that today's students live and breathe digital technology. Harnessing Craigslist in this educational way to transcend the boundaries of her brick-and-mortar school is just a logical extension of the way she herself uses the website as a resource to purchase a computer and car and also to track down an apartment. By invoking a global, Web-based learning model, she can provide her students with appropriate electronic friends, teach them to be responsible cyber-netizens, and encourage them to be actively engaged in a learning environment that she structures most diligently, but that they must define for themselves.

 

Imagine the dynamic learning opportunities you could provide your students if you negotiated a similar Web 2.0 experience for them. With a focus on Israel and the variety of free Web 2.0 tools at your disposal, it's easy to immerse your digital natives in real-time Israeli culture, history and society through classroom instruction, virtual travel, online learning and a pen pal connection negotiated through Craigslist Jerusalem (http://jerusalem.craigslist.org/), Craigslist Tel Aviv (http://telaviv.craigslist.org/), or Craigslist Haifa (http://haifa.craigslist.org/).

 

Example #2: Virtual trips

James Walker teaches for the Lower Pioneer Valley Education Collaborative at Glenbrook Middle School (an alternative educational facility) in Longmeadow, MA. He takes his Special Education students on virtual fieldtrips using Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/). Together, they visit the North End of Boston and look for Paul Revere's house. To do that, he launches Google Earth (it's a free download); he opens the Search section at the left of the Google Earth window by clicking the Search section arrow so that it faces downward and enters "Paul Revere's House, Boston" in the Search field. Next, he opens the Layers section below the Search section, clicks the plus (+) sign next to Primary Database, and clicks the plus sign (+) next to Geographic Web to ensure there's a checkmark next to Panoramio, a Google Earth feature enabling visitors to locate photos linked to the search item. All photos available for viewing at this site have been uploaded by Panoramio users (http://www.caje.org/learn/Summer07/PaulRevere.jpg).

 

To view the Paul Revere House Panoramio images, he clicks the magnify glass next to Paul Revere's House, Boston. Matching Search results appear in the Search Panel window. He removes the checkmark from each item that is not explicitly the Paul Revere House. Two items remain. When he clicks the "Play" button, Google Earth zooms in automatically on each location. Only one of those locations has any Panoramio links (blue button-like markers). He zooms in on that one for a closer look and clicks the Panoramio button to view the picture.

 

 

Jim was happy with just two pictures of Paul Revere's House. If you want to see more pictures, use Yahoo's popular web-based photo-sharing and hosting service called Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/). Just point your browser to http://www.flickr.com, type Paul Revere's House in the Find a photo of box. In just a few seconds, you can explore dozens of photos of this historic House taken at different angles and times of year. It's almost like being there!

 

Jewish educators could use Jim's Google Earth strategy for an activity focused on the study of Anne Frank and the Holocaust. In the "old" days, a unit on Anne Frank would probably have begun with Google (http://www.google.com) and the keywords "Anne Frank." Even today, the search engine retrieves more than enough matches in just a few seconds. You'd check out a few of those sources and then present the links to your students. Excellent Anne Frank Web resources include:

?       Anne Frank Museum -- the official Anne Frank House Web site (http://www.annefrank.org) with its education portal (http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?PID=25&LID=2) featuring a terrific collection of resources for teaching and learning.

?       Time 100: Anne Frank (http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/frank01.html), an abbreviated biography and a review of her writing.

?       Wikipedia's Anne Frank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank), a detailed article with facts and citations. Click the History tab at this site and view the log of article edits to see who has edited the page and when.

 

If they lead, will you follow?

 

Many of your students already know and use Web 2.0 tools. Most likely, they have accounts on MySpace.com and Facebook. We've blocked access to those sites in the school district where I work as Technology Coordinator, because some students use them for play or cyber-bullying, not work, but I'm not convinced that we should block access. As educators, we must harness these tools in the service of education and teach our students how to use them appropriately and responsibly. Just because we prevent student access at school, it doesn't mean that youngsters don't live on them off campus.

 

Harnessed appropriately, you could use Flickr to share photos of your students, classroom, and community with the Israeli pen pals found through Craigslist. Flickr's service is free. Students can post images, complete with comments, notes, and "tags" (keyword identifiers used for searching and identifying the photos posted). If you're worried about security (and who isn't), simply share the images only with people you authorize. If you invite anyone to view the images your students post, Flickr automatically sets up an account for them so they can view and comment on the pictures.

 

But wait?there's more! Google has added a new feature to its online Google Maps service, enabling users to share personalized and annotated maps (http://technewsworld.com/story/56724.html). What this means for classroom instruction is that teachers and students can create personalized maps that mark important locations, complete with text pop-ups, photos, and videos. Once published, those maps are given their own URL. Then, they become available to everyone with a Web browser and Internet access, or only those people who know that URL.

 

 

To create or edit maps, you must be signed into your Google account. If you don't already have an account, create one (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount). Then login to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) and click My Maps > Create new map. You can add a map title, brief description, and detailed placemarks with Rich Text or HTML annotations, lines, shapes, photos and YouTube videos.

 

 

You can have your students create personalized maps of their visits to Israel, important place names in Jewish history (e.g., Vilna, Minsk, Auschwitz, Curacao, etc.), a walking tour of Manhattan's lower east side or Anne Frank's Amsterdam, and many others.

 

Information Literacy: Concluding remarks

People are so willing to publish pictures, videos, and detailed information on the web, how do you know this content is accurate and trustworthy? You don't! Part of your job as an educator is to teach students the critical thinking skills they need to question the authority of the sources they consult regardless of whether that content is in electronic or print format. Just like a book on a library shelf, you must do some fact checking to make sure information is correct. As noted educator Will Richardson (http://weblogged.com) has written:

 

If anyone with an Internet connection can now get online and start blogging about any topic he or she wants, how do we know who [sic] to believe? The easy way is to not believe any of them since they are, at least in the traditional ways, unedited content. But that would be to ignore some very smart and relevant voices that are gaining more and more of a reputation as credible sources each day. And really, this is the work that is required of all of us if we are to be truly information literate in the twenty-first century.⁶

 

Other popular Web 2.0 tools include:

?         Blogs: Web-based personal journals, typically updated daily (sometimes several times a day). Blogs have gone from technical niche to mainstream in less than three years. Free accounts are available at Edublogs (http://edublogs.org/) and Blogger (http://www2.blogger.com/home).

?         Wikis: Web-based pages that classes or groups of students can edit together. The best one to date is Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), an encyclopedia written, compiled, edited, and re-edited by folks like you and me. Free wiki accounts available at wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/)

?         YouTube (http://www.youtube.com): Flickr is to still images what YouTube is to video. This free tool lets users upload, view and share their favorite video clips using Adobe Flash technology to display the clips. Pick a topic?any topic. Someone has posted their interpretation. And if you don't like what you see, get your students to post something better.

?         RSS feeds: User-selected content that automatically comes to your computer. It often takes the form of news headlines on topics you choose (e.g., kibbutz life, Israeli politics, Middle East), but it can be any content created and published as an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. Browsers such as Internet Explorer 7, Safari, and Firefox can easily display RSS feeds, but tools like the free Google Reader (http://www.google.com), can help you collect or aggregate those feeds so that you receive the latest ones from your favorite news sources, Web sites, and blogs. Since Google Reader lets you custom tag each feed with a one-word descriptor or keyword and it also display the author's tags, you could easily filter your feed collections using the tags. For a Flash-based tutorial on How to Use Google Reader, visit Andy Wibbels (http://www.andywibbels.com/flash/google_reader.htm).

?         Bookmark aggregator: What Google Reader is to RSS feeds, del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us), the free social bookmark manager, is to tracking Favorites or Bookmarks. Tag each entry with descriptors that help with organization and tracking. You can add as many tags as you like and also use the tags created by others.

?         Pageflakes (http://www.pageflakes.com), a free personalized Internet-based Home page where you can publish all your news feeds, bookmarks, videos, still images, music clips, and get the weather forecast, too. Arrange your content in sections or '?lakes? by dragging and dropping them anywhere on the page. Tailor web page content to the classroom curriculum you're currently teaching. Add feeds and even an interactive calendar or To-Do list.

 

 

What Do You Want to Read Today?

Jewish educators now have another option when it comes to text study. PublishersRow (http://www.publishersrow.com) markets downloadable PDF e-books that can be viewed on a computer screen or printed for offline viewing. The folks behind this initiative originally typeset texts for JPS (Jewish Publication Society) and other Jewish publishers. As e-books became increasingly more popular, PublishersRow licensed titles from the original publishers for distribution in electronic format.

 

Currently, Publishers Row has published 200 titles of digital Judaica under the imprint Varda Books, marketed on a website titled ebookShuk.com (http://www.ebookshuk.com/).

 

 

Visitors can preview an entire text, unlike the viewing option at Amazon.com, which tends to restrict preview to one chapter or less, Table of Contents, and Index. Previews are limited to three (3) times. Then a message pops up reminding you to purchase. Customers who buy bundled collections receive them on complimentary CDs, in addition to being able to download them from the virtual bookshelf. Purchased titles can be used on up to three Windows-based computers. E-books formats are incompatible with Linux, Palm, or Windows CE operating systems. Macintosh OS X users can only view an e-book on computers running Adobe Reader v7.x because the MacFileOpen Plugin that you'll need to install is incompatible with Adobe Reader v8.x.

 

If you like to read curled up in an oversized chair, then Varda's ebookShuk online books may not be for you. But the interactive format does support text searches and being able to retrieve every instance of a particular word or phrase lends itself to faster, more efficient, and very productive scholarship. It's the kind of format that most digital natives (young and old) have come to expect in their omnipresent cyberworld.

 

For example, the electronic edition of the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh ($70) comes as a searchable (English only) PDF replica of the original 2nd printed edition. It even includes cantillation marks. Similarly, the JPS edition of the Torah: Five Books of Moses ($19), prepared according to the Masoretic text, delivers a searchable replica of the printed version complete with the latest corrections and revisions.

 

 

Readers of ebookShuk titles need only purchase the features they want. The least expensive option is "read only" (Reader PDF), offering interactive navigation options, but no Copy, Print, or Search capabilities. Reader PDF usually equals cost of the print version. The deluxe or "scholar version" (Scholar PDF) costs twice as much, but it comes with a three-seat license for individual users, plus permission to print and copy the text for personal use.

 

Some Varda texts work together, enabling more in-depth research and analysis than if each were purchased as a singleton unit. For example, the JPS Digital Torah Library consists of the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, plus the JPS Commentary titles for each of the five books of the Torah. Commentaries include Nahum M. Sarna's JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, Nahum M. Sarna's JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, Jeffrey H. Tigay's JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy; Jacob Milgrom's JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers; and Baruch A. Levine's JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus. When you read a commentary, you can click any reference to jump to that page in the JPS Tanakh. Of course, you can Print selected pages or Copy text for pasting in other documents.

 

Currently, there are no titles directed at elementary school age students. Instead, ebookShuk offers titles that teachers can use to prepare their classes, including the Judaic Scholar Digital Reference Library, a 100-book collection suitable for libraries. PublishersRow has over 350 digital titles available through ebookShuk (http://www.ebookshuk.com/) and The Hebrew University Magnes Press eBookStore (http://www.publishersrow.com/Stores/default.asp?shid=10). Happy reading!

 

 

Internet Links for Jewish Educators:

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum & Google Darfur Mapping Project (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=548850829648547029)

When the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum teams up with Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) to share information about the genocide emergency in Darfur, Sudan, the result is nothing less than brilliant (http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/).

 

 

"To date about 2,500,000 civilians, targeted because of their ethnic or racial identity, have been driven from their homes, more than 300,000 people killed, and more than 1,600 villages destroyed by Sudanese government soldiers and government-backed militias, known as the "Janjaweed." You must download Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) for geographic viewing. It's free!

 

Nazi Archive Made Public (http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2274705n)

On Sunday, December 17, 2006, CBS 60 MINUTES reported on a long-secret German archive containing detailed information about 17.5 million Holocaust victims. Located in Germany's Bad Arolsen, this massive collection consists 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of Nazi German documents, previously used exclusively by a Red Cross agency to help people locate family missing from the war. At this CBS news site you can see news correspondent Scott Pelley speaking with three Jewish survivors who visited Bad Arolsen to view their own Holocaust records. The transport lists, medical records, labor documents, and death registers of concentration camp inmates and slave laborers belie the absurdity of Holocaust denial!

 

What's Wrong with this Picture? (http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbccntryview/bbccntryview.pdf)

The BBC polled a random sample of individuals in 27 countries and discovered an overwhelming majority of them believe that Israel, Iran, North Korea, and the United States have a "mainly negative influence in the world." Findings show that the "country with the highest number of mostly negative responses overall is Israel (56% negative, 17% positive), followed by Iran (54% negative, 18% positive), the United States (51% negative, 30% positive), and North Korea (48% negative, 19% positive)." Israel also has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of countries (23 of 27) viewing it negatively." Download and read the entire report.

 

614: The HBI eZine

(http://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/614)

Think of this new online journal as 613 plus one, in keeping with Jewish philosopher and Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim's (1916-2003) 614^th directive that we bind ourselves not only to the original 613 prescriptions and proscriptions instituted in the Torah, but also to the mitzvah of preserving the Jewish people. 614: The HBI (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute) eZine takes up the challenge, harnessing the Internet to explore what Jewish experts, authors and scholars are discussing worldwide.

 

Hazon: New Vision, Inclusive Community, Outdoor, and Environmental Education (http://www.hazon.org)

Get up and move, but do it Jewishly through Hazon! Dedicated to sustaining Jewish life and growing Jewish community through a range of Jewish outdoor and environmental education programs, Hazon initiatives include single and multi-day bike rides, Tuv Ha'Aretz ("best of the land") community supported agriculture, and the Jewish Eco-Footprint Project.

 

Passover streaming video content for class discussion:

Keep these URLs handy for next year!

?         Jewish Impact Films' "Passover Noir" (http://www.jewishimpactfilms.com/films.asp?film_id=19&action=play&filetype=mov&filename=http://128.241.62.79/video/passover_large.mov&setcookie=true&cookie_name=play_pref&cookie_value=mov_large). Bedikat Chametz (the search for chametz), the way Bogart might have done it, if he were Jewish. Here's looking at you, Yid!

 

?         Billy Ray Sheet's "Manischewitzville"
(http://one.revver.com/watch/193542).
Passover time again in Manischewitzville ? food, family and the neverending search for Passover plates. Wonderful melody, great family pictures, and a warm and fuzzy look at Passover celebration around the seder table. (Is the filmmaker's name a play on words taken from Adon Olam? B'li Raysheet??? Without Beginning?)

 

?         Matzah Madness
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-B7Cf7JMKA&NR).
Eight Days a week, we eat latza matzah, but the veggies in this short video look terrific too!

 

?         The Aviv Matzah Story (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfh475YUnPM&mode=related&search=).
Everything you ever wanted to know about how matzah is made and packaged as you tour the Aviv matzah factory in B'nai B'rak, Israel.

 

?         Matzah
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg3w0HvBvKw&mode=related&search=)
Step-by-step tutorial on how to break a piece of matzah into two equal parts with no resulting crumbs! Talk about miracles, but is it kosher?

 

?         JibJab's Matzah!
(http://www.jibjab.com/originals/originals/jibjab/movieid/71)
Toe-tapping rap featuring the story of Passover, funny in spots, but "plagued" by stereotypes. A great discussion starter for the classroom.

 

 

Note: Windows screens for this column were captured with TechSmith's SnagIt (http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp), $40; Macintosh screens were captured with: Snapz Pro X, Ambrosia Software (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/), $69.

 

Products Mentioned:

ebookShuk (Varda Books)

System Requirements: Macintosh/Windows computer with CD-ROM drive, speakers, and an Internet browser

Publisher: Publishers Row, 847-568-0593

Internet URL: http://www.publishersrow.com

Price: varies by the book

 

Publications Cited:

McLester, Susan (2007), Technology Literacy and the MySpace Generation, Susan McLester, Technology & Learning, March 2007, Volume 27(8), pp. 17-22, also online at (http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604312).

 

Endnotes:

1.       Pajares, Frank (n.d.) ?The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? by Thomas S. Kuhn: A Synopsis from the original. From the Philosopher's Web Magazine (http://des.emory.edu/mfp/kuhnsyn.html).

2.       Tim O'Reilly, http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/09/what_is_web_20.html

3.       Heather Green, BusinessWeek http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2005/09/brainstorming_f_1.html

4.       http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/web2report/chapter/web20_report_excerpt.pdf

5.       http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/web2report/chapter/web20_report_excerpt.pdf, p. 4.

6.       Richardson, Will.  Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2006, p. 38. http://www.corwinpress.com  $28 from Amazon includes free shipping.

 

 

 

Carol S. Holzberg, PhD, is an anthropologist, educational technology specialist, computer journalist, and former director of the Jewish Community of Amherst Preschool. She writes and consults on a variety of computer-related topics, works as the District Technology Coordinator for Greenfield Public Schools and the Greenfield Center School (Greenfield, Massachusetts), and teaches in both the Licensure program at Hampshire Educational Collaborative (Northampton, MA) and online in the School of Education at Capella University. Send comments or queries via email to: carolh@anthro.umass.edu, or write to her at P.O. Box 242, Shutesbury, MA 01072, (413.259.1303). Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you wish a personal reply via postal mail.