Vicki Davis uses a Ning with her students. She teaches them to communicate as professionals. They are not allowed to use IM speak. Even though it resembles Facebook and My Space, she does not use Ning for social reasons, but rather for educational networking. She takes advantage of the ability to make the networks private when appropriate and also told us that the good folks at Ning will remove the ads from the site if you email them.

She says her students already know how to use new technology and set up new accounts. To use new Web 2.0 tools, they need to be taught how to create hyperlinks and how to embed code.

We want to build digital citizenship. Online behavior should have offline consequences. Schools should not punish everyone and take the tool away. (You don’t lock a bathroom because of a bad word on the wall!) Use RSS feeds to monitor blogs and wikis that students are using and deal with problems as they occur.

Vicki spent some time talking about various learning styles and how these can best be used in networking:

• linguistic
  • blogging, forums, writing
• logical mathematical
  • virtual worlds, programmers, administration, organizers
• naturalist
  • outdoor video, photography, gcast, roving reporter, google earth, geocaching, maps
• spacial (pictures)
  • photography, camera operator, voicethread, animoto….kids like to be behind the camera, not in front of it
• bodily kinesthetic
  • acting, presenting, get on film, want to move
  • need to learn difference between production quality and content quality
• musical
  • record audio files, audacity, voice thread, animoto
• interpersonal
  • cell phones, forums, blogging or pics, discussion facilitators
• intrapersonal
  • reflections, reading and opinions, debates

Teachers need to let kids write about what they’re interested in and create personal interest projects. She suggests letting them
invent something of their own!

Kids still need teachers, but not as the sage on the stage. They need for the teachers to plan the process and to coach them as they grow and learn.

Some links that were shared:

Think.com
elementary to early middle
have to apply (We have accounts in Salem.)
very strong profanity filter
will disable if not used within period of time

Westwood Schools Wiki
uses wiki for her classes
embed google calendar for assignments
students have own igoogle page

ClassTools.net
let kids create review games for each other

Toondoo
cartoons and embed
fun way to teach how to embed

Here’s a slideshow that Vicki used at NCTIES:

You can find more resources by Vicki Davis on her wiki.

More NCTIES Posts:

Opening Keynote
Photography Problems
Digital Tools for Digital Kids
Assessment with Technology
SmartBoard in Upper Elementary
Skype in the Classroom
More Than YouTube
Closing Keynote