It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. — Ursula K. LeGuin

So I’m almost finished the course, and it has been the most difficult course I’ve ever done. It’s also been the most exciting and immediately useful course I’ve done since I became a teacher librarian. I must hasten to add that the other TL-DL courses have also been excellent, but with those I had considerable experience in the field to help.

To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping  – Chinese Proverb

I laugh when I remember Jennifer Branch telling me that I should expect to spend 10-12 hours per week on the course. There were many weeks I spent three to four times that long. Thank goodness I was not still teaching, because there is no way I could have kept up. I’m looking forward to next week, when I can really start my retirement! No deadlines! Hurray!

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. — Marcel Proust

Too Close to Crashing

The main challenge of my journey through Web 2.0 was that EVERY WEEK I had to explore a new application, figure out how to use it myself, create a product with it, read how others were using it or evaluating its usefulness, and decide how it could be used by teachers and students in school. Then of course every second week I had, in my mind, yet another “paper” to do in terms of the discussion topic. The workload was quite horrendously intimidating, and at one point I thought I wouldn’t make it.

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. — Dante Alighieri

That dark point for me was the last week of September. I worked so hard on the video-sharing blog post (Stumbling Through Video Sharing, or The Week I Almost Lost My Mind) and did very poorly in terms of the mark. I almost quit the course, but Joanne did reassure me that I did in fact know what I was doing. As a side note, while it is fun to look at, I must admit that I STILL don’t altogether see the usefulness of YouTube in the classroom, especially since it is blocked in so may schools. I believe that TeacherTube is more educationally useful.

After this near meltdown I decided that I needed to limit the reading I did and focus more on choosing a few good articles or posts to share. Fortunately my new strategy of being severely selective in my reading worked, and this helped make the workload more manageable. I decided the next week after writing about RSS feeds that I could in fact do this Web 2.0 thing!

Earning Those Bonus Air Miles

The real plus of this journey through Web 2.0 was that EVERY WEEK I had to explore a new application, figure out how to use it myself, create a product with it, read how others were using it or evaluating its usefulness, and decide how it could be used by teachers and students in school. Then of course every second week I had yet another opportunity to explore Web 2.0 in terms of the discussion topic.

Wow! What an opportunity! I got to create a blog, and work on blogging over a whole term. I created a podcast, built a VoiceThread, crafted a wiki, uploaded photos to Flickr, learned how to embed videos and widgets, really mastered social bookmarking with Diigo, and much more. I got to read the writings of some of the leading lights in education and teacher librarianship.  And, best of all, I had great company on the journey.

Fellow Travellers

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

I have been fortunate indeed to be part of a wonderful class of gifted and dedicated educators. While I can’t possibly list all I’ve learned from them, I would like to mention each, in no particular order, ending with Joanne.

Joanie, what I have just realized is that your blog isn’t just about learning Web 2.0; it’s about how you live your life. I truly admire what you’ve achieved here. I loved your entry The Thrill of Victory. I enjoyed reading your blog each week with your strong voice, running quotes and analogies, and your passion for the craft of teaching. And thank you for reminding me to keep on top of my email!

Christine, I love your voice, your humour, and your enthusiasm. Your post What’s Next? Wikis for all of course! post makes me want to run right over to school and start making my teachers use wikis! Seriously, as always, Christine, you offer wonderful resources. Reading your blog is like getting great PD painlessly. Many thanks for your great ideas about time management too!

 Jill, I appreciate your philosophy of teaching and practice. You challenge me to think deeper, as in your post Sustaining Change in Technology Practices in School Your comments about sharing “the ownership of learning and change with all stakeholders – support staff, parents and students” resonates with me.

Rhonda, your blog is always practical and your comments supportive. You’ve given me many new resources to follow, including the Awakening Possibilties wiki and Anne Davies’ blog – EduBlog Insights. You are a podcaster extraordinaire as you show in Which Web 2.0 Tool? Thanks to you I’m going to try again to make Twitter work.

Jes, I am so impressed by how you are using VoiceThread with your students and encouraging your colleagues to use it too. Thanks also for the great resources you’ve introduced to me, including the Langwitches blog. I wish you all success with your exciting  First Nations project, 

Kathleen,  I appreciate the introduction to the chapter by Hughes-Hassell and Harada, Violet H. (2007): Change agentry: an essential role for library media specialists,” in School Reform and the school library media specialist. Your post blog-no11 What’s next? On the horizon of the web 20 landscape gave me much food for thought about wikis and the school library.

Selena - Your blog too gave me so many good ideas and resources. It’s Time to Walk the Talk remined me of Will Richardson’s blog, A Web of Connections…Why the Read Write Web Changes Everything, and introduced me to 25 Tools every Learning Professional should have in their Toolbox – and all for FREE!. I would love to hear more about the class wiki you are going to do next semester for your Social Studies 11 students, “who can get bogged down with all of the vocabulary they have to learn in order to be able to write their provincial exam (in French no less).”

April, Your post What’s Next? Provides all the links and suggestions for tools one would need to start blogging with students – including analysis of an actual online assignment. Now I want to check out http://moodle.org/.

Heather, your post The ABC’s of Blogging in Education is one I want to share with my teachers. It is clever and intelligent and relevant. I also really appreciate the link to 50 Useful Blogging Tools for Teachers!

Darryl, yours is another blog I will return to for professional development. Your post In the wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki room…. with its links to your Literature Circles with the wiki and the The Learning Library Wiki is excellent, and I want to share Part II – Drum Roll Please…… with my staff when we look at blogging.

Joanne, thank you for all your work in setting up and running this course. You gave us challenging assignments supported by those excellent Trailfires. Thanks also for using Will Richardson’s inspirational book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom. I also appreciate your support and understanding when I really needed it.

Thanks to you all for your kindness and generosity as we shared this journey. I look forward to revisiting your blogs as they are wonderful professional learning tools for me.

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Where to next?

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. —  Martin Buber

What have I learned? I believe I really do understand about Richardson’s Read/Reflect/Write/Participate/Web. I’ve learned that there are more experts out there in Web 2.0 than one person could ever find in a lifetime. Thank goodness I’ve also learned that it is not all up to me to find them – I’m developing a professional/personal learning network to help me.

I’ve learned that I CAN’T WAIT to get back into a school and start working with educators on Web 2.0 applications.

My next university course will be EDES 545, but unfortunately not next semester. What I am planning to do is continue exploring Web 2.0, and continue blogging about that journey. There are plenty of applications I haven’t tried (or mastered!) yet.

And, to answer my question — no, I’m not there yet!

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it. — Greg Anderson

My husband spent a lot of time on Napster in its early days, both downloading music and chatting with other members, and that’s how we met Nap’s original owners. We adopted Nap when they had to move to England. Henry the nephew came to visit and the two Henrys fell in love with each other. Already you begin to see connections, right?

“What does this have to do with VoiceThread?” you ask.

Everything. VoiceThread is all about connections. A VoiceThread is a “collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments.” Comments can be in the form of audio recording or typed. You build the VoiceThread online, with no software to install. You can create a very simple VoiceThread in about a minute, although it’s obvious that most creators have spent a lot longer time on theirs. The idea is that you can carry on a conversation centred on your content.

One day this week when I was exploring the site and thinking about how I might use this tool personally, I got a phone call from my sister, Henry’s mother. This year he started kindergarten, and is just on the cusp of learning to read independently. My sister told me that Henry loves being read to, and of course, I wish that they lived close enough that I could do some reading with him.

Hence my first VoiceThread: reading Henry one of the books I’m sending him for Christmas. It took me two days to complete, mainly because I was having difficulty with the pictures. I tried scanning the pages, but you really need to see the double page to view the whole picture. Finally my husband took pity on me, and shot them with our little digital camera.

Recording the audio took a couple of hours, as instructions are minimal and I couldn’t figure out at first how to get rid of the first recording and replace it with the second one. There are other tools I haven’t yet tried, such as the doodling tool you can use to highlight items.

Here is my reading of “The Golden Christmas Tree.”
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Connecting Students with the World

Of course educators have been quick to see the educational applications of VoiceThread. There are many outstanding examples of various uses.

• The Mysteries of Harris Burdick Writing Project involved students from several different countries writing joint stories based on the evocative illustrations in Chris van Allsburg’s book. Because the program is available anytime, anywhere, the students could work asynchronously on their assignment.
• The 8^th Grade Art Students VoiceThread has four students each discussing his/her version of an assigned painting. There are many art-based VoiceThreads; what a superb way to gain a wider audience for student work.
• In advance of a technology meeting, Bill Ferriter created a VoiceThread titled Wondering About Web 2.0, and based on ideas about teaching with technology. He invited committee members to comment on the quotes. What a powerful way to prepare for a meeting, and to determine where people are at before you tell them where they need to go next!
• One riveting VoiceThread is Kenya Escape, created by an American woman who was trapped in Kenya immediately after the rigged presidential election that saw the corrupt regime of President Mwai Kibaki kept in power. Through her photographs and commentary, we see her first-hand experiences as well as her concerns for the plight of every day Kenyan citizens. What a powerful social studies lesson this could be.

Ed.VoiceThread is the educational side of the program. This introduction explains some of its features. The program is available free to K-12 educators, and offers a variety of features including enhanced privacy. I unfortunately could not try this out personally as I do not have a school email address.

Connecting Teachers With Teachers

In addition to the hundreds of student- and teacher-created presentations on the site, helpful resources abound. One is Colette Cassinelli’s Voicethread 4 Education wiki. Resources include

• samples submitted by teachers of VoiceThread projects made by their students,
• VoiceThreads used in professional development,
• tips on how to implement VoiceThread in your curriculum,
• Resources listed by grade level.

There is also the VoiceThread for Educators Ning started by Mark Carls, although it doesn’t yet have a lot of material. In addition, there is the Voicethread Group on Diigo, designed to bookmark “great examples of Voicethread in Education.”

Laila Weir’s  Edutopia article, VoiceThreads: Extending the Classroom with Interactive Multimedia Albums, highlights the work of Bill Ferriter, a sixth grade teacher. He uses VoiceThread extensively in his classroom, and is amazed at its power and effectiveness. Students comment willingly and frequently, writing much more on a VoiceThread than they would on paper. The shy or withdrawn student has the opportunity to share their ideas in a safe environment where they can think about their ideas before writing, as opposed to a regular class discussion.  Ferriter gives students instruction on how to comment effectively and thoughtfully, which he says is key to developing quality responses.

I was thrilled to discover Bill Ferriter’s wiki, Digitally Speaking. The VoiceThread page has a wealth of information. Topics covered include

• Planning VoiceThreads
• Teaching students how to comment effectively
• Assessing VoiceThread participation
• Teaching students to create and moderate threads
• Various handouts related to the above topics – and much more.

If you only have time to visit one resource, Bill Ferriter’s wiki should be it.

A Philosophical Connection

Another resource I found useful in terms of getting my head around what students learn by creating VoiceThreads is the article, Bloom’s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally. In it Andrew Churches updates the taxonomy, and Lorin Anderson’s 2001 version of it, to reflect digital learning. Students interacting with VoiceThreads will use a wide variety of lower- to higher-order thinking skills, ranging from finding a presentation, to navigating through it, to evaluating and making comments on it, to publishing their own creations.

Churches has additional material related to these ideas on his blog at Educational Origami, Bloom’s and ICT Tools. I think this is an amazing professional resource for all teachers interested in digital teaching and learning.

Connecting Henry, Henry, and Me

So what does VoiceThread mean to me? This has been a week where I did the kind of learning that makes me feel as if my brain is exploding. VoiceThread is the quintessential Web 2.0 tool; it is a deceptively simple idea – carry on a conversation about a photograph (enjoy one of the original VoiceThreads here) — with extraordinary possibilities.

I loved connecting with my nephew, Henry, through creating the VoiceThread for him. And I loved remembering happy times with our dog, Henry, because his kind, loving heart stopped beating this past summer. 

You can be sure that I’ll be recording VoiceThreads for all the various nieces and nephews I have scattered far and wide. I can hardly wait to make new connections with them with this fabulous tool.