District Administration - April 2009 - (Page 52)

Online edge • Will Richardson Making the Web Manageable with Collaborative Filters Mining the work of others is a crucial part of information literacy on the web. reader network share from their rSS In my December column, I feeds and many other community sites. wrote about the challenges of creating student editors in a world where traditional Reading for each Other editing tools have disappeared from the In every case, I’m off-loading a great deal information process. navigating the vast of reading work to people I trust to find seas of information online by ourselves is interesting and reliable content for sharing no easy task, and it’s made more difficult with me when they find it. We tap into by a constant sense of “overload” that we each other’s willingness to be transparfeel as we attempt to do so. but as nyu ent about what we are reading and writprofessor clay Shirky suggests, our overing, and we literally seek ways in which to load has less to do with the amount of inshare the best of what we find. In essence, formation and more to do with a lack of If you get smarter, there if you get smarter, there is a good chance modern filters for dealing with it. is a good chance I’ll get I’ll get smarter as well, and I’ll try hard to While the Dewey Decimal System return the favor. was a filter that made paper libraries eassmarter as well. If the students in our classrooms are ily navigable, there is no similar system not being exposed to these collaborative online. We, and our students, have to invent our own taxonomy or organizational as sharing my passion for understand- ways of finding and sharing information scheme, to create what author David ing the importance of these technologies. and learning how to use it in their own Weinberger calls “folksonomies” to sort When they read something they think is pursuits, we’re not setting them up for and organize our stuff. From an informa- relevant or important, they create an on- success. There is no question any longer tion standpoint, however, what’s most im- line bookmark that then comes directly as to the vast storehouse of valid, useful portant is that we learn to help one anoth- to my network page, where I can then put information the Web now offers—useful, er in the process, to use the choices that my editor’s hat on and start reading. From that is, only if we know how to be critiothers make about what they are finding the 50 or so folks whose bookmarks I am cal of what we find and manage it when and reading to inform our own reading tracking in this way, I get a few dozen se- we find it. In our kids’ lives, the Web will process. And the process of creating these lected links a day, many of which I find no doubt continue to evolve as the most important repository of information that network connections that can mine the interesting or stimulating. or how about my network at Twit- they know. They need the skills to leverwork of others is a crucial part of informater.com? many of the friends I follow age it, not get lost in it. Ironically, while tion literacy on the Web. at this “micro-blogging” site (only 140 there are any number of tools that good characters allowed) post links to interest- editors employ to filter through informadelicious Reading Take, for instance, Delicious.com, a so- ing resources, newspaper articles, or blog tion in this way, many of them are no cial bookmarking site that I have written posts that are capturing their thinking doubt blocked by your own filters, filters about here before. It’s one of my most and that, therefore, have a good chance which in many cases help keep our kids effective ways of finding relevant infor- of capturing mine as well. In this way, information illiterate. DA mation about how the Web is affecting Twitter is more than just a way to share learning and teaching. At Delicious, I snippets of your life and track others; the have pulled together my own network people you follow become a great filter Will Richardson is an author and educator (delicious.com/network/willrich) of smart for news and information. The same goes who also blogs about teaching and learning at people who over the years I’ve identified for the items that “friends” in my Google weblogg-ed.com. 52 April 2009 District Administration http://www.twitter.com http://www.twitter.com http://www.Delicious.com http://www.delicious.com/network/willrich http://www.weblogg-ed.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2009

District Administration - April 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Assessment
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Education’s Shot in the Arm
Lessons Learned from Columbine’s 10th Anniversary
An Interview with Columbine’s Superintendent, Cynthia Stevenson
Keeping Track of Technology
Classroom Technology Integration
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Professional Opinion
Research Center
New Products
Product Focus
Online Edge

District Administration - April 2009