Social Bookmarking with Nkwiry

There are a few social bookmarking tools out there.  I’ve used, presented, and written about DIIGO and Delicious.  DIIGO is the one I am currently using as a web based bookmarking platform personally. It’s beauty is that I can access my bookmarks on any device or computer and save new links to DIIGO from any device  I happen to be on.  I can tag them with as many tags (course code, topic, type of resource…) as I want so I can find the bookmark again when I need it.  I have also been part of groups that have used it to share resources for a project, but I have not successfully used it with a class.

There is a new social bookmarking site/application I’d like to share with you.  It’s called nkwiry and it was developed by Brian Aspinall, a self professed “Dork. Teacher. Blogger. Presenter.” from Ontario (@mraspinall on twitter).

Because I haven’t used it (yet), I’m not sure what to tell you about it that doesn’t come directly from the website.  So here’s the website’s sales pitch:

And finally, a testimonial from an educator: “Not only has nkwiry empowered my students to curate the web for the best content and gather weblinks based on specific topics, we now have a safe and secure way to showcase student work from other sources.  Since it is a bookmark sharing platform, I can collect links of student work from other sources like Prezi and Bitstrips and keep them all in one spot!”

You can see more comments from teachers using nkwiry by checking out @nkwiry on twitter.  You don’t have to have a twitter account to see the tweets/retweets (just click on the link).

If this sounds interesting to you and is something you try with a class, I’d love to hear about your experiences with nkwiry.  Please share!  

My Reflection on PLCs

I am fortunate enough to be in a school board and school that has focused on PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) for many years.  My school dedicates 30 minutes, every other week to staff working together in small groups as PLC time.  We have also been given the afternoons of many of our PD days to work in our PLC groups, an annual day with Allison Zmuda for our departments and (I believe) an on going offer of release time if we feel it necessary or beneficial to have more time to work on something specific with our group.  I have the impression that this is not the norm across the province, and I feel lucky to be in a board/school that dedicates this much time to the opportunity to work together.

(Can you hear the “But…” coming?)

Earlier this semester we were asked to share what we were doing in our PLC groups.  This was my reply:

_______ and I are currently using PLC time to work through the new Big Idea in 2D, and make sure our assessments match the Essential Questions for each unit.   I guess our goal is to have common assessments that we are comfortable with that focus on the Essential Questions and have a Big Idea that we can work with.

I hesitate to call this a Professional Learning Community, because I'm not sure what it is we are learning or that 2 people make a community.  I am disappointed that we do not have a clearer focus and I feel that we are on the same path we were on 4 years ago.  

I am also sad that no one else expressed interest in the book The Big Six, as I thought for sure that could be a unifying focus for history. ______ had told me she was willing to read it when I first mentioned it the first week of PLC. [Another colleague] didn't respond to the email about the book because she [is still working on a project in a different PLC], but she thinks she will be done by the next PLC time.  She is interested in reading the book, whether in a group or on her own. I was so sure this was would happen that I actually put it down on my ALP for my department goal.  

Lisa Unger

My concern was (is) that we are changing things simply because we have been given the time to work on something, and we don’t know what else to do.  The big idea and essential questions we have developed are not that much of a change from what we had before, and are not getting us better results.  I had previously suggested that we spend PLC time studying the book The Big Six to help us learn about teaching disciplinary skills in history.  I thought this would help us focus on our learning in our Professional Learning Community.  This had gone nowhere.  The response I got from my email was basically to stay the course.  That it was better to have 2 people making decision about a course than 5 so that something could be accomplished and that we are great teachers and will come up with something that everyone could use.

This past Friday we had Steven Katz as a guest speaker for our PD day.  He spoke about the importance of learning in a professional learning community.  Here are a few of my tweets from the session:

I really appreciated his message, and felt it fit really well with where I was in my PLC journey.  My challenge is figuring out how to make that learning happen.  I recognize that not everyone is in the same place in their journey.  One of my problems is getting to the “learning conversation” rather than “great discussions.”  In my PLC I have a problem with what Katz called being “superfice” (his word - cross between superficial and nice).

Our PLC has changed the Big Idea and Essential questions for each unit.  We keep playing with trying to come up with the ‘right question’ to ask grade 10 students that they can answer using evidence well. I feel like we are on a hamster wheel - we keep going around and around, but don’t get anywhere.  I think we need to figure out (i.e. learn) how to get students to use evidence better.  I am not convinced that it is about finding the exact right question as much as it is about increasing their skills with using primary sources or other evidence.  I just don’t know how to get off the hamster wheel to do this.

Diigo for organization and collaboration

This post was originally written for my school's weekly staff newsletter, March 21, 2014.

According to their website, “Diigo is a powerful research tool and knowledge sharing website.”

Personally, I use it as a cloud based bookmarking site.  I bookmark websites, articles, blogs, online videos that I think I will want to return to; much in the same way you may use “favourites” in your browser on your personal computer.  Because it is cloud based, I have access to them no matter what computer I am using.

I have also used it with a number of different PD groups to share resources.  It is very easy to create groups so that you can all collect and share resources.  You can tag articles so they can be easily found at a later date.  You can also mark up the website or article with highlighting or “sticky notes” or other “notes”.  If you are sharing resources with a colleague for a course, why not try Diigo?  You just need to create a login and start saving!

If you want more information, here is a video showing you how it works: