The lessons behind the burger…

Part of the rationale for the project is developing guidelines and processes for the application of some of these Web 2.0 tools in a school setting, and simply trying how they can and will work in an appropriate way. Many of my colleagues, I know, are hesitant about using the technology for a start, and that is before they are sometimes aware of the potential issues with being truly immediate and online with your students. Here are some areas that were considered in advance:

Access

Managing passwords/access rights to the various Web 2.0 tools requires thought. Under the model for this project, each student needs ‘contributor’ rights to the blog so they can write posts directly, with me – the teacher – as ‘administrator’. This takes some setting up through edublogs, though the tutorial steps are adequate to get things rolling. The most difficult part of the process was getting each of the twenty-seven students an edublogs account that linked to their school webmail account, and then to have students log on and activate their account individually. Once that was done, each student had to be added to the BurgerLOG.

Access to the e-mail address behind the registrations, the Twitter, ustream and Google Analytics accounts are all kept and controlled centrally by me.

Moderation

Monitoring/moderating posts (outgoing posts and incoming comments) to the blog is one aspect, as is the intranet, portal-based discussion forum. I take on the role of approving blog comments before they are posted. The student discussion on the portal (initially relating to marketing ideas and forming ‘personality-based’ groups) did get a little out of hand. Students – having that ability to start new discussion threads, reply to posts and make announcements – did so! Off-topic posts and announcements were deleted and a ‘discussion’ (albeit one-way) held with the group to outline the purpose of, and processes for posting only relevant and task-oriented material to the forum. End of issue!

Privacy and anonymity

Conforming to safe practices regarding student images, names/identities and personal information is another consideration. For the sake of ease, images of student ‘at work’ will not include faces. Students will not be using their names on the blog, and in fact, are generally only identified by their group letter T, U, V, W, X, Y and Z. This is just one less thing to be worried about. Students are well aware that any private information will not be published.

Legalities

Avoiding direct identification of the source of the burger seemed a safe way to play things (no lawsuits, thanks!). Although this project is not about taking an anti-fast food, anti-corporate stand, some of the findings of the project may be incidentally ‘incriminating’.

A letter to parents of those involved outlining the activity and its safety considerations was contemplated, but in reality, to the extent things have gone thus far, this has not proved necessary. If, however, mobile blogging (via utterli) is to be used (utilising students’ own phones), a permission letter would be a must given there is a cost, if for not other reason.

Brainstorming at the outset of the project quickly developed a ‘wish list’ of (low/no cost) technology tools to employ. One aspect of this was the use of Web 2.0 wherever possible. A second – and more school-relevant aim – was to employ our portal facilities better.

There are many educators out there enthused by, and using Web 2.0 tools, but how many are seriously trying to make as many happen in one project?

So here is a list of what was intended from the outset (note: ‘intended’ and ‘actual’ might vary to some extent):

• A blog (edublogs) – for the publishing aspect of the project
• Social networking (Twitter) – to provide updates and information live (and to develop a ‘personality’ for The Burger
• RSS feeds – the facility for people to use RSS to provide updates on the project
• Live streamed video feed (ustream) – to allow for anyone to monitor the project (this to be embedded in the blog itself)
• Moderated discussion forum (portal, SharePoint-based [Scholaris]) – for school-side asynchronous planning
• Wiki (portal, SharePoint-based [Scholaris]) – to develop a corporate repository for information
• Integrated multimedia (podcast/vodcast) – to add rich media content to the project
• Tracking tools (Google Analytics, Clustrmap) – to visualise and analyse global reach statistics
• Mobile blogging (utterli) – to blog remotely (if a relevant context can be found!)

A note about what won’t (officially) occur as part of the project. Facebook/Myspace and YouTube are not available for student use at school due to existing policies. These aspects of social networking and multimedia distribution were, therefore, not considered as part of the project proper. That’s not to say that they haven’t been employed by individuals (at home, in their own time) to promote the project!

An additional tool that has ‘appeared’ during the project, which has added to student motivation has been Twitter Grader. This rates your Twitter profile against all of those already rated on a number of criteria including the number and ‘power’ of your network, how frequent your updates are and how informative your profile is. This is expressed as a percentage. Interestingly, during the first two weeks of the project, The Burger’s Twitter Grade went from 30% to 48% in the time the number of graded profiles rose from 90,000 to 180,000. Seeing this turned out to be a very exciting thing for students.

Another interesting tool that emerged early on during the project, relating to Google Analytics, is the Adobe air application called Analytics Reporting Suite. This allows application- rather than web-based access to the site statistics in a way that students could view and understand with ease. Incidentally The Burger’s Twitter account was mainly updated through the use of another air application: Twhirl.