Sample :: Blog
http://openacademic.org/news/?p=14
For a K-12 language educator, teaching vocabulary presents some singular challenges. While we all agree that vocabulary is a critical skill, the agreement tends to disappear when it comes to how to present vocabulary in a classroom setting. Talking about words has the potential to expose students to the power and paradox of language; however, vocabulary instruction frequently descends to a balance between exposing students to as many words as possible, defining the words clearly, and keeping the class awake in the process.
The challenge: minimize the rote repetition, maximize the time spent using the words.
A. One way through the morass:
A teacher logs onto a web site and types a list of words into a form. When the teacher submits the form, the following web pages are automagically created:
- One page containing a master list of all the words, and a link to definitions of these words in two online dictionaries.
- Individual pages for each word, also with links to definitions in online dictionaries.
Later in the post, I’ll explain how this can work. For now, though, let’s take a look at what this could achieve.
In the time it would take to type ten or twenty words, an instructor could present students with a list of words and reliable definitions. Some online dictionaries also have pronunciation guides. The master page with all the words organizes the words in one place, to simplify studying for vocab exams. The individual pages for each word create some possibilities. From the pages containing individual words, students can be assigned (on a student-per-word basis) to:
- use the word in a limerick/haiku;
- write a one paragraph scene that illustrates/suggests the meaning of the word without using the word;
- write 2 sentences using the word that demonstrate incontrovertible mastery of the word;
- use the word in a simple/compound/complex/compound-complex sentence;
- incorporate the word in a zeugma.
Students could add their responses as comments on individual words, or as blog posts.
The list included here is a quick start. A range of possibilities exist, and the best approach will be determined by the nature of the class. Speeding up the delivery of the definitions allows more class time to be spent working creatively with the words. As with any subject, questions will arise. Using this approach, however, the questions and their subsequent explanations are rooted in specific, concrete examples.
I have taught vocab in this way with some classes -- coding the links by hand, of course, and by having students respond on paper if and when internet access was an issue. I buttress this approach with flashcards, and I’ve found that students tend to retain the definitions fairly well over time. In my classes, I have had students tell me that the process of learning the word (the limerick, the paragraph scene, the zeugma) became the mnemonic device through which they retained it. Of course, this is all anecdoctal, so take it for what it’s worth.
B. Taking a step back:
This approach has applications beyond studying vocabulary -- instead of searching a dictionary site, however, you would want to search through a broader range of sites. In a Biology classroom, an instructor preparing their class to learn about photosynthesis could type in:
photorespiration, carbon fixation, Calvin cycle
The comma marks the break point between individual search strings.
In a World History course, an instructor could type in:
British colonial expansion India, British colonial failures India, British colonial wars India, British colonial rule Mahatma Gandhi
For what it’s worth, the same search strings for the World History course could also be used to teach online research methods and the critical thinking skills required to analyze bias in source material.
C. How this works:
It’s all about hacking search urls. Most search urls are composed of a prefix, the actual search string, and, in some cases, a suffix. The prefix generally contains the site address, plus some additional info to access the search. Looking at a few examples will help illustrate the point.
Example 1. Click here to get a definition of peripatetic from Merriam Webster online, and here to get a definition from Dictionary.com.
If you look at the url at m-w.com, you will see that the prefix is http://m-w.com/dictionary/ followed by the search string -- in this case, the word. You can substitute different words to see what happens
With the url for Dictionary.com, the prefix is a bit more complex: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=
Example 2. Search Wikipedia for “be bop a doo bop”
The prefix for this search is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search= followed by the string: be+bop+a+doo+bop -- it will also work without the plus signs connecting the words, but it’s bad form, and violates techno-geek etiquette. The suffix for Wikipedia is &go=Go
Example 3. Search Google for the Calvin cycle.
As would be expected, Google offers some fun options. For the basic search, the prefix is http://www.google.com/search?&q= followed by some search term. As with Wikipedia, the "+" signs are suggested but not mandatory. However, omitting the "+" signs does officially take you out of the running for the free pocket protector and propeller hat.
Example 4. Use Google to search a specific site for information on invasive species.
In this example, the prefix remains the same: http://www.google.com/search?&q=
However, by attaching the suffix site:www.nbii.gov only that one specific site is searched.
By the way, to run a Google search in safe mode, just change the prefix: http://www.google.com/search?&safe=active&q=
At the risk of oversimplifying the process, to build this app, you'd set the code up to take the comma-separated values (as seen in this example), and build a search url by concatenating the prefix, the string, and the suffix.
D. Next steps:
The bad news? This app doesn’t exist, yet. The good news? It wouldn’t be too hard to build. My initial instinct would be to build it within Drupal and include this functionality in Drupal-based class sites. Left to our own devices, we’ll probably build it at some point, if or when our workload lightens up. If a developer is interested in building this out, we’d be glad to work with you to help you get it done; contact us and let us know. If someone wants this functionality, or if a couple schools want to get together to sponsor development on this, that’d be great too. No matter the route, it will get built, and released back to the open source and educational communities. It’s just a question of when.
http://openacademic.org/news/?p=11
Over on the OpenAcademic blog, Sean Lancaster has asked the following question:
i appreciate the effort that is being undertaken to create a terrific online learning environment that brings various resources together seamlessly; however, i am curious to better understand how Drupal and Moodle are different in what they provide. i mean, why would a person use both tools at the same time?
The short answer is that the best option is a subjective determination -- kind of like Mac vs PC, etc, etc.
A slightly longer answer is that the choice of tool for the learning environment will be determined by the relationship between learners' needs, instructors' needs, and institutional needs.
A still longer answer is that making an across the board choice is no longer necessary, and we are at a place where it's possible to match the tool to teaching/learning style. It's possible for an institution to provide these tools side by side to support learners and teachers in the classroom.
Moving outside the classroom, Drupal is a pretty flexible tool that can be used to create intranets for different academic departments, club sites, a public facing school site, an alumni forum -- within each of these contexts, Drupal can be customized and focused to meet the specific needs of the site users. Some people have also used Moodle to meet these needs. The need for a "one size fits all" approach no longer exists, as we have options.
All of these elements (and others, I'm sure :) ) will factor into the decision. It's possible to set up OpenAcademic without Drupal, or without Moodle. The solution is, by design, flexible and scalable. However, it's necessary to stress that the choice of tool to use is just that: a choice. The user has options. The institution has options. The sysadmin has options. People and institutions do similar things in different ways. The work we're doing at OpenAcademic is intended to provide a flexible, adaptable toolkit. Using the tools within OpenAcademic, you can create a simple web presence, or a learning network that connects learners and institutions on different sides of the world. You can choose to use the tools -- in any combination -- to meet your needs in your way.
If you're still awake and reading at this point, I've written more about ideas related to this topic here and here and here.
Blackboard, Inc. announced that it has been awarded a patent on a series of tubes. The announcement struck a note of alarm that rang through a variety of audiences ranging from elearning professionals to the United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters.
The broadly worded language of the patent has sparked concerns that the patent, if interpreted liberally in favor of Blackboard, could give the elearning giant nearly unlimited control over yesterday’s technology. The freshly granted patent was originally filed in 2000, and it has raised questions about how Blackboard will be compensated for the numerous violations by other online and computer-assisted instructional tools in use in the three decades before Blackboard’s patent application ever existed.
The opening claims of the patent describe the general outlines of the system:
- A tube-based contrivance for providing to an educational community of users access to a plurality of different tubes for different courses, comprising thicker or thinner tubes dependent on the density of the subject matter.
- The system of claim 1 wherein the course instructor is granted access rights to fill the tubes with both fluid information and solid nuggets of fact; this blend shall hereinafter be referred to as the “knowledge slurry;”
- The system of claim 1 wherein the knowledge slurry is forced through the tubes by institutional pressure, or by an overwhelming amount of force applied from above;
- The system of claim 2 wherein people can be granted a student role; each student is in turn granted access to their own personal tube and nozzle;
- The system of claim 4 wherein each student guzzles the knowledge slurry.
Senator Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce, and Transportation, did not respond to several emails requesting comment. A staffer, however, issued the following handwritten statement:
The Senator is glad to hear that this patent separates Blackboard’s tubes from his own personal internets. He has movies to watch, and doesn’t want any messages to get in the way of the movie delivery, as he has ordered ten of them and the delivery charge is free.
On July 26th, shortly after being awarded the patent, Blackboard sued Desire2Learn (pdf download), a leading competitor. A Desire2Learn executive who insisted on remaining anonymous gave us this analysis: “We’re not a series of tubes. We’re more like a dump truck.”
http://www.funnymonkey.com/openid-in-education
OpenID provides a method of Single Sign On (SSO) between multiple web sites. OpenID allows users to "claim" a specific url; this url identifies the user as they browse and join different web sites. Other SSO options exist, including Shibboleth, SXIP, Pubcookie, and JA-SIG's Central Authentication Service. OpenID differs from other methods in a few ways, but the purpose of this post is not to compare or contrast the pros and cons of the different SSO options. This post is also intended as an overview to demonstrate some possibilities, not as the final word on what OpenID can or can't do.
Far too frequently, conversations that set out to compare and contrast different standards end up denigrating one standard in order to elevate another. This type of conversation seems counterproductive; as with any technological solution, the best solution will be dictated by the specific needs of the institution or organization. While OpenID will not be the perfect choice for every situation, it combines flexibility, security, simplicity, and scalability. These traits make OpenID an attractive choice in a wide range of scenarios.
Background:
Two things are required to use OpenID: an OpenID server, and an OpenID-enabled client site. The OpenID server is the site where users claim their unique url. An OpenID url looks exactly like a web address; for example, if an OpenID server is set up at elgg.net, my OpenID url would be http://elgg.net/bfitzgerald -- more to come on this later. Then, using their unique url, the user can log into any site that is set up to accept OpenIDs. Among open source projects, several applications are already OpenID enabled. There are also libraries available to simplify the process of OpenID-enabling other applications.
This page provides links to OpenID providers (to get your own OpenID) and downloadable OpenID servers (to set up your own server). Within an organization you can set up one OpenID server that serves as the central authority for managing SSO to selected resources. OpenID servers can also be incorporated into existing applications, so that any site member also receives an OpenID. For example, an OpenID server can be incorporated into Elgg, which creates some interesting possibilities -- more to come on this later.
It is also important to note that OpenID is both an open standard, and that many of the applications that use OpenID are released under open source licenses.
OpenID is also gaining traction among larger companies. Verisign recently rolled out an OpenID implementation with their Personal Identity Provider service.
OpenID Features:
Single Sign On (SSO): OpenID allows for SSO between sites that are OpenID enabled.
User management: an OpenID server can authenticate against a wide variety of data sources, from a .pwd file to user data in a legacy system via LDAP. So, an OpenID server does not require an institution to maintain and synchronize multiple sets of user data. OpenID servers have been set up to allow pluggable authentication against a broad range of data sources to allow for maximum flexibility.
Whitelist/Blacklist sites: OpenID client sites can be configured to whitelist and blacklist sites. To demonstrate how this works, consider the following scenario:
Johnny is a sixth grader at Neighborhood Middle School, where they have an OpenID server. Using his OpenID, Johnny logs into his class web site, the chess club web site, and his personal learning space. Because all these sites are OpenID enabled, he only logs in once to do work in these different areas. However, because these are all different sites, Johnny can be a student within the class site, and a content moderator in the chess club site.
Within this same school, all client sites have been configured to only accept logins from the school's OpenID users. So, any logins with an OpenID from outside the school community will be rejected. As with all other security systems, a user needs to have a valid username and password.
The whitelisting and blacklisting feature can also be used to support safe, secure online collaboration between different schools. If the Neighborhood Middle School developed a relationship with the Far Away Middle School, the two schools could set up a web site to allow logins only from each school's individual OpenID server. So, members of the two school communities could have access to the site, and the rest of the internet would have no access.
Elgg as an OpenID server: Using Elgg as the front end for the OpenID server creates additional benefits. Elgg's user profiles allow for flexible display of profile information, as the OpenID url points directly back to a user's profile. For example, my Elgg profile is visible at http://elgg.net/bfitzgerald. If elgg.net was enabled as an OpenID server, my OpenID url would be the same as my Elgg profile. The long term roadmap for Elgg will allow for searching across different Elgg sites. The combination of whitelisted logins between different OpenID servers, searching across Elgg sites, and OpenID urls that point directly to a user's profile will simplify collaboration between and across organizations.
Taking this a step further, OpenID could also simplify the process of allowing students from different schools to take the same class in a single Moodle install. If Moodle was OpenID enabled, it would be possible to whitelist OpenID servers from multiple schools. This has the potential to create a truly distributed learning environment: students from different institutions interacting in a more formal class structure (Moodle), and in an informal learning space (Elgg).
Where things stand now:
Kevin Jardine is actively working to OpenID enable Elgg as an OpenID server and client. Drupal 4.7 and 4.6 are OpenID enabled, and we are creating an admin screen to simplify whitelisting/blacklisting sites. A Mediawiki extension is under active development in the Mediawiki subversion repository. There is also some preliminary interest in OpenID enabling Moodle, with at least one developer expressing an interest in writing the code to make this happen.
http://www.funnymonkey.com/project-management
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me about good open source project management tools in the last year, I could retire right now.
Well, that's an overstatement. But I'd definitely have a few free cups of coffee.
And now, when asked that question, I think I have a good answer: activeCollab. The project is in the early stages, but I'll be downloading the code for a test install today.
I want to thank Evan O'Donnell at Teaching Matters for showing me this resource.
http://www.funnymonkey.com/free-service-open-api
Over the last few months, I have read numerous posts about the use of free services (Flickr, delicious, Microsoft’s free email for universities, etc) and about how these services can be used to support teaching and learning. Over the same time, I have also seen more open source developers writing code that leverages the exposed -- or open -- APIs offered by different companies. The examples of exposed APIs that come readily to mind include the usual suspects, and some of the darlings of the Web 2.oh ;) world -- Flickr, delicious, and Google Maps, to name a few.
Both end users and developers can get a lot for free today. Google Maps alone provides functionality to both individual end users and individual developers that would be beyond their reach otherwise. Free social bookmarking -- offered by delicious, Furl, Simpy, and others -- is both useful, and, in this era of increasingly constrained budgets, it comes at the right price. Flickr provides a convenient method of sharing and organizing photos. While none of these sites have the overtly commercial overtones of sites like MySpace, however, there is a lot of noise about how to turn a profit off a free service. Many of these discussions reach a common conclusion: the shortest route to profitability involves some form of selling user data to advertisers.
Open APIs allow individual developers to access functionality designed by larger organizations. Microsoft, for example, exposes the Windows API to allow developers to develop Windows-based applications. Online, however, when a free service exposes their API, it can create confusion about the nature of what is being offered. If something is free, and information about how to use it is publicly available, then it must be open source.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The API connects to functionality and information that is proprietary -- we can use it, but we can’t take it with us. More importantly, using an open API from a corporate provider gives that provider another method of tracking user data, and profiting from that data by selling it to data miners and advertisers. Additionally, these APIs are exposed at the whim and discretion of their owners. While it is not likely that Flickr, delicious, or Google will stop allowing access to their APIs, there isn’t much we could do about it if they did. And, in a more realistic scenario, if enough people become dependent on using these APIs, it would be difficult to stop using that functionality if access became fee-based.
The counterargument, of course, is that these companies are providing a great service, and that they have a right to earn a profit from it. If they can simultaneously protect the identity of individual users while aggregating that user’s online habits into discernible trends, why shouldn’t they be allowed to do that? Having our online habits observed and folded into marketing strategy is the price one pays for convenience.
However, as educators, we need be very clear about what our choices mean for our students. Delicious is useful, but we need to be aware that when we use that service with our students we are doing our little part to help marketers reach teens more effectively. One of the beautiful aspects of open source in education is the complete transparency through the entire system. Using open source software gives users the ability to see what is happening at all levels of the application, from what the user does on the front end (ie, their work) to how their data is stored and used on the back end. The transparency of open source has philosophical similarities for how we teach and how students learn -- no tricks, no gimmicks, no advertisers; just free and open inquiry.
I read the following article (free registration may be required) in the LA Times. The article describes the protests in Los Angeles against the (free registration may be required) proposed changes in US immigration policy. One day of protests involved a walkout from school; the method of planning the walkout is described in the LA Times: The protest staged by Muniz and two friends in Orange County was typical of the student leaders' efforts.
They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at several high schools in Los Angeles, and decided to launch a protest of their own. On Sunday afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace — since discovered by school administrators, who were not pleased — announcing that anyone wishing to participate should stand up at the 8 a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."
In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of students' MySpace missives, the bulletin continued: "dOnt b scared…. All these politic officials are trying to make their dreams come true by destroying ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"
On the Internet site, which serves as a free-of-charge, virtual gathering place, users can send bulletins to all of their MySpace "friends." The lists can include dozens of people and the bulletins can be passed along in seconds.
It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove High's roughly 2,200 students knew what was coming, without the knowledge or involvement of teachers or parents. Could MySpace/Facebook/Friendster morph into community organizing tools? The rallies in LA indicate the potential for this shifting use. I wonder what other things could be organized using these tools?
Keywords: Facebook, Friendster, grassroots organizing, grassroots politics, immigration, MySpace, social justice, social organizing
http://www.funnymonkey.com/online-community-there-there Some interesting reading on online communities and what relationship (if any) they have to a person's offline, in the flesh communities. On D'Arcy Norman's blog, he questions the role his online interactions play in his daily life, and whether his participation in online communities comes at the expense of decreased participation in his immediate surroundings. There are some great responses to this post, and the whole thread gives some nice grist for the mill for those of us who spend (too much?) time thinking about and participating in online communities. While I've mentioned this article before, it bears mentioning again: Danah Boyd's recent talk on MySpace. Danah gives a good overview of how and why youth interact on MySpace. For good measure, we all should check out the Pew Report on the Strength of Internet Ties. This report provides good data about the relationship between Internet and in the flesh communities. Finally, Chris Sessums gives another wonderfully nuanced post; this time, his subject is the use of FaceBook among adolescents. Last week, I was talking with some of my high school students about MySpace. They got on to the subject of the "Top Eight," a feature that allows a user to specify their top eight MySpace friends. It turns out that the Top Eight has sparked many fights -- one person removes another from their Top Eight, and the fight is on. As an observer, it feels a little like a mix between an extended chess match and an emotional shell game, but the squabbles resulting from these moves are real. In one case, they recounted how one of their friends broke up with another by removing them from their Top Eight, and changing their status to "single" -- no phone call, not even an email, just an "I broke up with you in 5 clicks" scenario. While these students highlighted the pathetic nature of this scenario, they all agreed that the resulting breakup, while lame, was still real. And when I hear talk about online communities, I tend to end up here: they feel real. They don't feel virtual. While many online friends aren't friends in the offline usage of the word, people do form and foster real connections within these spaces. With the prevalence of MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Orkut, Xanga, etc, many of todays' youth have spent some time during their formative years participating in -- and being affected by -- online communities. As many people carry their offline friendships into their online communities, the argument that an online community is functionally different than an offline community ceases to have relevance. Both exist, and both offer people the opportunity to interact. The relationship between the offline and the online seems to be more a question about how we spend our time, and how these choices affect the tenor and quality of our online and offline frienships.
http://www.funnymonkey.com/together-at-last Elgg, Drupal, and Moodle all have a role to play in providing tools for learning communities. The example outlined in this post illustrates one way these three applications can work together in an academic setting. At the outset, however, it needs to be stressed that this is one solution chosen from among many. These three applications can be used by different institutions in different ways in response to specific institutional needs. In this post, I am assuming some familiarity with Elgg, Moodle, and Drupal. For a quick overview, go here for Elgg, here for Moodle, and here for Drupal. This chart provides a visual representation of the functionality described in the post.
Background For the purposes of this post, I will talk about three discrete sections: class sites, the common area, and the school site. While these boundaries are constructs, they are useful in understanding both functional differences and practical security built into this setup. Class sites refer to areas of the site devoted to supporting the classroom work. The main users of the class sites will be students and teachers, and content in this area will be largely private. Moodle and Drupal are used to run the class sites. The common area is most closely analogous to a school intranet for one reason: every member of the school will have an account on it. However, as the core of the common area will run in Elgg, the similarities end there. Using Elgg, students will be able to create and maintain learning portfolios, maintain feedbooks, store files, and get updates on schoolwide and course-specific events. Additionally, all clubs, administrative divisions, academic departments, and athletic teams have an initial presence here as Elgg communities. Any groups within the institution that need more functionality and more security than offered within Elgg can extend their work into a Drupal site. The school site refers to the official school web site. As this site is the public face of the institution, the content on this site will be public. In most institutions, the ability to put add and edit on the site will be limited to a small number of people. The school site will run in Drupal.
Specifics
Offering class sites in both Drupal and Moodle will allow instructors to choose the tool that works best for them. To generalize, Drupal sites offer a greater degree of flexibility in crafting a learning environment -- some users make the case that class sites in Drupal feel more student-centered than class sites in Moodle. This flexibility, however, comes at a cost. From a sysadmin perspective, Moodle is easier to maintain than Drupal. Additionally, some users claim that the focused UI of Moodle is easier for users who are not tech-savvy. The ease of use caveat, however, is directed more at teachers than at students. Students thrive in either Drupal or Moodle. Over time, students will export content from their course work into their learning portfolio (maintained in the community area in Elgg). Currently, this can be accomplished through Elgg's aggregator/feedbook creator. As the name implies, the common area is the heart of the school site. All members of the school -- students, teachers, and administrators -- will have accounts here, and these accounts all come with the standard functionality of Elgg: a personal blog, personal file storage, podcasting, personal feedbook, etc. Users can choose to share resources they collect in their area, or to keep their resources private. Over time, students can use their space in the common area to build a portfolio of their work. Each member of the the site can use their personal space to create their own individualized learning/working environment. Additionally, all clubs, departments, and administrative divisions can create private or public sections. Within Elgg, these sections are called communities, and these communities can be set up as private (users can only join with an invitation) or public (the user joins at their discretion). Elgg communities have the same functions as Elgg users. Within the community space, every community member can post to the community blog, upload files to community file storage, create community-specific podcasts, create community-specific news feeds, etc. Also, like individual users, community resources can be private within the community or shared among all site members. Within the institution, it is highly likely that some administrative divisions and extracurricular activities will want more functionality, privacy, and/or security than offered by Elgg communities. These groups can do their work in a Drupal site. This allows these groups to collaborate on sensitive or private work behind an additional level of access control, and to set up more structured/discipline-specific sites than possible within Elgg. When members of these communities want to share content with the rest of the school, they can aggregate the content from the Drupal site onto their community blog, where all members of the school will be able to view it. As one example of functionality that exists within Drupal and not within Elgg, the Drupal sites will allow online publishing and layout of newspapers, newsletters, and literary magazines with a level of complexity that Elgg doesn’t support. Up to this point, we have described content that is largely private to members of the school community. The content of the class sites and the content in the community area is not accessible to the general public. The school site, however, is intended for the public, and all of the content on the school site is visible over the web. For this reason, only a select few people should have the ability to create and edit content on the school site. Much of the content -- like the directions, or the mission of the school -- on the school site will be static. However, dynamic content can be added to the site by aggregating feeds from the community blogs. One example of how this could be used involves athletics: if a game was cancelled, this would be posted to the athletics blog. The feed from the athletics blog would be picked up on the school site, where the information would be distributed to site visitors. Obviously, not all blogs from the community area would be aggregated and published on the school site, and the choice of what blogs to include for publication would be made by a site administrator of the school site.
Summary What I outlined in this post provides one way of setting up a private online learning environment and public web presence for a school. In describing this setup, I attempted to create a scenario where student needs and institutional needs were met in a mutually supportive way. As I said in the beginning of this post, this is one way of doing it. Given the flexibility of Elgg, Drupal, and Moodle, countless other technologically viable and pedagogically sound solutions exist.
I've seen some blog posts about this, and it has some potentially disturbing implications -- It looks like AOL (and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo!) have been advocating letting people pay to bypass spam filters in order to "guarantee" that email gets delivered. For a google search on the topic; also, moveon.org has started a campaign about it. I'd be curious to hear what folks have to say about this. Bill
Keywords: aol, email tax, free internet
<< Back
|
|
