http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Edtechpost/~3/253188750/

Where to start this post?

I could point you at my earlier presentation on “Augmenting OER with Client-side Tools” to orient you to the idea the browser itself offers one of the most powerful ways for users to both customize content on the fly and interact with each other.

I could tell you a story about seeing a reference to a browser-based multiplayer game, played (in my own words) “on top of and alongside of the web itself,” but then loosing that reference in my aggregator, only to have the niggle in the back of my brain eased when my query on twitter was successfully answered.

I could explain how, until recently, the web browser/web server model was kind of replicating earlier (boring) client-server models, treating web browsers often as dumb terminals. And how P2P challenged that in one (network) way. And how social software challenged that in another (that there were *people* at all those browsers). And how browser-based plugins are bringing both of those phenomena (albeit in a different way, technically) to the web experience.

I could point you at various pieces on “networked learning” which I think are all pointing to a new way of learning where the “online” part, the “network” isn’t just an afterthought, whose existance radically challneges what “to learn” and indeed “knowledge” even mean.

Or… you could just tell you to

• install Firefox. I mean really. Install Firefox (though v2.x). Seriously, give me one reason why you haven’t already.


• go to pmog.com. Get an account. Install the toolbar. And go on a mission.

Why? Because there you will see the (well not “THE” because hopefully there will always be many) future. In brief, once you’ve got that installed, you are in the game. Suddenly, you will notice small windows appearing when you look at web pages, windows urging you to “take this mission” or instead alerting you to dangers or treasures placed by other players. Where is the game taking place? Well, there is a site, and a codex (which is kind of essential reading to get the real flavour of the game). But the game takes place “on top of and alongside of the web itself,” as a PASSIVELY multiplayer online game, meaning it comes to you as part of your regular experience on the web.

So immediately I can see people blanching at the idea of their students being called “shoats” or “bedouins” and coming up with all sorts of FUD on why PMOG.com can’t be used as a platform for education. I am not suggesting that PMOG.com itself is the platform to rush out and adopt (though indeed, why not? Take a mission yourself - can you see any potential for leading people through a learning path, placing obstacles in their way that they must overcome and building a rewards system into these goals? Sound familiar?)

Indeed, the first (easily implementable) idea that popped into my head was to go back to Trailfire and start constructing trails with pieces left out, so that to continue on the trail, you needed to answer a question or figure out a problem that would result in a URL where a new annotation would leave to the next site. But more on that later.

The web has always had this potential - what are hyperlinks (and Google thinks this way) other than people providing context on whatever they are linking to, and through that, paths.What’s new is that all of this context (and all of the people) can be brought back to the very thing being described, in place, enriching the experience, and in the example of PMOG, tied together with a narrative thrust.

Finally, if I was really good, this post wouldn’t be a post. It would be a PMOG mission. And maybe it will be… - SWL

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Edtechpost/~3/253218672/

This is a post I shouldn’t need to write. It is too obvious. Indeed, here’s the conclusion up front:

People like simple-to-use tools. If you give them simple, easy to understand tools, they will use them. (They will also use complicated tools anyways if their needs are strong enough, and always use tools in ways you never expected, but those are different posts.) You will not need to provide help documentation, training sessions, or PD release time. They will just use them. You will probably be threatened by the results.

So now the lengthy backstory, which of course you can skip if you get the above. And if you don’t, you either probably don’t read this blog anyway, or else probably won’t read this post. Sigh…

I have young kids. While I have quite a number of computers in the house, we definitely meter access to them in an effort to get them engaged with the huge variety of activities we feel kids should be involved in. Our small attempt at balance. All of which is to say that, while my 8 year old is generationally a “digital native,” he is only just starting to figure his way out around the net, around a web browser and around Windows (sigh). His latest accomplishment/goal was using Google Image search to find pictures of whales which he was printing out (one at a time) and stapling together to make a “book” for his friend at school.

While I was proud of his ingenuity and initiative, prompted by the thrifty aim of reducing his use of my paper supplies, I saw an opportunity to point him towards an online way of “collecting” things and “re-presenting” them for his friends. I told him “hold on buddy, we’ll find you a good online scrapbook tool tomorrow where you can add all the things you find for your friends.” He was excited by the prospect, and the next day held me to my promise.

I had in the back of my mind Zoho Notebook or Google Notebook, both of which I had tried with some success to use as clipping services. But sitting next to my son as we checked out both, I realized neither of them were good fits for him - too much functionality, too many buttons, too many steps for him to simply grab a piece of content and insert it, really all he wanted to do. On the spur of the moment I did a search for “web 2.0 scrapbook.” I scrolled down looking for pieces that I had tried before or that twigged my memory, and about 20 results down came to tumblr.com, a site I remember trying and hearing others praise.

So, we went and created an account for him. 60 seconds later he had an account that allowed him to add content to his own web page. 30 seconds later I showed him how he could drag an image onto his site to embed it (caveat: having dual monitors makes this SO simple to teach.) 30 seconds later he had the idea of adding text to anything he embedded, so he could add his own comments for his friends. After doing this for a bit he wanted to know how to add Youtube videos (he’s a fan because of our regular living-room Youtube dance parties). 30 seconds later I showed him where to drop the embed script from Youtube into Tumblr. And finally after he had been doing that for a while, he wanted to know if he could upload a recording of the music I had been noodling on in the background while he had been working. 30 seconds later he had done this too. (This last one less a testament to my musical skills and instead of how little help I had to give him, freeing me to noodle!)

So, 180 seconds of instruction later (in nice 30 second chunks) he’s now publishing a page of his favourite finds. With an RSS feed, so he can use it elsewhere (heck, even print it out in a nice format.) The word “blog” never came up - he has done “scrapbooking” before and that seemed to me the most appropriate metaphor to use.

I know it’s anecdotal. And I am not trying to hold out the resulting page as a work of great creativity or learning. But it is hard to have experiences like this and not think that

• simple gets used


• simple and easy is not a “nice to have” or “eye candy” but instead one of the critical features that often marks the successful parts of web 2.0


• there might be something to this idea of support in little, contextual, hands-on 30 second chunks


• our institutions of learning are doomed to become technological ghettos unless they can figure out how to work with the ever-increasing innovative services online instead of doing it all themselves, in-house, with 3-5 year timelines.

Enough. Like I said, stating the obvious. But you know me, sloooow. - SWL