Web Technologies and Career Practitioners :: Blog

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http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/08#a4800

When I saw this cartoon from Hugh MacLeod I had to laugh. This pretty sums up the feeling of the teachers in our Tablet PC pilot group, who are now in the process of refining the summer curriculum for the 175 or so additional staff who will be using them in their classrooms next fall. There are a couple of reasons why leaving this job is difficult, and the Tablet program is certainly one of them. I can't imagine what might happen here next fall when every classroom is outfitted with wireless Internet access, wireless access to a ceiling mounted projector, a full lineup of multimedia peripherals (DVD/CD player, speakers, microphones, etc.) and a well-prepared teacher with a Tablet PC. Could be very cool, and I'm sure I'll be stopping back for a look periodically.

I alluded yesterday to the fact that we'd had a group of visitors from a school in south Jersey, and they were pretty much in awe of what they saw. It's hard not to be. I even learned a trick or two yesterday in terms of using the projector effectively, which is not something we did a lot of training on. At one point, the Spanish teacher we were observing handed the Tablet to one of his students and asked her to fill in the names of objects he had highlighted on a PowerPoint slide. As he did so, he froze the screen so no one could see what she was writing until he was ready to show it. Not a big deal, I know, but still pretty interesting.

I've really become a proponent of the Tablet, and little birdies are telling me that all sorts of goodness is coming down the pike both in the software and hardware arenas. I can't imagine ever being without one at this point.

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/07#a4796

For some reason, the mashup metaphor is popping up all over the place. First, Clarence Fisher, who references a CNN Money article about the Next Net 25, which describes the net as a place where

The new era is also creating a realm of endless mix and match: Anyone with a browser can access vast stores of information, mash it up, and serve it in new ways, to a few people or a few hundred million.

And I think Clarence gets it right when he writes

They have hit a few key ideas head on: "collective wisdom," "deeply collaborative," "rapidly tweaked." The article looks straight through the hype and the hyperbole to the centre of web 2.0; it's finally about us. It is about the information that we produce, want to use, and can play with. It is about remix culture and bringing us to new places.

As I prep my talk on vidcasting for MACUL this week, I've been struck by how many cool examples of mashup I've been finding, (here's one example) and how much I wish I had the time to create more of my own. The Web has become such a fertile ground for this, much more flexible and dynamic than the paper environments we've been constrained. It's a whole different type of content, which is where George Seimens is heading with his mashup reference.

We can now acquire our information in any manner that we desire. Learning, seen as content consumption, doesn't fit this model anymore. Learners piece together (connect) various content and conversation elements to create an integrated (though at time contradictory) network of issues and concerns. Our learning and information acquisition is a mashup. We take pieces, add pieces, dialogue, reframe, rethink, connect, and ultimately, we end up with some type of pattern (meme?) that symbolizes what's happening "out there" and what it means to us. And it changes daily. Instead of a CD with the songs of only one artist, we have iPods with a full range of music, video, audio files/books, images, etc. Our classrooms, instead of the pre-packaged views of an instructor or designers should include similar diverse elements.

I love that idea of just breaking out of the textbook mold and presenting teachers and students with all sorts of choices from which to cobble together a more relevant and interesting learning experience. (Remember "Teacher as DJ"?) And then having students perform their own mashups to add to the menu. But that is such a different way of approaching the classroom. (Ironically, I did get a taste of this today when observing one of the Tablet PC teachers who had taken old Civil War photos of dead soldiers and laid the "Gravedigger" track by Dave Matthews over it into a simple PowerPoint. It was a pretty powerful combination, and I could just tell from watching the kids that it made for a much more relevant experience. They actually applauded at the end! Now if only they were creating their own...)

Which leads to David Warlick's post about mashups today.

My son sits in his bedroom with a TV, VCR, DVD player, video game systems, a small video camera, a digital camera, a computer, and a Video iPod. Each product was initially designed to perform a specific task, allowing us to be entertained or to record images and sound. My son, however, spends his time mixing them together, drawing audio and video from his video games and from movies, and mixing them together with video and still images that he makes of himself and his friends to produce a different and entertaining new information product. Information, to him, is never finished. ItÂ’s just a raw material with which he can make something new. It is important, I believe, that we look at curriculum the same way, that it is a raw material, something that we can mix in different ways, and produce learning experiences that help our students to teach themselves.

It's fun for these kids, no doubt, who are connected and self-motivated and have the equipment. They're learning, and they don't even know it. They're writing, producing, organizing, planning, editing, listening, dreaming, presenting and more. It's good stuff.

But I wonder how much further down the road they'll be able to run than the kids who aren't getting the chance to create and connect their own content either because they can't afford it or their schools can't see it. When I think about this, I see amazing potential. But I also see a lot of kids getting left further and further behind. For too many, learning is still pre-packaged, and it will remain so for quite some time unless some major changes occur. The same holds true for educators who are unwilling to imagine what could be, much like the Oscar voters who couldn't bring themselves to see Brokeback Mountain because of the "unsettling" content (at least for them.)

I agree with George.

As educators, we are not grasping (or prepared for) the depth of the change that is occurring under our feet. If it's happened (breaking apart the center) in every other industry - movies, music, software, business - what makes us think that our educational structures are immune? And what does it mean to us? What should we be doing now to prepare our institutions? Ourselves? Our learners?

We should all be thinking about that.

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/07#a4791

It's great to see another edublog award out there, and my heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the eSchool News entry: Tim Stahmer, Wes Freyer, Andrew Rotherham and Frank LaBanca. Should I be chagrined that I only have two of the four in my aggregator?

Here's the problem. As a sometime contributor to the eSchool News blog, I probably shouldn't dis the sponsors, but, as usual, I can't help myself. Look at the way the article defines and describes blog uses in education:

Basically a web journal, a blog allows any user to post his or her thoughts, links to favorite sites, and—in many cases—audio and visual media. At its heart, a blog is a personal diary for the internet age.

The advent of blogging represents an unparalleled opportunity for educators. The typical educator has minimal contact with his or her peers once the bell rings. In what often can be an isolated profession, blogs can break down barriers of time and space, encourage collaboration, and enhance professional growth and development. They also can be used in the classroom to help students develop writing
skills or allow them to post video, audio, or other multimedia.

Oy.

Talk about missing the ed blogging boat. "A personal diary for the Internet Age"? Nothing about learning. Nothing about connections. Nothing about c-o-n-v-e-r-s-a-t-i-o-n.

If we're going to give ed blog awards, which I don't think is a bad idea, we ought to do a better job of articulating the qualities for best practices.

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/06#a4790

I was seriously shocked this evening when I read that Stephen Downes had decided to dim the lights on his blog for an indefinite time. It was pretty clear that he has been struggling with his own reinvention for some time now. Needless to say, he has been one of my most respected teachers over the last few years, and I will definitely miss his daily contribution to the conversation.

If you aren't familiar with Stephen's work, one of his last posts today will give you a sense of what we'll all be missing:

So here we have another case of 'simply not getting it'. In a nutshell, it's this: "In effect, John Clare has set our members a challenge which, expressed crudely, is: put up or shut up! Show us evidence of transformed teaching and learning -- not anecdotal stuff, but measurable gains and, I would add, examples which are both scaleable and replicable, and which stand the test of time (ie short-term gains are sustained in the long-term)." Sheesh. Why should we respond to a challenge on these terms? Why should we let someone like John Clare set the agenda, set the terms of success? If he wants "measurable gain" he should go out there and produce them himself, not sit there and carp at us for not doing it. While he's at it, why doesn't he calculate the "measurable gain" from friendship, loyalty and trust? What blogging brings for us - and for our readers and students - is all of this, and more, and measuring it is as ridiculous as counting the number of friends you have. Having a personal, self-defined identity and being able to express one's thoughts and feelings might not alter a math test score one iota, but honestly, who cares? Education isn't about improving test results, education is about helping people enjoy richer and happier lives (not 'more productive' lives - that's a measure of value we should discard as empty and worthless). Here's my answer to John Clare (and, incidentally, what I would and do say to students and teachers): if blogging works for you, then do it. If it doesn't, then don't do it, and leave the rest of us alone.

Stephen's frustration is palpable, as is his passion. I hope he finds the answers he's needing in his time offline.

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/06#a4789

That's the title of one of four, count 'em, four different presentations I'll be giving at MACUL on Friday. (How I got talked into that I'll never know!) When I originally submitted the idea, I saw it as a way to show how blogs in schools were evolving and branching out, and to have a conversation on the ways in which they would continue to mature. And while I still see that being a part of it, I'm feeling like the bigger, and in some ways, more important discussion is what we need to do to insure that blogs in schools even have a future. I don't mean that in a defeatist sense as I obviously believe these tools need to play an important part in our teaching and practice. I mean it in the "what are the obstacles and how do we overcome them" sense. So I'd like to start the presentation early here by looking at the most widely articulated impediments to adoption of the tools and offering some very thin, discussion starting ideas about how we might respond to them. This assumes, of course, that you believe (as I do) that these tools can make significant contributions to our practice and to our (and our students') learning, that they in fact do have the potential to fundamentally improve what we do in the classroom. And, it assumes that we all have access.

These are in no real order, though I'd be interested to hear what the top choices are.

Fear (for kids' safety)--There has been so much blog angst of late regarding MySpace and blocking/filtering of other blog sites that we either have to start our own marketing campaign or change the name of the tool. (But some have been saying that for over a year.) The fact that not all blogs are the same and that we can keep our kids safe with a bit of common sense doesn't seem to be resonating much in some parts, though on the flip side, I have been heartened to read of districts where blogs are being implemented widely albeit with homegrown tools that I'm not sure will scale to other districts (though that would be nice.) Some of this isn't fear as much as it is a control issue, an easy excuse to reel people in and stifle creativity and imagination which can be threatening. Solution: Twofold, I think. As an edblogging community we need to keep pushing these discussions out into the open as I think half the problem is the discussions aren't even being held. There have been a couple of reasoned responses of late that we need to keep highlighting and referencing. Second, we need to continue to press for safe, open source solutions that schools can run internally with a minimum of tech support (or that can be cheaply hosted.) There are some already out there, and some on the horizon, but they're not coming quickly enough.

Fear (of change)--Barbara Ganley covers this far more articulately than I ever could:

...the fear of free-falling, of moving away from the known, of relinquishing control and of the impact on our time and the resulting pressure on how we train our teachers. It's one thing to talk about subject-centered, collaborative-centered, connected learning (via blogs or not); it's another thing altogether to make it truly a reality in classrooms employing blogs in ways many edubloggers write about, including me.

It's a great post, full of connections and synthesis that is a poster child for the type of writing and thinking that blogging (connective writing) demands. On the K-12 level, I think this is even more acute. There are so many pressures in terms of curriculum and outcomes and test scores that to take a leap into the unknown with blogs is scary at best and nightmarish at worst. Especially if the tools demand not just an understanding of technology but a redefinition of good pedagogy. Social software, connective learning requires us to rethink our practice, not just our curriculum. Solution: We need to keep highlighting and celebrating the successes that teachers are having in terms of raising the quality of learning in their classrooms. The good news is that there are more and more teachers who are seeing this happen. The bad news is there still are not enough. I'm feeling very teased these days...

Time (or lack thereof)--This is obviously a huge issue, not only in terms of time to learn the technologies but also time to figure out how they impact practice. (Not to mention the time it takes to make these a part of your own learning system.) And it's one that I'm not sure has an answer in the current construct of public schooling. Let's face it, most teachers are not willing to sacrifice too much more of their personal time to learn new technologies, and in most cases, you can't really blame them. I was an English teacher for 19 years...I should know. (How did I learn all this stuff anyway?) Solution: The only obvious answer is to infuse preservice programs with instruction on the potential and pedagogy of these tools. I mean seriously, how long are we going to be teaching teachers how to do PowerPoint presentations which are becoming more useless by the hour? As for current teachers, without a fundamental shift in how we perceive and fund education, this will remain an intractable roadblock for all but the most highly engaged and motivated.

Standardized Tests and Assessment--Similar to the fear of change, as more and more districts start tying teacher salaries to student test scores, and as long as current political winds keep blowing, there is going to be less and less motivation to move toward pedagogies that may be more relevant and effective in a connective classroom. I've not heard too many serious discussions taking place about bringing high-expectations performance assessment into the mix, even though now it's becoming easier and easier to do so. This is quick becoming a world of performance, and we need to think about how we can best connect that to assessment. From Dewey to Wiggins, most "experts" agree that if knowledge doesn't translate to skill in doing, it's not really worth much. We're not measuring much of that at all right now. Solution: Vote. And keep trumpeting the fact that there are alternatives to standardized assessment that are being implemented around the world.

Lack of Research--I've been grumbling about this one for a couple of years now, and I'm still amazed that there isn't more out there, good or bad about how blogs and the like impact learning. Amazed. Yeah, there is some stuff here and there, but it's not much to carry to your curriculum supervisor and plop on her desk. (I'll be right back...let me do another search or two...wait!...some more here and there!) Solution: C'mon Laura...get crankin'. And for the rest of you teacher/researchers out there...we need more than a continual stream of generally positive stories of transformation (although that helps greatly.) We need some numbers crunched.

Lack of Support--This kind of ties into the fear of change angle in that it's hard to try any of this without an adequate tech safety net, especially when the online tools are coming under fire. And with technology budgets being cut rather than supplemented, many schools are way behind right out of the blocks. The good news is the tools are cheap. The bad news is they still break from time to time, and if we're going to invest our own time and our kids' sweat into using them, we need to make sure we have help to keep them working. Solution: While there are many schools that can support their own hosting, there are going to have to be hosted solutions that are "safe," from blogs to aggregators to photo sites, etc. All of those exist, but none have wide implementation as far as I can tell.

That's a start, I think. What have I missed, misread, or misstated?

Tags: macul, blogs, future, control

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/06#a4786

George Mayo, the teacher from Virginia that I posted about last week, has had his sites turned back onby his district, and his kids can now get back to the important business of blogging and podcasting and learning. Seems it was the quality of the work that changed the minds of those in charge (go figure) but that next year he's got to use the blog software provided by the district. Seems like a reasonable solution to me, and it's a nice reminder that there are ways of navigating this course when cooler heads prevail. Now, let's see what happens in Orange County...

http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20060224000225

Johannes Ernst strikes a chord with me on digital signatures for XML. The whole business of canonicalization (and other esoterica) is a real pain in both practice and in principle. If you don't believe me, try generating and verifying a signed XML message. See?

Anyway, Johannes makes a useful suggestion here, which I think could really solve a big problem with e-Portfolios - removing the difficulties of signing individual XML fragments within larger documents or data sets.

Nice to see also that this idea meets with the approval of Peter Gutmann, author of quite a few works that I've made use of.

OK, next question, guys - how would you sign an RDF graph?

http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/03/05#a4780

I really think that one of the reasons these tools are going to fundamentally change the way we educators do our business is because they are fundamentally changing the way all sorts of other people do their work. Nowhere is that more true than journalism and media which in many ways are being turned on their heads by the ability of any of us (with access) to now contribute to the news and meme making streams. Jeff Jarvis has a great post that looks at how one media organization, Reuters, is really getting the shift, and so much of what they are experiencing can apply to us as well. Substitute the word "student" for "consumer" in the following statement by CEO Tom Glocer and you'll see what I mean:

They're consuming, they're creating, they're sharing, and they're publishing themselves. So the consumer wants to not only run the printing preess, the consumer wants to set the Linotype as well...

Our industry is facing a profound challenge from home-created content... If we create the right crossroads, provide the consumers with the appropriate tools...we can harnass what otherwise from the outside would look like a punk revolution...

We do need to harness all of the creative energy that is now at the hands of our students (with access.) I say this in my presentations all the time, but how cool would it be for us to remind our kids to "publish your homework" instead of simply hand it in? We can do that now.

Glocer also says that "what we are seeing today is an almost continuing talent show," and I really like that image. It reminds me of a quote from a book by Marc Rosenberg, Beyond E-Learning I've been working through where he says "don't call them learners:"

Thinking about e-learning in new ways has to start with existing paradigms that might be holding you back. Calling people what they really are is a good beginning, but if you must use a generic term, a better one might be performer (23).

Anyone who as ever taught knows what a difference performance can make when it comes to learning. We teach through performance, not in the getting up on stage sense but in the delivering the content in meaningful, relevant ways sense. It's not enough to "know" it, which is what standardized test require. We have to be able to make meaning of it as well.

The whole post and ensuing comments are worth the read...