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March 30, 2008

How do we know?

A few weeks ago, I put in a proposal for our state conference called "How Do We Know?" My intent was to focus on how we glean truth from the information we find online. This is a burning issue for teachers as they plan research assignments in this age of Wikipedia.

As I gather my thoughts and my resources, I'm finding that the question is reforming around three new themes that really contribute to the way I find myself dealing with information as I do other parts of my job: overseeing a team whose duties include managing a network, developing for the web and supporting hundreds of laptop and desktop computers.

All of these require access to an ever changing ocean of information available through Google, endless access to unknown folks who offer support but lie along a continuum of expertise, and the varied skills of our team.

So, the real questions for "How Do We Know?" revolve around 3 questions for me.

1. How do we know when the amount of digital information now exceeds 281 gigabytes?
2. How do we know when we have to separate "truth" from outright false information and myriad shades of truth?
3. How do we know what to know next when we can pursue seemingly infinite paths to knowing more about the areas of our careers?

I think these are the real 21st century challenges today. I suspect that for our students some will get much easier an some will get harder, but I don't think any of these will really go away. What do you think? I'm looking for comments here and on my presentation wiki.

Posted by Pat on 9:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 27, 2008

Blogs, Wikis and Safety?

Just finished reading an interesting blog post from Wes Fryer of Oklahoma entitled Blogs, Wikis, District Polices, Walled Gardens and the Open Web. Wes talks about how his belief in and ongoing support of students and teachers operating in the Open Web.

The starting point for the conversation is a video from gfrancomtube entitled District Policies Regarding Blogs and Wikis This is a mashup of a 1960's video of a father and son discussing drugs, with a mix of the original audio and some new audio from grancomtube discussing district policies that keep students safe from predators on the web by keeping their wiki and blog usage in some protected space. (Unfortunately, if you look at this from your school, you may very well just see a black square since the video is only available on YouTube.)

Contrast this with the article "Online 'Predators' and Their Victims: Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment" from the Feb-March 2008 issue of the American Psychologist. This article reviews just who the predators are, what behavior is most likely to put kids at risk, and just what risks really exist. Turns out it's not what we've all been taught for the past several years. The article is fascinating in both its extent and citations, but it boils down to some things we should have known from the start. 1) Kids who engage in risky behavior (chatting with strangers, posting suggestive pictures, etc.) are at risk. 2) Kids who hang out in risky places (unmoderated chatrooms, private chats with unknown individuals, etc.) There is no evidence that blogs or wikis are dangerous, including MySpace.

While I've grossly oversimplified the article, both of these resources (the YouTube video and the article) make great starting points for formulating realistic approaches that protect kids and enable kids to prepare them for their lives in the 21st Century.

Posted by Pat on 3:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 26, 2008

Personal Learning Networks and You

I just finished reading an excellent article by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach reflecting on her own use of the network for learning and on how teachers can become more involved. Her latest blog posting is entitled So Much to Say-- So Little Time.

She says a lot of what I've been experiencing as I continue my use of Twitter. Right now, I have switched to using Twitbin, which is "an extension for firefox that brings the power of twitter right in your browser." It works by keeping a constant stream of tweets running down the left side of my browser.

This constant companion now provides me with lots of links, including Sheryl's blog, as well as entrée to lots of additional twitterers as the folks I'm following converse with the folks they are following. (still with me??)

Her post goes on to talk about collaboration and how her personal learning network enables that. In fact, I see that all day long in my twitter stream. Will Richardson will tweet about some question and the answers come rolling in. David Warlickannounces that he's doing a presentation and will all his twitter followers please say hello and the audience responds. Are they collaborating or harvesting the twitterverse? Conversely, I, with my 35 followers, ask a question and get one old friend responding to see if I've gotten any responses. ;-)

I'm enjoying the whole thing and am certainly getting a lot out of this. However, I'm sure it looks different for everyone in the twitterverse. Right now, I'm wondering if this kind of networking tool can work for classroom teachers. And, how do we use the tools so that the everyone has access to good information through their participation. Or is being there enough?

Posted by Pat on 4:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 21, 2008

Preparing my next presentation

I'm starting to really think about my conference presentation for this year's Delaware Instructional Technology Conference. My topic and blurb as submitted.

How Do We Know?

When we were in school, the question was "What do you know?" Now, for most of us, the question is "How can I know this?" and "how do I know it's true? " This presentation will go beyond searching to discuss some real-world dilemmas in Knowing in the 21st Century.

Of course, that was when I only needed 50 words and a catchy title!

When I started out, what I really wanted to focus on was how we help students "know" the difference between what's true and what's not on the web. I really liked the article from TechLearning by Kathy Schrock and it made clear a lot of the issues in learning on the web. I also want to include the powerful words of Bob Sprankle's third and fourth graders from a few years ago about using Wikipedia. Of course, the latest story along this vein is the tale of the college study group via Facebook at Ryerson University.

But with my recent use of Twitter, I'm finding another dimension of this topic. I've been "collecting" a number of local experts who help identify useful or interesting new bits of information. I'm also learning to look at other experts through the eyes (or tweets) of those I'm following. For example, David Warlick's tweet today led me to a great post More Twitter types from Martin Weller, a Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University in the UK.

I'm thinking this is a different kind of "knowing" that consists mainly of a kind of swimming in the knowledge base that is constantly swirling around me.

I've set up a wiki to collect other ideas for my presentation and would love folks to post their del.icio.us links for me.

Posted by Pat on 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 6, 2008

Making More Sense Out of Twitter

Still trying to figure out what makes sense in my use of Twitter, I found this video via a Twitter post from Mark Wagner.

One thing Twitter is doing for me is really putting me into touch with the people I want to listen in on. I saw this 3 minutes after Mark Wagner's tweet. 3 minutes later Jeff Utecht tweeted that he had blogged about it!

And don't forget to follow me!

Posted by Pat on 8:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack