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April 25, 2008
Beyond Second Life
Last night I spoke to a parents' group about Social Networking and balancing the opportunities and dangers on the Internet for kids of varying ages. By the end, we started to get to the fact that we really are at the very beginning of all of this when we look at things like Club Penguin or MySpace.
Today, I came across this slide show from Cory Ondrejka
. Mr. Ondrejka offered this as the final session of a faculty seminar at the Annenberg School at USC, part of the Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities (APOC).
Mr. Ondrejka was the CTO of Linden Labs and a leading architect of Second Life so he's got an important and well-informed viewpoint on all of this.
And in my continuing Twitter story....I came across this via a tweet from gsiemens directing me to a blog post from Brett Bixler with this slide show embedded.
This is the kind of thing the I hope I got across to parents as we think about what social networking will mean in kids' lives.
Posted by Pat on 7:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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.
- How do we know when the amount of digital information now exceeds 281 gigabytes?
- How do we know when we have to separate "truth" from outright false information and myriad shades of truth?
- 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 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
February 27, 2008
Obsolete Skills
Rotary Dial
Originally uploaded by taurusaficionado I came across this site that lists all the skills that have become obsolete. And there is another site just like it but with more pictures.
One thing that jumps out right away is that so many of the skills that are now obsolete are skills that most of the people I know never even learned.
Interesting to think about!
Photo credit: Originally uploaded to Flickr by taurusaficionado
Posted by Pat on 7:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 24, 2008
Generation Gap
For the past several days I've been sick in bed, which gave me plenty of time to catch up on my Netflix queue! I watched Easy Rider and a documentary called Berkeley in the Sixties. This brought back all of the turmoil of those late 60's/early 70's. What I especially remember is slogans like "Don't trust anyone over 30" and the real animosity and distrust between the generations.
What I witness everyday on the university campus and in K-12 classrooms is a stark contrast to all of this. I routinely hear kids leave their classrooms saying "Hi, Mom" into their cell phones. Indeed, there's even a term now -- helicopter parents. (I think we need a term for the kids, too.) It's actually kind of neat to see that kind of bond in action!
What this got me thinking about was the Digital Native/Digital Immigrant terminology that is the lead slide on so many professional development sessions. Are we creating a new generation gap? Kids can ignore the "immigrants" who simply can't communicate with them. On the other hand, the immigrants can use this as an ongoing excuse for not learning the language. I plan on ripping this slide out of my new presentations and emphasizing the opportunities rather than the gaps. As lifelong learners, we should be modeling this great opportunity to learn from the experts among us rather than harping on the differences.
Of course, I'm not the first to think this and there is an interesting conversation going on among the immigrants over at Classroom 2.0
Posted by Pat on 12:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 21, 2008
The Twitter Question Continues
Continuing on my quest to learn more about Twitter, I've been checking regularly. Yesterday, I was home sick so I had my laptop close by all day and checked in between naps. At one point, I saw a tweet from Steve Dembo announcing an online evening session from Discovery Educator featuring Vicki Davis. I signed up and attended last night -- yes, all from my laptop and my sickbed! And all because of twitter.
Also, yesterday I checked back on my first blog post about twitter and what should turn up but a comment from David Warlick. He claims not to be a big twitterer, but I think our viewpoint differs a bit. David posts his whereabouts on a regular basis while I'm happy with one or two a day so far.
Right now, I think I'm in the harvesting stage. As I see someone who appears interesting I follow their name to their twitter page and "follow." Often, I'll get a message saying they have now elected to "follow" me back. Guess that's how the network grows! My most recent additions were Peggy George, a retired principal from Arizona, and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, with a lenghthy ed tech resume.
I'll keep playing with this!
Posted by Pat on 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 18, 2007
Cyberbullying Advice
One question that comes up often is just what cyberbullying is and how it can be addressed. This month's issue (Nov-Dec 2007) of bNetSavvy is all about cyberbullying. What made this issue especially useful for me was that it had articles from four perspectives: a therapist, a teacher, a parent and a child. The articles not only define the problem and provide examples, but there are some great lists of what you really can do to recognize and address this growing issue.
One thing is definite...adolescents are in no way prepared to deal with this on their own. At this developmental level, they are still working out appropriate social responses and the anonymity of the web makes that much more difficult, sometimes impossible. It's also a time when kids don't want adult intervention but that's often what it takes to stop the behavior. The tips in all the articles should make it easier for adults to spot some of the signs of a victim and a perpetrator.
Posted by Pat on 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 28, 2007
Google Jockeys, Live Blogging, and Parallel Thinking
Recently, I've presented several sessions where I've used a Google Jockey and employed Live Blogging, as I learned from Karl Fisch and Anne Smith. The results have been mixed, but then again, these are educators in very large groups who are just getting their heads around the idea by the time the whole thing is over. I'm quite sure that a second day of this would yield better results. In fact, when I used the approach in my class this summer, things went very well by the second question.Two things occur to educators as they experience this. First, the big question of "how will I ever get this to work in my classroom?" This NYTimes article about using a laptop in meetings seemed right on point as people in the work force figure out the etiquette of using a laptop, maximizing efficiency, and participating in the meeting.
That brings up the other question. This one is "can they really split their attention like this?" There have been lots of experiments which prove that students can and do, and get better at it all the time. (Remember when we had to study in a quiet place???) (see Prensky, "Do They Really Think Differently?) The real proof is that after adults do this a little bit they start realizing they can do it. Then the fun can begin.
Posted by Pat on 1:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 3, 2007
IPod or No IPod?
The month of June brought two stories that are hard to hold in your head at the same time.
Schools banning iPods to beat cheaters
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
June 1, 2007—
Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious--students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text-message the answers to each other. Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device.
Devices such as iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say. ...
Then, eSchool News also pointed to this NY Times story.
Prepare for the SAT Test, or Play With Your iPod? Have It Both Ways
By MARIA ASPAN
Published: June 25, 2007
High school students cramming for the SAT test have traditionally relied on thick books full of practice exams, sharpened No. 2 pencils and intensive tutoring sessions. But now a traditional test preparation company is offering some options for the iPod generation. ...
To me, all of this underlines the fact that we, as educators, really need to be doing things differently within our schools, while the rest of the world changes so much around us.
Posted by Pat on 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 21, 2007
How do we know all that stuff???
One of the questions that I always get is how do you know about all of that stuff? I confess, I'm a hopeless geek who watches all TV and movies on my computer and syncs my podcasts as the first thing I do every morning.
Okay, so how do real people do this?
As I think about this, I always come back to the idea that we teachers have professed for years that we believe in "lifelong learning." Well, that's a noble goal, but with today's world we have more opportunities than ever before. Witness Ray's Personal Learning Environment. If we really are lifelong learners, then we should be building these kinds of networks for ourselves. I think the challenge for educators is to realize that we have those networks and to make them visible to our students. I also recently read Rainbows End, based on a recommendation from Mark Prensky. In this world, the personal learning environment is always accessible because the whole world is networked and searchable.
So, what happens in the classroom? It seems like we need to find a way help students think broadly and focus on a problem. One approach we've used in class is to employ a Google Jockey to model broad thinking and personal blogging to focus.
Here's the big payoff...It's way more fun to teach this way!
Posted by Pat on 11:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2007
Milton, Delaware & the 21st Century
The world just keeps shrinking! Today, I am sitting in a meeting in Arlington, VA. At this minute, I'm listening to a speaker from NASA Learning Technologies and we've just spoken with someone from England via the Internet.
Of course, I'm not just listening but also reading email. This just arrived.
I can't help but share that we are beaming with joy for our students who have been recognized on Will Richardson's blog! This has opened up a flood of comments not only on this site, but on their class own classroom Wiki! How cool is this?!!! Delaware is on world's map for some really awesome stuff! And we are so grateful for the DITC Teacher of Excellence showcase that propels these opportunities! This recognition is the payoff for all of our hard work!
Check out these comments! Better yet, make your own!
http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/business-cards-we-love-to-see/
Lori Roe
Instructional Technology Specialist
Cape Henlopen School District
http://web.mac.com/lori.roe/iWeb/Roe/
So off I went to check this out. Sure enough, Will Richardson, who was the keynote speaker at the Delaware Instructional Technology Conference last week, has commented on his blog. That's cool because he is one of the big names right now in using the Internet effectively in the classroom.
But cooler than that are the comments on his blog. The 8th graders in Milton, Delaware are commenting on the blog of the author of the textbook that their teacher used last summer in a university class. They are commenting along with many educators from around the world.
I spend a lot of time talking to educators about 21st Century Learning. This is happening now in Milton, Delaware.
Posted by Pat on 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 5, 2007
New Internet Safety Wrinkles
This week, I'm updating my presentation called "Social Networking, Internet Safety and the Collision called MySpace" to present at the Delaware Instructional Technology Conference 2007. Since last March, I have been delivering versions of this presentation to various faculty and parent groups. With last year's news blitz of scare stories, many of them true and many of them staged, I tended to emphasize safety over networking. But this was hard for me since I really believe in the value of networking for authentic learning. Hopefully, I hit a balance.
As more study has gone on, it seems that, just like in real life, kids that engage in risky or promiscuous behavior are the ones that are most likely to get approached by predators. What that really means is that parents should incorporate a digital version of "don't talk to strangers" into the usual repertoire. What it also means is that kids who use the social networking sites intelligently can do so intelligently.
Okay, so now that we've got MySpace and FaceBook pretty much under control, two new sites may give some pause. Right now there are two big deals in the tech community. Twitter.com allows anyone to do real-time blogging from their computer or cellphone. Each "tweet" is limited to 140 characters. What is interesting is the frequency that these come at you. There are also new mashups that incorporate tweets in realtime. The most famous of these is twittervision.com.
The second one is justin.tv. This fellow has committed to wearing a camera and microphone 24-7 for the rest of his life! Currently the tech community is wondering about his prospects for marriage and dating.
Posted by Pat on 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2007
Cheating???
This item caught my eye today.
Cheating at a popular Web site worries educators
The lure of having the coolest igloo on the block may be teaching some young children that cheating is acceptable. At the increasingly popular children's virtual-world site ClubPenguin.com, cheating has gone mainstream, with some children downloading software and consulting blogs that help them to pad their virtual pockets with ill-gotten gold coins instead of earning their way fairly. Chicago Tribune
I'm wondering whether these kids believe they are "cheating." Maybe they are using technology for communication (ISTE NETS*S #4), research (5), and problem-solving and decision-making (6). Maybe the idea of "cheating" is the adult view from a world where games were played mainly against others, rather than an electronic world where the challenge is against the machine or collaborating with others against the machine.
So where do I get this cock-eyed view of the world? I've been an avid video game player since the Nintendo days -- just plain Nintendo. I'm now laid up after a knee operation and playing my way through Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's a great game with lots of puzzles. But sometimes the puzzles are tougher than I'm able to spot or they call for seeing some small item on the screen or recalling something from several dungeons past. The point of the game is for me to have fun, right? When I am thoroughly frustrated, I'm not having fun...so, I go to GameFaqs where people have published elaborate 100+ page hint and walkthrough books. I find just the next sentence to make it fun again.
I've discussed this with my 15-year old nephew who has been playing games on consoles and online since he was about 4. His great frustration early on was an inability to play any game that required reading. Pretty good incentive and practice space. By the time he was 7, he was playing complicated adventure games by using a printed guide. Why? Because it wasn't fun when he couldn't advance. The payoff was an ability to read better and to follow directions. Just what teachers wanted him to do!
Now, I'm not a regular in ClubPenguin but there might just be another perspective...
Posted by Pat on 4:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 10, 2007
Realities of the Net Generation
The latest ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology for 2006 was recently released. The findings in this report should give us both cause for celebration and cause for consideration. The study reports that 97.8% of students reported for college with a PC and 38.3% brought both a laptop and a desktop computer. The use of e-mail is at 99.9% and instant messaging at 80%. One interesting item here is that students seem to understand the relative value and appropriateness of each medium; they prefer to get official communication via e-mail. Among a wide variety of activities, the study reported that 27.7% report "using software to create or edit video and audio files." (p. 3-4)
According to ECAR, "respondents are generally confident in their skills using information technologies." However, the recent results from the ETS ICT Literacy Assessment had some evidence that either their definition is incomplete or the bar is rising.
Some of the most surprising preliminary research findings are that only 52% of test takers could correctly judge the objectivity of a Web site, and only 65% could correctly judge the site's authoritativeness. In a Web search task, only 40% entered multiple search terms to narrow the results. And when selecting a research statement for a class assignment, only 44% identified a statement that captured the demands of the assignment.
We also regularly hear that students crave more technology in their courses. The ECAR survey revealed that about 24% wanted extensive or exclusive use of IT, but 21% wanted limited or no IT use. Looks like college students are pretty much like the rest of the population with most (56%) wanting "moderate" amounts of IT.
One finding jumped out at me as pertinent to planning of classes or courses. "It remains clear after three years of study that a student's choice of academic major is closely associated with a set of IT skills, choices and preferences." (p. 9) This is where we, as teachers, really need to provide more opportunities within substantive, authentic experiences so that students can increase the range of the careers they view as viable options for themselves.
Posted by Pat on 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 9, 2007
Why do people post on the Web?
Here's something that caught my eye today -- Why Do People Contribute to Digg or Wikipedia? This is of particular interest after Time named You as the 2006 Person of the Year.
This really affects us on two levels. First, as we use this site for research or information, it's very useful and interesting to know about why people might post to these sites. Knowing what the motivation of the folks who contribute may help make more informed decisions about what to trust.
Second, knowing why people contribute may help in crafting assignments with "authentic audiences." Why will some students shine and others shy away from these? Are there strategies in creating those assignments that we should take into account?
I don't know the answers to either of these questions, but I do think it's important to think more about the questions than the answers and develop new questions every day.
Posted by Pat on 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 27, 2006
Managing the Free Flow of Information
Here are three interesting quotes I heard today.
The first is from Sasa Vucinic of Media Development Loan Fund, a New York nonprofit organization providing low-cost financing to independent news businesses in emerging democracies.
"More than 80 percent of people live in countries without a free press. In other words, more than 5 billion people can't trust what they read in the newspaper, hear on the radio or see on TV, and do not really know what is happening in their own country."
The second is the article "Blogs And Wikis Move In As E-Mail Overload Becomes Unbearable" from Information Week, which says that businesses are using these new formats to manage the transmission and receiving of information.
The third concerns schools and Social Networking sites from an article in eSchoolNews.
"More than three years after social-networking web sites such as MySpace and Facebook first began cropping up online, school leaders still struggle with how to set policies regarding the use of such sites both inside and outside of school--and many school systems lack these policies altogether, according to a recent survey."
I was struck by the three counterpoints. In the first, we have a group that is actively attempting to increase the free flow of information so that people can access and harness information for their own daily lives. In the second, the free flow of information has become so overwhelming that new strategies are needed to manage it.
But the third story was the scariest, we have already claimed that our students are Digital Natives who understand how to utilize the technology to manage their lives and information. They have clearly embraced social networking as a way to operate in the digital landscape. With 3 years behind us, educators are still baffled by the whole phenomena. Surely, there is a way to bridge these three ideas and harness the technologies to lead and support students to manage information.
Posted by Pat on 2:36 PM
September 8, 2006
Digital Divide... A State of Mind?
Is the Digital Divide also a state of mind? My first assignment in the graduate education and public policy courses I teach is to have students begin a blog. The population is about evenly divided between recent grads and experienced professionals. However, almost universally, the first blog entry says something like “I’d heard of this before but never tried it. I hope I can cut it with the technology.”
Now, blogs have been around since 2001, at least. I know I suffer from “first kid on the block” syndrome and my first entry was in 2001 with sketchy additions since then. But blogging is a pretty simple technology now. We read about the influence blogs have in changing the outcomes of elections or in moving public opinion, so how come these educated individuals aren’t living in the blogosphere? Or are they in it and just don’t know it?
On the other hand, the class wiki is going great guns. I did a 2-minute introduction, gave out the URL and password and haven’t had a question yet. I would have expected that to be tougher!
We live in interesting times!
Posted by Pat on 7:54 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 7, 2006
"Lively Internet Debate"
This morning I was listening to the 2006 highlights of Wait, Wait…Don't Tell Me, the NPR weekly news quiz show. Of course, I was listening to it as a podcast. In response to one of the questions, one of the panelists remarked that the topic had sparked a “lively Internet debate” in the past week. This sent the rest of the panelists off in peals of laughter. One of them even called it one of the great phrases of the 21st Century. In fact, they thought it was so funny that they chose this segment as a highlight of the year.
It seems to me that this may be another example of the growing separation between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” to use Marc Prensky’s terms. It’s very hard to convey the sense of place and physicality that the Internet provides to people who use it all the time. This is really at the crux of the divide between the kids on MySpace and the adults on the outside.
On a related note, Apple seems poised to announce a movie download service on iTunes. Many of the pundits can’t figure out why anyone would want to view a feature-length film on an iPod or spend the time to download a movie on the network. These are probably the same digital immigrants, but I can’t wait!
Posted by Pat on 8:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
