Sites that Caught My Eye Today 07/09/2008

• Langwitches » Digital Storytelling- Part VII Mixbook

  I really enjoy this information from Silvia tolisano about Mixbook -- it is part 7 of an amazing digital storytelling series.

  tags: education, edu_newapp, technology, techintegrator, all_teachers

• Working on k12 keynote expanding boundaries. How do you think ed should expand its boundari - Plurk.com

  Talking about expanding boundaries and what we need to do.

  tags: plurk, education

• Technology in the Middle » Blog Archive » Are You the Obstacle or the Answer?

  I adore this post about being the obstacle or the answer from a participant in the workshop on Monday. These insights are excellent and this school MICDS has some of the most visionary, progressive teachers and administrators! It is refreshing to be here. Elizabeth Helfant, their IT director, is unbelievably sharp! Totally amazing woman with the energy of the Energizer bunny. Wow!

  tags: education, learning, administrator

• larad » Science

  Here is a page that has an embedded science report that se used docstoc for. This is a great example. From Julie Lindsay's class.

  tags: wiki, education, edu_trends, bestpractices

• larad » home

  Amazing wiki portfolio from one of Julie Lindsay's students. wow!
  Look at the science report that she used docstoc to upload.

  tags: education, wiki, techintegrator, all_teachers

• Researchers for Web 2.0 - Flat Classrooms

  A classmate in our workshop has created a group for researchers who want to research web 2 -- if you want to join a group, Craig has just retired from the Navy and has a LOT of energy!

  tags: researcher_thoughtleader, education, edu_trends

• Preparing for the new school year - Flat Classrooms

  Leigh Newton director of IT at a school in Baku, Azerbaijan wants to talk about linking his grade 5 classes of about 30 students to others in the world. There is also a PYP (Primary years program) on the flat classroom ning about this. Some interesting conversations are emerging. If you're interested, join and join the conversation.

  tags: education, technology, elementary_teacher, all_teachers

• The original plurknovela -- look at it.

  Join in the plurknovela. So cool. This is the original one.

  tags: plurk, education, newapp, edu_newapp, edu_news, literature, language

• 21CT: Plurknovelas - Fictional digital storytelling with a plurk!twist | The 21st Century Teacher

  Plurk novellas are emerging -- this is very cool. This could be used in writing. You can see how threaded microblogging is DIFFERENT from twitter. I think there is room for both.

  tags: education, plurk, edu_newapp, edu_trends, literature, twitter

• WeberTube - Never Lecture in Class Again

  This is the video on the "flipped" class structure. Wow!

  tags: education, podcasting, edu_trends, all_teachers, bestpractices

• Educational Vodcasting - Home

  Some cool science teachers at necc who have "flipped the classroom" -- they record their lectures and make them available on itunes to download. Then, they do "homework" in class w/ the teachers. Listening to the podcast of class is their assignment -- the homework is what they do in class. This flipped method had some people talking today in our workshop. So so cool!
  
  This makes so much sense -- take the one to many work delivery and make it the assignment -- take the work where you need many to many to help one another and have that in the classroom. Can you see class evolving? wow! This makes so much sense.

  tags: education, science, podcast, edu_trends, all_teachers

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Mainstream Media vs. Blogosphere: Mainstream Ed vs. Edublogosphere?

It is no secret that mainstream media tends to dislike the blogosphere and many bloggers (particularly political ones) dislike mainstream media.

However, I find the current Associated Press assault on quotations used on the Drudge Retort (with links, mind you) as short as 35 words to be #1 Shortsighted and #2 the wrong thing to do for mainstream media. (Hat tip to Will Richardson and Jeff Jarvis.)

It is all about eyeballs. Whoever gets the eyeballs gets the advertising dollar.

However, if mainstream media would wake up and realize that many of us are getting our breaking news from twitter, (I've settled for following BreakingNewsOn from the Netherlands - REAL news sources inundate me - they do about 3 updates a day.), perhaps they could add value to our lives instead of inundating us with 24/7 news online. Online, we don't want 24/7 news -- if we want that, we'll watch cable. We want snippets of the news and updates, we need meaning--- quality over quantity, for goodness sakes.

So, this week, the New York Times reported that the AP will clearly define the proper linking policies for bloggers.

I do entirely agree with one quote in the article from Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P:

"“Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see,” he said. “It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context.”"

I agree with this entirely, although I disagree with how they went about trying to make this their point!

If you write about it, link it.
That is good netiquette and soon, it may be illegal to do otherwise.

Blogging is not something for the lazy. Just this week, someone wrote a blog article about me (not linking to article on purpose) and in it, told the readers to go to my blog and give me a thank you. There was just my name, no mention of my blog name.

Now, let me ask you -- how are those readers going to find me? Was it really a compliment or was it really not? It was not kind to the reader and not good netiquette.

Additionally, splogs often copy ENTIRE blog posts from here and use it without linking. I have no method of recourse against them. I've seen some educators do this in the past, although it is not as much of a problem.

Additionally, I have seen some companies take entire blog posts WITHOUT my permission and have had to deal with that as well. Companies who steal content and think creative commons is permission to steal AND DON'T Link back to my blog. I notice this at least 4-5 times a week.

So, mainstream media shouldn't think they are the only one's in this. And bloggers don't have the time to pursue all of the perpetrators.

Teach the right way!
But I believe it is VERY important to teach students to link to their sources, even if they are commenting on a post. It is the right thing to do.

We'll see what happens with this, however, this whole incident shows the growing tension between the blogosphere and mainstream media outlets who still haven't quite begun to understand the blogosphere.

Controlling the news is something that a few organizations have done for quite a long period of time and now anyone with the ability to blog, wiki, take photos, or record things can break news from anywhere. Many news organizations are disconcerted as well they should be.

And it is just beginning in education
I also predict that this same upheaval is just beginning in education. Just as the political and news blogosphere is drawing increased dislike from established journalists, so too will many teacher, administrator, and educator bloggers in the coming years.

It is all about power and when power shifts, the establishment fights back.

It has only begun in education.

I would like to say that many in education have been welcoming to a newcomer like me. As a relative newcomer, I would find that many in edtech (particularly the edubloggers) have been incredibly welcoming. (But maybe that is because most edubloggers are relative newcomers too, at least to the edublogosphere.)

However, there are also many in establishment who have NOT been welcoming at all. This is their hill and they've been on top for quite some time and think someone is coming to push them off.

(This is mostly in the form of those in edtech who don't read the edublogosphere, whether intentionally or not, really leave others out of the conversation-- me included! I've seen this happen between edubloggers, though, and it is something we must all be careful about. The "you're not worthy of eye contact" type of thing.)

I get a lot of "and who are you" types of comments when I travel. My response, "I'm just a teacher."

(Which makes most mad, however, it is a litmus test for me with those I meet. If a person immediately says -- "but teachers are very important" -- I know a lot about that person. I believe that teaching is an amazingly noble and tough calling that is misunderstood greatly. If someone says, "oh" and moves on, then that is all I need to know. I am just a teacher and teachers have made me who I am.)

Well, I am planning to stay in the classroom. I hardly think my 5-6 conferences a year are going to hurt anyone.

However, when many more teachers like me begin to do 5-6 conferences a year, as they will, the backlash will happen.

SomeONE is not coming to push off the establishment off the presenters circuits -- but ManyTEACHERS are!

I predict that classroom teachers will increase in prominence and voice in education, despite the efforts of many to tell teachers that they shouldn't be blogging and shouldn't be speaking. I also think that many in the trenches like administrators, curriculum directors and IT directors will also. I think that being an ACTIVE person in the trenches is the new currency at conferences and carries a lot of merit. (I also happen to think that presenters with a lot of teaching experience in their background are also in high demand.)

I hope that we can handle the changes that are coming well and model for the other sectors of society how it is to be done.

What are we here for?

The way I feel about it is that we should all be here for the students. It is about making sure our classrooms are doing a great job of not only educating students but helping them find their individual talents. It is about helping our country thrive in the years to come.

If anyone is in the classroom for a power trip, they are certainly there for the wrong reason. Now, the speakers/ pd circuit -- that is a whole different animal.

What will happen we we truly start seeing more teachers at conferences, that is anyone's guess.

What will happen as more teachers write their own textbooks and self-publish on lulu?

What will happen as open source curriculum begins taking hold?

What will happen when students start creating their own voice outside of adult control?

What will happen when a group of anonymous editors writes a source of educational material that has more readership than any printed book in existence? (Um, that has already happened in Wikipedia.)

We are talking major shifts in organizational structure. We will have organizations in education that emerge than haven't been heard of yet. And we will have organizations that have been a mainstay for many years disappear.

I'm not one who wishes for this to happen, but as a product of a business school, it is happening.

I believe that business has great value to offer education and vice versa. I also think that not one side has all of the answers in what needs to happen for education to evolve from a failing mush of student-mass production with an excessively high failure rate to a personalized learning environment that allows students to become well educated AND find their strengths. We need to work together.

The trenches have never been more attractive or more terrible!

But the shift in power, the shift in money... any time this happens it isn't pretty. It just isn't.

Don't get out of the edublogosphere... join it. Just know that many have hidden agendas and it takes a while to know what they are.

And don't think that anyone has ALL the answers (especially me!)

I happen to think that the infusion of many excellent practicing teachers into professional development and the collapse of the float for discussion of best practices is a good thing for education.

I think that teachers, students, and others working around the world together make education stronger.

My own personal mini-sabbatical for a few weeks helps me come back to things and see some things about behind the scenes turmoil and power struggles that I'm seeing in my own email inbox.

Power shifts cause powerful disagreements and there is more there than we know.

Be ready.

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A little Taxonomy with your Folksonomy?

Who am I?

Well, when I use wordle to take a look at the tags I use in delicious, I see a lot about who I am.

(to see the larger image of this picture, look at this Java image in the Wordle Gallery.)

Wordle takes a word cloud of any text that you either paste in or your delicious tags. The larger the word, the more you use it.

So, obviously, education is something that is important to me. Other things: teaching, web 2.0, blogging, tools, free, innovation, flat classroom, horizon project, wow2.... all of these give a snapshot of the things that are most important to me.

Interestingly, although these tags come from delicious, it wasn't until I began using diigo that true consistency emerged as I would like to see it. The ability to have standard tags (so I don't accidentally misspell, etc.) has helped me.

I have been accused before of wanting to "standardize the Internet."

Nothing could be further from the truth!

I don't want to standardize -- folksonomy is great. However, the problem is consistency when it is wanted.

When do I use standard or consistent tags?

1. When I want to Do something
   
   The tag "education" sends a link to an autopost in diigo to my blog. This is where my morning post with links comes from every morning. It is automated!
   
   
2. When I want to share something
   
   The education group on diigo has a standard tag dictionary -- that way if you wanted to just follow the links under a certain tag like education_new app - you could follow the RSS feed for a subset of the data. These little subsets are a gold mine. For example, I have tags for researcher_thoughtleader that are intended for those staying abreast of educational thought.
   
   We are all beginning to experience a little RSS overload and are going to need to get smarter and more efficient about it. For this reason, I organized some of my own tagging. Mainly because if you look at the bottom of my tag list, you'll see a lot of redundancy mostly because of misspellings or because I forgot my own tag that I wanted to use.
   
   
3. When I want to automate something
   
   I do this in my own bookmarks - which I am using to build current wiki pages for science, math, english teachers, etc. that I don't have to update because I used a consistent tag of my own. We used this on the horizon project to share research with the students that was embedded on the wiki via the rss feed from delicious for that bookmark.
   
   
4. When I want to find something from a group of people
   
   (like my students.) I am moving to the point where every assignment has a "tag" -- so when I need to find the artifact, I can easily search for the tag and find it whether it is a picture, video, blog post, or anything. So, for example, all of my students had to upload a photo to the Horizon Ning for the student summit, the tag was whs_studentsummit, so I could just go to the page that aggregated all of the tagged files together and get them in one place. Sometimes the biggest challenge with grading in this environment is finding what you are to grade. Having an assignment TAG saves you a lot of time.
   

So, no, I do not advocate abolishing folksonomy -- it is very useful, particularly for those who are looking at trends that are emerging. For those who watch trends, folksonomy is great.

But for teachers or those sharing links with others for PD, using a standard or consistent tag with a purpose is a real time saver and necessity. Using a standard or consistent tag for oneself and with others with a common purpose, like the horizon project or Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success, it can be a real helper.

Will taxonomy mess up folksonomy?

Of course, the argument is that these consistent tags or "standard tags" will mess up the folksonomy of the Internet and in some respects, I could see that to be true.

However, from a practical standpoint, I really need a way to aggregate things in one place in order to give my students options AND allow them to join in projects with 250 other students or so without getting lost by their teacher. (I have them tag everything they do with WHS as one tag so I can find their work easily.)

And I don't know how much value it is when one time I tag something free and another time free_tools -- those things really belong together.

The problem is always when one IMPOSES something on another and that would never be the case.

For me it is a matter of utility and usefulness. I have a job to do and need to be more efficient. Using a standard tag (or consistent tag) in this case really helps me save time and spend my time with students instead of looking for a needle in a Ningstack or Wikistack!

tag: folksonomy, taxonomy, teaching, education, learning

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Sites that Caught My Eye Today 06/13/2008

• The Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs That All Managers Should Bookmark - HR World

  This lost of the top 100 Management and Leadership blogs may have some great blogs for administrators and headmasters to read.

  tags: education, administrator, bestpractices, edu_news, professionaldevelopment

• Pluto gets a new name: plutoid | Oddly Enough | Reuters

  OK, Pluto is now a "plutoid" as are many other asteroids that are the size of pluto -- pay attention science teachers -- plutoid should now be in your book. (It is in Wikipedia -- but again, your book is outdated.)

  tags: education, science, edu_news

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Lively Loud Reading Fun with the Crazy Professor's Reading Game (4th grade)

I really enjoyed this video. I know that he's marketing his services, but I love the lively, excited, LOUD atmosphere in the classroom. (It kind of reminds me of my own.)

I think that often administrators love to see quiet, orderly, reading students in a classroom and that a teacher might even get in trouble for this classroom!

I really enjoyed this. Has anyone ever used a reading game like this.

I do think that we have to get out of our mode of thinking that a teacher is at the front and the students are quietly listening. Sometimes an active, chaotic, bodily kinestic engaged, loud environment IS the most conducive to learning.

Now, I know that this is a video that they have made, but I still believe that the good classrooms is really loud a lot of times. Cool video!

And watch it until the end... the summarizations are VERY powerful! (Funny at the end how to teach the class to be quiet with the volumeometer.)

tag: reading, education, learning, elementary education, literacy

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Using Comic Books to Teach

I really enjoyed looking back at this interview with Chris Wilson over at Open Education about the use of comic books to teach.

To me, the important point to remember that just about anything can be used to teach, however, when you use something that kids like, you have an edge and it is magnetic. (Cool tools, technology, excited teachers)

We should not be opposed to the use of just about any tool... we should be opposed to bad teaching. Teachers who don't want to be there, don't have their heart in it, and don't take the time to plan and make their classrooms a center for learning excellence.

The most important quotation to pass along (please read the whole article) is:

"This is a much larger subject than one may realize. For my part, when I use the term “comic,” I am referring to the generalized genre of comic literature. That is literature that uses both text and art in a sequential manner. For more on this, I suggest you read

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

by Scott McCloud. It is required reading for anyone who cares at all about comics, especially teachers who want to use comics. It will help people understand the history of comics and why it is indeed an art. To understand what happens between the panels of a comic page is to understand why comics is indeed literature."

I love using comics and adore toondoo.

tag: toondoo, education, teaching, comic, learning, innovation, Scott McCloud, Chris Wilson, Open Education

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