Links for the Day 03/30/2008

Diigo and Ripples | Black Diamond

tags: connectingpeople, education, hz08, hzmeta, virtualcollab

This teacher is contributing and participating in projects and his enthusiasm is spilling over into class discussions (imagine that) -- Steve has helped us proofread our horizon templates and create a page for internet safety for the students that they will be adding to.

It is this type of professional educator that makes projects like Horizon so worthwhile and meaningful -- we have a lot of virtual volunteers out there!

TeacherTube - When I Grow Up... - revised -

tags: bestpractices, connectingpeople, edu_trends, education, hz08, hzmeta, virtualcollab

This is a video talking about what the future will be like. This is a good video for ideas about how to construct the video as well as the trends that are shaping our world today. It is important for the students of horizon to view and understand although many of us who've been watching this type of video for a while may think the technique is "old hat" it still has a powerful message.

The Teachers’ Podcast — The New Generation of Ed Tech PD  Annotated

tags: connectingpeople, education, hz08, hzmeta

More educators are beginning to podcast -- these two educators are sharing a wide variety of resources via podcast.

ABC News: Could MySpace Be Your Kid's Social Key?  Annotated

tags: coolcatteacher, digitalcitizenship, edu_trends, education

This is an interesting article that presents some interesting commentary on students today. It is very brief but makes some excellent points.

Site Community for coolcatteacher.blogspot.com,Cool Cat Teacher Blog

tags: coolcatteacher, edu_newapp, edu_news, edublogger, education

This is the "site community" for my blog -- I'm learning a lot about what people have marked and the annotations feature is really cool. If you blog or have a website, you should look at the automatically created site community -- also check it out for those sites you really enjoy reading -- you may turn up some of their great old posts that you've not read!

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Annotated Links 03/30/2008

ABC News: Could MySpace Be Your Kid's Social Key? Annotated

tags: coolcatteacher, digitalcitizenship, edu_trends, education

This is an interesting article that presents some interesting commentary on students today. It is very brief but makes some excellent points.

Quotes from the Article:

Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University-Dominguez Hills, has long studied "the Net generation," the first to have grown up with the Internet, not to mention cellphones. In Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan), he helps parents understand social networks. His advice: Talk to your kids, learn the technology and don't panic. USA TODAY's Janet Kornblum spoke with the author.

They're very self-motivated.

This world encourages us to multitask. I think it encourages kids to be much less patient. More terse.

This generation spends time at home — connected. Kids have to be social. It's all part of the preteen and teen years and young adult years

Because they have a combination of people they know face-to-face in the real world and people they don't, (those of the Net generation) get a lot of chances to bounce ideas and to test out things on a social network that they probably wouldn't do face-to-face.

Site Community for coolcatteacher.blogspot.com,Cool Cat Teacher Blog

tags: coolcatteacher, edu_newapp, edu_news, edublogger, education

This is the "site community" for my blog -- I'm learning a lot about what people have marked and the annotations feature is really cool. If you blog or have a website, you should look at the automatically created site community -- also check it out for those sites you really enjoy reading -- you may turn up some of their great old posts that you've not read!

This morning I came here before I went to twitter. This seems to be the place to be right now. Sti | Diigo Message System Annotated

tags: @education_trends, collectiveintelligence, collectiveknowledge, connectingpeople, coolcatteacher, diigo, education, hz08, hzmeta, twitter, virtualcollab

This is a very honest, open discussion between educators about why diigo or delicious -- I think the fact we can have this conversation within diigo at all says a lot for the usefulness of the tool. Diigo is an emerging tool for social bookmarking and collective intelligence. These are extracted comments and my thoughts on what was said from the annotation feature in Diigo.

Following are some "high points" from a variety of educators.

Lisa Parisi

This morning I came here before I went to twitter. This seems to be the place to be right now. Still not sure of all the groupings, taggings, etc. Reading what everyone writes and hoping to get it soon

Will play on Sunday with Karen McMillan and Alice Barr. Anyone else want to join? Anyone want to teach?

Ryan Bretag

I'll join in the fun if you'll have me. Let me know time when you know.

I was going to present 20 minutes on Del.icio.us, but I may show Diigo instead - or both - or 20 minutes is not enough....

This new version "appears" to have fixed that issue, plus I've been impressed with the new features.

Caroline Obannon

I'm second guessing teaching only del.icio.us myself, too.

Liz Davis

I'm wondering if Diigo is too much for the newbie. Delicious is so simple and obviously useful. I'm afraid Diigo would scare some people away. I'm still inclined to start with delicious and save Diigo for my more advanced users (of which I have very few).

"Maybe overwhelming would describe my feelings.

However, I can defely think of quite a few people who would balk at it, too and favor the simplicity of Del.icio.us.

but most likely wouldn't participate in the social/sharing aspects they offer.

The nice thing about the Diigo toolbar is that you can select which buttons to see, so for those who might find the extra choices of tools overwhelming, it can at least be customized.

I'm feeling a Diigo obsession building. As soon as Explorer comes up I check to see if there are any messages in Diigo. How nice of them to put that number right on my toolbar!

I created my very first List last night,

Kristin Hokanson

Liz I think it may be too much ially for the newbie and I will continue to send to delicious.

There is one feature that I REALLY like and that is that you can EMAIL something you are tagging so for folks who LIKE to get those sites emailed, you can still meet their needs without an extra step yourself

I second that. I like Diigo, but del.icio.us simplicity is so inviting.

The value of Diigo is that it brings a number of tools together allowing for multiple entry points. The old training model is show them a tool from start to finish that goes over every single detail. With Diigo, why show everything to those new to all this? It is rather easy to click into your bookmarks. From there, teachers have a space they can grow. It also provides a wonderful opportunity to differentiate with your teachers -- the whole multiple points of entry.

still I will have fun, exploring it and making effective use of it.

it is the ease of integration with blogging and twitter -- I annotated a page yesterday and pulled it directly into my blog. I can twitter bookmark that is important quickly -- AND I can use the tagging standards for the horizon project without having to remember the darn tags -- tag dictionaries are the most useful things to have been invented in a LONG time -- we need to set them up within one of our educational groups!

I don' t think I would not teach delicious. But perhaps starting with delicious and saving Diigo for later is a good idea.

I do find this site to be much more powerful and useful than delicious. I never really used delicious to its full potential. The fact that I am here just chatting with folks makes me want to stay and contribute to the collective knowledge.

We are conversing about the usefulness of diigo and I thought you might like to be included.

Maggie Tsai has invited Wade Ren to this conversation

Are you guys planning a Sunday get-together? If so, please advise the time - I'd love to join you and help answering any question.

Howdy! Wow, what can I say? Diigo is a lot more than delicious. If CoolCat Vicki hadn't written about Diigo again, I probably would have stuck with Delicious...and,if I hadn't been using Twitter, blogs, played around with Facebook, the social networking side of Diigo would have been just so much MORE to learn.

my concern would be to NOT limit learners in workshop sessions to the path I followed in learning these tools. Simply, folks, here is a tool that will grow as you grow and learn more about living and contributing in an interconnected world. The ability to have conversations like this, to annotate web pages, to share relevant quotes and tweet as needed...makes me wonder at the need for blogs at all.

A few folks are considering exploring Diigo on Sunday morning and having a conversation about it now...join in and learn with us!"

tag: Diigo, social networking, educational networking, social bookmarking, education

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Chris Pirillo talks about Drupal: How did he do this?

I am very impressed with how Chris Pirillo does this video. (I love the video and the chat at the bottom.)

I know of several people who really like the Drupal and find it interesting. Of course, for me, for now, Ning is perfect and I don't have to do the upgrades behind the scenes, but I can see a great case for Drupal where you have embedded tech support.

This video is literally brilliant! (I've always enjoyed Chris, ever since I saw him laugh uncontrollably on live TechTV. It is so funny.)

I guess the tough thing is that we all want the newest features. And I want to remind schools that connecting within your school is vital (See my Five Phases of Flattening Your Classroom) BUT you MUST also connect online with other classrooms.

I also like the term he said, "I don't want a social network but a socially relevant network..."

tag: Chris Pirillo, drupal, open source

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Links for the Day 03/29/2008

I'm testing the feature that lets me post annotations and links from diigo to here. I know that many of you are getting sick of hearing of this little tool and if you're a beginner, perhaps you should wait, however, for me, I'm finding it useful.

Forgive me as I learn to work through the kinks here. It may be bumpy at first, but this gives me a more robust way to share links -- many of you have e-mailed me that you like my link goodness best! This way it can become part of my blog... I'm still not sure I want it here, and yet there are STILL people who go to the site directly and don't understand RSS.

FeedFlare™ Catalog

tags: blogging, twitter

These are the cool feedflares that you can add in addition to those already used in Feedflare -- for bloggers using Feedburner to RSS things. There is a new one called twit this.

Streamline It Part I: Diigo or Bust : Metanoia

tags: diigo, edu_newapp, techintegrator

Ryan Bretag says, "Okay, here it is. I’m dumping Zotero, Delicious, and Google Notebook for Diigo. Blasphemy to some, I know, but I can basically get all I need in one: "

This chart by Ryan Bretag summarizes what the sites can do. He left off a few but this is great.

A Collection on "Internet Safety Information" (cyberbullying,cybersafety,internetsafety) | Diigo

tags: administrator, all_teachers, cyberbullying, digital_citizenship, digitalcitizenship, internetsafety, techintegrator

A great list that I came across from the educators group on Diigo-- this is a collection of internet safety information -- great resources. This is an excellent tool.

Top News - Analysis: How multimedia can improve learning

tags: all_teachers, bestpractices, curriculum

An analysis of existing research supports a notion that already has begun to transform instruction in schools from coast to coast: that multimodal learning--using many modes and strategies that cater to individual learners' needs and capacities--is more effective than traditional, unimodal learning, which uses a single mode or strategy.

My Membership - Group Widget | Diigo Groups

tags: diigo, edu_newapp

Group widget for the Educators Diigo Group

Group Tag Dictionary

tags: all_teachers, diigo, edu_newapp

This is the current tag dictionary -- we really only get 17 that show up and I had to truncate the names -- but if you join the group and send pages to the group when you bookmark these tags will come up.

educators | Diigo Group

tags: all_teachers

This will be my first "official" bookmark to the educators group on diigo. I'm sending it to the group to make use of the standard tagging dictionary I've set up to use with this group -- this will help us share at a further level.

Keeping students cybersafe! « On an e-journey with generation Y

tags: connectingpeople, digital_citizenship, education, hz08, hzmeta, internetsafety

Some good best practices from a teacher on keeping students cybersafe. I like this practical list and think it should be shared. It is important that we teach students about how to be safe online and good digital citizens.

**TIP: Click the annotated link below**

This morning I came here before I went to twitter. This seems to be the place to be right now. Sti | Diigo Message System Annotated

tags: @education_trends, collectiveintelligence, collectiveknowledge, connectingpeople, coolcatteacher, diigo, education, hz08, hzmeta, twitter, virtualcollab

This is a very honest, open discussion between educators about why diigo or delicious -- I think the fact we can have this conversation within diigo at all says a lot for the usefulness of the tool. Diigo is an emerging tool for social bookmarking and collective intelligence.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

tags: collectiveknowledge, connectingpeople, education, flatclassroom, hz08, hzmeta, virtualcollab

I wrote this post to outline the progression I take my classes through to get them to the state where they may collaborate directly with students in another country. I put a lot of time and thought into the progression of collaborative skills.

Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Wiki collaboration leads to happiness

tags: collectiveintelligence, collectiveknowledge, connectingpeople, govt_business, hz08, hzmeta, usercontent, virtualcollab, wiki, wikinomics

This incredible chart says it all about the importance of wiki collaboration. This should also be a message to bloated bureaucracies looking to squeeze that last bit of efficiency out of already overworked staff. This is an important chart for horizon project students to include, I believe.

Blackboard claims initially denied

tags: education

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard's claims.

The Map Is Not The Territory: the changing face of the edublogosphere at dougbelshaw.com

tags: blogging, edublogger, education, researcher_thoughtleader

Doug Belshaw's ruminations on the edublogosphere and how it is changing. I'm going to be thinking on this one.

tag: education

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Content Filtration: A little dirt for your health?

This was literally my first post on Tech Learning back in November of 2006 and I forgot to cross post it over here. I find myself referring back to it a lot as content filtration policies come under review and I wanted to share it here. I believe it is still relevant today.

Content Filtration: A little dirt for your health?

Modern science has invented numerous methods of removing allergens from our lives. We have air purifiers, hand sanitizers, and anti-dust mite methodologies. What should have happened is a decrease in allergies, but what has happened is a dramatic increase .

When asked about how to help kids with allergies, researchers have made the bold statement , "Let them eat dirt! " As I read these articles, I was struck with the parallel to the content filtration debate that rages in education today.

Who can resist "sex"?

I am a believer in having some sort of filtration in place, particularly to prevent the inevitable teen curiosity about sex from finding inappropriate websites. I mean, what prepubescent boy can resist typing "Sex" into Google?

In the above analogy, notice that allergists say "play in dirt" but do not say "play in sewage." Playing in sewage would kill children. Likewise, I consider pornography, hate speech, weapon construction, profanity, and the "dark" areas of the Internet to truly be the sewage of the Internet. This type of thing should definitely be filtered and we should protect our children from it.

The Dark Side of the White List

However, I believe that the practice of "white listing" (only allowing websites to come into your school which you specifically permit) is going to create more problems in the long run than it will help. Just as the body needs exposure to dirt to create immunity, students need exposure to the real world to create discernment.

I believe that students will suffer from their own ignorance as they emerge into the world uncognizant of the "virtual tattoo" they are creating in their on line spaces and naively trusting every site they view. Ignorant students post inappropriate pictures and subject matter, and just do not understand how to thrive in our socially connected world. (Just take a look at the Gossip website that takes the Myspace pages of public officials' children or the son who is taking teenage rebellion to new heights as he throws a wrench in the AT&T / BellSouth merger.)

What do teachers say about filtration?

I was stirred by Bud Hunt's keynote for his strand in the K12 online conference two weeks a go. He was talking about a captivating discussion that he and his students were having about the problem of school violence. As they typed in "school violence" it triggered the filter.

Bud says,

"It is frustrating to teach information management when you can't find answers. Driving into a filter is like driving into a brick wall, it stifles interest in continuing the journey."

I teach using the Socratic method (by asking questions) and Google is a key part of this method. I am fortunate because I do control the filter at the school and am able to unblock things if it is necessary to class instruction. When students emerge from my class, they must be self teachers. They must be able to use RSS to aggregate information and discern both sides of the issue and objectively discuss issues.

If you are in charge of filtration, listen up!

Solutions can emerge on this issue, but professionalism and trust must be present if improvement is to occur. To me, this discussion boils down to several things:

• If you want students to treat teachers with respect, treat teachers with respect.
• If you want students to treat teachers as the authority, give them some authority.
• If you want teachers to act professional, treat them like professionals.
  
• If you want to hold others accountable, accept accountability for your part of the equation.
• If you want your teachers to be innovators, allow them to be connected to hotbeds of innovation. (Excited teachers are better teachers than bored ones.)
• The morale of your classrooms is related directly to the morale of your teachers. (This issue is a morale killer!)
  
• Good learning is fun and exciting! It is OK to laugh and learn!
  
• Sometimes it is more important to do the right thing than to be right.
  
• Spend your time removing roadblocks, not being one.

I am fortunate because I have absolutely incredible administrators. Not everyone is so lucky.

What Schools with Overly Strict policies Might have Missed This Week

For those who believe in strict filtration, let me tell you about how you might be missing out:

• Math videos organized by NCTM math strands (on Google Video and YouTube) (from last week's k12online wiki project .)
• Discussing Time Magazine's Invention of the Year - Youtube - (I don't advocate just surfing youtube, but teachers should be allowed to display these great videos.)
• Google Earth - They have added featured places this week. You can literally fly from your home to the great wall of China. You can go in the crater at Mt. St. Helens. You can fly through cities and look at the deserts of the world. Social studies, history, current events, and social awareness teachers have so many exciting resources here.
  
• Newsmap - The incredible visual display of current news based on Google news aggregation (it has different country and world views) - This is incredible for cultural literacy and should be used in all social studies classes. I use it to create my questions of the week on classblogmeister.
  
• Skype - This is fun to use software that turns your computer into a telephone/chat machine and has been a great addition to my classroom. My students can chat me questions (even if I'm out at a conference), I can hand out files to the class, and they can collaborate on team projects across the room. It makes for a quiet but exciting classroom. The business world is integrating chat into every workstation so that employees can work better together. Students need to know how to use it effectively as well. We don't use it all the time but every day in my Computer Fundamentals Class.
  
• Netvibes - I use this incredible RSS aggregator with my students. They can sign in and have it read my blog, their classblogmeister assignments, changes to their wiki projects, and keep up the latest technology. They will not always have me to help them "keep up" with innovation. They have to become aggregators and assimilators themselves! (This is part of my strategy to teach them to be lifelong learners.)
• Gliffy - My students used this amazing online tool to complete a Spanish project. In this project, they were to design their dream home and label it with the correct spanish words.
  
• My students use and love tools such as Airset to manage and share their calendars (including homework and test calendars). It sends them text messages on their cell phones to remind them of upcoming tests and projects and their calendar. It will also synchronize with PDA's if they have one. (I use it and it synchs with outlook and my PDA!)
  
• My students have begun using MyNoteIT to create and share their class notes.
• My students use Librivox to download public domain works (like William Shakespeare) onto their iPods. (This is an essential skill for auditory learners!)
  
• As part of information literacy we often use Wikipedia and contrast it to other sources of information to determine fact and error.
  
• My students use Google Video, youTube , and very soon will be using SlideShare to integrate meaningful content into their wiki projects on Wikispaces.
  
• My blog -- Teachers e-mail me from around the US that they have to go home to read my blog. They have to print it and take it back to work to follow the tips, ideas, and instructions. Somehow, "blogs are evil" and are blocked carte blanche from their system.

In Conclusion

When I blogged about this topic , I got many responses. I'd like to share a few with you (added emphasis mine):

"This is hot hot hot issue at our school. Emails have flown back and forth for the last two weeks between frustrated teachers and administrators about too much blockage! I lost half of my class time the other day because my students were blocked from my moodle and personallearningspace blog - which I had asked to be unblocked (and permission was given) last week. I had to give up on my plans to communicate with some students in Israel and move to plan B."

"My son is in debate and has repeatedly had problems accessing sites at school that contained evidence needed for a debate case. When the teacher has requested that particular sites be unblocked she has met with a brick wall...if a student is trying to access a site that is educationally sound and the only answer we have when it is blocked is "sorry but it is blocked by the software" then I think we are telling our students that we are not capable of making judgment decisions ourselves. I think that filtering is great for protecting our students but it needs to have a human factor.

"Many of us are out there working within the system, one in which technicians determine access for the students. When requests for more access are met with LESS access, you learn to keep your mouth shut. It is about power, and teachers have none in this one."

Being effective educators requires facing tough issues

This is my first post on TechLearning, and I know this is a controversial issue. I understand that there are bandwidth issues as well as control issues here at stake as well as some real (or imagined) sue-happy parents who would love to have "little Johnny" come home complaining. However, we have lessons to teach, high stakes testing, and we must be relevant to the children we are teaching.

The easy answer is to block everything; good education is never easy.

In my opinion, in schools where people care, filtration must begin having a human component. The easy thing to do is to just turn it all off.

In businesses that overconcerned about cutting costs, the saying is -- "OK, cut it all off -- close down and that will cut costs." I think that is what some educators have done; they have cut it all off: and cut their classrooms off from meaningful, relevant education.

So what should we do?

Returning to the adage about allergies, filter out the sewage with software. But allow teachers the authority to have some sites unblocked and hold them accountable for the appropriate use and the results of that use. If you trust them with the kids, you should trust them with the Internet.

Let the teachers teach students how to discern accurate, appropriate sources of information and do not over sanitize the Internet. Its not possible and its not healthy. We are an information society. That is what we are producing. The best filter ever invented is the human brain. The best supervision is the teacher, not a piece of software. If teachers aren't responsible, they shouldn't be teaching.

How will history label our generation of educators?

Robert F. Kennedy said:

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."

How will this generation of educators be labeled? What do you think about this issue? Does your school have a solution that works for you?

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The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

a simulpost with TechLearning

The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom
Right now, Julie and I are both doing several things to help duplicate ourselves and help others understand what it takes to conduct a Flat Classroom project or Horizon Project.

I've outlined what I believe are the five phases I take my classes through to prepare them for independent, self-directed levels of collaboration. I suspect these ruminations will evolve.

Phase One: The INTRA-connected Classroom
First, one must have a classroom that is connected electronically to itself.

This includes:

• A walled blog (I use Ning.)
  
• Intra-class Instant messaging and Skyping I teach this using a backchannel in some of our class discussions. By observing a live backchannel chat, I teach appropriate behavior and what it means to be a professional student. I also have them video and audio skype each other.
  
• Intra-class collaboration using a public wiki
  
• First, someone they sit next to.
• Next, someone who sits on the other side of the room. (I have to cut off the verbal tether to transition students to online interaction!)
  

I wouldn't DREAM of connecting my class to another until I teach appropriate electronic behavior. There is a BIG difference between understanding how to USE electronic media and understanding appropriate BEHAVIOR. The using is easy, the behavior takes time and vigilance.

PHASE 2: The INTERConnected Classroom
I connect ALL of my classes to one another on the Ning. Students must learn the dynamics of interacting with people of other ages and in other classes. This is a wholly different dynamic than intra-classroom because students are interacting with students they may not see on a daily basis.

This includes:

• A walled blog (I again use my social network, Ning that is private.)
• Inter-Class projects and collaboration on the wiki (i.e. Your 2nd period class is doing a project with your 4th period class)
  
• Asychronous communications -- sharing videos, photos, blogging, and more where students must respond and communicate on a topic. (You have to cut off the tether of both time and space and teach students to collaborate with those who will work at a different time and in a different space than they are occupying at the moment.)
  

This further helps students understand that they are working with REAL people with an online presence and takes them in a gradual transition to a fully online project. It also helps you pick up on potentially troublesome habits of students while ALL students are still under your direction and policies.

Phase 2A - IntraDistrict or IntraAssociation students
For those in a district or association -- I would add another possible step in here of connecting by grade level and subject. Honestly, I can see no excuse for not connecting all fifth graders in a district or all World History Students.

DON'T STOP! I don't think that one can get enough diversity within a private school or public school association or within one district to truly accomplish what needs to be done in terms of cultural understanding with today's teens. Move on to the next phase.

Phase 3: Flat Classroom - Many to One Connections AND one to Many connections with Teacher Direction

In this phase, students as a class are connected to one person or group of people typically via Skype. This is essential because they can see me model appropriate behavior and techniques.

This includes:

• Presenting to another location as a class via Skype.
• Interaction with an expert (such as our keynote speakers for our projects) via wiki or videosharing.
• Connecting to others through my quoting their work (with permission) and sharing with others. (a sense of global audience and they are more likely to read and see me model appropriate behavior.)
  
• Public (anonymous) blogs of my students who have permission from parents. (others blog on a large blog with 1,000 other students at Youth Voices.)
  

This gives them awareness of a global audience and transitions them to full blown connections as individuals. They learn accountability and I am able to isolate their individual practice and habits to help them.

Phase 4: Flat Classroom: Many to Many with Teacher management
This is Flat Classroom with many students collaborating with one another directly to create wikis and digital artifacts (they outsource part of their video to one another.) On this project, the teachers are still very involved in group dynamics and media issues with the teams.

This includes:

• Collaborative Writing and Editing between students
• Involvement of experts and other educators to provide a rich, diverse global audience and feedback.
• RSS readers and customized learning spaces (for self-directed learning)
• Instructions delivered via wiki to all students (they use their RSS reader to get their assignments.)
• Interaction with a keynote or thought leader to inspire them and help them understand global audience from the beginning.
• Digital Storytelling with outsourcing of part of their video to a partner in another location (This requires an EXTREME amount of communication between the partners and is quite challenging.)

This is a HUGE step between Phase 3 and 4 and the first time I did it as a teacher it was a bit overwhelming. I liken it to going down a really long water slide for the first time... knowing it is supposed to be fun but also knowing that once I start, I'm not stopping until the end comes!

Phase 5: Flat Classroom: Many to Many Connections with STUDENT Management

This is the Horizon Project. This is everything that we do in Flat Classroom with an added component: student self-management and organization.

This includes:

• Everything in Flat Classroom, PLUS
  

• Students manage the teams. We have project managers, assistant managers, editors elected for each wiki AND subgroups have the option of organizing themselves as well.
  
• Increasing use of social networks and IM's of the students to connect.
  

It HELPS if students have done flat classroom first, however, usually, that is not the case.

However, I would say it is essential for teachers to move through this process by phase. I don't think that we could have had project managers on our first Flat Classroom for the simple reason that Julie and I were still learning what we were doing.

Now, the other Horizon teachers can handle student organization because they trust Julie and I to facilitate it and help it work.

This is my favorite project because the student management piece is truly monumental and so EXCITING!

Sometimes I wish that Horizon was not in the shadow of its father, the Flat Classroom project because in a lot of ways Horizon is a younger, stronger, improved version of Flat Classroom. However, both projects are very important and exciting!

What is your phase?
I'd be interested to hear from you, the reader, to see what phase you are at in your classroom.

Just as a baby doesn't jump out from its mother's womb to compete in a 100 yard dash, likewise, it takes time to progress to flat classroom.

tag: flat classroom, flatclassroom, hz08, horizon project, Julie Lindsay

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Research Proving that Wikis are More Efficient than Email

via Stephen Downes and Miguel Guhlin


Those of us using wikis find the latest slide to be added to Don Tapscott's Anthony Williams' arsenal of no surprise. Anthony says:

"The model is courtesy of Chris Rasmussen at US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I presented this slide during a talk I gave at Nokia today and someone pointed out that the happy faces on the left probably ought to be frowning — he had a good point."

This incredible chart says it all about the importance of wiki collaboration. This should also be a message to bloated bureaucracies looking to squeeze that last bit of efficiency out of already overworked staff.

However, learning to wiki isn't just about vocational "goodness," but rather about an essential skill moving forward. Just as we teach word processing, wikis and blogs have to be standard inclusion.

I'd just hate to see wikis and blogs be taught as poorly as some teachers teach word processing. Maybe someone will let me write the book!? (In my spare time!)

tag: Don Tapscott, Stephen Downes, Miguel Guhlin, wiki, email, efficiency

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