My passion is quilted in these letters: ad4dcss

Since I have not yet responded to the Passion Quilt Meme, I've been prompted yet again. This seems a time to unleash my biggest passion for teaching today's students.

Forgive me, I may get emotional.

My heart breaks for these parents who are struggling with the kidnapping and beating of their child for the sake of Youtube popularity.



This news show outlines what happens and talked to a psychologist.



My Prediction
We have a small window of opportunity to suggest and create structures of what WE, the educators who use these technologies, suggest we should do about the whole digital citizenship, safety, and success issue.

Then, we will be TOLD what to do because of our lack of action. And we know how that goes.

This came up Sunday Morning, when many of us came together in a little impromptu meeting with Sue Waters and Al Upton in elluminate (I'll post the link to the recording when it is released.) These are the brainstorming whiteboard pages (unedited). NOte that there are a lot of things on there WE WOULDN't do, but sharing the brainstorming screen will help summarize the things we talked about.

A lot of us are passionate about it. And we're sick of "talk" about cooperation on the matter.

So, here is what we have:

• A Google Group to serve as an easy-to join e-mail based network for discussing what we're doing. I suggest subscribing to a DAILY DIGEST to prevent getting too much e-mail. For now, the group is named Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success.
  
• A "tag" to serve as our focal point to "collect the conversation - ad4dcss
• Everything updated is being put on the Conversation Aggregator page I created on Netvibes. (Note: This comes from some comments from Jon Becker and Kate Olson -- wishing that we could "control" and aggregate a conversation. This page is being set up to track all of the things tagged ad4dcss. We cannot control the conversation but we can certainly work to include newcomers and ANYONE interested in the topic... even the Non-Geeks. And this was important enough to set up the tags and tracking.)
  

Why did we pick that?
Well, it sort of came up as an accident and aggregation of everyone's thoughts, but it stands for Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success.

We're beginning to pull together some activities, much of which will just happen from the fact that everything is aggregated! If you us ad4dcss in your twitter post it goes to the netvibes page and I've found that the most useful thing so far!

Some things already spotting through this new looking glass are:

• Parents as Partners discussion tonight about how to educate parents with students at www.edtechtalk.com - 8 pm EST
• Professional Learning Board is helping us set up a Moodle Training site for Advocates and others interested in this topic -- we need some volunteers to help Kate set it up.
• Group blog - This is for those who want to share discussions around this topic. If you're interested, contact Vicki by leaving a comment here. It is meant to be a resource for Advocates and those interested in this topic.
  
• We will have some upcoming impromptu and planned sessions. If you want to hold a session and you have an elluminate room or online place to "meet" -- let me know and I'll give you some talking points of groups that are forming.

Current action items are:

• Listen to the elluminate recording
• Ask educators interested in forming a grassroots organization to promote online AND OFFLINE action advocating digital citizenship, safety, and success to join this group - http://groups.google.com/group/ad4dcss
• Join the Diigo Group to share links (See http://digiteen.wikispaces.com for the categories UNTIL group is set up.)
• Anything you write about the ideas for organizing -- what needs to be done! Tag it ad4dcss if you twitter it type #ad4dcss
  
• Join an upcoming discussion or plan to host one. Add them to our Google Calendar page (to be posted soon.)
  

Current ideas under ACTIVE discussion

• Global Action Days ("Flash Point" Projects) - eVents, Student projects, bringing out the student voice en masse on these topics.
• Develop of a curriculum wiki by teachers on these topics
• Online professional development
• Talking points documents that may be printed and shared offline to administrators, boards, teachers, etc.

OK, so my question to you is this. Do you want to be an advocate? We are focusing on sharing resources ONLINE so that we may all be more effective OFFLINE. We've got to take this out.

We all have different areas and ways that we may share, so share in the way you feel most comfortable.

Hinges of History
But I'm going to say something here. Some of my favorite books are the Hinges of History books.

We swing upon a hinge of history at this moment. IF you are online now and getting comfortable with this technology, there is a reason. And it is probably so that you may do your part to advocate wise, safe, successful use of the Internet in your area.

We are all too busy and can work together to create materials and other things to do this. If you want to be an advocate, for now, we're open for anyone signing up as long as you want to join in the conversation AND spend a little time ACTING on it. Find a group, organize a group -- ACT.

I'm busy too, everyone. But, I've already bought the domain names and am going to let this be my "virtual volunteerism" project.

Perhaps we are made for a moment such as this. But I'm telling you, I'm tired of this happening and ready for some SUSTAINED efforts on this area.
If we don't do it, people who don't understand the Internet nor our students will tell us what we will be doing.

In five years when you are implementing those edicts, don't come complaining if you didn't at least try.

The debate over the word "digital"
Now, there has been some debate over the word "digital citizenship" and "digital literacy" because after all aren't these subsets of citizenship and literacy. My answer is, OF COURSE THEY ARE.

However, at this point, the mass of educators has not yet understood nor accepted the fact that they are a subset and for that reason, now, we are stuck appending the words "citizenship" and "literacy" with the words digital so that we may be clear in our meaning and laser focused in our efforts.

Maybe someone can debate that elsewhere, but I believe we need to birth some cooperative efforts that will accomplish something.

So, what do you think AND what do you want to do. What are your friends talking about "doing." Let's not just do SOMETHING but do the RIGHT THING, in effective, meaningful, thought out ways.

So, I guess I should tag some people for the passion quilt meme that I hijacked for something I'm really passionate about: Kate Olson, Jon Becker, Sue Waters, Alfred Thompson, and Vicky Hennigan (another newcomer) AND anyone else who wants to!!!

Who's joining in? Who's already doing things? Let's get it started!

tag: Kate Olson, Jon Becker, Sue Waters, Alfred Thompson, Vicky Hennigan, ad4dcss, digital citizenship, safety, 21st century learning

---

The Rules

1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.


2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
   
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.


4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce etc.

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Salesforce.com and Google Introduce Salesforce for Google Apps – First Cloud Computing Suite for Business Productivity

Announcement
April 14, 2008

Salesforce.com and Google expand global strategic alliance. Force.com Platform-as-a-Service and Google’s open platform interfaces deliver new opportunities for partners and developers

SAN FRANCISCO (April 14, 2008) – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] today expanded their global strategic alliance to make it easy for companies of all sizes to run their business in the cloud with Salesforce for Google Apps. The combination of the Google Apps™ suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain. Salesforce for Google Apps also leverages the Force.com Platform and Google’s open APIs, opening up even more development opportunities for developers and partners.

"Google and salesforce.com have always had similar models and philosophies about delivering innovations made possible by the Internet," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Salesforce.com was a pioneer in Software-as-a-Service and a year ago we joined them in this mission to bring the benefits of cloud computing to businesses of all types. Together, we are making more applications and services available online so customers can focus on building their core business rather than the applications that support it."

"Salesforce.com is thrilled to be offering Google Apps integrated with our Salesforce applications and Force.com Platform-as-a-Service to the millions of businesses looking to manage their entire office in the cloud," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google’s business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing. The end of software is here."

"Since the launch of Google Apps a year ago, we have been following a trail blazed by salesforce.com and delivering cloud computing to business of all sizes," said Dave Girouard, Google vice president and general manager of Enterprise. "In addition to providing services to hundreds of thousands of customers, we have witnessed firsthand the benefits of the cloud: salesforce.com was one of the first Google Apps customers, and Salesforce has been an invaluable tool in growing Google’s business."

Salesforce.com and Google – Cloud Computing for the Enterprise

Both salesforce.com and Google have altered the software landscape by delivering SaaS applications, for CRM and productivity respectively, over the Internet. Today, this shift in the technology industry is being referred to as cloud computing, and salesforce.com and Google are well poised to deliver it to the enterprise. In June 2007, salesforce.com and Google launched Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords™, which has become a valuable tool for thousands of businesses by encapsulating every element of the customer life-cycle – advertising, lead generation, sales, and customer support – in one solution. In today’s announcement, salesforce.com and Google are expanding their strategic alliance and delivering a second joint product to enable companies of all sizes to achieve success in cloud computing – Salesforce for Google Apps.

Salesforce for Google Apps

Salesforce for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications for business productivity (email, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, instant messaging) and CRM (sales, marketing, service and support, partners) that enables an entirely new way for business professionals to communicate, collaborate, and work together in real time over the Web. Salesforce for Google Apps offers a complete way for businesses to harness the power of cloud computing without the cost and complexity of managing hardware or software infrastructure. Salesforce for Google Apps includes:

• Salesforce and Gmail™ – Businesses can now easily send, receive and store email communication, keeping a complete record of customer interactions for better sales execution and improved customer satisfaction.
• Salesforce and Google Docs™ – Create, manage, and share online Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Presentations within your sales organization, marketing group, or support team for instant collaboration.
• Salesforce and Google Talk™ – Instantly communicate with colleagues or customers from Salesforce and optionally attach Google Talk conversations to customer or prospect records stored in Salesforce.
• Salesforce and Google Calendar™ – Expose sales tasks and marketing campaigns from Salesforce on Google Calendar. Built by Appirio, this application is one example of a new category of partner extensions to Salesforce for Google Apps.

"Salesforce.com and Google have changed the game again. This is, hands down, the best example of the consumerization of the enterprise. This is revolutionizing the way people work," said Sheryl Kingstone of the Yankee Group.

"The combined offering from salesforce.com and Google brings together the best in enterprise CRM and productivity applications, all delivered over the Internet. Salesforce for Google Apps enables us to extend our company’s SaaS strategy even further," said Doug Menefee, CIO of The Schumacher Group.

"While salesforce.com has always enabled us to work easily with client desktop productivity tools, we love that we now have the freedom to run our office in the cloud," said Prasan Vyas of UST Global.

Force.com and Google Platform – Delivering Success to Partners and Developers

Salesforce.com and Google’s alliance has created the world’s largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications. The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service encompasses a complete feature set for the creation of business applications and Google’s open APIs enable integration and extension of the applications in Google Apps. The integration of the two creates many new opportunities for developers and partners to build and run business applications that help customers run their entire business smarter in the cloud. Today, applications like sales quote generation and business forecasting are now easy to build and test, and can be deployed by customers with just a few clicks via the AppExchange.

Appirio and Astadia are the first companies to take advantage of these new development opportunities made possible through the Google and salesforce.com partnership. Each company has developed several applications that enhance Salesforce for Google Apps, and all of these applications are available today in a newly created AppExchange category, Google Apps, at www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Pricing and Availability

Salesforce for Google Apps is available today to all salesforce.com customers at no additional charge.

Salesforce.com also will be offering Salesforce for Google Apps Supported, a package that includes integrated telephone end user support, unified billing and provisioning, enhanced platform APIs, additional third party applications, and advanced Google Apps functionality, all for $10 per user, per month. This package is currently scheduled to be available in Summer 2008.

For more information, visit www.salesforce.com/googleapps or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The company’s portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at www.salesforce.com/products, has revolutionized the ways that customers manage and share business information over the Internet. The company’s Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at http://www.force.com, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace available at www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

As of January 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 41,100 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM". For more information please visit www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

Media Contacts:

Katy Dormer
salesforce.com
415-901-8595
kdormer@salesforce.com

Andrew Kovacs
Google
650-253-8899
akovacs@google.com

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Cool Cat Teacher's Cool Sites of the Day! 04/14/2008

• Math Video Help, Math Worksheets, Math Word Problems

  Tons of math videos and clips here. Some great resources for math teachers. From kindergarten to upper level math!

  tags: math, education, edu_newapp, curriculum

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An example of annotated linking of your blogs comments

I've officially said, I want to move on from this particular topic, HOWEVER -- I want to point out how one can export annotations from diigo. I scheduled this to post yesterday and decided to leave this on Sunday's post docket anyway.

• Blogger: Cool Cat Teacher Blog - Post a Comment - Annotated

  I want to demonstrate the power of annotation -- click the annotated link above - -however, I'm "dissecting" and including the comments from the post from yesterday that generated a lot of comments. (The trick to doing this and sending it to your blog is that you have to highlight the person's name who said it.) -- See at the bottom for how I did this.
  

• tags: coolcatteacher, edublogosphere

  • loonyhiker
  • I also disagree that the edublogosphere is a closed party because I feel the blogging is a lot like teaching and that we get out of it what we put into it.
  • I don't feel that any of the names mentioned act or feel like they are better than me and have even included me on many conversations
  • Lisa Parisi
  • I do love when you say, "if one person reads our blog and get something out of it.. it is important." I try to keep that in mind all the time. Numbers don't matter..people do.
  • Charlie A. Roy said.
  • I feel similar frustration. If the point is about learning than reading and commenting is a great way to add to our own creative potential.
  • As far as the ego thing goes who cares. Your blog's this mine is that. Whoopdy do! If you're learning and growing your PLN that is what counts.
  • 
    Tennessee
  • Great response to a burning question/statement that most of us (well probably all of us)feel at one time or another.
  • Many of the people that I have learned the most from are not the ones involved in the "cocktail party" but rather those in the trenches doing what I love to do each and every day, just like you!
  • Carolyn Foote
  • agree that developing a readership takes time.
  • Scott McLeod
  • Re: the depressing aspects of 'comment intensity,' I actually meant it to be an affirming post rather than a depressing one
  • I think that the comment intensity idea is important in this respect: I often see laments from bloggers that they don't get many comments on their posts. What the table above shows is that even those of us who are fortunate enough to have large readerships often don't get many comments. My personal median over the past 20 posts, even WITH the big spike of 89, is still only 2.5. Ewan, your blog and Vicki Davis' are similar. The point is that many, many posts don't get a lot of comments, even those by the more widely read bloggers.
  • tom said...
  • Thanks for bringing this up. This has been an issue for me personally as well. OK, so nobody's IN, but the (pseudo?) community nature of blogging makes it feel that way.
    
  • But, like other artists, we have to work a little every day whether we feel like it or not, and whether we get validation that day or not.
  • I think many of us are working at blogging because there's an element of self improvement, which implies self evaluation. Without feedback from others it's easy to be hard on ourselves.
  • Christopher D. Sessums
  • For me, the conversation is hardly closed; it is simply a matter of having something to say, something to share.
    The emotional commitment is another aspect of the conversation that is easily glossed over.
  • MIke Sansone
  • I've found (both with myself and those educators I've worked with in their blogging starts) that the edublogosphere is open and welcoming -- but as we engage in any cultural group (even offline), patience really is a key.
    
    Still, we sometimes measure our success by the interaction from those we look up to (esp. teachers - many of whom were probably the best students in their class, yes?)
  • Sometimes we don't see the comments -- because the talk happens offline.
    
  • Britt
  • I get very few comments on my blog but see through the clustermaps that I have readers each and every day, so continue to feel that the blog is benefiting me through reflection and may even be benefiting others as well.
  • atruger
  • I NEVER get to share tools I discover because someone ALWAYS beats me to the punch...but I am ok with that.
  • I truly connect with what you write even though I am one of "those" people who reads but rarely comments. YOU do make a difference and so do I!
  • Bego said...
  • the whole cocktail party analogy is just a grown up version of the kickball line-up in elementary school.
  • In the blog world, change is effected by good content, and while good content isn't always noticed at first, it does eventually get a respectable position--sometimes because the cocktail group points them out.
  • How could I think to be in the same boat as John Scalzi who started in 1998 if I've only been blogging since 2007?
    
  • I found your blog, Vicki, because a project you do for Atomic Learning mentioned you, and your name is on the movies they use.
  • jeanette tranberg
  • Oh yes, I have felt the cocktail chill at times. I'm a norwegian edublogger, that have been following your brunks (blogdrunks) for a while. To start with - in
  • 2005 - you were the only ones out there to follow
  • Wes told me once I twittered, that nobody should twitter alone and I could not agree more - so I don't.
  • So, from the outer side looking in: Anybody stopping by in Second Life tonight (which is today for you) for a virtual edu cocktail?
    I'm aka Kita Coage at Eduisland II, waiting to cocktail connect with you c",)
  • Paul Hamilton
  • For most of us, blogging is very much a personal venture.
  • I suspect that we all have a deep desire to be heard and to be accepted. The longer I'm involved in the edublogosphere, however, the more impressed and encouraged I am by the level of acceptance that there is here.
    
    It is a good thing that we don't always agree with each other. Disagreement is often at the heart of constructive conversation
  • At the same time, we are no different than the kids in our classrooms. We educators need to know that we will be accepted, no matter what we have to say and no matter how well we are able to express it. I think we help to make the edublogosphere a "safe place" for each other as we try to keep it positive and as we take advantage of the numerous opportunities to be affirming.
  • Jim Dornberg said.
  • I don't at all feel excluded from the blog "cocktail party", because just like a real cocktail party, I am drawn to the people who have something important, and engaging to say and I am content to listen and learn from them. I have seen a few of the "big names" at conferences, and even met a few of them in person. I have emailed several of them and others, or left an occasional comment, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful responses I have received.
  • I read many blogs, but comment rarely, and I suspect that those who read my blog do the same. So I don't feel at all excluded. I'm just happy to occasionally be part of the conversation.
  • Alfred Thompson
  • When I was at EduBloggerCon last spring I felt quite the outsider. There were famous people there and I was unknown. I still feel that way in the broad edublogsphere. But honestly the broad sphere is not who I am blogging for. I blog for a niche - computer science teachers. The event for that niche is SIGCSE and there I (blush) feel a bit like a star. Few of the people there know the edubloggers with much larger readership or Technorati ranks. And really reaching the CS teachers is my goal not reaching everyone who teaches general subjects.
  • There is, I believe, room for more at the top if only because the number of teachers reading blogs is still very small but we all hope it is growing. We are still at the ground floor. That makes edublogging different from tech blogging I think.
  • Jason Bengs
  • I think we need to all remember our focus for blogging. Mine is for reflection. I use my blog as a tool to improve my teaching. If others start to read and can learn from it, great. To my knowledge I am the only one seeing my blog right now. Which is fine with me. I don't think blogging should be a popularity contest and having a large number of readers is great, it must mean that you, and others, have something to offer that others want to emulate.
  • prof v said
  • I think you could have added three additional points. First, a suggestion on how to increase readership. I think new bloggers (myself included) are still trying to figure out how to make the connections that allow for conversations within blogs. I go back to your list of 10 tips for successful blogging, and still find things I never noticed before
  • would love to see an updated list that perhaps would include how to make sure your blog is part of an RSS feed and how to set up subscriptions for potential readers to make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog.
  • I think even you have realized that it is more difficult to break into the edublogger field as there is now so many new bloggers (just in the last two years).
  • Finally, I am surprised that you did not point out how you have helped new bloggers by both asking for new voices and then publishing them in your own blog. I think this is an indication that you are trying to open up the "party".
  • Dean Shareski
  • Isn't the whole point of web 2.0 is that it exudes democracy and equality? Those that get all concerned about rankings and ratings are, as you've suggested missing the point.
  • We often quickly want to find ways of ranking. Reminds me of the evils of current assessment practices. We tell kids to do their best and work on improving performance and yet continue to use ranking systems that is clearly a mixed message.
    
  • Anonymous said.
  • I'm new to this world as of Monday...yes, 4 days of immersing myself in as much ed. tech, web 2.0, online collaboration "stuff" that I can. (thanks to Lisa Thumman at Rutgers U.) Cocktail party or not, your blog and the comments people have left have increased my list of people to follow. Even a discussion about "being on the outside" has led me to the "inside". I'm thrilled to be in the company of such great minds and promise to start contributing once I wrap my brain around it all! Thanks to everyone for sharing! cmtvarok
  • Mrs. V.
  • thanks for coaxing me out of my blogger drought!
  • Vicki A. Davis
  • I believe that this "post" has been made stronger by the comments, which have added to the post greater depth of meaning.
  • All over this conversation I see the change in society. We are all going through the emotions of becoming accustomed to something new... kind of like I first experienced when the Internet first came out.
  • And while, when I began blogging, I didn't really set my sights or aim for a large readership... now that it is here, I will seriously consider and appreciate each individual reader and take my job seriously
  • @tennessee -- Those in the trenches are my most important reads... I just wish there were more of us. It seems as if many teachers view blogging as a way out of the classroom when they should see it as a way to improve the classroom!
  • @scottmcleod - I believe the comment intensity is highly correlated to controversiality AND immediacy. If a lot of people SAW someone recently, they want to interact and comment (immediacy.) If someone says something very emotional or controversial, people want to comment and interact (controversiality.) While I guess looking at these stats are fine, I've found in my very short time blogging that looking too much at numbers of any kind removes my focus from what is important. When I focus intently on conversation, my blog traffic and numbers just grow. I always say "whatever is watered, grows." If I water my investigation of stats, I become a good statistician... if I water my blog but also commenting and participating in the blogosphere as a WHOLE, I become a good blogger. I'd rather be the latter. And while the post was meant to be encouraging... I have to admit I'm a competitive perfectionist and always have to reign in that aspect of my nature.
  • @christophersessums - I think the emotional nature of something is like the proverbial elephant in the Net -- it is there. It always stuns me the number of people who discuss their feelings on this when it comes up... it means that many of us are experiencing the same thing.

I just pulled out some of the comments I thought were important by doing this -- this lets you "extract" what you think is important and easily create a blog post -- I think that researchers and college students should definitely be using this feature. It is in Diigo and under your information, you'll see tools. You may also click Send in the diigo toolbar and send an annotated page to your browser and it will do this as well.

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Cool Cat Teacher's Cool Sites of the Day! 04/13/2008

• Online Predators and Their Victims - Annotated

  Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

  tags: education, hz08, hzmeta, connectingpeople, digiteen, digitalcitizenship

• Pioneering research shows ‘Google Generation’ is a myth - Annotated

  Wow -- this longitudinal study shows that all generations show "google generation" traits with over 65 year olds spending 4 more hours a week online than some of the younger ages.
  
  It argues that libraries must adapt to the digital mindset AND that young people are lacking in information skills!
  
  This is an important study for all educators, business leaders, AND students on the Horizon project. Another reason to remind ourselves that we base practice on RESEARCH not STEREOTYPES!

  tags: education, brightideas, hz08, hzmeta, connectingpeople, virtualcollab, arts_entertainment, humanmachine, edu_news, bestpractices, curriculum, digitalcitizenship

• » Outside Looking In | Kate Says - Annotated

  Added some annotations to this -- I highly suggest that bloggers don't close comments! The conversation belongs to all of us and should take place anywhere it takes place. See Kate's blog for more.

  tags: edu_trends, edublog, education

• Dangerously Irrelevant: Dear Jon letter (a.k.a. The world doesn't care about you)

  This is a great post by Scott mcLeod to all bloggers, not just beginners. I think he offers some great points.

  tags: edublogging, edublog, education

• YouTube - 8 Teens Charged With Beating 16 y/o Girl (Phil Rants)

  **WARNING - EXPLICIT LANGUAGE IN THE LINKED VIDEO**
  
  This is an example of a very successful youtube show that many teens are watching and viewing. WARNING - there is explicit language here, however, I find this "question of the day" on Wendesday, the 606,954 views and the 20 video responses and 777,000 teen responses interesting.
  
  Again, this is NOT a video to show your classes, however it IS a video to understand how teens are talking about and trying to make sense of the world. Step back and look at what is happening... and notice, who is not included in the equation!
  
  Also, I do not advocate what this guy suggests doing! I do advocate holding people accountable for what they've done and that needs to happen in this case. The blame should go squarely on the kids that did it, for when it doesn't, people know they can get away with anything and not be held responsible. It would set a dangerous precedent.

  tags: education, digitalcitizenship, ethics, questionoftheweek

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Student insight from Horizon & another video you've got to see!

A student and I were having just this conversation on Friday. In this student's evaluation of Don Tapscott's keynote for horizon, Sarah H in her blog post "Modern Revolution" says:

"we control our screen instead of watching it as our parents did. Kids around the world use their voices through YouTube, blogs, and wikis. We work together to showcase our opinions on what is happening to the world.

Collaboration is not just a word in the dictionary that we have to recite to a chalkboard. It’s something that we have become accustomed to; it is as natural to us as breathing.

We collaborate daily with our peers, classmates, and sometimes even our teachers. Instead of looking at a list of instructions in a book, we figure things out by learning together.

In the digital age, we do not have to strike in front of the White House. We effect change by telling the world the truth from the comfort of our own homes using the Internet with facebook, myspace, blogger, and so much more."

Sarah's prophetic and insightful words (she's in 10th grade!) really resonate with me as I see one of the latest movies making the rounds. (hat tip Scott McLeod).



And as I reflect on this, I think of Kate Olson's comments on "the cocktail party theory" -- Kate says:

"Now, what inspired me to write this post was first noticing that everyone who wrote ABOUT Jon got more comments than he did, as well as his next post “The conversation is getting away from me…..” (more reflections)

I’m going to do the classy thing and close comments here - go show Jon some blogger love and tell HIM how you feel - he’s the one who started all of this………."

I think that again, Jon is going through the typical feeling of all of this. For example, Flat Classroom project has generated a lot of conversation. I do not control it, I do not try to track it all. I cannot!

The whole mentality of how this thing works is not the idea of someone bringing their favorite toy to school and then hording it in the corner during playtime saying, "Mine Mine!" These conversations are not owned by anyone.

Although O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 and Bernie Dodge (did you know he has a blog?) created Webquests -- they'll tell you that their own terms are often misused.

I think that books such as Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything have helped me truly understand the societal dynamics of all of these things.

I don't like the idea of ever closing a conversation on a blog post -- I still get comments on very old posts and it also makes me realize that sometimes I need to revisit a topic.

This is about a new place for conversation and we cannot be everywhere at once! It is about sharing conversation and ideas and if any of us don't like the idea that our things might be remixed or talked about somewhere else, then we need to rethink participation in the blogosphere, that is the way the whole thing works!

I'm planning to rewrite 10 habits of bloggers that win to help newcoming bloggers understand how to track these conversations (using backlinks), and how to know that they shouldn't move their blog and how authorities work, etc.

tag: edublogosphere, Kate Olson, Scott McLeod, Horizon project, Wikinomics, Don Tapscott

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Live and Let Blog

I've been reading Scott McLeod's post over at Dangerously Irrelevant, "Reclaiming My Blog, Reclaiming Myself."

Scott says:

"My posting rate here at Dangerously Irrelevant waned considerably over the past two months...

The interesting thing to me is that I’ve missed it, that I actually have felt sad that I haven’t been posting more. I think that speaks to the power of blogging for many of us – that we have the very human needs to express ourselves, to get feedback on our ideas, and to be connected with others. Of course blogs can be an excellent way to do that, particularly those of us who don’t have anyone around us locally who understand or care about our interests and our passions."

For those not blogging, perhaps this blogging discourse is tiresome, but I think for those just starting out, understanding expectations is important.

There is a whole emotional side that no one has really been talking about as those of us who have been islands become connected. When the lone wolves join a pack... I guess we all still are a bit of a ... lone wolf in some regards?

Thankfully, Scott goes on to say:

"This is something I have to do. So I’m back in the game."

I know just how he feels as I reflect in my own comments over on his blog:

"Scott, I went through this as well. I think it was at a time when I was internally rebelling at what I thought people wanted me to be. I just want to be myself and when I hear people talk about me in a certain way, it is intimidating.

Do I want to blog? Do I want to share so much? Is there anything left for me? Is there anything left for my family? These are things I've thought about and gone through.

But I feel like that the people that read me... and read you... read because of the person. That is why I've really stayed away from the guest blogging thing unless it is to encourage and bring in a newcomer.

If you read about personal brands, that is really what a blogger has... a personal brand. You ARE "Dangerously Irrelevant." And if we're in this for the long haul, sometimes we'll blog and sometimes we won't... but as long as YOU are there, many of us will be reading because we're here for you.

The popularity thing is a losing ballgame -- for some time now the technorati thing has become more and more, well, irrelevant, as mass market blogs move into the blogosphere, the daily, hourly blogs are just going to edge out the individual blogger. At some point, I'll probably drop out of the top 10,000 -- I've not changed and have more links than ever... what has changed is that more people are blogging. (Will Richarson is at 3,000 something -- for some reason, I thought he WAS in the 2,000's but I could be wrong.)

For that reason, it is so important just to do as you're doing... sit back, examine motives and if this whole blogging thing is really adding something to our lives. Then, just relax and live with it.

I for one, cannot live with the stress of feeling I'm in a perpetual horse race, I'm just going to live and let blog."

And I love the response to yesterday's conversation by Stephen Downes, perpetual godfather of the edublog, when he says:

"I'm sympathetic; I often feel, as Vicki Davis does, that I'm on the outside."

I think that the discussion that has spun into the edublogosphere from Jon Becker's blog (uhm, Jon, lets see those stats now!?) is a good thing, albeit on Monday, we'll all be focused back on the classroom.

However, I truly feel the emotional aspect of this whole thing is what our kids are going through! We see this playing out in the desire of teenagers to be Youtube stars. We see it everywhere.

When we experience it, we begin to recognize it in others.

Perhaps that is why many edubloggers report that they relate so well to their students. We are experiencing what they are experiencing. I see a lot of truth in this.

Ok, gotta run to take some food to a funeral and go to a baby shower. Ah, the joys of living in a small town... fresh air, lots of family, and lots of good long stories over coffee!

tag: Scott McLeod, Stephen Downes, Jon Becker, edublogging, blogging, emotion, social networking, trends
tag: education

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