Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I’ve just completed my session on RSS to an audience of about 30. All in all, I think I was able to convey the message that RSS is not a geeky idea but a tool designed to connect to people and manage information.

Here’s a link to a screencast of the first 20 minutes. I used a modified “lessig” approach…very modified.

The audio quality is quite poor on the screencast since I used the built in mic on the laptop. So I’ve added an mp3 of the whole session. It’s about 50 minutes and I’ll call it my 9th Podcast

Two highlights

1. Having Posse members Rob and Alec to “spur” me on.
2. My brother-in-law Skyping me in the middle of my presentation. Got to remember to change mode to unavailable.

I’m blogging from Regina and working with nine great teachers. It’s kind of like preaching to the choir. These folks get it and are already asking how to get other teachers interested, connected with social software. Still don’t have all the answers but am enjoying good conversations. The coffee arrived late but other than that, things are good.

As the day went on it was clear that:

1. some were overwhelmed
2. some couldn’t get enough
3. filtering came up several times (read Darren’s thoughts)
4. the real issue is not about these tools, it’s about our beliefs about teaching and learning (read David’s thoughts)

I’ve probably done a half dozen workshops on these things and this was the first time I had the whole day. As usual I tried to cram a bunch of stuff in one day. That’s okay but I’m wondering about spending more time getting to understand the implications of teaching and learning. We did talk about this at various times but this kind of discussion needs time and work to get at the big issues. But I did suggest that they spend a good deal of their time in their bloglines reader to get to know some of the people writing the good stuff.

After showing them a myriad of things that Flickr can do, one person said, “How do you know all this stuff?”
My answer was that I don’t but because of the good folks that help me out, they find much of the good stuff and just share it. That’s a major concept I was trying to present.

elgin park in November,

The view outside my office window. Winter is here. I don’t like it but that’s the way it is.

Further to my “friends” post, this is a great example of remixing and relying on each other to construct ideas.

I had a somewhat frivilous post the other day on Weird Stuff. Didn’t think much of it and really couldn’t make much of an educational connection. A week later Steve Brooks over at edugadget spent some time with one of the “weird items” and remixed it and gave a very compelling idea for educational use.

None of us will have time to do everything but thankfully each of us have a little time to contribute and develop good ideas. This idea isn’t even done, I’m waiting to hear from someone who will now follow Steve’s idea and use it in the classroom.

I’ll be doing 3 sessions in the next week on RSS. These are introductory sessions to 3 different audiences. I’ll do the typical basics of feeds, XML, bloglines, search feeds, etc. but somehow it lacks the personal touch and doesn’t get to the conversational aspect and connectivism that veteran bloggers enjoy.

So I’m going to try the analogy of a party to introduce folks to those people I’ve met and read over the past year. I’ll group people in the folder they occupy in my bloglines account. We’ll see how it works.

“Come on in, don’t worry if you’re late, you’ll find most folks very friendly and helpful. Let’s go into the living room. ”

EDTECHS (don’t ask me how I label and sort my folders, it’s just the way I’ve organized them)
“Sitting on the couch is David and Will. They’ve been at this for a long time. David dabbles in a lot and always bring some unique items to the party. Will’s kind of the center of attention but he’s constantly pointing out the good stuff of others. Barbara doesn’t speak as often as some but when she does, it leaves me with a lot to consider. I really got to know her the other day when she was talking with Jeff and Dave. Alan is also very innovative and sometimes is a bit over my head but talked about some stuff I’ve really enjoyed. George is a new friend of mine. I kind of enjoy that he’s Canadian and will challenge you to think. Rob, Rick and Alec are friends I talk with fairly regularly. Then there’s Stephen. He’s got more to say that any of them. Never talks for long but talks about a lot of different stuff.”

“Let’s go into the kitchen”
TEACHERS
“I’m amazed these people have time when they’re so busy preparing. Yet I know they’ll talk to you. Bud, Clarence and Konrad live in different countries but both are very transparent with what they do. Just watching them will show you a lot. If you want to know what’s happening in the trenches, these are the people to talk to. Darren is another Canadian who can take a topic you might not think would be worthy of conversation but makes it engaging. Anne does some neat things as well. She’s pretty busy. I’ve known Kathy for years and she will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Very adventurous and works with people you might not think can handle much. She makes it work. Oh Steve’s just leaving the kitchen. He’s a great guy to listen to who will make you feel like you’ve known him your whole life. I’m not sure exactly which room he’s going into now.

“I actually have many more friends than this. These are just the ones you should start talking to first. Find out what they think and they’ll also introduce you to others you might like as well. And when you meet someone you find interesting, let me know so I can talk with them as well.”

“Enjoy the rest of the party.”

To be clear, many of these people might not even know who I am but have shaped my thinking over the past year. This is part of the nature of the new web.

I’m not sure about this whole videoblogging or videocasting trend. Podcasting was something that I got right away. Whether it was downloaded to my mp3 player or whether I listened to it on my computer, the best part was it meshed so well into my multitasking world. I could listen, keep working or walking, and it was another way to learn that mixed in nicely with my world.

Videoblogging is pretty new but now with the new ipod video, it’s going to get pretty popular I imagine. Alan Levine wrote about this back in June and has the same questions I have.

I see David Warlick is testing it out as part of his Connected Learning Podcasts. I subscribe and enjoy his podcasts but I must say, the episode about the Marching Band, lost me. Partly because I felt compelled to watch and wasn’t sure how much the video added to the message. Yes, it’s nice to see the kids in action but given the time it takes to produce one, is it worth the time? Even the one from the conference in Minnesota, tended to be more of a talking head style. It’s not a knock against David and I applaud him for being somewhat of a pioneer. I’m wondering if it’s the same as podcasting.

Probably not.

Podcasting is naturally mobile. That is its main advantage. It also allows for multi-tasking. I wonder if videocasting (not sure that’s what its officially called but I’ll go with that for now) will find a different identity. I think podcasting and blogging are distinctive and serve different purposes. Videocasting will likely do the same, I just don’t see what it is yet. Since it involves the most combinations of media that is, audio, text, still and moving images, it requires much more attention that a single communication mode. Don’t get me wrong, I love video and work hard to include it as part of instruction but since it’s so time consuming to produce quality, coherent video, (you’ll have to move down the page to see the video list) it doesn’t seem well suited to the easy publishing, suscribeable nature of weblogs and podcasts.

As always, I welcome comments from those who see things differently.

PS. One major frustration I was having was the inability to keep either quicktime or itunes on top of all windows. Is there a way to do this? I couldn’t find this in the settings. This made me feel compelled to focus on the video rather than continue with other tasks.

Safety on the internet is and always will be a huge issue.

While we definitely have to protect kids, we are much better off tackling much of the questionable content with the students as part of this discussion. Will’s recent post on this presents it very well. This is an issue being dealt with in San Antoino, Colorado, New Jersey and right here in Moose Jaw.

Our school division has been reluctant to implement any policy on filtering content. At present we have a content filtering system that filters sites based on a numberical score. For example if a site contains certain words from a pre-populated list or custom list, the site will receive a score. If for example the word “breast” is in the site, it might get a -3. However if the word “cancer” is also in the site, it may get a +5 giving it an overall score of +2. All these settings are customizable. We’re testing it over the next few months to see if/how we’d implement it.

We’ve got to stop trying to create a ban everytime a new technology comes along that causes disruptions. After all the internet itself is a major disruption. It’s unorganized, full of inappropriate material, very little on it is directly related to curriculum or education. Let’s go back to textbooks as our only source of information. That would be safe. Pencil and paper only. No wait! Doug Johnson’s already figured out why pencils should be banned as well:

A student might poke out the eye of another student.

A student might write a dirty word with one. Or even write a whole harassing note and pass it to another student.

One student might have a mechanical pencil making those with wooden ones feel bad.

The pencil might get stolen or lost.

Kids might be doodling instead of working on their assignments

So the issue for some teachers is not only is a site like Myspaces inappropriate but it’s also a distraction. So let’s address both these issues. Will’s post address the first part and to the second part I’d say I hope that after dealing with part one, most students will begin to realize the danger of a site like myspaces and start to look at sites like Clarences’ as examples of not only safe, but meaningful expression.

Again, if you didn’t read Will’s post, you should read it now.

I thought this one might have been lost in the archive but Rob revived it. It may be a few weeks old but if I recall, we talked at least at one point about????? I can’t even remember so why not just listen.