Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I’ve been interested in the Pecha Kucha format of presentation for a while but hadn’t had the opportunity to try it out. I’m going to have my students from my undergrad class give it a shot as they summarize their experience in this class. The format is designed to provide a concise way to include many presentations in the course of one sitting. (Think about watching 15 incredibly bad Grade 6 PPT’s on their favorite country and you see why we need this)

The pure model is the 20×20 format. 20 slides for 20 seconds for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. This has become a fairly common business model. The fact that Dan Pink himself has considered this, lets you know the value of its format.

I’ve modified the format to a 20×9 format so each presentation is 3 minutes.

This was also an opportunity for me to explore Keynote a bit more. While still seeing only a few features that separate it from PowerPoint, I did like the record feature that allowed me to make a quicktime movie. I then uploaded it to youtube.

I really like this format as it forced me to be concise and try and utilize many of the design elements I think are most valuable. I muffed up some of the text and I think I pronounced pecha kucha wrong. But here’s my first crack.

Technorati Tags: pechakucha, danpink, keynote, ecmp355, presentation, designmatters

This post is not intended to spark a debate about religion or Christianity but rather draw attention to an analogy that might be helpful for some. I hope it’s a useful comparison of two huge societal shifts.

I had the pleasure of hearing Bruxy Cavey speak on Friday. Bruxy is a pastor and author of the book The End of Religion. The premise of his book revolves around Jesus’ attempt to stop religion, tradition and liturgy from being the foundations of belief and spirituality. He makes a compelling case for Christs’ desire for people to be free from the law and experience a life built around a person rather than a set of rules.

“What Jesus came to establish was a subversive spirituality outside the boundary markers of traditional religion, and in the process he made religion itself obsolete.”

As he was speaking I couldn’t help think of two educators: Stephen Downes and Clay Burell. Stephen has for a long time given up on the hope that schools in their current state can possibly achieve a true level of personal learning. His and others idea of deschooling is one that for most gets a nod but is quickly tossed aside as “it’s-not-going-to-happen-so-why-bother”. Clay’s unschooliness theme runs through his blog and I’ve stolen his quote many times to say I don’t like school but love learning.

“Personal Learning comes as a subversive education model outside the boundary markers of traditional schooling, and in the process makes school itself obsolete.”

So as I listened to Bruxy I was amazed at the number of connections between his idea about religion and my own beliefs about school. Without getting into too much detail about his talk and book, it became apparent to me that what many are fighting for is to not necessarily abandon school but to eliminate the structure and traditions of school that interfere with learning. This is hard work. Bruxy does many things to remove religion from his own church. Witness his recent podcast with the friendly atheist.

Because everyone on the planet has virtually all come to think of school and learning synonymously, it’s difficult for many to see beyond the structure of school. The people of the New Testament experienced the same thing when it came to religion. They only knew about God in the context of religious structure, not all of which was bad, but it had become the focal point of spiritual life and to tamper with it was blasphemous. Jesus is relentless in pointing out the hypocrisies.

Clay and Stephen and others do this often and often with contrary results. While I know Stephen has largely given up on schools but there is hope. Those of us working inside these institutions recognize that the boundaries imposed on us by the very structure of the organizations aren’t very effective. The structure of current schools was developed largely in an industrial age where it met a particular need at a particular time. So too did the religious structures. Jesus came to change that. In schools our need for change is precipitated by many things certainly access to information and people being a major force. Just as with many churches that are not purely focused on their religiosity, neither are all schools focused on schooliness. There are moments, individuals and leaders looking to make school more about learning and less about structure. When it comes to my specific role as someone charged with making technology seamless in our schools, it’s clear to me that just as there are those bound by structures of school there are those who see often see technology as the structure we ought to believe in. At times I’m guilty of this.

I need to see that learning is the goal. Okay so this may seem obvious but in the daily grind it’s easy to become the Pharisees of modern education. We have difficulty when students don’t respond to school the way we think they ought to. Personal learning has little place in many of our classrooms. The frustrations of those of us who recognize this hypocrisy grows every day. We are looking for someone who can change this. Someone with authority who can break down the traditions and structure that so often bind us from what learning should look like. There are certainly glimmers of hope.

Back to Bruxy. He was asked at the end of his talk, “How do you justify working in a church when you seem to be saying that Christ came to end religion?”. His answer was that it’s not that churches in themselves are bad, structure has its place but believing that the structure itself will save you is where you run into trouble.

He finished by giving the example of a thirsty person licking the outside of the water bottle. Obviously ridiculous. But the bottle represents the structure. What we really want is inside the bottle. Can this be true of schools? If so, no wonder our students are often left unsatisfied and go through the motions of what they think we want from them.

I’m sure you can poke holes in this analogy, but for me I was challenged but this idea and can’t help but doing a little pattern recognition and also practicing what Stephen preaches about expanding your network of ideas.

Technorati Tags: bruxycavey, themeetinghouse, clayburell, stephendownes, personallearing, endofreligion

There’s been a recent uprise in Diigo. I have been aware of it for some time but haven’t seen any reason to use it. So a number of folks in my network have been raving about it and since they act as my filters, I thought I’d give it a go.

As I signed up, I was taken to a page that ask if I wanted to see if I had “friends already on Diigo”. I logged into my gmail account and it displayed quite a number of my contacts already on Diigo. I simply clicked Add to Friends. What I didn’t notice until it was too late, was that below this list was the list of all my contacts not on Diigo. By default all these contacts were checked and so now all my contacts received a request from me to join Diigo. This is in effect spam. Thanks a lot Diigo.

Diigo may be a great service and I’m sure it is but I have spent much of my day responding to emails from people who think I’ve spammed them…which I have. Here’s one in particular that I received from someone I don’t know well but have had the occasional encounter.

Although I appreciate the thought, I would prefer if you would not use my email address in this manner without my consent. I am very careful with my email address and who I give it to and your casual use of it in this manner, although seemingly innocent enough, may result in my address being added to lists that I am not comfortable with.

In the future, if you have something that you think I would be interested in please contact me directly. Thanks for respecting my wishes regarding this situation. TTYL.

Earlier, my father calls me wondering what he’s supposed to do. Sorry Dad for spamming you. Diigo adds this little tag at the end of their invitation:

We’re still working every day to improve Diigo. We hope you’ll like Diigo. We do. And, it’s only going to get better!

I’m rethinking this service. It may be petty but this just seems like a no-brainer. You have a simple thing to improve that I think you could have figured out from the beginning. Don’t check my entire contact list by default! I have a bad taste in my mouth and it’s going to take a lot to de-sour me.

To all my contacts….my apologies.

Technorati Tags: diigo, spam

Jack Macleod is frustrated with a recent response to a typical cellphone faux pas:

…one of the schools in Nova Scotia had two serious fights with racial overtones on Tuesday. 26 students were suspended and the police are involved. Yesterday, the Principal held a press conference and let the media know that cell phones were involved. Apparently, students were using cell phones to text back and forth after the first fight and somehow this led to the second fight. (I’m basing this on news reports).

Jack’s frustration lies here:

…the Minister of Education called for a review of cell phone policies at all school boards in the province. Given the media scrutiny, a review is probably appropriate. However, the media reports indicate that the Minister “believes that cell phones have no place in the classroom.”

He asked for my response which I left on his blog and I’ll leave here as well:

Cellphones don’t have a place in a classrooms where global collaboration isn’t valued.

Cellphones don’t have a place in classrooms where multimedia and diverse communication isn’t valued.

Cellphones don’t have a place in classrooms where authentic learning experiences aren’t valued.

Another question is why do cellphones have a place anywhere? Should places of business have cellphones? If they do, why should schools be different? Do we want students to experience as much real world learning as possible?

I understand not every teacher has the wherewithal to implement a cellphone into learning but many do. Why not use the place that is supposed to prepare students for the real world and provide opportunity to practice and learn these skills?

As these devices continue to look and act more and more like a computer, schools will be confronted with the brutal fact that they are not providing relevant education. Again, this is not to suggest every school begin to allow every classroom cart blanche in using cellphones but the response to completely ban them isn’t the proper response either. In this particular case, it’s such a lame response that in some ways abdicates responsibility from schools. I’m a firm believer that if students were involved to create reasonable rules and etiquette, many of these issues would be resolved, not all but many. Then we can get on with the idea that these are and can be learning tools.

I actually think that Nova Scotia’s policy is a good start, not perfect but a start. I hope the ministry doesn’t pull an “Al Upton response” and react in haste.

Technorati Tags: cellphones, jackmacleod

One of my favorite posts of all time is Will’s Unlearning Curve. In fact, I included it in our school division’s digital learning vision page.

The past 2 weeks has been filled with unlearning as I move to the Macintosh platform. The unlearning will get even steeper since today my father-in-law’s iMac arrived (not sure why he bought Apple Care since who know who will be doing most of the troubleshooting) and on Monday I ordered my son his graduation present, another Macbook Pro. In addition to these personal purchases, our school division is introducing this platform into our Windows based network.

So over the past 2 weeks here are a few things, minor and major, I’m trying to unlearn:

1. The X in the corner doesn’t quit the application.
2. Beach balls don’t always mean fun.
3. You don’t have to name every photo religiously. Renaming photos isn’t easy but it may not be that necessary.
4. You don’t need a task bar. That’s what Expose is for.
5. Maximize doesn’t mean full screen.
6. The Alt key isn’t the same.
7. You don’t have to run defrag or anti-virus.
8. Drag and drop and shortcut keys for some reason seem more intuitive.
9. I can easily put my computer to sleep and wake it up….every time.
10. Macs aren’t perfect and don’t lead to happiness.

While these unlearnings will continue to grow, Clarence’s post about boxes continues to guide my thinking. While there is certainly some elegance to the Mac, the function and creative possibilities happen in both worlds and in other environments as well. Clarence’s post on OS and education also has me thinking about unlearning. While his premise is interesting and valid, I’m more inclined to believe that users and manufacturers are doing more to make learning and creativity happen in any environment. Users expect to be able to be productive and creative in any environment. There still needs to be understandings around the purpose of certain devices but when it come to creativity in particular, Windows or Mac shouldn’t matter. I recall my early days of video editing on a windows machine. Since firewire was an add-on, hardware and software compatibility was a nightmare. I was one of those odd souls who persisted and had some success. Today, these issues are largely solved. I certainly have very high expectations that the Mac will prove to be the superior machine. As a power user, I’ll be looking for certain functionality, but I also continually compare my Windows experience. During this transition I keep thinking, “how can I do this on my Dell?” I know the purists will point out differences and many of my hardcore Mac friends can officially whip the smirk off their faces as they’ve welcomed another into their fold. The issue for me continues to be finding machines that do the job. It shouldn’t be about one over the other. I’m glad to see our school division offer this option as well.

Learning, unlearning, relearning….it’s all good.

Footnote:
One of our high schools sent 2 students to a provincial skills competition in video editing. They realized a week before the event that the competition would be using Macs, iMovie and Final Cut Pro. These students had never used a Mac. Their teacher wanted to pull them out of the event but the organizers encouraged them to compete. They received a 20 minute tutorial immediately prior to the full day competition. They gained a silver medal out of 15 competitors.

Technorati Tags: clarencefisher, willrichardson, mac, prairiesouth.

Clarence shares this article via my Shared Feed in Google Reader and it spoke to me on many levels.

Here’s a parent who, although obviously tech and internet saavy hadn’t realized the power of the internet for his own kids:

I’ve written about my kids literally hundreds of times and published dozens of photos of them. But, I’ve always drawn the line at showing their faces. Every picture I’ve posted is a shot from the back, a photo with the face turned away, a costume disguise, you name it- I’ve become a master of the private, public persona. So I have to admit, that when I saw the YouTube video and Tasha waltzing up to the camera, I was a little aghast.

But although he was “aghast” at first quickly changed his view.

But then a light bulb went off. She was excited that the video was going online and that sense of enthusiasm was evident in each of the kids as they made their presentation.

Reminds me of someone.

He goes on to write about how the author of the book connects with the student.

Where it gets more interesting, is that the author of the book discovered the YouTube video and wrote about it on his blog. In fact, he wrote: “My favorite is the girl who liked Fox because he’s part of the dog family and is cute.”

Reminds me of someone and someone else

Then he “touches ‘em all” with this quote:

Anything that gets kids excited about learning is something that I will stand behind. But it takes a teacher who gets how the technology can be leveraged to make this work.

And another home run with this one:

Seeing Tasha and her friends on the computer screen, it dawned on me that I’ve been participating in an online ecosystem, but with one foot still planted firmly in a largely imaginary safety zone. I think I’ve become the technological equivalent of the parent who won’t let their kids play unsupervised in the fenced back yard at an age when they themselves used to be allowed to wander six blocks to the park as long as they promised to be home before dark.

Not only should we be leveraging our students as evidence and support for online connection and engagement but finding more parents who will support and speak out. Whether we like it or not, we have a marketing issue on our hands and satisfied customers are valuable resources.

Image: Brilliant Minds, Brilliant Hardware: Bonding Moment
http://flickr.com/photos/courosa/413146410/in/set-723361

Technorati Tags: clarencefisher, karlfisch, davidjakes, aleccouros, internetsafety

Paul Park is a high school English teacher in our school division currently serving in Afghanistan. I’ve worked with Paul over the years with a variety of web tools. Just prior to Paul’s leaving last month, he volunteered to spend time in a number of our schools talking to students about his upcoming adventure. Paul wanted to provide an insight into the war from his perspective and set up a blog to facilitate this.

The Sandbox

He’s already posted a few times and is directed much of the content towards students. Here’s an email Paul sent out to our teachers yesterday:

It’s still in its infancy but I do have three posts up already that might be of interest to you and your students. I’ll try to post as often as I can but things are pretty busy here in KAF–I don’t get any days off so I have to squeeze my computer time into my evenings. I’m aiming for at least two posts a week. Maybe I’ll even try to set a routine so that you can build it into your own schedule. No promises, though, because the situation is always changing here so I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to post at any given time. I will try, however.

A small warning–my blog is about my experiences in Afghanistan. Make no mistake, it is a theatre of war and I will be discussing some mature subjects. This is not to say that I will be getting into gory details and I will try to be positive for the most part. However, the topics of war, religious differences, politics, fighting, injuries, and unfortunately, death, will come up. My aim is to post topics that will allow students to better understand Afghanistan in many respects: the culture, the politics, our presence here, daily life both in KAF and the country itself, and, of course, the conflict. Ultimately, I want to make connections and generate discussion. To that end, I will write about these topics in the most respectful, professional manner that I know how but unless you’re willing to discuss these topics with your students, you might want to steer clear.

This is a great opportunity for your students to connect with an educator/soldier. He’s also expressed interested in live Skype calls.

I’ve become quite a strong advocate for downplaying the fear mongering and safety concerns of online life that have been proven false. At the same time, I’ve spent much more time with teachers and classrooms talking about what to watch out for and how to make good choices.

I generally see the internet as a public place. I’ve also said as Scott McNealy has, that privacy is dead. While I do realize there are more safer places to engage in private activity, in general it’s best to see the internet as a public space. I also believe and try to model that you don’t say things online that you wouldn’t say in person. (Notice all the trackbacks to my own blog, the more I add, the more of a hypocrite I am) Saturday I violated this rule.

Graham Wegner had a rather light-hearted post about spelling and Matthew Tabor picked it up and in an effort to be funny and make a point, posted content I felt went over the top in terms of etiquette and manners. I’m not about to rehash that argument, you can feel free to post on his blog if you like. I made my initial comment on his blog then posted to twitter and used the word “obnoxious” to describe Matthew. I would have never called him that to his face. I hadn’t intended for Matthew to see that. How did Matthew know I called him obnoxious? First of all his stats told him of the numbers of people visiting his blog from twitter. While 98% of people not using twitter wouldn’t know about TweetScan, Matthew did. It’s not that I regret posting the item to twitter it’s calling him obnoxious that was wrong. I might have whispered it to friends or used that word in private conversations but not publicly. I’ve done this a few times where I’ve gotten so comfortable using Twitter that I’ve forgotten, it’s not private. I could turn on the privacy key in twitter and allow only those that I choose to see my tweets but for a lot of reasons, that doesn’t feel right to me. I’m proud of my online trail of breadcumbs and value openness more than privacy when it comes to online life.

For me twitter is an echo chamber and that’s okay. It’s a place to hang out with like minded folks, exchange links, lament your sick kids, invite others to help you out and participate in some good natured fun. It’s not meant to push my thinking. It’s more of a group than a network. I get pushed and seek diversity here and in other spaces and also support debate. That’s why I subscribe to people like Matthew, to push me and he did. In this case to also reveal my own weakness and error. My apologies and thanks Matthew.

PS. I still disagree with your post