Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

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.