Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

As my wife makes a number of renovations in our house, I’ve felt inspired to make a few to this blog. The recent upgrade to WordPress 2.5 (now 2.5.1) was as usual easy and as many know offers some very nice features. I’ve added a widget sidebar which is much easier to manage. Wordpress now offers instant upgrades of plugins as well.

I took a page out of Clay’s blog and added two new plugins/widgets. Both honor and promote commenters who play such an important part of my learning. CommentLuv is a nice way to allow commenters to have their work promoted. The comments are often the most interesting part of any blog as witnessed by my last post. When I find a gem of a comment or even one that irritates or engages me in some way, I quickly want to find out more about that person and their perspective. While linking their name is usually good for me, I’m guessing many may not think to click. This way it’s more obvious. Those who aren’t interested in the promotion can turn it off but why would you? Also Top Commenters is another way to credit frequent visitors.

The renovations my wife has in mind are intended to create a more inviting area to entertain guests and share with our friends. Mine too.

I had the great privilege this winter to teach a group of pre-service teachers at the University of Regina an introductory technology course. I was also blessed with the flexibility to design much of the course. Having done it once before, I was able to tweak a few things and try some new stuff as well. With the university semester wrapping up I thought it best to take time and reflect on my class and my role in supporter my students.

We met 12 times, 8 online and 4 in person. You can see the course outline here if you login as guest you’ll have full access.

Students were evaluated in five areas:

• 25% on weekly Tech Tasks
• 25% on their blog
• 25% on a final project
• 10% on Blogging Mentorship
• 15% on Social Learning

Tech Tasks

These were simply assignments in using the various tools we explored in class. Podcasting, setting up various accounts, watching and responding to K12 online sessions and digital storytelling were a few of the task. There were 13 in total. We spent our synchronous time considering pedagogy and for many of them the struggle was in the technology. The challenge of distance learning means you have less control over things like what software students have and their ability to download plugins and troubleshoot. One student struggled for quite sometime until a friend of hers realized she didn’t have Service Pack 2 installed. Students were basically given 20/25 for completion of the tasks and the other marks were subjective to the quality of the work.

Many students commented on the challenge of this but it also provided something very specific for them to work on. The balance between desktop and online applications is important. I may change some of the tasks but the concept works well.

Blogging

As many remarked during their self evaluations, this was a big stretch. Forced blogging is never the best way, however in a distance setting, this becomes my window into their learning. I encouraged them not only to reflect on class discussions but to chronicle their learning in other areas. It was powerful to watch the growth of my students in this. I realize most will drop their blogs the minute the course ends but others have said they’ll likely continue. Obviously a big hook for them was the comments for others within the class but in particular from those outside. The really saw the power of linking as they reviewed the k12 sessions and a number of the presenters were led to their reviews and left comments. I’m also coming to accept the fact that blogging isn’t for everyone but sharing is.

I’ll likely not change much in this area. Perhaps some more deliberate mentorships outside the class as well as focusing more deeply on exemplary blogs.

Final Projects

While most are still out there, the struggle here was the open-ended nature of the assignment. I strongly encouraged students to combine this with the work in another class. This seemed to make the most sense. About half the students have choose this route.

Grading will be tough as it’s difficult to rubricize the varying projects. Everything from live presentations, videos, wikis, podcasts is challenging to assess. I need to do a better job developing the assessment up front. Perhaps I’ll steal a page out of Chris Lehmann’s approach to projects.

Blogging Mentorship

I wanted my students to gain some experience inside a classroom in a virtual way. I invited these teachers to open up their classrooms to my students:

• Maria Knee (Kindergarten, NH)
• Lisa Parisi (Grade 5, NY)
• Kathy Cassidy (Grade 1, SK)
• Sandi Kerney (Grade 6/7, SK)
• Erin Remple (Calculus, MB)
• Clay Burell (English, South Korea)

These teachers graciously introduced themselves briefly to my students after Vicki Davis provided a context for what a globally connected classroom might look like. The success rate of this aspect of my course had the most variance. Partly due to the students efforts but more due to the set up. Many students were disappointed that these students never responded to them. My continual nattering about blogs as conversations, led them to believe everyone, including 6 year olds, think the same way. In fairness, both Kathy and Lisa have a large number of mentors and it becomes difficult for their students to respond. However, there were some outstanding successes. One of my students had a skype conference with Maria’s class. The impact for her, will be long lasting. I had two other students who stepped out of their comfort zone and had some very positive results. Although none of my students had any experience in calculus, one of my students emailed Erin and ventured into her class and provided some very insightful comments. Clay was very clear he was not interested in any type of forced mentorship. Because of the nature of his student’s work I had a difficult time helping my students understand his intentions. Yet one of my students did venture out and again, had a very powerful experience with one of his. I also know that Clay emailed her to encourage her. I want to thank all these great teachers for participating. Your willingness to share will have long term impact on these young people.

I have lots to think through on this assignment. Certainly the concept is good but the execution might require a bit more planning. I really didn’t line up these teachers until shortly before we began. I also wonder about the more focus on tutoring/mentoring one or two students rather than trying to spatter comments throughout the class.

Social Learning

If there was one area I emphasized throughout this course it was the importance of social learning. More so than any course they’d likely take, the expectation was they would learn together. Whether they were asking questions, answering them, commenting on each other’s blogs, texting each other or visiting each other in person, I asked them to document the way in which they contributed and received help from each other.

Other than the format and details of how they assessed this, this was truly a critical component of the class. Even their commenting progressed from “nice post” to challenging each other’s ideas. Certainly most classes don’t require much in this way. Perhaps the odd group work project but not as running thread.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy working with these young people. Most of them will make outstanding teachers because they already recognize they are learners first. My main themes continue to drive my class and I hope many of theirs as well.

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

“An uniformed opinion expressed entertainingly trumps an informed opinion expressed boringly every time.” Linwood Barclay

So I think information and ideas can fall inside this quadrant I created.

Obviously we should be aiming for the top left but I’m guessing the bottom left has more influence that the top right. (Think Fox News, or most of what you find on Youtube and the internet in general, and also see Andrew Keen). It once again falls into the long line of topics relegated to the “it is what it is” category.

I think being entertaining often gets a bad rap. We often see it a less academic or somehow a dumbing down of important and serious thought. Entertainment does not have to be synonymous with fluff. On one hand we try and make learning more engaging for our students and at the same time guard against the pointless drivel of the much of today’s content. Surely this will be an ongoing struggle.

I’m advocating for entertaining, or at least interesting (I haven’t decided yet if these are the same). I heard Gar Reynolds once say that 90% of Presentation slides are boring but surely 90% of people aren’t. And yet I sometimes get the same feeling as I read blogs. It has nothing to do with length either. Tell me stories, be funny, be clever, surprise me, anger me, or challenge me. I don’t have a recipe for how to do this but certainly if you’re a boring person in real life, I’m not sure you can pull off being entertaining online. I don’t know that many truly boring people. Mostly because I likely tend to consciously or subconsciously avoid them. Don’t we all?

In Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind he advocates for people to be watching/listening to comedy everyday. I remember as a young child staying up late, hoping my parents didn’t noticed me so could watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. My two favourite parts were Johnny’s monologue and whenever he had a stand up comedian. I’ve always been intrigued with how comedians are able to craft language and physical gestures to make people laugh. I won’t even tell you how many Seinfeld episodes I’ve seen. My wife says I can relate everything to Seinfeld and I have several friends who know exactly what I mean when I say, “the vault”. If you’re interested in the meta cognition involved in crafting a joke, rent the DVD Comedian. It chronicles Jerry Seinfeld’s return to stand up comedy and more interestingly how difficult it is to be funny or entertaining. It’s hard work to be entertaining. I think it aligns nicely with the value of crafting a compelling slide deck for your presentations. Often skipped over because its seen as decorative, it really becomes the avenue for which compelling ideas are expressed.

So spend some time on youtube watching storytellers and comedians. So is content more important than engagement? Maybe not but most of the world would say it is.

In case you haven’t laughed today, watch this.

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

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

I posted about printing my blog as a book but wanted to expand some ideas.

As I show people the printed version, most seemed quite impressed; mostly with the quality of the print, the quantity of my work and the concept of being able to publish to a traditional, familiar format.  It’s fairly novel (but it’s no novel) and could perhaps help those who aren’t engaged in digital learning to see the depth of work that is done via blogging. These people expressed that sentiment well.

I’m also wondering if producing your blog into a book might be good for those who don’t get the amount of learning, communicating, etc. that we get from working in these ways. For example, it would be great for administraotr’s, etc. that I work with to see this volume of print as a way of justifying the time that I spend learning on my blog. Online it is hard to see the volume that is produced, in a book, the learning is more “weighty” and easier to show. Clarence Fisher

Wow Dean, just recently a friend (Diane Cordell) was lamenting that her district would not accept her blog as time spent in professional development. I wonder if they would have denied it had she produced a book like this. WOW! Cathy Nelson

But as I peruse it’s contents, it’s strikingly obvious how it lacks power. Without the comments, hyperlinks, and multimedia, it’s just my thoughts and work. It clearly doesn’t capture my true learning. Blogging isn’t just about me. It’s about my learning, my network and resources. It’s about me being able to express ideas in a variety of ways, engage in conversations, and take me to all sorts of new places and spaces. Even without those aspects, how many people would read this if I published it a  book? How about zero. Instead, I’ve had over 100,000 eyeballs look at my stuff. I realize eyeballs aren’t everything but still, how many people have published their dissertation and had that type of response? This print version cost me about $50 and misses so much. I could blog for free and include all that multimedia as well.

So here’s where it hits me even more clearly. If you are a teacher and have the ability to choose how your students will demonstrate their learning, why would you choose analog text over blogging? How can it compete? Is there even one reason that analog text is better than digital? I can’t think of one advantage other than access and while in some cases that may be important, for most schools and situations, it’s not.  When you watch Michael Wesch’s first video, it’s clear how digital text changes everything. You haven’t seen it yet? That’s easy, I’ll just embed here: (By the way, if you’re reading the text version of this blog, you won’t be able to see this or click on the links or read the comments)

Technorati Tags: clarencefisher, cathyjonelson, michaelwesch

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I treated myself to a little Christmas present this year after reading Silvia’s post on how she published her blog. Actually minutes after reading her blog I went to work creating my own. I spent a few hours designing the front and back and then send in my order here. I had the option of printing portions of my blog or the entire blog. I choose to print it all beginning from my first post in Feb. 2005 to Dec. 23, 2007. 424 pages and over 500 posts. I decided to go cheap and print it in black and white. The price difference was $23 for B/W to $130 for full color. It’s actually quite amazing that 3 years of learning translates into 424 pages. Not that it represents all learning but is one representation. Certainly you realize as you scan the pages, the lack of links, comments and multimedia takes away much of my learning. But anyway, here’s a look at the finished product:

Nice, professional publishing and fast shipping, even to Canada. While don’t advocate the need to put into print your digital work, just like the odd photo, it’s nice to have the physical evidence and opportunity to put learning in a more familiar, traditional context. If nothing else to demonstrate to those who don’t really understand digital publishing. After my 9 year old saw it, she suggested perhaps she pursue blogging to a greater degree.

Technorati Tags: blogprinting, langwitches, book, print

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This is the final in my series of top 5’s. (I can hear the mocking applause now)

Looking back on my 204 blog posts of 2007 (actually 197 since Wes Fryer guest blogged for a bit).  These five post represent not necessarily my best writing but my best learning. in choosing these, I had a look at the comments as well since to me most of my writing relies on the additions of others to make the writing better. The more I write, the more I sense the power of collaboration inside my own blog. Thank you all for that.

• Is it just me….this post from April signaled the beginning of many similar posts and thoughts and is helping my structure learning experiences to move away from this model
• Just the Facts….powerful research that I carry with me wherever I go as inevitably every discussion about publishing and participating in digital learning raises these questions.
• If you ain’t a feed, I don’t read…This post got me in a bit of hot water (most of which was engaged via email) but I really learned quite a bit. Not that I would totally change my post but see the perspectives of the other side a bit better.
• PLC’s…Something’s Missing…this one is of great personal importance to me because of my local division’s and province’s assessment movement. While there are some great things about it, I still think it’s easier to slip into some nasty habits around assessment.
• Shifted Learning and Silliness…Those who follow me in twitter, will certainly attest to the silliness part.  This post reflects a great deal of my learning in 2007. As you can see, I reference an experience I had in summer and try to map how that might evolve in our classrooms. This will certainly continue to be a major theme for me in 2008.

Thanks to everyone who bothers to read and contribute to my learning. I hope I’ve been of some help to you as well.  Have a happy 2008!

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