Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

First we “googled”things, now we “youtube” videos. Youtube is now a recognized verb. From the urban dictionary:

Will has been advocating that blog be considered a verb for a while. (the hyperlink is over 3 years old). Recently I’ve learned to twitter. I’ve “youtubed” for a while. Many others have been youtubing as well. All these verbs make me feel more active than I really am (as I “blog” this from my couch). I wonder what new verb I’ll learn next?

Image: Youtube vs. Cicarelli
http://flickr.com/photos/pigatto/350600021/

Technorati Tags: youtube, verb, language, twitter

The previous post not only generated the most comments on any post I’ve written but also some interesting outcomes.  I came across as a bit arrogant and pushy but was simply trying to express a personal preference and tendency and yes maybe push some thinking.

Dr. Tim Tyson contacted me and without sharing the details, challenged me to consider why blogging isn’t always the best means of communication among other things. He pushed my thinking and I thank him for that.

Jennifer Maddrell tells us that Marc Prensky’s blog is now back with comments!  I’m sure he wasn’t influenced by this post but it’s nice to see him back.

So now I’m thinking so we go on a campaign to get those we’d like to see blogging to start?  Nah, I’ll leave it to Dembo to take over the world.

Technorati Tags: timtyson, marcprensky, teach42

Remember the first comment you ever got on your blog? Pretty cool to think that someone read your stuff.

I consider myself a lower-middle class  blogger. I’m sure there’s another term out there that describes this better. Maybe it’s A-List, C-list or whatever but what I’m driving at is that I’ve reached a stage when it comes to commenting. No longer am I thrilled to death when someone comments. Not because I’m not interested but with readership comes comments. I stil read them all but it’s not like it was when I first started to blog.

I recently left a comment for a new blogger.  She wrote a post the next day called Comment Goodness, which rightly promotes the value of the comment. Having asked my students to create blogs, I obviously want to be sure they know the power of the comment.

So it made me think that since they don’t get as many comments or at least haven’t been blogging long, for those, it’s like the feeling of getting a little bit of money when you have very little. I remember getting taken out for dinner by friends when I was in university and thinking how amazing it was. I was so appreciative.

Now on the other hand I read the Freakonmonics blog and they regularly get over 100 comments per post. Do they read them all? Do they care what people write?

When do you become so big that comments are more for the readers than the writers? This is the price you pay for popularity and good writing.

Just thinking out loud….no need to comment

I’m about two thirds into my first endeavour teaching an online course and certainly have learned much about the process. First off, even though I only have 14 students, it’s been tough to get to know them. The ones I know best are those who have been blogging and commenting and allowing me to follow via RSS. Their blogs make up the bulk of their work and reflection of the content. It’s taking a bit but finally some are showing some good stuff. Some are still reluctant and haven’t quite figured out how to dive in. Here’s a couple of examples of good work:

• Amber’s post on Cellphones and the impending discussion
• Nicole’s discussion on creating her digital story
• Ronda’s post on why technology means money and following discussion
• Brian’s digital story

We’ve also had some great sessions using Elluminate. Currently students are working with Jeff Utecht’s Plymouth State Students in Developing Wikis. A few weeks ago, David Jakes and Wes Fryer added a wealth of information to our digital story session and the results are evident in their work.

Six weeks is a very short time to build communities but given past experiences I’ve had with workshops and even longer term work with teachers, I’m confident many of these students will continue to utilize a variety of tools effectively. Their enthusiasm is generally pretty palatable. Anytime they’ve had others comment on their work, it’s been a big boost. Comments rule. They validate work and can push learning further. If you can relate at all to this feeling head over and leave a comment on one of their blogs; even better add them to your aggregator.

Kyle
Gillian
Jane
Crystal
Amber
Ronda
Stepan
Nicole
Stephanie
Katie
Kelly
Janine
Erin
Brian

Technorati Tags: uofregina, elluminate, davidjakes, jeffutecht, wesfryer, cellphones, digitalstories

This post is part confession, part request, part exploration.

The Confession: If you don’t blog but have some significant ideas, learning, teaching to share, I likely may not know about your or even follow your work. Which is to say that my RSS aggregator has become the primary means by which I learn. During my time at BLC, I was privileged to listen to Marco Torres and his students talk about their work. I had heard of Marco before but only through the blogs of others. To my knowledge Marco doesn’t blog. He has great stuff, phenomenal stuff to share but I don’t tend to use his resources as much as I should because he doesn’t blog. Only when others attend a conference where he is speaking am I reacquainted with his good work. I’m introduced to books, music and ideas this way. I certainly don’t think this is a good thing to rely so heavily on my network but with RSS, I get a better sense of who people are, what type of work they are doing and am apt to use their work more in my learning and sharing. Blogging allows even authors to share their work beyond the scope of their book. Case in point is the Freakonomics blog. I loved the book and the writings of Levitt and Dubner and am happy to follow their adventures via their blog. It keeps the work of their book fresh in my mind. They continue to expand on their original ideas and of course allows me to contribute as well. I feel a part of the learning in a much more invested way.

The Request: Please blog. That means folks like, Marco Torres, Tim Tyson, Marc Prensky, (hasn’t blogged in a year never allowed for comments) and Dan Pink (he does blog but should do more and without comments is it really a blog?)….I could go on. Blog because it adds a personal touch to your work. Blog as an extension of your work. Blog to market yourself. Read Naked Conversations if you don’t believe me. Don’t tell me you don’t have time. You all spend lots of time in great offline conversations and experiences, simply bring these online. People are interested. I don’t have the time to check your websites periodically to see if you’ve got something new. I’m being selfish but you have to  come to me. That’s what RSS is for!

On a side note, do these people even subscribe to any feeds? Will they know I’ve challenged them to blog? My guess is no.

The Exploration: I had this discussion with Will on the bus and he told me that I’m in the minority in terms of where I get my learning but I’m wondering how else we can stay connected to the great work out there without blogs and RSS? If RSS is the Killer App that many claim it to be, when it takes off as email did, will that force folks into blogging? That’s maybe a reach but I’m trying to figure out how else people will be able to have the knowledge and understanding of important work or will people simply choose a small number of people and ideas to focus as they have done prior to all the web 2.0 stuff?

I’m just saying, this is how I learn. It’ maybe not the best way but I in our world, I don’t know how else.

I need you to be a feed before I read.

Technorati Tags: rss, feed, marcotorres, freakonomics, timtyson, marcprensky, danpink, nakedconversations,

Imagine this: Take a dozen or so people who spend much of the personal and professional life immersed in technology put them together for three days and guess what they’d spend most of the time talking about. If you said technology or computers you’d be wrong.

BLC featured 600 educators from around the globe focusing on learning. That’s what the discussions in large part focused on. I was privileged to be able to spend time with the likes of Barbara Bareda, Bob Spankle, Sharon Peters, Ewan Mcintosh, Darren Kuropatwa, David Jakes, Joyce Valenza, Will Richardson, Trevor Smith, Chris Lehmann and Christian Long. These folks all represent passionate thinkers and educators who at almost every turn will speak about making learning better for kids. While they worry and lament about bad teaching and schools, they truly are excited about the possibilities.

Here are a few highlights:

• Bob Sprankle…Podcasting with a Purpose…you don’t miss a chance to hear arguably one of the founding fathers of educational podcasting. Bob and Tony Vincent likely represent the finest example of how to use this powerful tool with kids.
• Darren Kuropatwa…Darren and I have done a fair bit together so hearing him present live wasn’t really a new experience. Spending time outside the sessions is where he really shines. Smart, articulate, Darren is determined to make school and learning authentic and engaging for his students.
• Joyce Valenza….if you’re a teacher librarian, you ought to pay attention to what she says. She spent some time with me explaining her concerns with the lack of use of the “invisible web”. Lots for me to ponder.
• Chris Lehmann and Christian Long…Chris Sessums called them the “wonder twins”. Talking with Christian for a couple of hours on Thursday forced me to take a nap. High energy and deep thoughts. He’s headed back to the classroom this fall. All I can say to his students is BUCKLE UP! Chris Lehmann is a principal who’s got it right. My favorite line of Chris’ after he told us about a teacher who was complaining about something, Chris said, “Yeah, but you get to teach!”
• Trevor Smith…I convinced Trevor he needed to come to BLC back in spring and I’m hoping he’s glad he did. Trevor and I work together and he’s got some great plans. Trevor’s been moving forward with things for a while now and I sense things are beginning to get clearer. Not any easier but clearer. Trevor and I were able to touch base a few times and we’re both excited about some of our upcoming initiatives. Watch for good things from his school.
• Will Richardson….I had met Will before and Will has been gracious to support my work in the past but I challenged Will to continue to push the envelope. I did attend his session where he broke form a traditional presentation and challenged the audience to look beyond the tools and coolness of Web 2.0 to what was really important: connecting learners, ideas to fully develop the concept of lifelong learning. I hope Will continues to make people a bit more uncomfortable. We also had our talk about the optimum number of feeds you need to read. I was right
• David Jakes…is grounded. He knows what he believes about learning and isn’t afraid to tell you. He’s calls it like he sees it when it comes to artificial, fluffy student work and offers ideas about how to make learning authentic and meaningful. You also get the sense that he’d do whatever it takes to help kids learn. You have to love Jakes.
• Ewan Mcintosh…Will Richardson called him rock star. He pretty much is. I just love the way in which he crystallizes complex ideas and makes them simple or least I’m able to ponder them a bit more. See Will’s example about his photography lesson. Ewan and I had a great conversation about the lack of myths in North American education. I hope he blogs about it if he hasn’t already. I certainly think that our curriculum and education systems are much more closely tied than that of US.
• Being able to present ideas about Google Earth was important especially after all the hype about Second Life. Google Earth is to me the more critical tool for kids and teachers to focus on. Being able to discuss the implications of learning and developing location-based learning will be a valuable skill for our kids: See Pool Guy Story.

I never went to camp as a kid and my wife suggested this was the closest I’ve ever come to that feeling when camp ends. I don’t know if that’s true, but lest you think this is a post about my sappy experience, think again. It’s about the power of face to face learning combined with great online tools; People and ideas connecting to form the basis of social learning. Each is an important ingredient. All of these people are committed to help kids and not just the ones they get paid to help. Almost all of them have worked with teachers I associate with and work for and have given hours of their time to make learning better for others. They do it because I ask them. That’s how they roll.

There was nothing at this conference that rocked my world in terms of new technologies or even new ideas. Most of these have been roaming around my brain for a while. Some were pretty solid, others needed tightening and still others need some loosening. Both of this was accomplished. The conversation that Darren and I had with Christian really focused on some key questions. Christian asked, “What if all the technology was suddenly taken away?” What have we learned from all this and how do we sustain and develop the connections and beliefs about learning? Hmmmm…..

At one point someone said, “We’ve got to stop talking about all this, and start doing something about it”. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I can’t wait for summer to end.

Flickr Photoset.

Technorati Tags: blc07, alannovember, boston, conference

After my post about easypost, I received this pleasant surprise in the mail:

Thanks Willem 

I’ve noticed lately that it seems the edublogosphere is beginning to show more signs of maturing and is looking less like an echo chamber. While I have no clear data I can point to several discussions of late that engage both sides of an issue in some fairly poignant debate.

At times, the debate gets a little personal and less professional than it ought to be but sometimes when passionate people get going, it can get a little uncomfortable but I’m hoping most of these disputes get sorted out or at least come to some understanding about agreeing to disagree. Some might not really be considered battles as much as asking bloggers to clarify their position. This is also another cry for readers to be sure to read the comments as much as the posting itself.

Here are some battles of the past few months that I’ve either commented on or observed:

• Christian Long and Chris Lehmann vs the Arkansas writer
• Terry Freedman vs. Darren Kuropatwa on Twitter (a minor joust but still important)
  
• Gary Stager and David Thronburg vs. David Warlick on Going Simple
• Stager vs. Warlick on Information Change 
• Tom Hoffman vs. Gary Stager on not having a blog
• Hoffman challenging Karl Fisch on his facts for Did You Know
• Stager vs. Will Richardson on OLPC
• To watch TV or not watch TV debate

These are some samplings of good debate and I’m sure there are much better ones or ones I’ve forgotten. If you have some examples of good debate, please leave me a comment.

The thing for me is that is shows that as bloggers become more comfortable with their own writing and beliefs, they can expect to be  challenged more. I think David Warlick is at times a bit of a punching bag for some and yet David is willing to continue to throw out ideas and isn’t afraid of the challenge. I’m assuming he relishes the fact that others continue to read him. Tom Hoffman and Gary Stager continue to be naysayers for many ideas and I think this is a good thing. We all need to be better at challenging each other and for many of us this is difficult because of our tendency to want to be nice all the time.

This is a good thing but at the same time the niceties of educators when they are inviting others to engage in conversations will not always be there as we develop ideas and beliefs that have depth. This really isn’t unlike our relationships offline as those who are our true friends will challenge our thinking at times and even strongly disagree. The litmus test for these relationships come with being able to maintain a respect for each other despite our disagreements. As educators I think we have a greater obligation to blog in a more professional manner than the average citizen; just as we need to live more exemplary lives in the community.

Image: The Honeymooners
http://www.flickr.com/photos/umpqua/297956983/

Technorati Tags: controversy, bloggers, debate, education, respect