Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

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

I was perusing the EdubloggerCon photos and was trying to attach names to faces. Some were fairly recognizable but few names were tagged. This photo from Brian Crosby caught me eye. The gentleman in the bottom left has a large baseball for his wallpaper. I immediately figured it was Jeff Utecht and I was right. Jeff’s passion for baseball is revealed during his many twitter updates on Mariner’s baseball which he follows closely despite the time difference in Shanghai.

I commented on his blog and he let me know that it was a bit weird. This is part of the appeal of twitter as it tends to allow people to share more personal information among friends. (So maybe I shouldn’t be blabbing it here?…too late Jeff). It builds community and provides an opportunity to mini-blog without too much thought given its 140 character limitation. Many others have written much better stuff on twitter so I won’t go on too much here. Read Alan’s twitter stuff to understand it better.

So I thought it might be fun to play a little game. Email me a link to your current wallpaper or attach it and a link to your blog. If I get at least 5, I’ll set up a little matching game. I’d especially like these because they are major flickrites.

• Tim Lauer
• D’Arcy Norman
• Stephen Downes
• Steve Dembo
• Alan Levine

• Any EdubloggerConner or NECCer would be great

In case you had any doubt, here’s my current wallpaper:

Technorati Tags: wallpaper, edubloggercon, edubloggercon2007, necc2007, jeffutecht, flickr, briancrosby, twitter

Wes Fryer has me guest blogging for the weekend.  Trying to come close to his prolific writing will be a challenge. I may cross post but I may not. At any rate, it’s nice to go to new places.

I’ve changed theme for the first time in over a year. Rob’s new Mandingo theme looked good to me but it did require some customizing that I hadn’t got to till now. I not only liked the clean look but also it was more accommodating for larger screen resolutions. My previous template was best suited for 800×600 which would seem to fit the lowest common denominator approach. Being a hack of a designer, I know I don’t always take accessibility issues into consideration when designing but feel like I should be moving to a larger size site.

I had to configure the header to allow for my random header script. This was easy enough and now there are many options for this. I’m a big fan because it allows me to share and reuse my favourite photos. (Sorry D’arcy no Maui pictures, but if you like golf…) Okay, so it looks like I completely cloned D’arcy’s site, honest I didn’t mean to and I’ll try and figure out a way to make it different. In fairness,  although D’arcy’s been lamenting his switch between Drupal and Wordpress for a while, I was reading it in my reader and never did visit his site. Likely many reading this in their aggregator may never pop by for a visit and this entire post will seem useless.

My header fonts changes from image to image, does that count as being different? (This is beginning to sound more like a twitter post) Maybe this is how women feel when someone shows up at a party wearing the same dress? I may have to go home and change.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, themes, dnorman, shareski, mandingo

Today I had my informal evaluation with my superintendent. She was more than gracious in her appreciation of not only the work I do within our division but truly gets the importance of my connectivity and what this means for teaching and learning. We talked about the growth of many of our classrooms in terms of their move to a more relevant learning experience and more self-directed learning.

I cited one example that to me exemplifies the work and change that I’ve had a hand in.

Sophie has always been a teacher who put the needs of her students up front. This year we met several times to look at the idea of Web 2.0 and what that means for the classroom. She began with a blog. A few months ago we had Darren talk to a group of teachers via Skype to share his work. Sophie made the leap from a classroom blog where she was posting assignments to getting students to not only blog but post their daily labs and learning via video. This semester, they’ve uploaded 38 videos of their work. She’s not the one posting or uploading, it’s the kids. I’ve talked to her about it and she continues to be excited for the work of her students. The growth and improvement of their work over time has been clearly evident. She not only gets this, but is now “evangelizing” in her school and beyond. This is what it’s supposed to look like. So what are you waiting around for, head over to her blog and encourage her and her kids!

Technorati Tags: shareski, darrenkuropatwa, sophierosso, skype, youtube

As I prepare for my upcoming session at the IT Summit 2007 on RSS, I wanted to develop another metaphor for RSS. About a year and half ago, I came up with the dinner party/friends analogy. It seemed to resonate quite well but I wanted something fresh. Here’s variation on that theme:

I’ve recently assembled a team of researchers who go out on a daily basis and find out what’s happening in the world of digital learning and education in general. This team is comprised of teachers, consultants and experts who really know there stuff. Some live in China,New Zealand, Scotland, United States and Canada. They send me their findings in an instance. Some will even call me to discuss their findings. If there are questions, I can get clarification and often leads me to others who are also working on the issue. They are relentless.When I wake up in the morning, I’m always amazed that the work they’ve done. Sometimes it’s too much but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The best part about my team is they are free. Many organizations would be thousands of dollars a month for this type of work. I’ve been able to compile this team for nothing. All they ask is that I also share my work and allow them to consider me a researcher as well. So far, it’s been working very well.

So who’s on your research team?

You’ll want to click on the larger image to see how many you can name. (Don’t look at the tags either…cheaters) If you see yourself, why not sign the guestbook on the flickr page.

BTW, I’m still having issues with my feed not formatting so you’ll want to come to the site to see this post properly….I know the issue is with PodPress, I need to revert back to version 6.8 but can’t find it anywhere.

Update: Steve has added some great notes to the image with links.

Technorati Tags: rss, itsummit2007, guhlin, macleay, kwhobbes, wegner, hunt, cassidy, couros, oakes, mcleod, warlick, richardson, stager, davis, dembo, utecht, seimens, levine, downes, sierra, kuropatwa, fisher, mcintosh, fryer, wall, d’souza, norman, shareski

Having a week off to go on a golf trip is nothing to complain about this awaited me:

Why do I feel compelled to read through these carefully? I had 3 newspapers waiting for me that I simply tossed in the garbage. Being that it was Easter break for all teachers, my inbox only had a few dozen messages, few of which I felt obligated to respond to until tomorrow. But the newsreader, is more important to me then any other source of information I use. I’m afraid I’ll miss something. This tells me how critical this is to my learning and interests. I kind of knew this already but I can’t remember taking a week break from my newsreader before. The fact that Google Reader uses the “100+”  measurement is a bit deceiving. I’m sure this will take me the evening to go through….so I better get at it.

Technorati Tags: rss, googlereader, professionaldevelopment

The Kathy Sierria story is to cyberbullying as 9-11 is to terrorism. It’s not that cyberbullying has never taken place but having it happen to someone as high profile as Kathy Sierra brings attention to the problem in a light many have not considered.

I’ve got two concerns about the way things are unfolding. One is the tendency of the media and even bloggers to blow this out of proportion. The other is the focus on cyberbullying as a unique, stand alone issue.

Most of us are aware cyberbullying has always taken place and will always take place. Evil exists. Many have taken this particular incident to perpetuate fear and hysteria around blogging. One reaction certainly to emerge from this is a continued push to ban or restrict the freedom many of enjoy. Some are advocating cyber cops. What is the cost of protection against cyberbullying going to be?

I look at what has become of airport security and the cost behind that and question if it’s really necessary. Those who call for zero tolerance at any cost have to be questioned. The 9-11 and Kathy Sierra incidents are the extremes. We need to keep that in perspective.

My wife told me today of a student that may be potentially entering school in the fall. This student has severe allergies that are fatal. Any whiff of scented perfumes or hair products may be fatal for the child. Is school the best place for him? Can we be sure no one enters the building with hair gel? What is the cost to insure this child is safe? I wonder where we draw the line?

The other issue I have is with focusing on cyberbullying as something unique. While we understand people may act differently online and have the ability occupy a different persona, the issues are societal. I think the best efforts of school to deal with bullying tends to be helping victims and bystanders deal with the evils of bullying. I like Tim O’Reilly’s code of conduct but as Clarence says, this is just common sense. Just as there are a variety of cancers, the goal is to cure cancer. It doesn’t matter if it’s breast cancer, lung cancer or prostate cancer. Yes, there may be preventive measures for specific cancers but the cure for all cancer is the same.

I don’t think we need to draw attention to this anymore than we should draw attention to all the other evils that exist in the world. There are quite few. Certainly those that have been impacted by evil will want to shed light on their particular issue. But without perspective, the general public are often swayed against the truth. Given the amount of data that runs through the pipes of the internet everyday, the amount of cyberbullying has to be minuscule. I joined the cyberbullying social network created by Andy Carvin but now I doubt I’ll be there much (not just because as Will and David I don’t really get it) because the tone of those networks tend to see cyber-bullying as something different than bullying. I see the differences but I don’t think they are great. While I’ve given up on privacy, I’ve not given up on defending against bullying.
So:

• let’s be sure to model good manners online and offline
• let’s stand up against bullies
• let’s be accountable for our words and actions
• But let’s consider the cost of regulations and policies that might rob us from the power and freedom we currently have online

For more on this, read Laura Moncur’s take and listen to Steve Dembo’s podcast.

I’m sure many will disagree with me and I welcome those comments.

Technorati Tags: cyberbullingy, stopcyberbullying, andycarvin, stevedembo, lauramoncur, kathysierra,