Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

Many of our schools are wanting to put interactive whiteboards in their classrooms. Currently the debate is which board is the best: SmartBoard or Promethean. I have no strong feelings about this but am usually the go-to-guy about all things technology. So I oblige and since I have limited experience here I go to my network. Here are the early returns:

I’m now asking either those folks or others to chime in with some thought via comments and I thank you in advance.

So here’s the learning lesson. Instead of doing a search for Promethean vs. Smartboard, I go to my network. These are the people I trust (see echo chambers have value too) and who use them everyday. I’m not smart enough to make this decision or establish an opinion of my own that carries much weight. The fact is I likely don’t care to but I still need the information and value it. The idea of the human network continues to evolve for me in both esoteric and practical,visible ways. I have a tremendous advantage over other technology coordinators who might have the same questions but don’t have a network outside of their district to draw from. And it’s not just about technology coordinators. What about doctors, lawyers, plumbers, cooks, coaches, candlestick makers, engineers, managers, or principals who have networks? How much more advantaged are they? A little bit? A lot? I sure hope that if my doctor looks at me with a puzzled look, I’m hoping that she has a network that she can tap into that’s both fairly instant and also very knowledgeable.

Building networks can happen in a myriad of ways. For me this little blog is likely the best way for me to build one. I can testify to that. Thanks for all the comments and insights you’ll leave me about IBW’s. You rock.

The concept of using your network to filter content (I don’t mean content filtering I mean filtering content…never mind, just keep reading) is a burgeoning idea. The fact that I spend a huge amount of time online need not be beneficial only to me. Like the spies going into Egypt and reporting of the abundance, I can come back with reports of goodness of all that I see, read and hear. Here are  3 simple ways to filter content for your network:

1. Use your the “Share Feature” in Google Reader.  By simply clicking the Share button at the bottom of key posts, I filter out on average about 1 out of every 400 posts I read. If more people did this, you’d quickly create an easier entry point for newcomers.
2. Delicious link Roll. While many have added their del.icio.us links on their blogs, I just added a “mustread” tag. I’ll likely add this tag to about 1 in 10 items I tag. The difference here is that I totally control all my bookmarks but with my Reader, I only control my feeds, not every post. While I subscribe to many folks bookmarks, I think adding a mustread tag would be helpful to those with only a passing interest.
3. Videos I watch. I just recently noticed VodPod on Susan Carter Morgan’s blog which allows you in the same way you add bookmarks in del.icio.us, you can have a bookmarklet to save videos. I do have a favorites list in youtube but this allows me to gather video from a variety of sources. I’ll likely label about 1 in 5 must see. Video is certainly more of a time investment in most cases so it’s likely more I see will be worthwhile.

One argument that continues to surface is that since we live in a publish then filter world, students quickly get the impression that simply posting content online is good enough. I think Sturgeon’s law is fairly accurate: “90% of everything is crap.” Finding the 10% that is really good takes a lot of time. But again, using the same power that allows us to easily publish crap, we can also easily label quality. Sure, it’s still arbitrary, but overall, it’s a pretty good system.

This is all about the power of tagging. As you can see if you’re reading this on my blog, that I’ve added all three of these to my sidebar. I’m trying my best to filter out what I think the best of the best is for me. I realize their are a number of other ways to filter content for your network.

What did I miss? Do you have some other ideas for filtering content?

Image: Seive by James UK

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