Without rehashing previous arguments, two main ideas override the specifics of the debate for me:

1. Truth has always be personalized. As much as Keen argues how this will have adverse effects on society, it really is simply the amplification of what has always been. Individuals have always determined this. Yes, in the past gatekeepers have been our filters and we’ve trusted them for the most part but there were always gaps that were revealed, sometimes years or centuries later but truth in many cases emerged. The process is simply more transparent now. The Cult of the Amateur does have merits. The idea that being able to publish somehow makes you important or have something people need to hear is a dangerous concept that we are going to continue to deal with. I have a bit of difficult time understanding his arguments that this is somehow less democratic. We still need gatekeepers but now we have more say in who those gatekeepers are.
2. It is what it is. If Keen’s argument is to make people aware of these trends, fine. But the lament of he and others to the “good old days” (whenever that was) is a moot point. We’ve always had to make decisions around trust and experts. Good teachers have been helping students critical navigate their world for years. It’s just that now it’s more important.

It’s never been a matter of good or bad for me. This is our world and why not embrace what is good, leverage it, pay attention to what is bad, and discourage it.

And while all this is easily dismissed as silliness, it demonstrates a number of things about networks. There are actually a few good ideas here.  I’ve often thought about a website to collect recipes. Yeah I know there are a gazillion out there already but getting a recipe from a trusted friend is always better. I liked Ramen Noodle Video link which I may even use on Saturday for a PhotoStory workshop I’ll be giving.  These things happen so much we take it for grant it. I’m blessed almost daily with great serendipitous learning experiences.

Clay Burell says:

Fun is fine, as long as you can demonstrate purposive learning at the same time. (I mean, come on, that’s the way I behave on Twitter – playful learning and sharing, sometimes pure socializing, other times pure teamworking – so why be a Gradgrind teacher and prohibit the same playfulness for my students when they network?)

I like to play and I like to learn. Play and learning go together well.

Technorati Tags: twitter, recipes, wikis, johnpederson, clayburell

Shifted Learning

Key quotes:

Please don’t tell me that Wikipedia isn’t a real encyclopedia or one that can’t be trusted. Perhaps it can’t be trusted if you’re prepping for a Presidential debate, but it is sure good enough to help me learn what I need to learn–which is how to quickly take a bunch of facts and turn them into a new and useful idea. Here’s what just about every exam ought to be: “Use Firefox to find the information you need to answer this question:” And as the internet gets smarter, the questions are going to have to get harder. Which is a good thing. Until teachers get unstuck, our kids are going to be stuck and so will we.

…a professor at the university’s Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences program, tried to do for the first time last fall by requiring term papers to be submitted to the popular, user-edited online encyclopedia.

onstant revisions by regular contributors. Brockhaus suggested that was part of the experience, and that students posting material to the site would have to stop viewing their work as “sacrosanct.”

But being subject to editing led to a potential problem: Wikipedia editors didn’t find some of the students’ articles relevant enough to warrant their own topics. They were either deleted or merged with existing articles. That reality is in part a function of Wikipedia’s vast breadth, which already covers virtually any topic in which there is sufficient public knowledge.

Maybe we should include it on resumes or portfolios: “What wikipedia articles have you contributed to?”

Technorati Tags: wikipedia, sethgodin, scottmcleod, ewanmcintosh, willrichardson

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You should see the stuff the kids are doing on the wiki. I get the webcam set up today so we can start using Flixn too. This is so great. I can’t believe everyone isn’t doing it. Even the Alt ed kids in period two have it going on. Talk about engaged learning. I could be sitting at the back quilting!! They are helping each other, going above and beyond any expectations I have.

She’d also be thrilled to collaborate with anyone. rosso.sophie [at] prairiesouth.ca

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Bob Sprankle was good enough to record the session and post it on his website as well. While I didn’t use a traditional slideshow, I do have the notes on my wiki.

Also, David Jakes posted his SkypeCast notes.

Flickr Image courtesy of Trevor Smith:

Fuzzy and his lawyers don’t seem to grasp how wikipedia works. The comments made against him have been removed but like many wikipedia articles may return. Wikipedia does a great job of identifying pages that are controversial, have been vandalized, or aren’t very good. If everyone sued every malicious item posted on wikipedia or the internet for that matter…..well you complete that sentence.

Fuzzy you just can’t do that. Maybe you should do what Tiger did back in ’97….forgive. Or better yet, go change the article yourself.

Update: I see USAToday has referenced my post as well as included links to the official legal documents.

Kathy Cassidy

This is a short interview on her trip to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, there is little online information about this program and conference as it relates to Canadians, so thus, no show notes. Have a listen.

As well, her latest class project is an attempt to help her students understand what “1,000″ means. Please add your name to her wiki.

8MB

16:16

Read the full story

The message is virtually the same but it’s nice to discuss the use of these tools outside the classroom application.
This week I also begin a series of 3 workshops on digital photography as part of our community courses.

The fact that these topics and tools have great use for adults in everyday life, once again brings validation to the importance of them to be explored and used with our students.

Weinberger asks:

So,why is it that you don’t see such frank notices in traditional sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias? Is it because their articles don’t ever suffer from any of these human weaknesses? Oh, sure,newspapers issue corrections after the fact, and “This is non-neutral opinion” is implicit on the Op-Ed page. But why isn’t there any finer grain framing of the reliability and nature of what’s presented to using their pages? Can we come to any conclusion except that traditional authorities are more interested in maintaining authority than in helping us reach the truth?

Wikipedia at the least, encourages us to be critical thinkers. I know when I go there, it may be inaccurate. I’m okay with that. Let’s help our kids not to be brainwashed by the media into believing everything they read and see.
I love the behind the scenes type shows on TV. I love the special features on a DVD showing how the movie was made and any other background information that provides context. The discussion portion of wikipedia entries is well worth the time, especially on these types of disputed articles.
Will we ever see a wiki newspaper?

technorati tags:wikipedia, weinberger

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Planning has always been up to classroom teachers. Teachers decide what students are going to learn and how they are going to do it. I’d like to try something new and different. I’d like your ideas. Do have suggestions for assignments and projects? Do you have a resource that you think we should be using in class? Is there someone we absolutely need to talk to? Post it here! This space is for all of us to put our heads together and create the best possible space to learn in that we can. Anything goes. This is a brainstorming space, a planning space, a space for new ideas so anything you can think of can be posted here.

Clarence is at it again. He’s decided to start the year by having his students involved in the planning process. Talk about ownership for learning. Will every kid participate? Not likely but that’s not the point. Creating opportunities for students to participate is what’s important. As Prensky says, ENGAGMENT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONTENT.  Clarence actually believes that. Some may be asking, “How will he meet objectives? What about the curriculum?” I know from discussions I’ve had with him that he is well aware of the curriculum. If you do have a question for him, just ask him.

Oh by the way, this wiki’s not just for teachers, he’s invited the world.

But the truth is not only hard, it’s time consuming. I’m staying at a good friend’s house and he asked me to watch a documentary he downloaded called “Loose Change“. I had never heard of it but I’m assuming many of my American friends have. Basically it’s a conspiracy theory about 9/11 pointing to the possibility that the US was actually behind the terrorists acts. Very compelling and raises some interesting questions.

After watching, I immediately headed to wikipedia to see what else it had to say. As I figured, it offered not only a summary but criticisms and links to other sources. I don’t plan on delving to deeply into this but was pleased to know there were many places to look for truth. I could see this being a powerful lesson for students to engage in and research. David Warlick’s been advocating this type of use for wikipedia and has always believed this is how we need to deal with the information.

It’s one thing to read something and be confronted with an idea to be believed or not, but when it’s presented in video format, it’s even more compelling and easier to believe. That’s why we want our students to be adept at using this medium. They need to understand how to use images, sounds and mix them together to tell powerful stories; stories that are meant to express ideas and persuade an audience. Having some experience in creating these messages will serve them well when viewing them.
Being able to determine truth ican be very difficult and requires time and effort. This type of research would be all but impossible without tools like wikipedia. Wikipedia provides a much more unbias view that commercial sites or personal sites offer. The fact it points away from itself and lists 41 references and over 30 external links makes me feel fairly confident I’m going to be in for a good workout should I choose to pursue the truth. We know that students often are uninterested in the rigors of research but I’m sure that when it comes to issues that matter most, truth is worth pursuing.
If you haven’t watched this video, you should. Not because you’ll agree or disagree but because you’ll be curious to find the truth.

I love the warning at the beginning of the video encouraging the distribution and viewing. Very FLOSS.

Looking back at our holiday, there were a number of ways technology was used to create a better vacation.

• Wiki. We travelled with another family and used a wiki to plan out the details. While I basically did all the editing, everyone viewed it many times prior to the trip and we all sat down and used it to finalize things. When travelling with another family, it was nice to have many things pre-planned.
• Flickr. Friends and family members loved being able to keep up with things along the way. In addition, it enabled me to deal with all the pictures in smaller chunks rather than doing it all after the fact. I also found a great little bookmarklet that easily adds a geotag to your photos. I also incorporated a little tip found at photojojo.com that we had a lot of fun with.

• Youtube. I was even able to create a short video and upload it to youtube.
• Blog. Providing short updates rather than emailing, allowed me to describe some of the details of our trip.
• Geocaching. Had the opportunity to do a few geocaches which led us to some interesting places we may not have found otherwise…Ousell Falls being one.
• Cellphones and text messaging. We needed to text message each other throughout the trip as the US charges $1 a minute for cellphone use.

I’ll definitely use these again for future vacations.

So, why all this educational wiki-use? I think the answers are pretty straightforward:

1. Wikis are collaborative, and one of the ideas we want students and teachers to both understand and LIVE is the idea that groups of people can generally come up with better ideas and solutions than people working in isolation.
2. Wikis are iterative, meaning that they improve over time. They are not a single snapshot or a static creation, but rather a dynamic, living creation that can continue to grow as ideas change and evolve over time.
3. Wikis are free. As teachers, we like free stuff. And wikis don’t cost anything to create in our present climate of abundant web 2.0 free tools.
4. Wikis are RSS subscribable, which makes them easier to track and update. More information services in the coming years will embrace RSS for good reason: Pulling information of interest to you is much more preferable than having information PUSHED to you that may or may not be desired.
5. We learn best by experiencing pedagogy and technology: Using wikis permits teachers to take on the role of learners, and directly experience how powerful but yet simple wikis are and can be for instruction– and especially group work.
6. Wikis are fast to create and update. I’ve been making webpages to accompany my educational technology workshops since the mid-1990s, but I’ve never used anything as fast and easy as a wiki. Yes, using a tool like Dreamweaver I can create a website with many more bells and whistles– but our focus in education should generally be more on CONTENT and IDEAS rather than bells and whistles. (Vendors and our own students may lose sight of that idea often, but as the teachers in the room we shouldn’t.)
7. Wikis can emphasize the idea that learning is ongoing rather than one-shot, and enable conversations and idea threads to continue long after the staff development session or group project deadline is over.

I am probably going to create a wiki for all the workshops that I’ll be doing for educators from now on. Thanks to Dean for already modeling this for us with his digital storytelling wiki. I’m guessing Dean and many others will be creating more wikis for use in professional development settings in the months to come! If so, we can look forward to continuing these conversations as we learn and share together.

Bibliographic details for “Moose Jaw”

• Page name: Moose Jaw
• Author: Wikipedia contributors
• Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
• Date of last revision: 10 March 2004 13:31 UTC
• Date retrieved: 28 July 2006 17:28 UTC
• Permanent link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282
• Primary contributors: View the list
• Page Version ID: 16357282

Please remember to check your manual of style, standards guide or instructor’s guidelines for the exact syntax to suit your needs. For more detailed advice, see Citing Wikipedia.

Citation styles for “Moose Jaw”

APA style

Moose Jaw. (2004, March 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:28, July 28, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282.

MLA style

“Moose Jaw.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Mar 2004, 13:31 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 28 Jul 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282>.

MHRA style

Wikipedia contributors, ‘Moose Jaw’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 March 2004, 13:31 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282> [accessed 28 July 2006]

Chicago style

Wikipedia contributors, “Moose Jaw,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282 (accessed July 28, 2006).

CBE/CSE style

Wikipedia contributors. Moose Jaw [Internet]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; 2004 Mar 10, 13:31 UTC [cited 2006 Jul 28]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282.

Bluebook style

Moose Jaw, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282 (last visited July 28, 2006).

Bluebook: Harvard JOLT style

See Wikipedia, Moose Jaw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Jaw (optional description here) (as of Jul. 28, 2006, 17:28 GMT).

AMA style

Wikipedia contributors. Moose Jaw. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. March 10, 2004, 13:31 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282. Accessed July 28, 2006.

BibTeX entry

@misc{ wiki:xxx,
author = "Wikipedia",
title = "Moose Jaw --- Wikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia",
year = "2004",
url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282",
note = "[Online; accessed 28-July-2006]"
}

When using the LaTeX package url (\usepackage{url} somewhere in the preamble), which tends to give much more nicely formatted web addresses, the following may be preferred:

@misc{ wiki:xxx,
author = "Wikipedia",
title = "Moose Jaw --- Wikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia",
year = "2004",
url = "\url{http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moose_Jaw&oldid=16357282}",
note = "[Online; accessed 28-July-2006]"
}

The format:

How many activities/projects can be done in 2 days? I know many workshops will focus totally on one project. They’ll spend much of day one setting the stage for digital storytelling and then spend day 2 on creation. After posting about my last workshop, the great comments helped me confirm my instinct for balance. I’m hoping to interject pedagogy and philosophy in the midst of the various projects. Wes’ idea about constantly providing opportunities for participants to reflect as well as create is a good one. Not that I’ve never done that but I need the reminder. Secondly, I’m choosing to use day 1 to create 3 mini-projects and day 2 to create single larger project. My thinking is since I believe digital storytelling is much broader than most think, I want to give them experience in a few different approaches. Even at that, we’ll only be scratching the surface but only creating a single project doesn’t address the myriad of possibilities

The tools:

I had a great Skype conversation with Miguel last night and he described the discussion he’s been involved with about the tools of digital storytelling. For a number of very good reasons, they’ve chosen to go exclusively with Windows Movie Maker.  David Jakes and others prefer PhotoStory and of course Mac users love iMovie. PowerPoint, Audacity and various image video editing tools are possible tools for digital storytelling.

I’m going to focus on Movie Maker and PhotoStory. I would have likely focused solely on PhotoStory but because my participants are wanting some experience with video, Movie Maker is required. Also, Miguel made a great case for Movie Maker because of the ease of audio recording and editing right within the program, negating the use for another audio editor. (their approach also is about oral storytelling, so there is no written script)

The Pedagogy: 

Miguel’s oral storytelling approach, really interests me but I think I need more time and expertise to pursue that. Also, I know many groups including the story center, focus exclusively on personal narratives. These are powerful and will be the approach for the day 2 project but I think it’s also important to discover academic or content stories. These will be done with the day 1 projects.

I’ll likely piddle away at it between now and Monday and also try and create a decent introduction. Miguel asked me to record it so hopefully I’ll remember. If you have any other ideas, comments or suggestions, either drop them off here or over at the wiki.

Seems a bit like taking the ball away from kids at recess when they’re not playing nice. Sometimes you have to do it.

List of protected pages.

8:00

Thanks to a podcast by Steve Dembo, I was inspired to try this out. Since our division and entire province for that matter has undergone a major restructuring and reorganization, there has been major unrest. So the opportunity to try something different seemed possible.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. I was hoping to meet with a half dozen interested parties. As it turned out there were 35 people representing 8 different school divisions as well as representation from our provincial department of learning. There was a high level of energy and buzz regarding the invitation to meet and discuss issues that were important to each individual.

I created the entire conference and agenda in a wiki. From here, each organization had the opportunity to contribute over the past month in preparation for the day. By the way, wikispaces offers their service free for teachers which enables you to create totally private areas if you wish and ad free. This proved invalueable in developing the day.

During each discussion we utilized Jotspotlive which as far as I know is the only online notetaking service that allows for simultaneously notetaking.

The concept of an openspace conference seems like a natural way to organize thinking. I’m sure I didn’t lead it exactly according to the book but was pleased with they day. We embraced these principles:

• Whoever comes is the right person – You don’t need every person in the organization, just whoever cares the most. And if you’re the only one who comes, you might finally have some rich, focused quiet time for thinking and writing on that issue.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have – Let go of your expectations and work with whatever unfolds.
• Whenever it starts is the right time – Creativity doesn’t happen on a schedule.
• Whenever it’s over, it’s over. – If you find a solution in 20 minutes, move on to the next group. If it takes 2 hours, keep the conversation rolling.

In keeping with my tagline, the day was relevant, authentic and engaging. Everyone had ownership in the content and their learning. Several remarked at the use of technology to connect and provide a richer experience. Using a tool like Jotlive, you were able to sit in on one session and yet snoop around at the activity happening elsewhere. As is the principle of open space, this allowed you to excercise your right to use your feet and move over that conversation and bring with you the good discussion you had at other sessions.

Thanks to Steve and also a old post on How to Run Useless Conference for some of the inspiration behind the day.

Conference photos: