Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I’ve had the opportunity to share the “news” about social software/web 2.0/Read Write Web (choose your favourite term)  to some groups other than classroom teachers. In the past month I’ve done two workshops for our provincial teachers’ association. One to the local teacher association groups and the other to the special subject councils.

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.

Dave Weinberger writes about the credibility of wikipedia even more passionately than I do.
He points out that wikipedia’s openness about their accuracy makes them more trustworthy. He talks about the various notices that begin many articles.

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

Blogged with Flock

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.

We all know how critical it is for us to demonstrate to students the importance of truth and accuracy in blogging and in more importantly in life. It’s been both humbling and powerful to watch Will deal with the issue of not using primary sources as well as not citing sources. Will was very forthright in his errors and even thanked those who called him out.
Darren recently discovered the truth about the South African wiki project that many of us, including me have been touting.

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.

Came back from vacation down to Yellowstone last night. A big thanks to Wes for guestblogging. As expected, he did an outstanding job and of course manage to post some great stuff.

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.

I am becoming convinced that all, or at least most, of the professional development sessions we participate in as educators and share with others should be organized via linked wikis. Dean did a great job modeling this last month in his multi-day digital storytelling workshop. I attempted this in June when I shared several workshops with teachers in College Station, Texas (Bryan ISD) focused on digital literacy– primarily the use of blogs and podcasts to help students develop both traditional and 21st century literacy skills. I started a blogging tools wiki a few weeks ago after an engaging skypecast on this topic, and the MTI 2006 conference I attended 2 weeks ago in Winfield, Kansas utilized a conference wiki that a fair number of folks have contributed to successfully.

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.

Tim Wilson discovers a wikipedia citing tool. As with http://citationmachine.net/, wikipedia offers many formats and flavours for your choosing. Here’s an example for Moose Jaw:

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]”
}

I’ve set up my wiki for my digital storytelling workshop on Monday and Tuesday. I really struggled with the format, the tools and the pedagogical approach.

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.