Moving at the Speed of Creativity

William Snider’s article in the August 2006 EduTopia, “The Digital Superintendent,” provides a nice window into the thinking of Doug Otto, superintendent of Plano ISD in the Dallas, Texas area. After creating a series of videos for the Texas Technology Leadership Academy (which was primarily funded by the Gates Foundation) several years ago, I become firmly convinced that technology leadership– and particularly the vision of district superintendents and principals of authentic teaching and learning using digital tools, is an ESSENTIAL component for school reform initiatives. A strong case can be made that administrative vision for teaching and learning is THE most important element and ingredient for school reform. Mr. Otto reflects this idea in the following quotation from the article:

Otto is convinced that disseminating a technology vision for his district is a vital part of his leadership position. “A lot of people have energy, enthusiasm, and good ideas for integrating technology into learning,” he says. “But you’ll never get total, meaningful implementation unless there is a vision from the top that everyone can look at and buy into and hopefully implement at the classroom level.”

“The skills that students acquire doing research, analyzing, and synthesizing and presenting information will stay with them for life,” Otto contends. “The world is much more reliant on information and technology, and having the skills to research and present information is critical.”

I am planning to work on a technology leadership initiative in the state of Oklahoma, working with district leaders who need opportunities to learn from their peers (not from me, from other superintendents and principals) about what is possible via technology-infused teaching, what is working, and how teaching and learning needs to and can change for the 21st century. I am drawn to the school reform vision of the Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, among others.

I’ve started a wiki page on school reform that I’m going to keep updating with links to these and other groups. There is a confusing morass of voices “out there” today on the issue of school reform. There are many folks who seem to “get it,” but others who are advancing agendas and visions I certainly don’t agree with. I’m sure I’ll continue to use this blog as well as other web 2.0 tools as ways to learn and share further about this topic.

Thanks to Steve Poling for the EduTopia article link on Scott McLeod’s “Dangerously Irrelevant” blog.

Ever since I participated in my first skypecast, I’ve wanted and hoped to find a web-based tool that would permit interactive whiteboarding and even screensharing. Web 2.0 guru Cheryl Oakes is, as always, on top of the latest tool developments and brought Vyew.com to my attention in her latest Seedlings podcast on Bit-by-Bit. According to the website:

Vyew is a browser-based conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that provides instant visual communication without the need for client downloads or installations. Vyew’s multimedia workspace enables shared viewing of presentations, files, photos and one’s desktop. Included are tools for whiteboarding, annotating, text chatting, and phone conferencing.

I can’t wait to try it for myself! Commercial tools like MacroMedia Breeze and Windows LiveMeeting are powerful and cool– but pretty expensive. In the education space particularly I’m much more interested and excited about open source and web 2.0 tools– and Vyew is both web-based and free to use now during the beta period! If you sign up now, they will give you 2 years of free use of the tool after the beta expires. I’m in!

I wonder if this is something we’d want to try and use during the culminating 24 hour skypecast we’ve discussed having for K-12 online?

I learned this evening from Alan Levine’s “Mindless, Time Wasting, Ego Chasing Vain Pursuit” post about bloginfluence.net. Yes, using this tool is a bit like “Googling” your own name, but I also think in a more positive than vain sense this is a very powerful tool for following the connected conversations in the blogosphere.

My own bloginfluence query this evening provided a wealth of other links besides Technorati (which I primarily use to find out who’s talking about and linking to things I’ve posted previously so I can read and comment on their ideas) to find folks who have linked to my posts recently.

My influence
[36483]

I still think ClustrMaps provides the most attention-getting visualization of global conversations related to blogs, but it measures blog hits, which are not broken apart between those reading and those commenting. It also does not include those writing about a person’s blog and cross-linking.

I would like to see a tool like Bloginfluence connected to geographic IP information, so conversations could be linked to from an interface like ClustrMaps. Sort of a clickable ClustrMap, which also includes crosslinks / pingbacks.

One of the most amazing things about the blogosphere is its organic nature. No single tool is comprehensively tracking all these conversations, and no one tool ever likely will. And that is OK! This sort of thing dramatizes the need we have to be dynamists rather than statists in our new media era. We need to be comfortable not being in control of the technology and the information, and empowered to be able to ride the wave of change into the 21st century.

As you may already know, the first annual FREE K-12 online conference is coming up at the end of October and beginning of November. Even if you have never presented at a conference before (online or face-to-face,) I encourage you to consider sharing a presentation for K-12 Online. “Presentations” are recorded screencasts, audiocasts, or videos about issues relating to web 2.0, and will be posted to the conference blog during the weeks of the actual conference. Compared to a “regular” F2F conference presentation, the stress and pressure should be much less since everything is pre-recorded! If you make a mistake, just go back and edit it out! This is an ONLINE conference, and while there will be some opportunities for synchronous interaction via Elluminate and skypecasts, most of the interaction will be asynchronous via blog comments and postings.

Check out the proposal submission guidelines page on the conference blog for details, including the actual online proposal submission form.

Please also encourage others you know to submit a proposal! You don’t have to have the proposal finished to submit it as an idea! As of this moment, we still haven’t received 10 submissions in two of the four conference strands– and we need 10 presentations for each one! (In addition to the keynotes for each, which are already set up.) Our current received proposal numbers, by thread, are:

• A Week In The Classroom: 14
• Basic/Advanced Training: 8
• Personal Professional Development: 11
• Overcoming Obstacles: 7

Proposals are due by Saturday night (Sept 30th) at midnight US Pacific Time. Please submit and encourage others you know to submit proposals so our conference will be as successful as possible!

As a parent with young children often on the Internet, I have been asked more than once “How do you spell Disney.com?” This summer as we moved from Texas to Oklahoma, my six year old asked this question from the back seat of our car where she worked on my laptop. I had to explain that we don’t have Internet access from our car YET– And reflected how “magical” the Internet must seem to a young mind: This invisible, seemingly ubiquitous virtual world of bells and whistles that we can access wirelessly from our laptop computers.

I am a vocal advocate for critical media literacy, for people of all ages, and am also concerned about targeted advertising for children that seems to be all around us in the United States and many other countries. Young people wield considerable financial influence in many households, and the marketers definitely know this. I object to the idea that it is ok for our children to be constantly bombarded by media messages encouraging consumption and constant entertainment. According to the article “Commercial pressure on children and young people” from the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs:

Children and adolescents are increasingly becoming target groups for aggressive forms of marketing practices and for commercial pressure with a view to stimulate and increase their consumption. One reason for this is that they play an important role as consumers. In addition, children and adolescents have a vital role in choices concerning consumption in the family economy. At the same time, consumer goods are becoming more important factors in shaping the identities of children and youngsters. This means that minors are concerned with the symbolic value of objects and that their perception of these factors are more important than the actual functions of objects. We see too many examples of commercial interests that cynically exploit the uncertainty children and adolescents feel about their identity and self-esteem.

Given this environment of “aggressive media marketing towards children,” I agree with Tim Donovan of Imbee.com that:

1. The Internet is not just for adults, it is also for kids, and kids deserve their own spaces online that cater to their own interests and needs without a barrage of advertising.
2. Developers of online spaces for children should acknowledge the need to develop ENGAGING environments for them that do more than entertain and serve as conduits for targeted advertising.

Yesterday’s CNet article, “Imbee goes where Disney, AOL failed” observes (correctly I think) that it’s amazing adults haven’t been faster to recognize this need for non-commercial (or at least LESS commercial) online destinations for young people. The article mentions the strategic partnership just announced between Imbee and Web Wise Kids, a non-profit Internet safety group. Web Wise Kid’s motto is, “Equipping Today’s Youth to Make Wise Choices Online.” This needs to be the motto of many school districts– but it could be extended to be, “Equipping Today’s Youth to Make Wise Choices Online and INRL.” (In Real Life)

Imbee is just getting started, and Disney.com has been around a relatively long time by Internet standards– but I think a strong case can be made that engaging destinations like Imbee are BETTER than places like Disney for our young people precisely because they are not motivated fundamentally by a desire for commercialization, monetization, and (to take a cynical view) exploitation of children’s monetary influences in their own families at the potential expense of their own self-esteem and concept of identity.

I do NOT want the self-image and identity of my own daughters shaped and defined by PowerPuff girls, Barbie, American girl dolls, or any other commercial product. No we do not ban these products in our home, and I think they can be fine to play with– but the line between play and identity can be a fine one. In the future when we DO have Internet access in our car and my daughters are online, I think I’ll be much happier to hear them ask, “how do you spell Imbee.com, Dad?” instead of asking for Disney.com.

The September 20th article in USA Today, “Meet my 5000 new best pals,” is an interesting look at “friending” in digital social networks like MySpace that is especially popular with young digital natives. Issues with “friends” in virtual spaces mirror those with face-to-face friends in many cases, but questions also arise about whether “bad social skills” are reinforced in online environments where friends can be readily “deleted” with the click of a mouse.

My own experiences with MySpace have been instructive– one thing I have learned is not to use my actual birth year in my profile, because marketers and other MySpace users are able to do search queries and send unsolicited invitations for “friendship” apparently based on my age demographic. The solution I have observed other people using (and have adopted) is to report my birth year as “1901.” Many of the unsolicited “friend invitations” I received have been from individuals owning or promoting adult/mature/inappropriate/offensive websites that I don’t want to visit, much less establish “friendship” with.

This USA Today article also discusses some of the issues with the “Top 8″ friends in MySpace, which are user-specified and show up on a person’s homepage whenever someone views it. Feelings are hurt when some are included on the “Top 8″ list and others are not. When we are talking to students about social networking, I think it is important we discuss the potential implications of “friending.” We have heard the saying “you are judged by the company you keep.” I have recently heard stories of fraternity and sorority rush procedures including analyses of the Facebook and MySpace pages of prospective members. The public record young people have written and continue to write about themselves on public DSN sites may undergo future scrutiny the kids themselves didn’t anticipate. This can also include college admissions reps and prospective employers reading their pages and profiles, and using that information to make admissions or hiring decisions.

I think one of the biggest challenges when working with teenagers is to help them think about future consequences rather than just making decisions based on the emotions of the moment. That is why encouraging students to dream, set goals, and write down their dreams and goals is so important. I also think these issues with social networking highlight the importance of providing fenced, moderated digital social networking environments like Imbee.com and Think.com for students to use. Blocking social networking sites is an insufficient response!

I was delighted to learn from Mike Lawrence today that CUE (Computer-Using Educators, Inc. based in California) has formally taken a stand against DOPA: the proposed “Deleting Online Predators Act” that passed the US House of Representatives this summer and still waits for consideration by the US Senate. CUE’s statement on DOPA is:

Computer Using Educators (CUE), Inc., a non-profit educational organization representing thousands of educators in California, supports local leadership, not federal intrusion, in determining access to websites for student and teacher use in K-12 schools and libraries. H.R. 5319, more commonly known as the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), seeks to restrict this access further regardless of established local decisions. While the legislation seeks to protect our students from inappropriate content and interactions on the web, which is admirable, it fails to protect students any more than they already are within the established requirements to block inappropriate content. At the same time, this legislation needlessly places restrictions on potentially powerful educational tools.

Further, the legislation does not allow for commercial social networking tools that are already being put to powerful educational uses. By excluding all commercial websites providing such services, this legislation will impact distance learning and other emerging educational tools, which CUE members believe are powerful extensions of classroom learning.

CUE asks its members and partners to contact our U.S. Senators to oppose this legislation.

CUE is proud to join the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the American Library Association (ALA) in opposing this legislation. For more information about CUE�s Legislative Advocacy platform, visit http://www.cue.org/advocacy/.

CUE has included several good links to other articles and resources relating to DOPA on their position statement page.

Technorati Tags: dopa

I definitely think our educational system needs important reforms, but I continue to be disappointed and saddened by the lack of national leadership we have for the sorts of education reforms we need. US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ announcement on Tuesday that US colleges and universities need to face similar accountability to K-12 schools is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption: That educational “accountability” as it has been promulgated by the Bush administration’s NCLB legislation has contributed constructively to the education of children and their preparation for the future. In fact, NCLB has done more harm than good in the education space. It has been advanced by interest groups and legislators less interested in the education of children and more interested in finger pointing, getting re-elected, and discrediting public schools to open the coffers of public education dollars to commercial interests. Their policies have been supported by false claims about the “literacy crisis” and have served to corrupt the teaching profession across the nation. In many places, teachers and administrators are far more concerned (than should be morally permissible) with preparing students to take multiple-choice tests and canned writing exams rather than educating the whole child, helping them become digitally literate and critical thinkers, and working hard to create classroom learning environments where students LOVE school rather than despise it.

In education usually feel “we have no time to lose”– and of course TIME is the most pressing issue for everyone. To the extent our children are in school NOW and need great teachers and great learning environments TODAY, and can’t wait several years for the politics of this to get worked out, this perception is accurate. It is NOT accurate that we need teachers and students so stressed-out and time-pressured that they don’t have time for project-based learning, free voluntary reading, and authentic dialog about the challenges and opportunities in their own lives, however. Instruction DOES need to change, but high-stakes accountability has taken us backwards rather than forwards.

We need educational policies which encourage teachers and students to take time for the educational work that matters– and sadly the environment of accountability and high-stakes testing takes us in the opposite direction. What we need in the education space is deregulation, rather than further regulation, which will provide GREATER INSTRUCTIONAL AUTONOMY for teachers rather than less. More testing and more databases of information about our students, whether they are K-12 or college-age, will not save us. Only great teachers can and will, who are well supported by administrators, parents, and their communities.

In the USA Today article, “College overhaul called ‘overdue’” Spellings says in the context of higher education reform:

This is the beginning of a process of long-overdue reform. Over the years, we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and just hoped for the best. We deserve better.

Does the honorable US Secretary of Education realize that the United States HAS the best university system in the world? Reading her comments, one might falsely conclude that high quality students from around the world were flocking to a university in another country rather than those in the United States for a world-class education. Don’t misunderstand me, I am NOT putting down the educational systems in other nations. I do want to observe that many US colleges and universities have outstanding and top-notch international reputations, and this is not an accident. Our college and university systems do need some changes– and certainly the issue of cost needs to be addressed, but this idea of creating a national database of students to improve teaching and learning is not the approach we need.

In addition to de-regulating education to provide greater instructional autonomy for teachers, I agree with Tom Carroll and others like him calling for an end to the “standalone teaching model” which still predominates in our educational system. REAL learning and work in the 21st century is all about collaboration and teamwork, yet much if not most of the teaching we see taking place in K-12 as well as university settings is still entrenched in a “stand-alone” model. This must change.

Sadly, the proposals Spellings is outlining miss the mark with false assumptions and a basic misunderstanding of the type of advocacy we really need at national, state, and local levels. We don’t need more calls for stricter and more rigorous accountability. In fact, we need to entirely reject “rigor” and instead embrace differentiation, flexibility, and high expectations. As the US Secretary of Education, Spellings needs to go “back to school herself” and listen to the students, teachers, and administrators who are having to suffer with and through the consequences of NCLB every day. Good places for her to start (and everyone else wanting to further refine their visions for what it should mean to teach and learn in the 21st century, and what sorts of educational reforms we need) are The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future and The Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform. These are just two of the organizations that “get it” when it comes to the types of school reform initiatives we need today. If Margaret Spellings doesn’t and won’t embrace these sorts of perspectives on education reform, hopefully our next US Secretary of Education will.

Tim Donovan is one of the four founders of Imbee.com, a website providing a free, safe digital social networking environment for students between the ages of 8 and 14. On September 21, 2006, I interviewed Tim over Skype about Imbee and learned more about the free Teacher’s program launched by Imbee. Tim’s observation that organizations and the adults who run them need to provide destinations for students that do more than entertain them really resonated with me. I firmly believe we need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk of safe digital social networking with students. Imbee.com provides an excellent environment for those types of fenced, moderated social networking interactions online.

Program Length: 26 min, 54 sec
File size: 6.2 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast) Show notes for this podcast include:

1. Imbee.com’s Teacher Program
2. Free registration for teachers on Imbee.com
3. Lesson Plans for Teachers with Imbee.com
4. More information about industriousKID, the organization sponsoring Imbee
5. Safe Digital Social Networking (spotlight preso at MACE MTI 2006)
6. Think.com and Digital Social Networking (podcast from May 2006)
7. Imbee for Schools, Think.com, and Moodle comparisons (blog post)
8. WebWiseKids
9. Project Safe Childhood

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Technorati Tags: education

Sindya Bhanoo has posted a nice top 10 list of read/write web tools students can use for educational purposes. Although the post is ostensibly for college students, most of these tools can be used powerfully in the K-12 space as well. Tools on the list I had not heard of before include:

• Soundslides - Storytelling management made easy. Allows you to easily merge sound and audio to create and audio slideshow presentations. Requires a small registration fee.
• Blue.Us - A great social bookmarking/networking service. With the click of a button, you can “Dot” a Web site / page that you find interesting and instantly share it with all of your friends. Perfect for groups of students who have similar interests - it’s an easy way to share information.
• mynoteIT - mynoteIT is a free service built for students to help keep school information organized and have it easily accessible whenever, wherever.

We are still living in a day when many, if not most professors in classrooms where students are using laptops are VERY concerned that the students will use them to be off-task, doing things like instant messaging. Marc Prensky stated the digital native response to this sort of worry very succinctly several years ago: “Engage Me or Enrage Me!” (PDF) Rather than banning laptops or tools like Skype, teachers as well as professors (but especially professors) need to get over “The Synchronous Non-interactive Fallacy” and engage students with these digital tools! More educators need to teach digital!

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD in the Dallas area is sponsoring a one day conference on November 3, 2006 titled “Beyond4Walls: First Annual iPods and Podcasting in Education Users Group Conference.” The conference description is:

Successful educators realize that teaching techniques, which appeal to the learner, are ever evolving. Identifying novel and enticing teaching techniques requires educators to acknowledge and exploit student interests, which make learning more appealing and efficacious. Recent trends suggest that students have developed a fascination with iPods and Podcasting. The use of Podcasting allows teachers and students to create authentic audio and video material, while the mobility of the iPod allows for anytime, anywhere learning. The combination of these two technologies has prompted a greater interest in learning than could have ever been expected. The Beyond4Walls Conference will focus on using iPods and Podcasting in Education.

The keynote presentation will be shared by Dan Schmidt, who spoke on podcasting several times recently at our state Encyclo-Media conference. Hopefully Dan’s presentation at Beyond4Walls will also be subsequently podcasted!

Here in the state of Oklahoma, the state department of education is requiring all school districts to re-write their technology plans to address the 13 components of tech plans required for grants under Federal Title II programs. Of those 13 components, podcasting projects involving ESL classrooms (like those piloted in Carrollton-Farmers Branch) address at least the following components:

1. Strategies for improving academic achievement and teacher effectiveness
3. Steps to increase accessibility
4. Promotion of curricula and teaching strategies that integrate technology
8. Integration of technology with curricula and instruction
9. Innovative delivery strategies
10. Parental involvement

More school districts need to be piloting innovative projects like the ones highlighted in this conference, and also sharing their experiences with others. As your school district completes requisite technology plans for the next 2-5 years, you might consider innovative teaching strategies like these which NOT ONLY deliver instructional content from the teacher to the student in novel ways, but also EMPOWER THE STUDENT to author multimedia content and share it back with the teacher as well as others.

The conference is free, and an online registration form is available. Thanks to Maria Henderson for this tip.

Eric Langhorst has posted a superb review of the online assessment tool Quia.com as a new podcast on his blog, “Speaking of History.” I haven’t used Quia.com myself for several years, but hearing Eric describe it makes me wish that more teachers knew about it and had access to it or tools like it.

We hear a lot about “data driven decisionmaking,” but often that term is used by administrators rather than teachers. Of course many teachers are using the results of district benchmark assessments leading up to the statewide assessment instruments used to measure student learning in our high-stakes educational environment– but what Eric is talking about here is not district or state initiated. He uses Quia to provide both pre-assessment and summative assessment feedback for himself and students in a real-time way that is both authentic and extremely valuable.

One of the things I like to discuss in educational technology workshops (like the one on free digital curriculum I’ll give again tomorrow here in Durant, Oklahoma) is the difference between “accomodating” and “transformative” uses of technology. This came out of the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow Research, which still to date is the most comprehensive, longitudinal study of technology integration in the classroom that I’ve heard about. On page 16 of ACOT’s 10 Year Report (PDF) the stages of technology integration are described in the following table:

One of the big things I think we need to encourage teachers to do with technology is move from the initial, “accomodating” stages of technology integration to the more transformative, creative stages. Yes I know, in a high-stakes testing environment where curriculum pacing guides abound– this is a tall order. But I still think it is something that needs to be done.

In some ways, Eric is assessing students with Quia.com just like teachers have assessed them with tests for many years. However, the immediacy of the feedback he is receiving and the students are receiving is transformative. He also mentions something very interesting relating to handwriting, students typing essay answers, and fairness in grading. Eric observes that many teachers (himself included) may consciously or subconsciously grade an essay written in neater handwriting more generously, even if the content is not as good as a poorly handwritten answer. He points out that by having students keyboard their answers, this bias is avoided– along with the Quia feature which permits the student’s name to be hidden from the teacher at the time he/she is grading their essay answers online.

Quia is a great tool, and I appreciate Eric taking the time to share how he and the other 8th grade American history teacher at his school have been integrating it into their assessment practices for several years. Check out his podcast as well as his blog– Eric just got back from several days on the Microsoft campus for the “Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum” and his blog post on the event is worth checking out. (More will be coming I’m sure, along with additional podcasts from the event.)

The best thing about the “Microsoft-designed school of the future,” detailed in the September 20th article “No more teachers, no more books” may be the schedule and the school’s overall approach to learning. According to the article:

Because some studies have shown students do better with a later start to the school day, classes run from 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The building, though, is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., giving access for study time, group project work or community activities. The school’s cafeteria — where students purchase food with a swipe of the same card used to open lockers — serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. By spring semester, that same swipe of the card will give students a full breakdown of their caloric intake — and allow educators to track nutrition with student achievement.

Students’ class schedules look different, too. They don’t take calculus, English or biology. Instead, they attend inquiry sessions, during which interdisciplinary instruction tackles real-life questions such as “Should Philadelphians be worried about avian flu?” Students learn the science behind the disease and study the environmental concerns. They discover how to research the topic, then they learn how to communicate their findings.

“It’s more like life and less like school. I can’t think of anything I do that is ‘This is math, this is social studies,’ ” said Shirley Grover, who is called the “chief learner.” That is School-of-the-Future speak for principal. Likewise, the children aren’t “students.” They are “learners.” Those instructing them are “educators.” The labels may sound like corporate semantics, but Grover insists the titles make a difference. The children are discovering, she said, that learning isn’t something you just do in school. It is a life process.

Support for inquiry-based learning and integrated learning is not just laudable, it is downright revolutionary in our era of high stakes accountability. From my quick read of the article, it sounds like the teachers are encouraged to embrace “messier” forms of assessment than simply scantron-based testing. If this is indeed the case, it seems that the pedagogical changes in this school are just as significant as the technological ones. Sounds like a good case study for an EduTopia video documentary!

Via Raymond Hartfield.

K-12 schools are not the only ones banning Skype use these days, some universities are banning it also. According to this latest article from ARS Technica:

In a move that has sparked protest from both students and professors, San Jose State University has become the latest California school to ban Skype from most of its campus. Citing concerns regarding security and consumption of bandwidth, school administrators feel that the service is an unnecessary and potentially illegal waste of resources. The University of California–Santa Barbara and California State University–Dominguez Hills have also recently banned the popular VoIP service.

Professor Steve Sloan at SJSU is calling on others in the university community to fight the ban. On the topic of Skype’s educational uses, Dr. Sloan writes:

Skype is a foundation technology that is often combined with podcasting. Skype, when combined with audio capture software, is a major way podcast conversations happen, are captured and are then enabled to be distributed in podcasts. A Google search of Skype + Podcasting yields over 20 million hits on Google. Conversations often happen on Skype that are remixed and shared with podcasting and this has a lot of educational potential.

In my class I have been planning to use Skype to bring authors of the textbook we use together to discuss their book with my students from various locations around the globe. Since I started using Skype daily in my work I have been contacted by educators from Europe, Asia and Australia. Educators have contacted me via Skype to collaborate on teaching and learning methods. One contact was from a group of educators who wanted to use Skype technology, combined with podcasting and iPods, to extend the reach of the Internet into the Outback to reach Aboriginal children.

He concludes his post by highlighting how the use of Skype in our “flat world” really defines communication and collaboration possibilities. He continues:

I think with Skype we need to take a real cost benefit analysis of the software and the cost of not using the software. Skype is more than a program it is a global communications and collaboration platform. It’s also a pipe into a flat world where easy communications is a strategic advantage and the loss of which is a disadvantage. It is a platform of change as well as a delivery pipe of media-voice, video and data.

It has been argued that the current design may be a violation of the legal use of state computing resources. In my opinion, if the use of Skype violates state or federal law then the appropriate agency to take action should be the Chancellor’s Office or the State’s Attorney General. If what Neal alleges is accurate, I wonder why that has not happened?

Instead of banning Skype, if bandwidth is a concern educational organizations simply need to provide more bandwidth for student and faculty use. Think that’s an unreasonable proposal? Read George Gilder’s book “TELECOSM: How Infinite Bandwidth will Revolutionize Our World.” The transportation corridors of the 21st century will increasingly be paved with LIGHT rather than asphalt. Educational organizations should take advantage of the communication and collaboration opportunities offered by programs like Skype rather than banning them.

Thanks to Devin Henley for this link.

Even if you have specialized webpage authoring software like Dreamweaver or Frontpage on your computer, know how to use it, and have FTP or other “uploading” access configured to a webserver– Getting content online with these “web 1.0″ tools can be a needless hassle for many purposes compared to web 2.0 tools like wikis. I have been using a wiki since I started my new job in Oklahoma as the AT&T state education advocate in June, sharing all the workshop curriculum and seminar resources I’m creating with other teachers around Oklahoma and the planet. That website is http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com.

This evening I discovered a new website useful for creating web-based hotlists of Internet resources called Portaportal. Bob Sprankle has created a Portaportal site for web 2.0 workshop recently, which not only demonstrates the utility of this site but also shares some good links to educators using the read/write web.

Portals are getting increasingly common these days, especially for free webmail users. Yahoo’s personalized portal “My Yahoo” (my.yahoo.com) and Google’s Home Portal are both examples. Once you have registered with each site, you can create customized “channel content” with a layout you specify. There are canned layout elements as well as elements which can be completely customized. The idea of a “portal” is to create a customized user-interface with links and content you frequently want to see and utilize.

Portaportal looks interesting because it provides an attractive way to create organized categories of links to web resources. I still like using wikis like pbwiki and wikispaces, but Portaportal looks ideal for applications which are exclusively hotlists and don’t contain additional text or image content.

I suppose there are some people who might say, “Good grief, how many of these web 2.0 tools are we supposed to learn and know about?” The answer, of course, is that there is not a defined answer– but the more you are able to navigate and use web-based tools, the more relevant your digital skill-set will be today and in the future. I know several “dyed in the wool” Eudora users who are bound and determined to never switch their email interface. There is not anything wrong with that– but I do think that dynamic change will continue to define the future of computing and information exchange in general. Being able to utilize new and different tools is not just something fun to do as a teacher and a learner– it is actually an essential activity for developing the flexible digital literacy skills required by the information environment as well as the workforce of today and tomorrow.