Moving at the Speed of Creativity

I am cross-posting this entry from the Infinite Thinking Machine here, because there is some kind of problem with the ITM domain and the original post is not accessible. (Hopefully this will be resolved soon.) I’ve received a request for this post and info, and cross-posting seemed like the most expedient way to provide this. I don’t have any way of accessing/reposting the current seven comments to that ITM post here, but you can refer to my post “Dreaming of a free NetFlix for books site for student readers” for several comments on this idea. Since writing that post I also learned about the open source library catalog and social networking program Fish4Info, a next generation library portal that seeks to make the library catalog a socially engaging destination by integrating web 2.0 technology with the catalog.” Fish4Info is a free, existing solution which meets some of the needs/ideas discussed in this post, and was discussed apparently at a recent ALA conference.

I’m on a quest and perhaps you can help me. The young readers of the world need a free website which offers “Netflix functionality” for books and specifically caters to young people– meeting COPPA, FERPA and other legal requirements for minors in the United States as well as other countries. No one wants to pay a $130,000 fine to the FTC like Imbee.com did back in January. To avoid legal problems like Imbee ran into, websites which collect and maintain personal information from children under the age of 13 must first notify parents and obtain their consent. I’ve noticed as my 10 year old son continues to utilize websites like Club Lego that he’s had to ask for my email address and I’ve had to grant permission via an emailed link for him to have an account and profile on the website. Based on the Imbee FTC case, it appears key that a COPPA compliant website for kids must NOT maintain their account and profile without parental consent. According to the FTC:

The FTC complaint alleged that the defendants [Imbee] violated COPPA and the COPPA implementing rule by failing to obtain verifiable parental consent before any collection of personal information from children; failing to provide sufficient notice of what information they collected online from children, and the site’s information use and disclosure practices and other required content; and failing to provide sufficient notice of the types of personal information they had collected from children prior to obtaining verifiable parental consent.

I know of three websites which offer functionality similar to what I’m looking for, but I am not sure if any of these sites “do it all” in terms of NetFlix functionality or in terms of COPPA compliance. The sites I know about which offer the ability to write book reviews and share recommendations are:

• Goodreads
• Shelfari
• LibraryThing

I will admit at the outset that I have not registered for any of these sites yet to give them a test drive, but do have several friends (including Bob Sprankle and Tim Kane) who are using some of them very enthusiastically. I’m writing this post not because I am an “expert” (yet) on these sites and how they compare, but rather to fully respond to Susan Ettenheim’s tweeted question today, “What do you mean by ‘NetFlix functionality’ for books?”

When I say I want free “Netflix functionality” on a social networking site for young readers, I mean the site should offer the following features:

1. The website should be free for anyone to register for and use, but minors should be required to obtain parental consent to comply with COPPA and other relevant laws as described above.
2. The site should permit users to RATE books they’ve read, from one to five stars, just like NetFlix.
3. The site should let users write book reviews and recommendations that can be public and/or sent directly to friends, just like NetFlix.
4. The site should let users maintain lists of friends, and view what those friends report they are currently reading, as well as their friends’ recommendations for books to read.
5. The site should use AI technologies (or whatever you call the technologies that can do this sort of thing) to dynamically generate book recommendations for an individual based on the books s/he has already rated in the system.

This is an example of what this looks like today on NetFlix. I’ve rated 398 different movies I’ve watched in the past. Based on those ratings and the ratings/preferences of other NetFlix users, when I click the button MOVIES YOU’LL LOVE at the top of the NetFlix website I am presented with the following screen which shows some of the 1279 movies the website’s intelligent advice engine thinks I’ll like:

The movies I’ve rated which generated the recommendation are shown to the right of each recommended movie. The book rating/review/recommendation and social networking website I’m describing in this post would/will offer this same functionality.

This feature (the ability to get dynamically generated book recommendations) is the most valuable aspect of the current NetFlix rating and social networking website, in my view, and would make this website I’m searching and hoping for of TREMENDOUS benefit to young people / students around the world. As an example of why this is the case, the recently released 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report by Scholastic found that kids commonly report they can’t find good books to read and that is why they don’t read more books. From page 4 of the report’s “Key Findings:”

Trouble finding books they like is a key reason kids say they do not read more frequently. Mom is the top source for book suggestions for kids age 5-11, and friends are most influential among kids age 12-17, who also turn to the Internet.

A website which offers “NetFlix Plus Functionality” for young people about books could help take away this VERY common excuse. I’m certainly not saying social networking technologies can or should replace the role of librarians, classroom teachers, parents and others in supporting young people in their personal journeys of reading and literacy acquisition, but I AM seeing a huge opportunity for those technologies to provide powerful new tools to fuel individual motivations to read.

I’ve described so far “NetFlix Functionality” for this book-focused social networking site. I next want to describe several important features NOT currently included on NetFlix for movies which would make this hypothetical website possess “NetFlix Plus Functionality.” The site should additionally:

1. Include not only books with official ISBN numbers and available in analog/atomic printed forms, but also include all texts in Project Gutenberg. I do love print books, and even though the Kindle is cool I still see myself curling up with paper books more than an eBook reader in the years ahead. My personal feelings aside, however, it is evident that eBooks are going to become increasingly important in the years ahead. This website needs to therefore include eBooks in the catalog of books which can be rated, reviewed, and recommended.
2. Users should be able to add links along with ratings and recommendations for other books on other websites which they like and recommend. This is potentially controversial, of course, because “What if one of our students links to a book that is inappropriate?” I think it is essential, however, because many kids LOVE reading stories on Fan Fiction websites like FanFiction.net and KidPub. As an example, if a student loved and wants to recommend the KidPub published original novel “Alone in the Middle” (written by a student I interviewed for a podcast recently) they should be able to do this on the website. Yes, traditionally published books can be fantastic for reading and we should continue to support young people’s reading of print books. Electronic books are already here in great numbers, however, and those numbers are certain to dwarf our meager imaginations as people born and primarily educated in the 20th century.
3. Teachers, librarians, and principals (as well as any other user) should be able to create their own “community groups” within the website to share recommendations and favorites.

The current NetFlix site does permit users to select others with similar movie tastes and add them to their personal “community,” but to my knowledge the site doesn’t permit people to create their own groups in the way users can on many Ning social networking sites (like Celebrate Oklahoma Voices or the NECC 2008 Ning) or on Diigo.

As a final requirement for this book networking website, I’d like it to include ZERO advertisements (for individuals, families, or schools which pay a small and reasonable annual registration fee) and include both MINIMAL and student-appropriate advertisements for people who are not paying for no-ads. I’m thinking here of advertisements like we see on Facebook, NOT like those we see on MySpace.

That’s a long answer, but I think some specific details were/are needed to adequately respond to Susan’s question. (Susan, btw, is an “art/media/library/technology” teacher in New York and a contributor/participant to/in Teachers Teaching Teachers. MANY thanks to Susan for challenging me via Twitter with this question.

Here’s are my closing requests:

1. If you’ve used one of the sites I’ve mentioned above (Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, etc) please comment on what you like and don’t like about the current site’s feature set. Also please comment on how the site addresses COPPA issues for minors, if you can, and your experiences with young people (your students or your own kids) using one of the sites.
2. If I’ve left out a book review/recommendation website that you’ve used and recommend, please share the name and link as a comment.
3. If you develop or alter a book review/recommendation website based on any of these ideas, please don’t be shy with your linktribution.

Technorati Tags:
book, books, recommendation, social, networking, socialnetworking, review, library, goodreads, shelfari, librarything, librarian, imbee, ftc, coppa, ferpa, legal, children, students, website, technology

You’re invited to join in the conversation this evening at 9 pm US Eastern time (8 pm Central) on the Teachers Teaching Teachers channel of EdTechTalk, discussing (among other things I’m sure) the ideas raised in last Saturday’s ITM blog post, “A Quest for NetFlix Plus Functionality for Books - for Young Readers!” as well as the comments shared by others. For folks outside the U.S. this is 01:00 UTC Thursday.

Thanks to Susan Ettenheim, Joyce Valenza, and Paul Allison for sparking and encouraging this conversation! I finally (I know I’m slow) listened to the K12Online07 presentation “EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters” this morning driving into work, and I have a feeling this dynamic and passionate group of educators (who comprise the growing EdTechTalk community) may entice me to become a webcaster myself before long.

If you’ve used or have opinions about Shelfari, Goodreads, LibraryThing, or other social networking book websites for adults - and think the functionality offered by these sites holds great promise for student READING and LITERACY, please join us tonight on EdTechTalk at 9 pm Eastern / 8 pm Central! If you miss the conversation live it will be archived, of course, but it’s so much more fun and engaging to tune in live!

I’ve long been an dormant contributor to “The Infinite Thinking Machine,” Google’s education blog, but my long sleep came to an end today with my new post “A Quest for NetFlix Plus Functionality for Books - for Young Readers!”

I’d love to hear/read your responses, particularly if you’ve used the sites I mention or others like Goodreads, Shelfari, and LibraryThing with your own students or children.

Technorati Tags:
book, books, recommendation, social, networking, socialnetworking, review, library, goodreads, shelfari, librarything, librarian, imbee, ftc, coppa, ferpa, legal, children, students, website, technology

This podcast features interviews with 14 year old Solana and 8 year old Jack who share their perceptions and ideas relating to reading, writing, literacy, technology use, gaming and publishing on the global stage of the Internet. Solana has had her own computer since she was eight, and with the help of her father found the website KidPub to publish and share her own stories, poems, and other creative writing projects. KidPub requires that parents pay a small fee (about $12) per year for kids to participate and have an account. This prevents people from creating free accounts and commenting on others’ work without accountability and attribution. Solana discusses how motivational she has found KidPub and the opportunity to share her voice with others on the Internet, problems encountered with plagiarism and the ways the KidPub community self-polices itself, and the exciting connection she had made with other students who have taken one of her published novels (with permission) and started to create a movie based on the story on YouTube. Solana also discusses what she has learned about computers and technology at school compared to what she has learned at home, including her experiences using Diigo and trying to collaborate with other kids. She discusses things she would change (if she could) about technology use and Internet access at school so she could extend and further develop her technology skills there. She also discusses her experiences with online safety, accessing websites like YouTube and extending her searches beyond engines like AskJeeves to Google, and her experiences with inappropriate content which she has accidentally stumbled upon when doing Internet searches. She also discusses issues related to social networking and directly contacting other kids online. In addition to Solana’s comments, 8 year old Jack discusses the ways he uses computers at home primarily to play strategic games. (Note: The names Solana and Jack are aliases used at the request of the parents.)

 

 Podcast261: Student Perspectives on Reading, Writing, Literacy, Technology Use, Gaming and Publishing on the Global Stage of the Internet [43:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (685)

Show Notes:

1. KidPub - a website used by young authors to publish and share their stories, poems, and other writing on the global stage of the Internet
2. Scholastic 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report
3. Alone in the Middle Chapter 1 (original story written and published by Solana on KidPub)
4. Alone in the middle (behind the scenes) part 1 (YouTube video - Tells the story of using MS Paint, MovieMaker, and YouTube to publish a film version of Solana’s story from KidPub)
5. Alone in the Middle (Paragraph 1) - 1st Paragraph of “Alone in the Middle” in film / video version on YouTube
6. The Sims2 (official website)
7. Savannah Outen Official Goodbyes Video - Songwriter and Singer who brokeout from YouTube to Radio Disney
8. GIMP - Open Source Photo Editing Software
9. SeaShore - Macintosh port of GIMP which does not require X11
10. ASUS - Eee PC
11. Intel Classmate PC
12. Dawn of War game
13. Command and Conquer 3 game
14. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) game (WikiPedia article)
15. Cheat Codes WikiPedia definition

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Technorati Tags: technology, publishing, writing, reading, kid, kids, student, students, youth, literacy, publication, kidpub, games

Few things warm a parent’s heart more (especially a parent who is an educator) than seeing one’s 10 year old child voraciously devour two relatively long books in a single week. As I have detailed previously (see “The power of reading” and “Gifts from Christopher Paolini”) access to diverse, interesting texts, time to read, and support in reading have been the keys to my son joining “the literacy club” the past two years. Most recently (this past week and weekend) he’s devoured Rick Riordan’s “The Sea of Monsters” and “The Titan’s Curse.” These are respectively books 2 and 3 in the series, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” which begins with “The Lightning Thief.” I was informed tonight that we’ll need to make a trip to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to purchase book 4, “The Battle of the Labyrinth.” It takes exactly 1 nanosecond to analyze this situation and determine whether or not family funds should be expended to support this addiction. Of course we will buy book 4! We could check it out from the library, but given the enthusiasm with which Alexander has embraced this series I’m sure both my wife and I will want to read these books too, and eventually perhaps Alexander’s younger sisters as well. Good literature is often even more pleasurable when it can be subsequently experienced via group conversations with family and friends. I look forward to not only reading and enjoying these books on the recommendation of my son, but also engaging him in conversations about the themes, characters, and ideas raised in these books which are surely thought-provoking given his high levels of motivation in reading them!

This latest family literacy success story came about because of the influence of one relative (who happens to be an excellent librarian) and one of Alexander’s fourth grade peers. This was the timeline:

1. Alexander’s Aunt gave him “The Lightning Thief” for Christmas this past year.
2. About a week ago, one of Alexander’s friends (who is an avid reader and Alexander highly respects) told him that he LOVED that series by Rick Riordan.
3. Being finished with other books he’s been reading, Alexander started to read “The Lightning Thief” and became immediately hooked!

Although Alexander is still keeping up his villages in Travian, playing the occasional game on our Wii and tending to other responsibilities at home, for the past week he has been riveted to the pages of these books at almost every opportunity- whether we are at home or driving somewhere in the car. Stephen Krashen articulates well the conclusions we can draw from years of educational research about reading and literacy, but I have the privilege as a parent of seeing the validity of those conclusions dramatized right before my very eyes as I type these words. Certainly it is true people learn to read in different ways, and no “one size fits all” when it comes to reading INSTRUCTION. That said, however, the recipe of providing learners with ready access to diverse texts in which they have a strong interest is FANTASTIC for helping cultivate the skills of reading, writing, and literate communication.

Thank you Rick Riordan! You are my new hero!

If you’re wondering whether or not this book series is for you or for another reader you know, consider the following plot summary from the author’s website:

What if the gods of Olympus were alive in the 21st Century? What if they still fell in love with mortals and had children who might become great heroes — like Theseus, Jason and Hercules? What if you were one of those children? Such is the discovery that launches twelve-year-old Percy Jackson on the most dangerous quest of his life. With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy must journey across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction – Zeus’ master bolt. Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him. Most of all, he must come to terms with a father he has never known, and an Oracle that has warned him of betrayal by a friend.

A heroic quest? Satyrs, weapons, and interactions with the gods? A prophesy? Sounds like a winning combination! My review will likely follow later this summer!

Technorati Tags:
riordan, rick, rickriordan, reading, literacy, motivation, krashen, research, lightningthief

I’m not sure I can do this, and guess this is not likely legally binding in any way, but I would like to none-the-less formally “claim” a title for a book I want to write in the not too distant future. (Specifically, at whatever point I regain full control of my own intellectual property.) The title of the book I want to write is:

“Here for the Learning Revolution”

I wrote a post with this title on Monday, but have had this idea for a book title for several months, and ideas for this book theme for many years. (It’s hard to keep a good educational idea inside these days!) I am officially sharing this virtual claim on this book title in the hope that someone else will not seize this title and publish a book first with it. If that happens, oh well, but at least I’m making an effort to lay claim to the book title….. Note I am writing this on April 16, 2008!

For the record, I have not started writing this book and do not plan to start writing this book while I am bound by an extremely restrictive intellectual property agreement / contract. No, I do not have any job changes to announce at this point. I will note, however, that the term “corporate restructuring” has taken on a quite vivid and personal meaning for me in the past few months. I’m sure I’ll have much more to write on this theme down the road… but not today.

I AM here for the learning revolution. I’m not entirely sure what constitutes the learning revolution, but I certainly have some ideas on the subject as well as specific suggestions for how educational leaders can be constructive catalysts for the learning revolution at different levels across our nation and globe. Those will most likely be the themes of this book: Like the future, yet unwritten. It is up to us to fulfill and operationalize the Web2.0 Prophecy. It is NOT an inevitable future, it will come to pass (in varying forms) only if leaders at local, state, and national levels have the vision, courage, perseverance, and skills to tangibly advance a different vision of learning than our traditional model, so focused on CONTROL and coercion. What, exactly, constitutes this “vision of learning?”

Many voices in the blogosphere today are expressing the diverse but similar faces of the learning revolution. To hear my full articulation on this subject, however, you’ll have to wait till I write the book.
Yes, I DO plan to release a freely downloadable eBook version, but hope to earn at least a little money on a paperback version for sale as well as an audio version. But I’m getting WAY ahead of myself. The book needs to be written first. I’ve got a start though– I have a title!

Technorati Tags:
learning, revolution, education, school2, reform

This podcast is a recording of a presentation by Karen Fasimpaur about OER (Open Educational Resources) and open content licensing options at the NCCE 2008 conference in Seattle, Washington. The program description of Karen’s session was: Learning should be free and accessible to everyone! Come learn about how the Open Educational Resources movement is reshaping education. We’ll look at Open Source tools, repositories of free textbooks, images, videos, music, lessons, and more. You’ll learn how to access these and contribute your own resources so others can benefit.

 

 Podcast230: Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All by Karen Fasimpaur [65:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1364)

Show Notes:

1. Karen’s wiki (website) including all slides and references from this presentation
2. My text notes from this session

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Technorati Tags: learning, school, education, copyright, creativecommons, license, share, oer, OER, opensource, opencontent, collaboration, curriculum, wikimedia, wikibooks, literacy, reading, books, karenfasimpaur, fasimpaur

The documentary film “Two Million Minutes” highlights stark contrasts in the educational experiences, perspectives, and expectations of high school students in the United States, China, and India. The film’s title is derived from the mathematical statistic that following eighth grade graduation, students have approximately two million minutes to spend until they graduate from high school. While I have not yet seen the film, it appears to offer an evocative window into the very different worldviews of students in different nations facing vocational as well as life opportunities in our “flat world.” The film’s YouTube trailer gives a taste for its focus and main points.

The call for change in the largely static educational system of the United States is not new, of course. Some people point to the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” as a watershed moment when the issue of educational reform and change in the United States began to capture the attention of politicians as well as the general public on a broader scale. The need for a renewed focus on science, mathematics, and engineering received strong attention in the late 1950s and 1960s in the U.S. following the launch of Sputnik. Reformers like Holt, Dewey, Freire, and many others had made convincing cases for the cause of progressive educational reform before Sputnik or “Nation at Risk” become topics of dinner conversation in U.S. households and legislative halls, however. Most recently (this past weekend, in fact) a wide variety of educators from around the United States as well as other countries (attending in person as well as via virtual means) converged at the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy for the EduCon 2.0 Conference, to discuss (among other topics) the prospects for broad-based as well as localized educational reform in the United States. If you missed the conference (as I did) but still want to join in the learning and conversations, check out the UStream.TV videos posted on the EduConTV wiki page as well as the HitchHikr aggregated blog postings of attendees, both face-to-face and virtual.

I am interested in seeing the film “Two Million Minutes,” but hope it articulates a vision for educational reform which goes beyond the destructive and counter-productive rhetoric about higher standards, rigor, and accountability which has ushered in the age of NCLB in United States classrooms. As Dr. Alfie Kohn noted in this fantastic presentation about the ideas in his book, “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” tougher standards and traditional classrooms are NOT educational reforms needed in our 21st century schools. We DO need to explore and share the educational/workforce connection which is ignored or poorly understood by most U.S. policymakers today, but we do not need to encourage constituents to grab pitchforks and torches under a banner of “Back to Basics.” As Kohn eloquently observes, it is ridiculous to call for a “return” to basics, because in most schools, learners NEVER LEFT the basics.

I tried to visually represent this “gap” between the workforce skills our students need and the skills emphasized in classrooms focused on high-stakes testing in the following graphic used in my February 2006 TCEA presentation, “Cultivating Digital Literacy Through Blogging and Podcasting,” which touched on these issues:

The important question to ask, in this regard of course, is posed in the second graphic: How much overlap is there NOW in high-pressure, high-stakes classroom environments for the real world, digital literacy skills and higher order thinking skills required in the 21st century workforce? In many cases, the answer is “very little” or “none at all.”

Hopefully the film “Two Million Minutes” will encourage a progressive, forward looking, and truly research-based approach to educational reform like that espoused by Kohn and others. As Kohn says, we need to be focused on EXCELLENCE and inquiry, problem solving and process, much more than our classrooms today largely driven by the demands of educational constituents focused on simplistic and often meaningless outcomes like subjective grades and norm-referenced test scores.

One of the most important, tangible things which teachers can and ARE doing to advance this cause of progressive educational reform is SHOWING others what differentiated instruction and assessment LOOKS like and CAN look like. As Kohn observes, many parents don’t realize their children SHOULD have choices and alternatives to the fear-driven, worksheet-dominated educational experiences which were common for most students in the 20th century. Will Richardson is not alone in lamenting the LACK of transparency in the classrooms of his own children in public schools: I want Radio WillowWeb and the learning culture of Mabry Middle School under the leadership of Dr. Tim Tyson for my own children NOW in their public schools too, not in 20 years when our local school board finally “gets it.” While I want to see this change take place NOW, it can’t and won’t. It can and will advance incrementally, however, and each time students and teachers use web 2.0 tools to more transparently demonstrate their understanding of concepts, collaborate safely with others, and explore the boundaries of content creation, communication, and digital learning, a step is taken in the right direction. Our abilities to amplify and share these examples via blogs and other digital communication tools are unprecedented in human history. Holt, Freire, and Dewey didn’t have these tools. We do. That fact supports my abiding optimism for the cause of progressive educational reform in the 21st century.

Does “Two Million Minutes” merely offer a clarion call for “change, change, educational change at any cost” and call for “more of the same” when it comes to educational practices with bigger sticks and harsher punishments– or does it offer a truly compelling vision for 21st century educational reform which transcends the limitations and problems of factory style, 19th century learning? I don’t know. I won’t know till I see the film.

After I do, I’ll be sure to check in here and let you know what I discover!

Thanks to Dr. Bonnie Bracey Sutton for sharing about the “Two Million Minutes” documentary on the SITE blog, and Bob Sprankle for adding Alfie Kohn’s compelling book talk to his “Bit by Bit” podcast channel with his December 2007 post, “What We All Want.”

Technorati Tags: education school schoolreform reform change learning politics twomillionminutes site bonniebraceysutton bobsprankle

If you’re looking for some holiday reading related to digital learning, check out this great set of free ebooks from MIT Press Journals and the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning.

Thanks to Nancy McKeand, via Clarence Fisher, via Danah Boyd, for this link!

What is this virtual breadcrumb trail of attribution called? I’ve heard the term before but I forgot it.

The article “Digital Media and Youth: Unparalleled Opportunity and Unprecedented Responsibility” by Andrew J. Flanagin and Miriam J. Metzger is going to be first on my list from this set. Anyone know of a good software tool (preferably free and Mac compatible) that can be used to annotate PDF files? I used to have the full version of Adobe Reader but don’t anymore… I have PDF Pen, but I don’t think it’s really setup for annotations. PDF Studio looks good but it costs $60. Skim is open source and looks like it might fit the bill. I just hate to print this and make my notes with pen in the margin, but without a good digital annotation alternative…..

Technorati Tags:
reading, ebook, free, learning, digital, teaching

I was very interested to learn today that the NBC television program “The Today Show” is not only on Twitter, but also is following me. I’m not going to get a big head over this and think that Al Roker is going to be calling me anytime soon for an interview, but I do think this is interesting on several levels. The show’s Twitter administrator is, after all, currently following 2,017 people. I’m not sure how many people TOTAL are on Twitter, but I’m sure there are a LOT more than that. Why did the Today Show choose to follow me on Twitter? I can’t be sure, but this blog seems to be the most likely explanation.

While some bloggers think it’s funny to see a mainstream media program embrace a social media tool like Twitter, I think it is thought provoking. It is even exciting in the context of citizen journalism. Certainly the Today Show producers want to have more eyeballs, and if they can enter the information radar screen of more people and even get them to visit their website as a result that’s obviously a win in their book. That aspect of the Today Show’s use of twitter is not really earth shattering. What I find most intriguing are the options under ACTIONS on the Today Show’s twitter page: “message” or “nudge.”

I feel relatively confident Al Roker himself is not monitoring the Today Show’s twitter channel, that’s most likely someone else’s responsibility on the web or marketing team developing online content for them. It’s somewhat arresting, however, to realize that those two little links under “actions” DO mean anyone with a twitter account can send a direct message to someone at NBC directly associated or affiliated with the show. I’m sure thousands of people contact the show’s support team via snailmail and email, but this is instant messaging. Somehow that feels qualitatively different to me.

That thought should naturally encourage a media literacy related question, of course– and it does in my case: Is this the real twitter page for the real Today Show? Well, the posts do all go back to the actual website of the show, so that seems promising. Unlike the situation recently when I wanted to verify the Flickr account of the Barack Obama campaign, however, the official website of The Today Show doesn’t have a link to their Twitter account or any apparent reference to it.

They should.

When people want to verify “the truth” of something they find online, especially if it is a website purporting to be run or representing and individual or organization, one of the first things to do is check the “official” website for corroborating evidence. In the case of this Today Show twitter account, as of this writing that evidence does not appear to be present on their official website. Conclusion? We can’t be absolutely sure this Twitter account is, indeed, administered by people officially connected to The Today Show.

I’ve started to read Andrew Keen’s book ““The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.” (Thanks to Will Richardson for suggesting this at NECC in June.) I’m anticipating quite a few posts in the weeks ahead addressing many of the claims which Andrew makes in this text, but for now I’ll just observe that where he seems to be calling for despair, I see an important need for media literacy. That need is abiding, it’s not something new with web 2.0. On page 16 Andrew wrote:

For the real consequence of the Web 2.0 revolution is less culture, less reliable news, and a chaos of useless information. One chilling reality in this brave new digital epoch is the blurring, obfuscation, and even disappearance of truth.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame postmodernism on web 2.0. Nor do I think it is time to wring our hands, despair, and try to turn back the clock to 1958. I’m just 30 pages into the book, so I will limit my responses now… but I can summarize my general impressions of what I’ve read so far with the following Skitch snap:

Since Andrew is an apparently avid blogger himself I’m guessing the conversations around these topics and his book specifically may get interesting.

Although the title of Dr. Larry Lessig’s May 31st post about Andrew’s book suggests a positive review (“Keen’s “The Cult of the Amateur”: BRILLIANT!”) at least some of his responses to Keen’s ideas mirror mine. Lessig wrote:

But what is puzzling about this book is that it purports to be a book attacking the sloppiness, error and ignorance of the Internet, yet it itself is shot through with sloppiness, error and ignorance. It tells us that without institutions, and standards, to signal what we can trust (like the institution (Doubleday) that decided to print his book), we won’t know what’s true and what’s false. But the book itself is riddled with falsity — from simple errors of fact, to gross misreadings of arguments, to the most basic errors of economics.

I’m going to withhold final judgement (as anyone should) on the value of Keen’s ideas until I finish the book, but at this point I can NOT recommend it.

The following Skitch snap is fairly representative of the quantity of “interaction with the text” I’ve been doing as I read this book:

For anyone honestly concerned if the Internet and our emerging read/write culture is going to “kill our culture,” I’d refer you to Dr. Lessig’s wonderful keynote at Wizards of OS 4 in September 2007 titled “The Read/Write Society.” Free audio and video downloadable versions of that address are available, look under the archive listings for Friday.

So The Today Show is on Twitter. I think that’s pretty cool. Next time I have something relatively important to blog about, perhaps I’ll “nudge” them via Twitter! Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll even get to meet with Al in person and talk about the value of citizen journalism?!

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twitter, todayshow, nbc, roker, alroker, keen, andrewkeen, cultoftheamateur, lessig, culture, citizenjournalism

This evening my 2nd grader finished writing up an assigned book report about “China’s Bravest Girl,” a book which relates the legend of Hua Mu Lan on which the Disney movie “Mulan” was based. I helped her select five pictures to accompany an image of the book cover to use for a digital story about her book report, using the Flickr Creative Commons image search. I prefer using (and did use) the “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License” search option, since there are now approximately fifteen million images with that license. We wanted to create this quickly before bed using VoiceThread, but for some reason the site wouldn’t work in either the default or classic mode to upload images. We couldn’t upload pictures directly from our hard drive or from a Flickr set we created with the images. I am guessing there were some temporary problems with the VoiceThread website, because we’ve used it to create 15 different VoiceThreads in the past two months and never had a problem before.

As an alternative, we used GarageBand to record and create an enhanced podcast, and I posted this to my .Mac website using iWeb. I hadn’t published an enhanced podcast there in over a year, since July of 2006, so perhaps this was a fortunate circumstance which prodded me to again give iWeb a try. iWeb certainly is the most streamlined way I know to publish an enhanced podcast like this, especially if you have a .Mac account. Still, I would have preferred to create this more quickly on VoiceThread, especially since people can leave audio comments there but can only leave text comments on .Mac published podcasts. I also love the option to EMBED media directly within a blog post, and unfortunately that can’t be readily done at present with a .Mac posted podcast. I did post a converted version of the video up to TeacherTube, but the synchronization of voice and images got messed up in the online conversion to Flash format. As a result, I deleted it.

I learned tonight that a webpage which includes embedded media in it is a compound document. I hadn’t heard of that term previously.

I added this digital story book review as the 12th example now on the “Great Book Stories” project. Remember this is an OPEN project and you/your students are welcome to join in by posting links to your own stories created on VoiceThread or with other tools, and posted elsewhere! The password to the wiki site to edit pages is on the project guidelines page.

I converted this m4a enhanced podcast to a Windows Media video file using QuickTime player, and burned both files to a CD that my daughter is taking to school tomorrow. Her elementary school uses all Windows-based computers, and since I’m doubting her teacher has QuickTime player installed I wanted to provide a version of her book report digital story which the teacher can readily play on her computer. I’m able to export QuickTime files to Windows Media format because I have Flip4Mac’s WMV Studio installed on my computer, which came free as part of the game “The Movies” which I purchased at MacWorld in January. No one in our family has honestly spent much time learning how to play that game, but the WMV export option is certainly coming in handy tonight!

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podcast, mulan, books, digitalstorytelling, iweb, garageband, enhancedpodcast

I’ve spent the day today at Asher Public School in Asher, Oklahoma, working with all 5th through 12th grade students on digital storytelling using VoiceThread. We created six different VoiceThread digital stories together today as part of the Great Book Stories Project. Five of these are linked from the “Listen and See” page of the project wiki. One more (about “Where the Red Fern Grows”) is not linked yet, as the librarian is still waiting for some students to return their parent permission forms to participate in the project and publish their voice on the Internet. (A sample permission form in MS Word format which you are free to modify and use as desired is available on the project guidelines page.) Here are the five digital stories about “favorite books” the students in Asher created today:

To Kill a Mockingbird (10th graders in Asher, Oklahoma)

The Case of the Disappearing Daughter (5th grader in Asher, Oklahoma)

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe (9th graders in Asher, Oklahoma)

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (8th grade boys in Asher, Oklahoma)

The Outsiders (11th and 12th grade students in Asher, Oklahoma)

The Great Books Project is open to anyone, worldwide, who would like to use these ideas, use any of the project resources, and contribute digital stories.

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books, stories, voicethread, digitalstorytelling

Meaningful professional development is always a challenge. In most cases, teacher audiences are diverse with different grade level and content area interests. Face to face time is limited, and opportunities for follow up often are in short supply as well.

Colorado secondary assistant principal Rick Tanski found a great way to address these challenges during the 2006-2007 academic year: Via a multi-month book study for teachers focused on Dan Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.” Rick reports teachers from various departments including English, Social Studies, Marketing, Math, Science, Art and the Library have found ways to integrate ideas from Pink’s book into their lessons and projects for students. He wrote of this experience:

It was the single most inspirational and rewarding staff development experience of my 14-year professional educational career. We met once a month for 8 months over the course of the 2006-2007 school year… several members of our staff asked me if I could offer the book study again this year. I have and 12 different teachers from art, english, math, science, social studies, and special education have signed up.

Way to to Rick and teachers at Pine Creek High School north of Colorado Springs!

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danielpink, danpink, wholenewmind, creativity, professionaldevelopment, leadership, books

Long before the NSBA report on social networking was released last month encouraging schools and school leaders to embrace the opportunities afforded by social networking technologies for student learning, leaders of The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) began working with read/write web tools to take their ideas and mission where students increasingly spend their free time: Online.

YALSA’s read/write web and social networking spaces include Ning, Flickr, MySpace, an organizational wiki, an organizational blog, and more.

I have written about YALSA and their digital advocacy for reading, literacy, libraries and librarians before, but most recently my attention was directed to them after finding the YALSA read-alike list for The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe available on Walden Media’s website. Walden Media’s website for teachers is WONDERFUL, and includes a rich array of resources related to their films and (in many cases) the books on which the films are based. Each of their films (which are based on a book) includes a “read-alike list,” which are perfect for students who say “I really loved that movie…” or “I really loved that book…” and want suggestions for additional books to read related to the original.

In this spirit, it would be wonderful to see a group like YALSA get behind a digital storytelling project like “Great Book Stories” to invite more students to powerfully share the books they love, the reasons they love them, and reasons why others should consider reading them.

Helping students experience their own “home run book” is one of the most important things we can do as educators, especially in elementary school, but also later in life if students don’t have this experience sooner. It’s great to see YALSA continuing to utilize read/write web and social networking tools/environments to share their positive messages of advocacy for literacy. It’s also great to see them partnering with a creative organization like Walden Media, who (thankfully) has strong concern for “faithfully adapting” books to the silver screen.

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ala, walden, books, yalsa

As the first student-created “Great Book Stories” shared with VoiceThread on the collaborative book-sharing project I started today, my two oldest kids shared some perceptions about why “Who Was Helen Keller” by Gare Thompson and the books “Eragon” and “Eldest” by Christopher Paolini are some of their favorites. These were each created and recorded from start to finish in 15 minutes each, just before bed tonight! I helped them find the pictures and typed the title on each one to save time, they imported the images and recorded their voices. Alexander actually “drove the mouse” doing all his recording, Sarah had me do to mouse work for hers. Sarah re-recorded at least 3 of her voice narrations several times, Alexander just re-recorded one of his.

I consider these more “proof of concept” digital stories rather than exemplary “best practice” digital stories. When I help teachers learn about digital storytelling, I emphasize the writing process and a four step process:

1. Plan
2. Produce
3. Chop
4. Publish

We did minimal planning for these digital stories, so in the weeks to come I’ll likely work with both Sarah and Alexander to have them actually write scripts to go with their storyboard for these “Great Book Stories.” Despite these acknowledged limitations, I think they both did a good job and shared some worthwhile perceptions about these books. They certainly demonstrated this can be done quickly!
Here they are!

Alexander’s is particularly poignant because, as I wrote last spring, the book “Eragon” was his “home run book” that first hooked him into reading. On the fifth and final image of his VoiceThread about the books, he shares (in his own words) this fact that Eragon was his home run book. This was an unsolicited comment and observation from me. As a young fourth grader, Alexander now defines himself as a reader. This is a HUGE change from the start of third grade when he did not like reading by himself! This summer he started reading the Harry Potter books, and just finished reading book four over the weekend. He’s now over 100 pages into book five. All hail the POWER OF READING!!!!
One big “lesson learned” from our quick VoiceThread digital stories tonight was to click the SWITCH button when you are changing the actual author of a digital story. I neglected to do this, so as a result the author for Sarah’s digital story shows up as me, and the author of Alexander’s shows up as Sarah. This could have been avoided if I’d clicked the SWITCH button before making their separate VoiceThread stories. Instead of doing that, we just clicked the avatar/user icon at the bottom of the VoiceThread to change the icon of the person recording, not the actual identity of the person logged in:

Tomorrow evening I’ll share these as examples with teachers in MidDel Schools in Midwest City, Oklahoma, just east of Oklahoma City as we start a five-part workshop series on digital storytelling. More VoiceThreads are coming about favorite books!

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eragon, books, eldest, helenkeller, reading,voicethread, digitalstorytelling