Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Welcome to episode six of the Technology Shopping Cart podcast where educational innovation thrives on the food of creative ideas! This week Karen Montgomery and Wesley Fryer discuss the important but controversial subject of using cell phones and other mobile devices for learning in K-12 as well as university classrooms. This podcast is the first of two parts, our next episode will focus specifically on iPhones and web applications for the iPhone which are relevant for classroom learning. In this episode we address the reasons it is important to utilize cell phones for learning, including helping students learn digital etiquette with cell phones (part of digital citizenship.) Mobile devices like cell phones can be used in various ways to blend learning and extend learning beyond the traditional boundaries of the bell. Refer to our podcast shownotes for links to the resources and websites we discuss in this show.

 

 Podcast248: Technology Shopping Cart Podcast06 - Cell Phones and Mobile Devices for Learning (Part 1 of 2) [58:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1929)

Show Notes:

1. Follow Karen Montgomery on Twitter
2. Follow Wesley Fryer on Twitter
3. Asterpix - Interactive video (add hyperlinks to web-based movies)
4. Jott.com - Speech to digital text translation (mobile phone to your to-do lists!)
5. Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools - Liz Kolb’s K12Online07 Presentation
6. Highway 40 Twitter Group (St Louis area construction updates via Jott.com to Twitter)
7. Think Mobile Phones for Learning - Karen Montgomery’s wiki for cell phone use in education
8. Cell Phones for Learning - Wesley Fryer’s wiki for cell phone use in education
9. Digital Etiquette from Kansas State Digital Citizenship Project
10. Teens Take Advantage of Online Privacy Tools - NPR report from 3 April 2008
11. NPR Technology Podcast
12. Tips for avoiding identity theft
13. Mogreet The Vote (Send a personal video message to the US Presidential candidates - Warning: Look a the terms and be aware of commercial charges!)
14. Project K-Nect by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
15. Gabcast - Record by phone straight to the web and a podcast channel
16. Gcast - Record by phone straight to the web and a podcast channel
17. The Story of Richard Ivie (Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital story recorded in part with Gcast)
18. Echo360 - scalable coursecasting solution
19. Podcast Producer (publish audio podcasts, video podcasts, screencasts, or upload files to Mac OS X server and “publish at will” within a subscribable web feed)
20. Speaking of History: Eric Langhorst’s blog and podcast (US History teacher and 2008 Missouri state teacher of the year, Eric models use of “studycasts” for students)
21. Kevin Honeycutt’s website and blog
22. VoiceThread commenting via a phone call
23. PollEverywhere - SMS text message polling
24. .mobi article on WikiPedia (domain name for mobile compatible websites)
25. Winksite: Build a website compatible with mobile devices / mobile phones
26. Vanderbilt website for iPhone
27. Rave Wireless Campus - applications for university students, faculty and administrors for mobile phones
28. Mobile Learning website from Abilene Christian University (includes link to their movie, “Connected”)
29. Convergence and the 21st-Century Classroom (from Abilene Christian University)
30. Mobile Campus - opt-in features for university students

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I’ve added a new session entitled “Digital Storytelling as THE Disruptive Change Agent for the 21st Century Learning Revolution” to the EduBloggerCon San Antonio 2008 Session Offers wiki page. The description I suggested is:

The digital connections now possible via blogging and other social networking technologies are phenomenal and potentially transforming for educators around the world. To change schools and learning paradigms more broadly, however, digital technologies which permit content creation as well as collaboration must gain not only the attention but also the support of school administrators and board members. How can we do this most effectively? In this session we will explore and discuss the proposition that digital storytelling projects (by students as well as teachers) may offer the greatest hope we have to constructively disrupt and extend the perceptions of multiple stakeholders within our communities about learning and school. If we want to contribute meaningfully to a 21st century learning revolution, how can we do that in our local contexts and keep our jobs? How are school district leaders’ minds positively changed about topics not just limited to educational technology, but student-centered learning more generally? Is digital storytelling the answer? Let’s explore the possibilities.

Thoughts or responses?

My experiences to date with digital storytelling and specifically our statewide oral history project “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” are major influences on my thinking along these lines.

I’m always wary when someone says “this is the answer” with respect to the challenges we face as educators, parents, and/or community leaders. If I have to point to a single type of technology use in which I have the most hope for its potential to move the school reform agenda forward in a constructive direction, I’d have to say it is digital storytelling. For more background on this line of thinking, see my post from February, “Why Celebrate Oklahoma Voices Matters.”

Technorati Tags:
cov, oklahoma, cov08, edubloggercon, edubloggercon08, digitalstorytelling, education, learning

Scott McLeod has announced an official contest to develop a logo for the phrase, “I’m here for the learning revolution.” Scott’s idea for these buttons in advance of NECC 2008 and this contest was a motivator for my post last week about wanting to write a book with this title.

Scott’s center (CASTLE) is paying for contest prizes and the buttons, and promises “Anyone who attends the Edubloggercon 2008 and [the] Classroom 2.0 ‘LIVE’ session at NECC gets a free button.” I am glad to see Scott taking this phrase “Here for the learning revolution” and running with it! I hope wearers of this button at NECC and afterwards will invite others to ask some natural questions. These might include:

1. What is the learning revolution?
2. How can I help advance the agenda of the learning revolution in my school and community?

In my view, the learning revolution is not about picketing and protests, it’s about powerful creativity and collaboration. It’s about making normative claims for what education SHOULD be like by showing others in our communities the engaging, digital learning projects of our students. Creating and collaborating. Those are the keys. Paul Wood’s post today, “Are you part of the Revolution?” provides an excellent example of what operationalizing the learning revolution can mean and DOES mean in some schools. After describing a recent powerful experience, when Sister Immaculee Mukabugabo from Rwanda spoke to students at his school, Paul wrote:

… we decided we needed to start our own voices project. In the next few days we hope to have posted to our school site a section called “Voices.” This will be voices of people that have spoken to the students on different subjects with Sister’s being the first one. We also hope to include many others who have stories to tell. The power of the voice will truly be something for us to be a part of, continuing to take us further down the road of revolution.

The digital learning revolution. It’s real. It’s here, And you’re invited to not merely spectate, but participate, as a catalyst for learning change in your local community.

Thanks to Scott for sponsoring this button contest. I’m hopeful these buttons and this phrase will catalyze even more conversations about needed changes in our schools and PRACTICAL PATHS FORWARD for those of us who have volunteered to join the learning revolution.

Technorati Tags:
learning, revolution, necc, necc2008, necc08, CASTLE, scottmcleod, contest, button

This podcast is a recording of a conversation I had with Kamala Jolly-Stewart of Mid-Del Schools in Midwest City, Oklahoma. For some time, I have viewed the ability of individuals with access to digital technologies and the web to publish their ideas and voices DIRECTLY on the global stage of the Internet as the ability to “publish at will.” The publish at will challenge for schools and colleges has multiple facets. For school leaders who understand the value of blended learning and distributed learning, it is very important to determine how ALL teachers, instructors and professors can be enabled to relatively easily publish their lectures, handouts, and other media files directly to the web in a user-friendly podcast feed to which students can subscribe using their desktop computers, laptop computers, or portable devices like iPhones. Creating a podcast in a program like GarageBand or Audacity can be relatively straightforward, but it can still require a lot of “clicks” of the mouse. How can this process be streamlined? How can coursecasting for an entire school, department, or college be enabled? Podcast Producer is part of the new Macintosh Operating System 10.5 (Leopard) Server and utilizes the free Mac OS 10.5 desktop client utility “Podcast Capture” to solve the publish at will challenge. The Mid-Del school district is starting the third year of professional development for educators in the district’s “Pod Squad,” but adding the ability to utilize Podcast Producer as a publishing process instead of using iWeb. (An application included in the iLife software suite.) Kamala and I discussed the background of Mid-Del’s Pod Squad, why they are utilizing Podcast Producer, what we understand to be the capabilities of this solution, and the questions we have moving forward into the implementation phase of this digital media publishing project.

 

 Podcast242: Solving the Publish At Will Challenge for K-12 Teachers with Podcast Producer [56:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (723)

Show Notes:

1. Podcast Producer
2. Episode Podcast (accepts and transcodes to all major video formats with Podcast Producer)
3. Mid-Del Schools PodSquad Podcasts
4. Mid-Del Schools Technology Plan (on Wikispaces)
5. Mid-Del Schools, Oklahoma
6. “Connected” movie from Abilene Christian University (learning where everyone has an iPhone)
7. Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project
8. Echo360
9. Duke Digital Initiative

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Technorati Tags: podcast, producer, podcastproducer, apple, publish, school, learning, ipod, iphone, training, podcasting

Gary Stager posted some questions in response to my TechLearning post on Friday, “Mobile web applications.” Gary asked:

What do Alice, Storytelling Alice, and Scratch have to do with mobile computing?

Why should computer science be relegated to club status?

This was my response.

Gary:

The link I see here is that developers with programming skills are creating these applications for mobile computing. Of course developers can create all sorts of applications that are not limited to use on mobile devices, but I see mobile devices creating 1:1 learning situations in many schools and classrooms long before access to more capable laptop computers will. I think we need to encourage students to develop knowledge and skills in programming for intrinsic as well as instrumental reasons. Those three programs I listed are all available for free, and provide software environments in which students can both learn programming basics as well as develop their own creative abilities.

I am not saying computer science and programming should be relegated to club status. It would be great if all our students could take a well designed and led programming class as part of their ‘normal’ school curriculum. The fact is that our mandatory curriculum requirements in most high schools today have become so full, there is not room for ANY electives in some cases.

I see after school programs as a great entry point for initiatives like this. I recently read about the MacArthur Foundation encouraging an educational focus on after school programs, in part (I think) because of the curricular autonomy which is possible for after-school programs. Where I live in Oklahoma, I’m not aware of any elementary or middle schools that have integrated programming or robotics either as electives or after school programs. We have the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics in Norman, but I think their focus is currently all on high school students.

I want to point out how personally relevant mobile applications are going to be to all of us with cell phones in the coming years, and the potential which learners of any age have to PARTICIPATE in the mobile learning revolution as developers and not merely consumers. To this end, I think awareness of and use of programming environments like Alice, Storytelling Alice, and Scratch is very important.

I have created a new page on my blog under the top header link “Resources” for “Mobile Phones for Learning.” Sylvia Martinez sent me a link to Seymour Papert’s 1998 article “Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning” after I posted “Head faking kids to love programming and change the world” last week. I have read Papert’s book “The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer” but have not read much more from him to date. Gary shared the presentation “Papert Matters - Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas” at Learning 2.0 in Shanghai last September, and suggests the links www.papert.org and www.stager.org/planetpapert.html for additional links relating to the work of Dr. Papert.

I have NOT read anything written by Dr. Papert which specifically endorses the idea of students writing web apps for the iPhone. I understand that Papert supports the goal of getting more students involved in creatively using computers as tools to express themselves, develop their creative capacities, and as an extension of their own imaginations. This view of computing and the role of computers is RADICALLY different from the ways I see computers being used in most of our Oklahoma schools today, where “web surfing” predominates along with administrative uses of the computer, CAI, and online testing. I want to continue advocating for the constructive uses of mobile phone technologies for learning throughout the K-20 educational spectrum, but not merely for information “consumption.” I agree with others who advocate for students becoming content creators and application developers, for multiple reasons. As students move from the role of passive content consumer to active content creator and developer, I think cognitive demands increase and the value of the learning experience increases as a general rule.

There is one additional sentence I would add to my response to Gary’s question. After my wishful comment about students taking more programming courses, especially at elementary and middle school levels, I’d add the following:

Even better, it would be great if more teachers were aware of the possibilities available via programming environments and encouraged students to develop simulations and other programs for their “regular” coursework assignments using these tools.

I continue to think that the “top down” approaches to technology integration and curriculum change into which educators and parents tend to place the most faith may not be the best places to put our collective energies. Bottom up approaches which involve equipping students with resources, knowledge and skills to create and share– whether that is digital stories or computer simulations and programs, seem to offer much more potential to organically grow and spread like a “fire” which we are often so enthusiastic to share and “pass on” as educational technology evangelists. The role of campus and district leadership is pivotal for broad-based change, I have no doubts about that. I think the potential for students to tangibly advance an agenda of constructive digital tool use for creation and collaboration may be underestimated by many educators, however. Because of this perception, I think our use, promotion and support of programming environments like Alice, Storytelling Alice, and Scratch is very important. I think we can also include Google Sketch-Up in this collection of applications.

Perhaps we’ll soon see an iPhone portal for applications created in Scratch, once an iPhone software update is released which supports Flash video? A portal of Scratch projects, accessible via mobile phones, would be a GREAT way to make this link directly between programming environments and mobile computing. Can you hear the evening conversation at home now? “Look what I made to demonstrate photosynthesis, Mom! I’ve got the program posted to the web and you can view it right here on my cell phone!”

Technorati Tags:
programming, software, development, education, learning, papert, stager, alice, storytelling, scratch, googlesketchup, creativity

I’ve shared a new post on the TechLearning blog titled, “Mobile web applications.”

Technorati Tags:
iphone, mobile, cell, cellphone, learning

Vanderbilt University’s iPhone content portal is an amazing information resource and reveals that the future of mobile learning is HERE for colleges and universities with leaders who understand the implications of and possibilities for convergence in higher education. (Thanks to Karen Montgomery for sharing this link!)

Choices on the website include information about Admissions, Colleges and Schools, the Vanderbilt Medical Center, Athletics, iTunes University offerings by Vanderbilt professors and distinguished speakers, Vanderbilt on YouTube, OAK (Online Access to Knowledge) as well as webmail. Additional tabs at the top offer links to News, Calendar events, and a Search portal. These resources are not only available from a laptop or desktop computer, but also from an iPhone connected to the web via an Edge or WiFi connection. Like other web apps for the iPhone, this entire site was specifically designed for users of iPhones and iTouch mobile computers.

The future of higher education is arriving fast. Is your own K-12 school district still blocking all access to YouTube for both teachers and students? Still struggling to keep students enthralled for eight hours a day, rather than engaged? Still banning cell phones? I spoke with Oklahoma public school students last week who attend class in a district that fines them $10 if they are caught at school with their cell phone. Each subsequent offense increases the fine by $10. Under this system, a student could be fined $10 for a first offense, $20 for a second offense, and $30 for a third offense. The criminal mistake of a student? Possessing a mobile, personal computer while at school.

Thankfully, leaders in higher education (like those at Vanderbilt) understand the positive, constructive potential of leveraging mobile technologies for learning, communication and outreach. Hopefully more leaders in K-12 schools will start noticing these opportunities as well.

I spoke with a teacher today from Oklahoma whose school district is completely eliminating their middle school “multimedia” course for students because of funding shortfalls. That sounds like a great decision for the local school board, since digital technologies are going to go away entirely in our society by the start of the 2008-2009 school year, right?! NOT! Why do so many school district leaders seem to have their heads COMPLETELY buried in the sand when it comes to the need our students have for 21st century skills?

Without 21st century tools, how can we possibly hope our students can cultivate 21st century skills at school? We need 1:1 learning to become a reality for ALL students in our nation after 2nd grade. Yet who will convince our school board members and state legislators?

It’s up to us, and up to our students to not just tell them, but SHOW them. “Digital show and tell” by our students, for their benefit and the benefit of our school board members. It’s a key strategic goal for our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project. Can our students change the hearts and minds of our school board members when it comes to the importance of digital technologies and learning strategies which strive to engage rather than entrall? Absolutely. Listen to Dr. Rae Niles tell her story about how the Sedgwick school board (in Kansas) came to embrace 1:1 learning, in the COSN panel “Unleashing the Transformational Power of One-to-One Computing in K-12.” There were MANY factors contributing to this 1:1 success story, but the role of students TELLING STORIES and sharing their technology creations with their school board members was pivotal.

We’ll be adding 20 new digital stories to our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices Ning Video collection tomorrow as another project workshop wraps up. If even a few of these teachers return to their communities and help their own students create and safely publish oral history interviews with local community members, we’ll take several steps forward in the digital school reform journey here in Oklahoma.

A digital learning REVOLUTION is underway. Are you on the train, getting on the train, helping drive the train, or sabotaging the rail line by attempting to blow up bridges along the train’s route?

As for me and my family, we’re on board and negotiating with the conductor for a permanent berth on the sleeper car. We’re here on this train for the long haul. If someone blows up a bridge on our path, we’ll just activate some jet packs so we can fly right over that obstacle and keep on rolling.

Technorati Tags:
mobile, learning, vanderbilt, iphone, itouch, cellphone, college, university, engage, enthrall, train, revolution, education, school, change, reform

It’s been about 3 weeks since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone software roadmap and released the iPhone SDK (software development kit.) Until this evening I had not taken time to explore the available web apps (web applications) for the iPhone. As I’ve watched a set of severe thunderstorms roll into our area (on TV) north of Oklahoma City this evening/morning, I’ve started to explore several web apps and have to say I am VERY impressed. Wow. To think these are just “1st generation” web applications for the iPhone… It’s mind boggling to try and imagine where we are going to be in just five years in terms of mobile applications. These are the applications I explored this evening, with some brief descriptions and comments.

Podcaster: This web app lets users subscribe to podcast feeds and listen to / watch them them DIRECTLY on an iPhone. Normally with podcasts, iPhone users subscribe to them in iTunes and then have to synchronize the iPhone to their computer to get the podcasts transferred over. With Podcaster, that process can be skipped as long as you have an Internet connection. The site does not yet support OPML import, evidently, and it appears all non-approved Feedburner podcast feed addresses may be blocked, but I absolutely LOVE this web app and see huge potential here. I subscribed to the Best of YouTube podcast, Discovery Channel Video Podcasts, National Geographic Video Shorts, NOVA | PBS, NPR Science Friday, NPR Technology, This Week in Tech, and some others. On my home WiFi connection the downloads are VERY speedy. It is AMAZING to be able to access podcast audio and video this way! I’ve spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos on my iPod, but honestly not that much time– I can really see the value of being able to access podcast channel content this way WITHOUT having to sync up with iTunes. This web app is superb.

iSwaggle: One of the current limitations of SMS text messaging on the iPhone’s standard SMS interface is that users can just send text messages to single individuals. iSwaggle addresses this shortcoming, permitting users to create groups with varying privacy and message permission levels so single SMS messages can be sent out to multiple folks included in groups. People have to confirm they want to be in the group in order to receive messages, so that is good from a privacy/SMS spam standpoint. I setup an iSwaggle group for our family to use, mainly for alert messaging, as well as our “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” project.

Kudit: The Kudit web app site includes variety of applications divided into categories including calculators, tools, score keepers, social, games, and toys. Some are offered free, others provide a free trial but require a subsequent purchase which activates the tool for a period of time. (Like 3 months.) Free calculators include Words Per Minute (typing speed on your iPhone) and Resistor value (enter the color sequence of a resistor to look up its value.) Calculators available for purchase include a VERY cool tip calculator (which allows you to rate the service and thereby change the percentage of the tip, and specify how many ways to split the total bill.) A free stopwatch tool is available, but I’m not sure it is any better than the built-in stopwatch on the iPhone which is part of the “Clock” application. My favorite application is probably the scorekeeper for the game “Spades.” Enter bids for each team, and then enter the tricks taken by each team to have your iPhone keep score. The “Give Food” application under the “Social” category links users to the website “Free Rice,” where users can guess the definition of vocabulary words (and see advertisements, which I am guessing funds this initiative) to donate grains of rice (20 grains per word) to “hungry people.” I’d never heard of that site before. Another site available is thehungersite.com. On this site, visitors simply click a link to have site sponsors donate food to the needy. A “Fair Trade” store is available where people can shop and via their purchase donate more money to feed the hungry. I’d be interested to read more about the legitimacy of these websites. If they are legit (and I don’t have a reason to doubt they are beyond my “normal” critical eye) these sites would be worthwhile to introduce to students in school computer labs. Got a few extra minutes at the start or end of class? Guess some vocab words, help donate food for the hungry… No iPhone required.

43 Actions: 43 Actions is “a GTD (Getting Things Done) inspired, mobile to-do list and advanced organizer. Designed specifically to let you manage your daily life on the go, using the always-on internet access in your iPhone.” I have wanted to start using the service Jott.com ever since I heard Liz Kolb describe it in her “Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools” presentation for K-12 Online 2007. Since 43 Actions supports Jott, I think I’m about to become a new Jott user! This is a “donor exclusive” feature for 43 Actions, however, so I have made a donation via PayPal to the 43 Actions development group so I can experiment with this functionality later this week. I went ahead and transferred all my current “to dos” and project categories from TaskPaper to 43 Actions. I have enjoyed using TaskPaper, but the fact that I don’t have those to-dos on my iPhone has been a MAJOR limitation and disadvantage. I’m eager to start using 43 Actions this week and will post later about my experiences. For more on my experiences and perspectives on the “Getting Things Done” organizational system, refer to prior posts in my recently added “organization” blog category.

ADDITION 31 MARCH 2008: I HAVE JUST LEARNED THAT THE HAYS, KANSAS, CONFERENCE ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 8TH HAS BEEN POSTPONED TILL THE FALL BECAUSE OF LOW REGISTRATION NUMBERS. ;-(

I’m going to see about sharing an iPhone web app presentation at the upcoming “Mobile Teaching and Learning Conference” at Ft Hays State University (in Hays, Kansas) next week. I am sharing the keynote address at the conference in the afternoon, but will be sharing two breakout sessions as well in the morning. The conference takes place on Tuesday, April 8th.

Well, it has certainly been an exciting evening and morning… and not just thanks to these iPhone web apps. We’ve had tornado sirens go off several times here in Edmond, Oklahoma, and tornados as well as strong straightline winds have caused damage as well as downed power lines just north of us.

Thank goodness for doppler radar and television meteorologists who stay right on top of these storms. Such is life in tornado alley in the spring.

Technorati Tags:
iphone, webapp, web, app, application, gtd, gettingthingsdone, organize, organizer, oklahoma, tornado, radar

Wow. Based on my successful experiences sharing some live webcasts over Ustream.tv a couple of weeks ago in Washington DC from the National Air and Space Museum sites, I am contemplating offering/facilitating a free virtual field trip (at least one but maybe more) from the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The memorial and accompanying museum is about three blocks away from where I work in downtown OKC. This afternoon I tested the 3G bandwidth available here in my office, and this was the result: Plenty of bandwidth for a webcast over Ustream.tv!

Compare this downstream and upstream bandwidth to the bandwidth available in Watonga, Oklahoma, about an hour west-northwest of Oklahoma City earlier this week:

What a difference 3G towers make! Here in Oklahoma City, installation of 3G was just completed this past November. I’m going to do some checking with a contact I know at the OKC memorial and museum next week, and if I can arrange for a docent to assist with this VFT. Then I’ll do a test connection from the memorial and setup some dates/times for this actual virtual field trip.

I think it would be good to work with some students and have them create a VoiceThread that provides some background about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the memorial, and the museum. The official memorial and museum website already includes several videos about the bombing and the memorial. Four videos are currently available on YouTube, including a walking tour of the memorial. These were posted to YouTube last month:

Oklahoma City National Memorial Walking Tour (Part 1)

Oklahoma City National Memorial Walking Tour (Part 2)

I am VERY enthused about this capability which is now realistic: Connecting students LIVE over the web in a virtual field trip, conducted on site using only a laptop, a cell network connection device, and an external camcorder. This was the functionality we needed in December 2007 in Pearl Harbor for the dedication ceremony of the USS Oklahoma, which followed our very successful “traditional” (H.323) videoconference using Tandberg equipment with survivors of the USS Oklahoma. That entire videoconference remains online in three different segments. At that time 3G network upgrades had not been made by AT&T in the Pearl Harbor area of Honolulu. We did try an available Verizon network connection, but the available bandwidth was insufficient to maintain a video connection using either iChat or Skype. I did not attempt a Ustream broadcast or connection from Pearl Harbor, but I probably should have. For some reason using Ustream did not occur to me then as an option.

Hopefully we’ll be able to make this happen from downtown Oklahoma City at the actual site of the memorial. The key is available 3G network bandwidth, and it appears that IS available here where we need it. The more difficult challenge, of course, will be working with school district technology administrators who may have ports and sites blocked on their school network preventing connectivity to a Ustream.tv broadcast. Events like this will hopefully provide additional reasons for school districts to embrace tiered content filtering and actually TRUST teachers on the school network more than kindergartners.

I’m enthused about these possibilities for mobile, live virtual field trip connections.

Technorati Tags:
oklahoma, city, oklahomacity, memorial, bombing, museum, 3g, virtualfieldtrip, vft

CNN is reporting “ordinary Cubans” are going to be allowed to have cell phones, something not permitted when Fidel Castro was the leader of Cuba. Fidel’s brother, Raul, made this decision. I think it is likely to have major effects on the Cuban economy, political culture, and society in general.

Limiting access to information and ideas has been a hallmark of closed societies in historical and contemporary times. I’ve heard (but haven’t confirmed) that the only person on the Internet in North Korea is their leader, Kim Jong-il. Chinese authorities continue to wage a digital war against the free flow of information and ideas using the “great firewall of China.” Iran restricts and filters content accessible from computers within its borders, which led Hamed Saber in Iran to create the Access Flickr plug-in for FireFox to circumvent those restrictions. The Tor project continues to expand with the goal of protecting people (including human rights and democracy advocates) from network surveillance and resulting state police/military action in states and communities which actively enforce web access restrictions.

What is the import of permitting cell phones in Cuba? Writing for GlobalVoicesOnline.org, Janine Mendes-Franco reports that Cuban authorities have recently been blocking access to certain blogs which are critical of the Cuban government. Does Raul realize that many cell phones permit web access? Is Cuba going to filter Internet access via cell phones in the same way they filter desktop and laptop computer access to the web?

Reactions to Fidel Castro’s announcement that he was stepping down as the leader of Cuba have been mixed, but it is clear that some changes are afoot. The disruptive potential of cell phones to be used as tools for constructive change is not limited to economics, as Iqbal Quadir highlighted in his TEDTalk “The power of the mobile phone to end poverty.”

Cell phones will play an increasingly important role in pro-democracy and self-determination movements around the world in the years to come, as their power and connectivity potentials continue to grow. I think Raul Castro has made a good decision for his nation by permitting “ordinary” folks to obtain cell phones. The economic benefits of this decision will be HUGE for Cuba and Cubans. Whether the full political implications of this decision have been anticipated by the current Cuban government remain to be seen.

Technorati Tags:
cuba, cellphone, cell, phone, politics, china, iran, kora, change, mobility, poverty, democracy, selfdetermination

About a month ago I heard about the newly announced iPhone higher education mobility project at Abilene Christian University, in Abilene, Texas. The ACU website “Mobile Learning and the Connected Campus” includes a link to the fifteen and a half minute movie “Connected,” which is a vision of how iPhones are being deployed today at ACU to digitally connect students to peers, professors, course content, and many other aspects of college life. I took some time (at last) to watch this entire video, and I am both impressed and excited at the prospects this video suggests.The video is a carefully formatted and scripted production, but still quite impressive as a vision for utilizing mobile technologies in transformative ways for learning. I was particularly interested in the comments made by ACU instructors in the video. Students were provided with choices right in class, which they responded to as polls on their iPhone right away. Students self-selected a hybrid version of a class which included both online discussions and face-to-face meetings, or a more traditional seminar-style class that met entirely face-to-face. Students were encouraged to use their iPhone as a digital voice recorder to conduct interviews, as well as take photographs for a class project. I especially picked up on the comment, by one of the students, that most of the course lectures were provided in advance of class so the face-to-face time could be utilized for discussions and interaction. This is a vision of 21st century blended learning, powered by ubiquitous student access to iPhones as well as professors adapting their pedagogic approaches to instruction in ways which appropriately leverage the transformative learning potential of mobile devices.Wow.In upcoming weeks, I’m hoping to be able to make a face-to-face visit to ACU to learn more about this project and the current implementation successes as well as challenges instructors and administrators are facing. This is a VERY exciting vision, and it’s great to see Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, charting a bold course for digitally connected and relevant learning in the 21st century for higher education institutions around the world.The ACU website “Convergence and the 21st-Century Classroom” provides a fantastic overview of how convergence CAN impact and change teaching and learning in the 21st century, particularly when students have 1 to 1 access to mobile technologies. The table comparing 20th and 21st century instructional dynamics is particularly good. For continuing updates on the ACU mobile and blended learning project, check out and subscribe to the ithinked.com blog.ACU faculty and students, the eyes of Texas and the WORLD are upon you! Technorati Tags:iphone, mobile, learning, apple, abilene, texas, acu, college, covergence

My son and I conducted our third and fourth live webcasts over Ustream.tv today from the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport, about 30 miles outside of Washington D.C. Udvar-Hazy is an extension of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum which opened four years ago, and houses a wonderful array of aircraft and spacecraft in several enormous aircraft hangers. Our favorites in the collection were the Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress “Enola Gay”, the Space Shuttle Enterprise (STS-101 Orbiter,) the Corcorde, and the Mars Pathfinder Lander Prototype. This is an exceptional museum, and is certainly well worth visiting.

In our first webcast from the observation deck near the center’s entrance, we discussed the SR-71, the STS-101 Space Shuttle Enterprise, the P-40 and the F-4U aircraft.

In our second webcast from underneath the Concorde aircraft, we discussed the Concorde, a little about the Enola Gay B-29, and recapped many of the learning moments from the past week in Washington D.C. We switched roles for the second half of this webcast, and Alexander let me interview him. We also got some audio input from one of the security guards at the center.

For today’s webcasts over Ustream, we ratcheted down our video quality considerably (to 25% picture quality) and ratcheted up our audio quality (to 30 kHz.) This worked better over our 3G AT&T cell network connection than the higher video quality settings we’d used on Sunday from the Air and Space museum on the mall in Washington DC. The audio was not clipped and had a good, constant quality, but the video quality certainly leaves a lot to be desired. I think it is WONDERFUL Ustream allows this type of audio and video quality adjustment. Ideally, I think I’d like to experiment and use a higher level of video quality (at least 50% picture quality) but maintain the same level of audio quality. Whether or not bandwidth can support that is a local, context-driven question. Here are a few lessons learned from our four “remote field trip” Ustream.tv webcasts to date:

1. CHARGE YOUR BATTERIES: Battery life for remote webcasts is essential. On both days of our webcasts from Washington DC this week, I failed to fully charge the laptop battery we were using. Ideally you want a full laptop battery, a spare battery, and a portable battery pack that can provide additional power to your laptop and possibly camcorder. An extra, charged camcorder battery would also come in handy.
2. USE AN EXTERNAL CAMCORDER: For our webcasts this week, we used a small, handheld Sony digital camcorder. This video quality was far superior to the video quality obtainable from a built-in iSight camera. iSight cameras ARE great, but with an external DV camcorder the person serving as the webcast videographer can zoom in and out as needed on subjects, and frame video shots much more flexibly.
3. USE A LONG FIREWIRE CABLE: A long firewire cable is essential when using an external DV camcorder. Although the laptop you are using for the remote webcast can be wireless / unplugged from electricity as well as a wired Internet connection, the camcorder must be plugged in.
4. CONNECT WITH LOCAL VIDEO FIRST: Using a Macbook running OS 10.5.2 and Ustream.TV this week, we had repeated problems with our web browser crashing when the video source in Ustream was initially set to DV Video and DV audio. This happened in three different browsers: Safari, FireFox, and Flock. We do not know why this happened, but we did figure out a workaround. By connecting to Ustream FIRST with local video and audio settings, and THEN (after the connection was established) plugging in the external DV camcorder and switching the video and audio input sources, we were able to successfully webcast using the external DV camcorder.
5. CHECK LOCAL BANDWIDTH: I like to use the Internet Frog Speed test website to check my upstream and downstream bandwidth from a particular location. I don’t know what the exact requirements for Ustream are, but generally anything less than 200 kbps is probably not going to work for a webcast or videoconference, from what I know and have experienced.
6. TEST VARIOUS USTREAM QUALITY SETTINGS: The first two times we conducted a webcast over a cell phone data connection, the audio was clipped because the video quality we’d selected was too high for available bandwidth. By reducing video quality and increasing audio quality, we avoided this “audio clipping” problem. Experiment with different settings to find an optimal combination for your available bandwidth and purpose/needs.
7. SCHEDULE IN ADVANCE: If possible, schedule the date(s) and time(s) of your webcast in advance, so others will know when they should be able to check in online to catch your broadcast. Remember folks around the world are in different time zones, so use a website like WorldTimeServer to provide a link to the exact time in GMT and/or a helpful link people can use to see the date/time for their local area.
8. ANNOUNCE ON TWITTER: It can be helpful to announce your webcasts on Twitter to let others (who are following you on Twitter already) know about the availability of your webcast. Since people using Twitter at a particular time are generally interested in “live updates,” chances are good at least some of those folks will want to check out your live webcast and provide feedback - especially if you solicit it!
9. CHECK LOCAL PORT SETTINGS IN ADVANCE: If you are using a hardwired ethernet connection or WiFi connection to the Internet, rather than a cell phone data connection, if possible check to see if Ustream is useable via that connection in advance of your scheduled conference. More hotels and other locations providing free WiFi are utilizing network configurations which prohibit streaming video, including the ports utilized by Ustream. If you can test for this functionality in advance, you may be able to save yourself headaches and disappointments later.
10. BE READY WITH EXTRA QUESTIONS: The chat feature of Ustream is wonderful for soliciting questions from viewers, but depending on your Ustream channel settings users may be required to establish an account and log in to submit something. This can delay their abilities to submit text questions or comments, if they have not pre-registered with Ustream. For folks you will be inviting to the webcast, recommend that they pre-register with Ustream and login before your webcast begins.
11. BRING EXTENSION CORDS: If you can conduct your entire webcast without electrical or ethernet wires, more power to you! (Literally!) Depending on time and the status of your respective batteries when you start your webcast, however, you may need to “plug in” one or more of your devices. Remember this can include three different things: Your digital camcorder and laptop to AC power, and your laptop to a wired ethernet connection (if applicable.) Bring an extension cord and power strip to insure you have enough electrical outlets if needed.

It was certainly fun to successfully conduct four separate live, remote webcasts over Ustream this week from Washington D.C. (See my March 9th post, “Partial victory web-casting from the Smithsonian” for the first two videos and initial lessons learned.) We learned a great deal, and I hope to apply this knowledge in the future to some “new media” grants I’d like to write to support students and teachers traveling to interesting destinations and utilizing a variety of new communication and publication technologies to both document their learning activities and share those experiences with other learners “back home” as well as around the world who are not able to physically join in the field trip learning with the group. My experiences in December 2007 helping facilitate successful videoconferences with Pearl Harbor survivors and veterans to Oklahoma learners planted the seed for this idea. Hopefully it will bear some fruit in the months to come!

Technorati Tags:
ustream, webcast, video, videoconference, fieldtrip, learning, smithsonian, virginia

It has been a wonderful opportunity to be in Washington DC this week for many reasons. This is the fifth time I’ve had a chance to visit this area in my short lifetime, and I think I’m learning more than ever. As we age and gain more experiences, I think we obtain more background knowledge to which we can attach new ideas as well as old ones. It’s been a real joy to share this experience with my son.

We had an opportunity today to tour the U.S. Capitol, as well as some other locations. Multiple things came to mind throughout the day which I thought might be worth writing about later, but for tonight I’ll settle for just one.

Inside the rotunda of the Capitol, enormous paintings encircle the room. Most (if not all) of these were painted years after the actual events which are being portrayed, and the artists had no firsthand knowledge or experience about what actually took place. These paintings, while magnificent, truly ARE “artists conceptions.”

I find it interesting as well as thought provoking to see how we continue today, even in 2008, to use these paintings as lenses to understand and visually “see” history, even though in many cases the “visual history” which is presented bears only marginal resemblance to the ACTUAL history which transpired. An example is the following “classic” painting of General George Washington, resigning his commission to the Continental Congress following the end of the U.S. Revolutionary War.

The artist decided that although they were NOT present at this auspicious and historical event, he would paint in Washington’s wife along with his children in the painting.

This historical inaccuracy IS noted on the sign below the painting, as well as by many of the Congressional staffers who lead visitors on tours of the rotunda. None-the-less, I was struck by the fact that this false image still continues to be a major symbol of historical events to which the artist was not an eye-witness. I am not proposing that this painting be taken down or replaced, but I think it is worth considering the implications and meaning of this situation a bit further.

For centuries of human history, governments and the leaders of governments have had vast powers to write the records of history. Indeed, one of the exits to the rotunda is surrounded by the “winning” leaders of the U.S. Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln and General (and later President) Ulysses S. Grant. A statue of Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy) is included in the adjacent hall of statues representing famous individuals from different states, but he is certainly not featured prominently in the rotunda. This contrasts sharply with the statehouse of Texas in Austin, which features a portrait of Jefferson Davis prominently behind the chair of the speaker of the house.

The winners have always written the history books. Even when the “winners” were not witnesses, they have not passed up the opportunity to write and paint historical events in a manner which suited their interests and desires, at times ignoring or “taking artistic liberties” with the facts as they were reliably reported to have taken place.

This situation is radically different today in 2008. The cell phone which most visitors to the Capitol today had in their pocket or purse has the ability to document events in precise detail. While the resolution and quality of those images is likely limited, the ability to document with accuracy is present none-the-less. In addition to the power to document, each person when connected to the Internet has the potential ability to PUBLISH those images. Each one of us, armed with a cell phone and an Internet connection, has the capacity today to become a digital witness to events for a global audience. That is a stunning statement, and has the potential to turn centuries of controlled, “written by the winners” history on its head.

At the Library of Congress today, I saw an original copy of the Guttenberg Bible. It is believed only three copies of this Bible exist in the entire world. At the time, the ability to mechanically duplicate the Bible (in Latin, of course) was totally revolutionary. It allowed anyone who could read and afford the book an opportunity to personally own, control, and use the book. THE holy book. It gave direct access to content for the common person which had never before been available in the course of human history. This was a staggering achievement, yet one which we generally seem to take for granted in the 21st century.

Similarly, access to the Internet and digital tools of publication (as well as digital image and video editing) offer shockingly powerful options for individuals and groups to “write history” for themselves as well as posterity. That power can be abused or used constructively in amazing as well as disconcerting ways. I am convinced a free press (the fourth estate) is an essential component of our relatively free and open society in the United States. Citizen journalism has, I believe, a tremendously powerful, constructive potential to shape the politics, economics, and social lives of individuals around the globe. “Regular folks” like you and me simply could not dream, in previous decades, of having access to the “means of publication” which we can now opt to enjoy and utilize in our digital infoverse.

Karl Marx wrote about the importance of controlling the “means of production.” I am certainly not a Marxist, although I hope I am and continue to be an advocate for the disadvantaged and the oppressed. While Marx was focused in the early stages of the industrial revolution with the “means of production,” I continue to be amazed and even blown away by the potential power which access to the “means of publication” offers to any literate person with access to the connected, digital world.

We have barely scratched the surface of the potential changes which can be wrought (for good and for ill) with the access many of us now have to the digital means of publication. Will we spin history or strive to accurately report it? Will we turn a blind eye to injustice and oppression, or will we seek to faithfully record and share what we see as digital witnesses on the global stage of history and current events?

Technorati Tags:
history, spin, washington, unitedstates, capitol, art, politics

As previously mentioned, today at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. my son and I successfully conducted two short web-casts over my Ustream.tv channel using an AT&T / Sierra Wireless USB laptop data connection device (it’s not a true “card,” so I’m not sure what else to call it), my MacBook, a small digital camcorder, a long firewire cable, and a good deal of troubleshooting.

For some reason, our web browsers kept crashing when we had the DV camera selected as the video and audio source. I tried using Safari, FireFox, and Flock. Finally, Safari worked. Given this situation, I’m planning to arrive early for my first session at COSN tomorrow and setup the stream in advance. I won’t be presenting from my Macbook, I’ll be using it to stream, and hopefully my browsers will be more cooperative.

These broadcasted videos do represent much more a “bleeding edge” level of technology use rather than “the cutting edge.” I think with the available bandwidth now on the 3G network here in D.C., it would be better if I choose to ratchet DOWN the video quality in the Ustream braodcast and rachet UP the audio quality. The audio in the recorded videos seemed pretty choppy to me this evening during playback. Maybe that was due to my local connection here or something else. I hope it sounded smoother for the few folks who tuned in “live” for this test, as well as future playbacks. I even contemplated deleting these from the Ustream site, or making them private, but for now I’ll leave them up and available.

Wright Brothers Aircraft - Length: 11:49

Bell X1 and Spirit of St Louis - Length: 4:23

They certainly DO represent another level of the “publish at will” world in which we live, and about which I have written previously. We are living in 2008. We “just” have 3G cell networks in some metro areas at present. WiMAX is not yet here. But it is coming. Along with even more bandwidth innovations I’m sure. The trend lines all point in one direction: More access, more speed, for more people, more places. How will school leaders choose to respond? Like the Pennsylvania superintendent who is actively discouraging all uses of the read/write web, not only at school but also at home for students? (Nod to Kristin Hokanson.) Some students are going to KEEP making bad choices with digital technologies, just as they have with analog technologies and even WITHOUT access to technology. It’s our job as adults, educators and parents to help them learn to make GOOD choices.

It’s impossible to learn how to drive by just “talking about it.” You have to drive. Driving is about some motor skills, but it is more about DECISION MAKING skills. The same goes for ethical decision-making in the 21st century information landscape. How do we help students learn to make good decisions about digital tools? By using those digital tools and helping them navigate the pitfalls as well as opportunities. We need to be talking more about safe digital social networking, and less about how every new digital technology needs to be banned from schools and homes.

Have you offered a workshop for teachers in your school about using cell phones for learning? There are ways to use cell phones for learning EVEN if the school district bans cell phones at school. Students can use them as mobile recording tools from home, complete online surveys created by a teacher or their peers, and CONSTRUCTIVELY take digital photos which support classroom learning and yes… even content standards in the official school curriculum!

I know I’m in a minority group using a cell network data card to webcast from a remote location today, but that will NOT be the case in five to ten years. The digital technologies and the access they provide are going to keep coming. Our teachers and parents are NOT ready now, in many cases, and they won’t be ready tomorrow if we don’t help them.

As forward looking educators advocating for constructive changes in our schools, we need to serve as “bridges” for those in the middle, making the transition from 20th century to 21st century learning environments. It’s time to build LOTS of bridges to the future in our communities.

Technorati Tags:
ustream, smithsonian, washingtondc, webcast, education, leadership

Assuming a reasonably fast Internet c