Moving at the Speed of Creativity
30Jul/101

Stories we wish we had recorded or could record

Thursday at the Oklahoma Multimedia Teachers workshop in Norman, I asked our participants to discuss and share stories they wish they had recorded or could record. Most of these were family stories, and many were about relatives who had lived amazing and interesting lives. I recorded these using the iPadio application on my iPhone, to demonstrate the ease with which iPadio can be used (for free on ANY phone) to share audio online. Hopefully we'll get many of theses teachers involved as Storychasers in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices oral history project soon! Enjoy.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , ,

30Jul/100

Create a free online survey with Google Forms

Earlier this week, Iain requested a set of instructions to show to create a Google form like the one I made in the post, "How important are these digital skills for you as an educator? (poll)" Here they are!

STEP 1: LOG IN TO GOOGLE DOCS

If you do not have a Google account already, you can create one in two ways. Either option is free. I recommend option 1.

  1. Create a free Gmail account. This login can also serve as your Google account.
  2. Use an existing email account to which you have access, and create a Google account with it. You can specify a unique password for this account, which is NOT directly tied to your email account. (The passwords are maintained independently.)

After logging in to Google, visit the Google Docs homepage: docs.google.com

STEP 2: CHOOSE TO CREATE A NEW FORM

From the CREATE NEW drop-down menu in Google Docs, choose FORM.

Create New Form

STEP 3: EDIT THE SAMPLE QUESTIONS AND ADD YOUR OWN

Two sample questions are automatically created for your form, which you can edit as desired. Note you can change the question type to be text, paragraph text, multiple choice, checkboxes, choose from a list, scale, or grid. Click ADD in the upper left corner to add more questions. Click SAVE periodically in the upper right corner to save your work.

Working with a Google Form

Notice you can make questions REQUIRED by clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the question editing area. After you have finished editing a question and you click DONE, you can edit it again by clicking the PENCIL icon on the right side of it. The second icon will DUPLICATE the question, and the trash can will delete it.

Edit a question

You can also click and drag to reorder your questions as desired.

STEP 4: CUSTOMIZE WITH A THEME

This step is optional, but Google Forms now permits users to select different themes which make your surveys look more interesting as well as (potentially) more professional. There are currently 95 different form themes available, by the time you read this there may be more. Click the FORM THEME at the top of the form window to make a selection.

Change your form theme

After choosing a desired theme, click APPLY in the upper left corner to return to the form editor.

STEP 5: CUSTOMIZE YOUR RESPONSE PAGE

By default, after people submit your webform they will be shown a webpage which reads, "Thanks! Your response will now appear in my spreadsheet." You can customize this message if desired.

Edit Confirmation

You also can also choose to publish a response summary for respondents to see after they submit their own answers.

Publish response summary

Google Forms now supports active / live hyperlinks in response messages as well, so you can provide a link back to your own website if desired. Last time I tried, you could NOT enter HTML code for a link, making "plain English" text a hyperlink. You have to use/paste the full URL for it to be active in the form response window. Even though it's not as "pretty" and professional looking as linked text can be, it's still WONDERFUL that Google Forms provides this functionality. We use Google Forms for all our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices and now Celebrate Kansas Voices workshop registrations. We've used Google Forms for this for the past two years and have not had any problems, other than some "human errors" when some people moved some data around in the actual spreadsheet accidentally. That could happen in Excel too, of course, and wasn't a problem with Google Forms or Google Docs.

It is worth noting that when editing a form, your actions are NOT recorded in the document history, so they can be "undone" or "reverted" as they are in a standard Google document or spreadsheet. You also want to be careful to generally NOT move questions around in your form after people have started submitting answers, or the order of your spreadsheet columns can get messed up. After creating a form and opening it up for sharing, it's generally best (I've found) to leave it "as is" and not tweak it further.

STEP 6: SHARE YOUR LINK AND FORM / SURVEY

At the bottom of your Google Form editing window, a link is shown to your "live" public form. This is the link you want to click and copy, so you can share it with others who will respond to your survey.

Link to your form

Another way to share your form is to EMBED it in a blog post or on a webpage which others will visit to complete your form. The EMBED code is available at the top of your form window, under the MORE ACTIONS button just above EDIT CONFIRMATION. Google Forms are embedded using the IFRAME tag. This tag is NOT supported on all blogging platforms, and depending on where you are posting it (and your user rights - WordPress users must be administrators to post IFRAME and EMBED tags I think) your HTML code could get "stripped" out of your post. Embedding is a very user-friendly way to provide others access to your forms, however, and if you can use the embed code I think it's a good idea. That's how I shared the survey, "How important are these digital skills for you as an educator? (poll)" earlier this week.

STEP 7: LOOK AT YOUR RESULTS

Google Form results can be viewed several ways. Data from your form goes directly into a Google Spreadsheet, which can be viewed online or downloaded as an Excel or other file type. Online or offline, you can then create various charts and graphs to see your results visually. I like to view the summary responses which the Google Form automatically generates, by choosing SEE RESPONSES - SUMMARY at the top of the form editing window.

View summary responses

The screenshot below shows the first two summary responses for that survey from this week.

Partial responses to my Google Form

That's about it! Remember you can turn your form OFF or back ON from the FORM menu of your spreadsheet, by changing whether the option "ACCEPTING RESPONSES" is checked or not. A large number of tutorials about using Google Forms are available online, including those on the Google Docs help site itself. A few elements of Google Forms have changed since they were first introduced, but most of these steps have remained the same. The most significant enhancement which Google made to Google Forms earlier this year (I think) was permitting users to create BRANCHING FORMS or surveys. This is done with multiple choice questions, by clicking the box "GO TO PAGE BASED ON ANSWER."

Branching Surveys in Google Forms

If you want to create branching forms, you'll need to use the ADD menu in the upper left corner of the Google Form editing window and choose to add additional pages to your survey. If you make this complex, it can help to diagram out your survey or form in a "storyboard" format. This can make it easier to build the actual form online, using your drawn rough draft as a model. Before Google added branching form functionality, this feature was a compelling reason to use a commercial form service like SurveyMonkey. While SurveyMonkey still offers features Google Forms does not, like 508 compliance, the option add a custom logo, and other things, it's amazing how robust Google Forms is for even complex survey needs.

The website links Google Forms generates can be lengthy, and these can be cut off or truncated in email messages. To make links shorter, you can use URL shortener websites like tinyurl.com, but I've found many school districts block these websites. Because of this, when sharing a survey link I generally share BOTH a shortened version (with tinyurl.com) and the full web link.

Although it takes a bit more time, it's worth noting you can create self-grading quizzes with Google Forms. While this might not be something you want to spend time doing every week, it could be something you ask students to do as part of their own assignments or projects for class. This video shows you how. H/T to Lisa Thumann for sharing this video when we led a Google Workshop for Educators in Austin last November.

Unlike many commercial form and survey options, Google Forms does not have a maximum number of respondents! The price is right, it's FREE. Give Google Forms a try this year, and challenge your students to use surveys to collect and analyze data for their own reports too. If you're looking for more Google Resources, head over to Google for Education homepage. There's plenty of new things to learn there to keep us all busy for a LONG time! :-)

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , ,

Filed under: web 2.0 No Comments
29Jul/101

Convergence Media Examples from Mike Koehler of Smirk New Media

This afternoon I'm learning with educators participating in the week long "Oklahoma Multimedia Teachers" workshop on convergence journalism at OU's Gaylord College of Journalism. This is the third year of the workshop here in Oklahoma, which is part of the High School Broadcast Journalism (HSBJ) Project. Earlier in the week, Mike Koehler shared a host of resources with workshop participants highlighting examples of convergence journalism which he's helped create in his work for NewsOK (The Oklahoman) and independently for his company, Smirk New Media. Tammy Parks is making sure resources and links from the different sessions this week are archived on the HSBJ workshop forum for this week. As a Storychaser, I LOVE these examples of digital storytelling and convergence journalism / media.

I only have a few minutes before I present today, but I want to briefly share some of the fantastic resources which Mike discussed earlier this week. Tammy showed me these briefly today after I arrived.

NewsOK | nDepth - A great collection of stories about individuals sharing amazing life experiences

One Man, One Vote - Robert Jones' Journey from Jim Crow to Barack Obama (an example from the nDepth website collection)

NewsOK's May 3rd Tornado website - Be sure to check out the Google Map mashup with clickable media elements along the tornado's path

Interactive Tornado Map - May 3, 1999 Oklahoma Tornado - NewsOK.com

I love sites which use geo-apps like Google Maps in this way, to empower visitors to access photos, videos, text, and STORIES through geographic exploration.

Woo hoo for convergence journalism - and for creative, passionate storytelling geeks!

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

27Jul/101

Passion-based learning in action: Brian Crosby at TEDxDenverEd

Do you consider yourself a passionate person? What are the things about which you are passionate? Are you passionate about kids and helping kids learn? Are you passionate about opening up new vistas of experiences and understanding for others which - absent your intervention - they might never experience? Are you passionate about creating moments of unforgettable learning? Learning that is SO engaging, so motivating, so interesting, and so fun - that those fortunate enough to experience it will NEVER forget it? Nevada elementary teacher Brian Crosby is this kind of person, and this kind of educational leader. Brian gave the world a seventeen minute glimpse into his 4th grade classroom a few weeks ago in Denver at the TEDx event. I strongly encourage you to set aside seventeen minutes of your day and listen to what Brian had to say.

Brian shares SO many elements of fantastic learning in this video, it's hard to know where to begin. This video is a great one to share with faculty at your school at a faculty meeting to spark subsequent conversations. What did we see Brian DO that was right for kids? How did he structure a learning context which was authentically engaging for students? How did he weave the use of technology tools like blogs, wikis, videoconferencing software, and student laptops to help his students connect with an authentic audience and share their individual voices with the world? How did the assignments and learning tasks Brian's students completed meet state standards? Why do we need to foster these kinds of learning experiences in our classrooms TODAY, and how can we do that?

The lessons Brian shares in this video were NOT easy to teach. Project-based learning, challenge-based learning, or passion-based learning is NEVER easy. It takes a LOT of time. It takes lots of planning. And it takes lots of passion. When it is done well, however, it can lead to unforgettable learning experiences and the kind of "deep" skill development for students which can't help but "stick" for a lifetime.

Brian Crosby is the kind of teacher all our children deserve, and we all should learn a great deal from him. Project-based learning (PBL) is not an activity at school that should only be reserved for the "gifted/talented" (GT) kids, or kept in the closet until state tests are over in late spring. PBL is something in which we should engage year-round. It takes time. It takes hard work. It takes passionate, committed teachers. And it bears fruit sweeter and more impactful than any other learning context in our schools today.

Apples
Creative Commons License photo credit: Deanster1983

The video "Inclusion," from which Brian included a short clip in his TEDxEd presentation, has been downloaded over 500,000 times to date. Follow Brian on Twitter and read more of his inspirational (as well as challenging) ideas on his blog, "Learning is Messy."

Take a few minutes to watch Brian's inspirational presentation in Denver. Share it with other educators and parents you know. Then go grow some PBL fruit. :-)

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

25Jul/100

Podcast354: Behind the Curtain of the NORAD Tracks Santa Program

This podcast is a fortuitous interview recording with Stacia Reddish, who was the US Air Force Public Affairs officer in charge of the "NORAD Tracks Santa" program for five years. Stacia was responsible for getting Google involved with NORAD Tracks Santa and taking the program (which dates from the 1950s) to the next level with Google Earth, KML files, embedded YouTube videos, and more. Check out the podcast shownotes for links to the official NORAD Tracks Santa website, YouTube channel, and more. I interviewed Stacia at Camp Alexander, Colorado, when we were both there for the closing campfire of our boys' summer camp experience.

 

Show Notes:

  1. Official NORAD Tracks Santa website (active December 1st)
  2. Track Santa in Google Earth (active December 1st)
  3. NORAD Tracks Santa Official YouTube Channel
  4. NORAD Tracks Santa Wikipedia article
  5. NORAD's Information Page about NORAD Tracks Santa
  6. NORAD Tracks Santa 2009 Trailer (YouTube)
  7. NORAD Tracks Santa 2008 Trailer (YouTube)
  8. Google Earth
  9. Camp Alexander, Colorado

Subscribe to "Moving at the Speed of Creativity" weekly podcasts!

Podcast RSS Feed

iTunes Podcast Link

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

21Jul/103

Is your state department of education providing full text RSS / web feeds yet?

I'm doing a bit of homework in advance of some professional development sessions I'll be sharing next month down south in Texas, and noticed today the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is providing several different web feeds of content on their main site.

Texas Education Agency - TEA RSS Feeds

This is a GOOD step in the right direction, and hopefully we'll see ALL state agencies (including our respective state departments of education) following this best practice. Unfortunately, however, TEA is just using "partial text RSS feeds." As you can see below, TEA web feeds ONLY include an introductory sentence or two, and then users must link to their actual site to view the entire article. (This is a view of a web feed in the Safari web browser.)

Texas Education Agency Teacher News Feed

Partial web feeds suck. (I tried to find a different word to use here, but synonyms like "disappointing" don't adequately convey the negativity and disapproval I want to communicate.) The debate over full and partial web feeds isn't new. Rob Cottingham's cartoon below suggests partial RSS feed websites may die a rather ugly and premature death, but unfortunately in the commercial realm that certainly isn't universal.

cartoon of partial text web feed fate

While the New York Times may insist on using only partial web feeds, government agencies and non-profits should NOT. A good case can be made that commercial organizations should not use partial web feeds either, but I'm not going to try and fully make that case here - I'll settle for a focus on governmental sites. The recently released Flipboard application for the iPad provides a good case study for why people accessing digital content EXPECT and should be provided with full text RSS feeds. (Video link)

Who is paying the bills for state departments of education to exist? We are, the taxpayers. Information on the web is most useful and powerful when it can be freely embedded and re-channeled. By providing content in full text RSS feeds, applications like Flipboard, Reeder, Google Reader, and many others can bring full text content (hopefully with accompanying multimedia) to users. Because (as taxpayers) we're the ones already paying for content to be published and shared, we should be able to get/access our content the way we want it: As full-text RSS feeds.

With partial RSS / web feeds, our abilities to efficiently consume and process content will remain crippled.

Is your state department of education providing full text RSS / web feeds yet? If so, please share the links! I'd love to check out their sites AND subscribe to their content. :-)

H/T to Robert Scoble for alerting me about Flipboard. Today it appears their servers are overwhelmed with new users. Hopefully that will be remedied soon. Applications like this are EXACTLY what I want to use on my iPad!

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , ,

16Jul/106

Summertime and the Learning is Easy?

I am so honored to be asked to guest blog for Wes. Thank you so much. I am Alice Barr, the Instructional Technology Integrator for Yarmouth High School in Yarmouth, Maine. We are a 1:1 laptop school and are going in to Year 8 of the project. I love what adding laptops to our school culture has done for teaching and learning. I am lucky to work with some amazing teachers, and students.

One of my favorite summer activities is teaching for the Professional Development Center at the University of Southern Maine. There are 4 technology classes that my fellow integrators and I share ranging from Mac Computer in the Classroom, Podcasting and Vodcasting, The Read/Write Web and 21st Century Teaching and Learning with Technology.

This year I am teaching 21st Century Teaching and Learning with Technology. It's a 3 credit class for teachers that meets from 8:30 - 4:30, 5 days, for a week, which means we pack an entire semester in to a week. It's exhilarating and fun, but it's also frustrating and exhausting.  Many of these teachers are in classrooms where students have laptops because of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. They are looking for new ways to engage their students. The course is designed to suggest a few tools they can use in their classroom to work "smarter not harder", and a few tools that they can use with students. Along the way I show then the NETS standards, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and give them some readings to push their thinking about and hopefully influence their practice.It's great having the "students" captive for a long time period. The first two days are tough, as they are introduced to three new tools right off the bat; Blogs, bookmarks, and RSS. During Day 3, we look quickly at Google docs, discuss what a PLN is and then they have to start a project. Then day 4 they have explore time and Day 5 they present their work. It's a whirl wind! I  show examples of things that teachers are doing in their classrooms and model technology activities that can be used in their own classrooms. I used some of the no tech activities from the book The Socially Networked Classroom.  And yesterday I tried "Speed Geeking" after I read about Kim Cofino's success with it.  Somewhere in there, I slip in standards, reading assignments and homework. As the teacher, it is really hard to know if I am meeting the needs of everyone, and the varying ranges of digital literacy really make the class interesting.One disadvantage to teaching the class in a week is that it does not give the group time to reflect on their practice. While they write nightly reflections about the readings, I really want to push the big ideas about digital citizenship, student centered learning and creative teaching.  When the class is in a semester, teachers can go back to their classrooms and try some of these ideas out, come back to class and then run them by their colleagues. In the short class, I have to hope that they will continue to use the tools after they leave, and that they understand the value of being part of a PLN to keep up with ever changing information.

A worry students have is about using the actual tools when they get back to their classrooms. They are afraid that they won't be able to figure something out if it doesn't work. Becoming digitally literate is a big concern. Another is designing lessons. One student made a very poignant comment: "I know I need to use technology, I am not afraid to ask the kids for help, the other teachers in my school won't help, but I just don't have the skill of the syntax and vocabulary of designing a really engaging lesson using technology. I thought that was critical, and I have to ask, what do teachers do when there is no technology support in their district for them? Is an online PLN enough?

Today they presented their final projects. I am blown away - My #aha-moment. With the array of ideas they shared, this fall, there are sure to be some very lucky students.  And judging from some of their feedback; "I learned so much, my brain has been in a state of shock all week" and "Every day after class my mind was constructively busy and excited to put these strategies in practice.  Watch out students here I come! ", the enthusiasm and excitement about going back to their classrooms was clearly evident. The UStream of the final projects is here (thank you Cheryl Oakes and Sheila Adams for commenting in the chat room) and the class blogs, so you can follow along are here. In the end, we all learned so much from one another. Thank you so much, students of USMEPC512! By the way, what are you doing for your summer professional development? And thank you Wes, for giving me this opportunity.

#aha-moment

cross posted at http://alicebarr.com

14Jul/1036

Think Before You Tweet

My name is Beth Still and my blog is Nebraska Change Agent. I was honored when Wes invited me to guest blog during his absence. I hope this post sparks a conversation that we need to have.

I recently came across this video that was created by Steve Johnson which serves as a good reminder that all of us have a digital footprint and we are in control of the content that we generate that follows us around in cyberspace.

The image above is from my office and there is a story behind it. My husband, who really wants to make sure I stay gainfully employed, gave me this sign as a reminder that everything I say online can be seen by anyone at anytime. About two years ago I blasted my tech department on Twitter and the comments came back to haunt me. I learned my lesson about what I can and cannot say in such a public venue and I have been extraordinarily careful with what I post online. I do not completely censor myself, but I am very aware of what I am saying and how my words might be perceived by my colleagues, supervisors, students, and others who might be watching what I say online.

Steven Anderson wrote a post on the impact social media has had on relationships. This is just one of the many conversations that has been happening lately regarding the types of friendships we form with the people we spend time with online. As we spend time engaging in conversations with the same people again and again, we start to feel very comfortable and it becomes evident that there is a level of trust just as there is in face-to-face relationships. In fact, I am not even sure anymore if there is a need to make a distinction between “online” and “f2f” friends. The biggest difference, which is the entire point of this post, is the way in which we communicate with the two groups. With the friends we see everyday we have conversations that do not take place for the world to see. We talk at the mall or over lunch, but for the most part the conversations are private.

This is not necessarily the case with our online friends. Many of us have had private one-on-one conversations with various people in our PLN using Skype, Google Chat or some other service, but many of these conversations take place on Twitter out in the open for the world to see. It is so easy to get caught up in the moment when we are bantering back and forth and say something that you will regret. I am not saying that it is wrong to engage in personal conversations that are not related to education. I strongly believe the most engaging people on Twitter are the ones who strike a healthy balance between education related and personal tweets. Over the last couple of months I have noticed that people are getting way too comfortable with what they broadcast on Twitter. Why do I care? I could quietly unfollow these people, but that would not bring any attention to this issue. I also enjoy these people and I don't want to unfollow them. I am just concerned that I might be demonstrating Twitter to someone and some inappropriate Tweets will show up.

Maybe this isn’t an issue. Maybe I am being overly sensitive. I am not trying to play the role of Twitter Police, but we are colleagues and friends and we owe it to each other to point out when we think something has been said that is inappropriate. All of us need to remember to think before we tweet.

13Jul/100

Build Your PLN

by Miguel Guhlin (Find me on Plurk/Twitter at "mguhlin")

As a educator, probably one of the tougher challenges you face isn’t just keeping up with the technology, but rather understanding how to leverage it in your teaching and learning situation. While in the past, we were limited by the occasions that served as “learning experiences,” in the 21st century, learning isn’t restricted to a special event bound by time and place. We don’t learn just when sitting in a meeting, or at a conference or from 8:00 to 3:30 PM when school is in session. Today, we have the potential to tap into a flow of conversation, a web-based learning ecology, that we can learn from 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Want an Instant Professional Learning Network? Follow in the footsteps of Cory Plough and his colleagues by clicking the following:

Note: You will need to have a Twitter account FIRST before trying this.

As someone who awoke to that fact just a few years ago, I am continually astonished at the rapidity of change. In fact, I had my first — and so far, only — panic attack in July 2005, when driving down the highway to work, I realized that the world is changing faster than I can keep up.

The only way for me to respond to that panic attack was to seize control, to realize that I do have some measure of control over how I react to rapid, tectonic paradigm-shifts that inflict terror because they transform the world around me. Not feeling it, huh? Well, that means you haven’t looked over the edge and seen it looking back at you.

The only way for all of us to deal with the current challenge to our particular approach to learning — aside from ignoring it completely, which is about as effective as ignoring an oncoming truck — is to seize the wheel and create our own learning network. As technology directors, people look to us to model learning new technologies. Are you taking advantage of all the resources you can to streamline the often messy learning process?

Where Learning Conversations Take Place

  • Classroom 2.0: A place for members ofwww.Classroom20.com to share links, Classroom 2.0 is a social networking site devoted to those interested in the practical application of computer technology (especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development.
  • *Educators: This is a group for educators to use to share bookmarks. It is completely open and anyone can join. It will have a set of standard tags to help us share things that you might use in addition to your tags.
    *EDuStreams: Easily track education-related uStream.tv broadcasts (EDuStreams). Find out more about those via the Education World
  • Broadcast Learning article.

WHY JUMP IN?

Christopher Parsons shares that we need to do four things with the overwhelming amount of unorganized content — information, ideas, tips and how-to’s, and personal information — we receive; the kind of content that might be useful in the future but today might be thrown away or filed away in a way — paper notes, e-mail, bookmarks — that would not be useful and would probably be forgotten. Those four things are:

  • Read: Read/watch/listen to the entirety of the content that you are presented with.
  • Evaluate: Consider what the content means to you, and whether or not it is a source of information that intuitively seems appropriate/acceptable for a task at hand.
  • Critique: Moving beyond evaluate, seriously reflect on the material and then form your own opinion of it.
  • Write Share your critique with others, so they can engage with you and the original content to develop a cohesive knowledge-product.

In the past, reading, evaluating, and critiquing were done to different degrees by each of us individually. It was rare that any of us actually published our critiques for others to read. Now, it is possible for me to share how what I read, evaluate, and critique connects with my own personal learning and schema. That’s powerful, because individuals like you and me now have the power to publish at will to an audience of millions. The key thing to remember is that as we externalize our thinking, it becomes less of “I am an expert expounding on what I know” and more of “I am a learner, just like you, sharing what I’m learning so that we can learn together through our common errors and maximize our breakthroughs.” Consider that our understanding of learning is changing. We need to think of learning as an experience that happens when we connect with others.

If you fail to connect to the network of learners, you miss out on a global conversation about what you are passionate about. And missing out is a darn shame because it can save you time, energy, and increase your reach, no matter how brilliant (or not) you are. That’s a powerful idea. Smart people get smarter because they have access to the network of learners. People who are just starting out are able to learn as fast as they can to accomplish what they need to do.
When I meet folks who are just becoming aware of the global conversation — usually because I push them over the edge in a workshop — I like to share several tools with them. They are essential learning tools that every 21st century learner should have. Using them involves action, but it is the acts of use that cast out our fear of change. The act of building your own personal learning network (PLN) is your fundamental act of freedom. Start now.

THE TOOLS YOU NEED

Although hundreds of tools are available, you only need a few to get started. Please be aware that the purpose of these suggested tools is to externalize the knowledge-building you do every day. It is also to take advantage of the potential power of networked learning. Thousands of educators are online, and you can tap into their collective knowledge to ask questions and have conversations about what you need to learn. The only expectation is that you share with them what you know. Each no-cost tool listed below does it in a slightly different, but complementary, way.

Here are some to get started:
  1. Social Bookmarking - Diigo.com
  2. Build a PLN - Twitter and/or Plurk
  3. Get a Blog - Blogger.com
Let's take a more in-depth look at each of these! Please feel free to skip around.
Get a Diigo.com account.
Diigo.comis a social bookmarking tool, similar to the popular Del.icio.us service, but Diigo also centralizes various learning possibilities. The social aspect of learning is important, especially with our increasing focus on conversations that add value to what we are learning. Diigo lets you bookmark Web sites and have online conversations about them.
external image 20080411-tmet23bj1xh48ttse8k18rika4.png
Some of the exciting ways educators are using Diigo are listed in the sidebar to this article. Centralize your learning through web sites and the conversations you have about that learning by using Diigo. Because Diigo is free, you can encourage your superintendent and other administrative staff to become part of the conversation. That kind of networking empowers everyone who participates in the conversation. Below are some suggestions for using Diigo:

  • Annotate curriculum documents and add stickies to show where tech integration is happening and could happen. That could be annotated for a group of curriculum writers.
  • Annotate state education agency memos for your administrators. We get memos every day and they are posted online. Immediately, among a team, share the implications of the ideas in the memo, the most important points, and so on.
  • See instructional uses of Diigo as screencasts developed by Clay Burell, an International School teacher.

Example: http://www.diigo.com/user/mguhlin

Another fun thing you can do it to highlight web sites, and then send those as "DiigoNotes" to your blog. This makes it possible to easily capture content from various sources--appropriately cite it--for later reflection in your blog. You can do this using GoogleChrome browser, Firefox or just via email. Here's my popular DiigoNotes series on my blog.

Use Twitter.com or Plurk.com to build a professional learning network.
TWITTER
"I have learned more about what people are discovering from Tweets," shares Porter Palmer, an educator in a university Master's course, "than any single blog could bring me. I especially like it when my edublogger friends’ Tweets begin with, 'just blogged this…' I don’t have to guess when they might have updated. I can just click over and read their blog!" Twitter is a powerful Web 2.0 tool to facilitate communication and collaboration--globally. It enables us to get in contact with educators from around the world. Many 21st century teachers are out there. Find them and create a Twitter network that can be a support group, provide inspiring projects, and keep you in touch with like-minded people. All of you participating in a workshop, for example, can be a group.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

You can use Twitter specific tools to connect with others. One of my favorites is the Twitter search tool, accessible at http://search.twitter.com. It allows you to search the many “tweets” that occur each day (view a search on Education) and subscribe to the results via RSS. (See the “Google Reader” section of this article for more on RSS). That way, real-time comments about what is critical to your work come to you. Whenever there is contact with other educators, I find my enthusiasm and energy for education renewed. That’s the power of communications. You select whose tweets you will receive so you can build your own professional learning network.

Many 21st century teachers are out there. Find them and create a Twitter network that can be a support group, provide inspiring projects, and keep you in touch with like-minded people. All of you participating in a workshop, for example, can be a group. Locate one another in Twitter.com and become a network.
You can use Twitter specific tools to connect with others. One of my favorites is TweetScan.com. It allows you to search the many “tweets” that occur each day (view a search on Education) and subscribe to the results via RSS. (See the “Google Reader” section of this article for more on RSS). That way, real-time comments about what is critical to your work come to you.
Some Twitter specific tools:

  1. TweepML - Use this service to easily share groups of Twitterers with each other. Imagine that your entire organization's staff signed up for Twitter. Instead of each person going through the laborious process of becoming a follower, you could do it in one click with TweepML. Special thanks to Cory Plough and others for sharing this tool with me. Find out more online at http://bit.ly/c3CucL
  2. Just Tweet It - This fun tool enables people using Twitter to find others with similar interests. I can imagine sharing this with educators who are just starting out who need help finding other edubloggers.
    Visit Online at http://justtweetit.com/
  3. Hashtag - This enables you to track a specific event--such as a conference like TCEA2009--using the Twitter network. You can encourage people attending a conference or learning event to share what they're learning about and then track them all using hashtags.
    Visit Online at http://hashtags.org
  4. TwitterMail - You can send updates to Twitter via email. When you sign up for TwitterMail, you are provided a TwitterMail email address. Send an email to that provided address and it is posted to twitter. This might be great for educators who live behind the "Berlin Wall;" you know, access is blocked by content filters in an effort to "protect" anyone from using the web inappropriately but with the more disastrous effect of preventing anyone from using it all. You can email your twitter updates out and receive them.
    Visit Online at http://twittermail.com
  5. StrawPoll - Ever wish you could use your Twitter account to conduct a quick poll, maybe, how many of you think Texas funds the state technology allotment at a sufficient level? Well, you can use StrawPoll to accomplish this using Twitter. Do your own surveys using Twitter...what a powerful way to get answers from your network of co-learners.
    Visit Online at http://strawpollnow.com
  6. TweetBeep - You can get email results of searches when people tweet a particular keyword (like a tag). What a great way to tap into the conversation about education and reform without actually having to sit there and watch it happen as it happens.
    Visit Online at http://tweetbeep.com


Whenever there is contact with other educators, there is hope. That’s the power of communications. I can’t begin to share the excitement I felt on September 19, 2000, while participating in a TeachMeet 7 taking place in Scotland. How did I find out about it? Obviously, I was not in Scotland. I was sitting at my desk working on work projects, when a “tweet” came in from Paul Harrington, an educator in Wales. As a result of his sharing via twitter, I was able to participate in the conference via my web browser and listen to speakers like Ewan McIntosh and others share what they are doing in schools in Scotland. Do you think that might have impacted my perspective about the power of global learning opportunities? How might participating in a dialogue with educators from around the world have impacted your perspective?
By combining the power of Diigo and Twitter/Plurk, I am able to track more easily ad-hoc professional learning opportunities as they occur, as well as have conversations about them before and after they occur. That kind of just-in-time learning, as it happens, can be very powerful for educators. One way I approached tracking broadcast learning opportunities included creating a Diigo group. I invited other educators to join and now we have a collaboratively updated list of EDuStreams —educational professional learning happening online via uStreamElluminateWimba.com sessions that are appearing online. EDuStreams are actually video/audio presentations and conversations done by educators about topics they are interested in. Twitter/Plurk allow us to share those at will, while Diigo allows us to keep track of those opportunities and share them with others, even if they are not on Twitter. After you get your Twitter/Plurk and Diigo accounts, join the EDuStreams group on Diigo to keep up to date on new learning opportunities.

Example: Norms for Online Behavior
Find it here: http://twitter.com with a list of educators to follow at http://twitter.com/mguhlin.

Others are building Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) using Plurk.com. While Twitter is white-water rafting in social media with a rapid flow of content, Plurk is a bit more reflective and allows for pauses in that flow.

PLURK

Having a Professional Learning Network in advance makes the Difference at a Conference or Learning Event.
Source: Paula Nagle, Classroom 2.0 LIVE Session

Note: The capitalization is there because I'm including Paula's paraphrase in a presentation I'm doing next week.

For me, Paula's expression of this idea is an evolution of a blog entry she wrote reflecting on her ISTE experiences:

Having connections to a PLN is very important for helping me stay current and continue my learning. Members of my PLN are the people I will turn to first when I want to work on collaborative projects in my classroom.

For Paula, it appears that having a PLN in advance makes the difference, enabling her to put a handshake or hug, a physical presence, with the person they have been learning from all along:

I have created quite an online presence. I was looking forward to meeting members of my PLN and I thought I would have to find them. I didn't think that they would be looking for me. When Peggy George come up to me and said she was so glad to finally meet me face to face I was floored. Kim Caise did the same thing, and so did so many people I know online. It was great to hear someone say, "Oh I follow you on Twitter", as I was introduced myself to them.

The power of meeting your PLN is akin to "reuniting" with friends who are learning with us as we face challenges and work to overcome obstacles in our lives.

Consider these remarks about Plurk and Twitter from actual educators:

  1. Plurk is always like this, whenever I feel bogged down in my district someone here gives me the spark I need to light a fire under my students!
  2. conversations are great on here!
  3. I love all the conversations...it's addicting. I still new to plurk and these conversations are letting me see the true benefits.
  4. On Twitter I felt like I never got a response to questions or if I did I really had to watch for the answers. I also felt like many conversations were happening but I was only getting parts of it so it was confusing. Here you don't have to be friends with everyone that is part of a conversation but can still follow the discussion. This one started yesterday but we can still continue it now. I have even started a plurk account for my class to interact with other classes.
  5. Twitter is for the mutual patting on the back crowd. Plurk is perfect for me.
  6. I also like Plurk more than Twitter. It is much easier to follow conversations and get responses.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by social media tools...the output of these can make us feel inadequate to the task of managing it all. Perhaps that's why we see some expressing the opinion that it's easier to "follow conversations and get responses" in Plurk, as opposed to Twitter.

Social media can also establish pools of quiet reflection, where we may, with others so inclined, recline and ponder what has been shared. Such pools of diversity are rich in ideas because they allow individuals to share what they are thinking rather than being focused on just sharing content.

As a writer, I seek an audience. But now more than ever, I seek an audience that discusses what I've written, and more importantly, allows me to think about what others are sharing. It makes sharing more of a reciprocal dialogue than a casting of bread on the waters.
What about for you? Consider the following "deep" conversations...

  • on Plurk - What are the essential ingredients for helping people experience a personal renaissance? (KevinH asks)
  • on Twitter - Project-based Learning conversation
Get started! Plurk or Twitter. Here are some suggestions when getting started with Plurk.

Start blogging.
Blogging is a process of reflecting on what you learn every day. How can anyone spend time blogging on top of what they do all day? The fact is that some of my best blogging research — when I decide on Future Blog Posts — occurs while I’m looking for something else. In fact, my focus during the day is learning something, either for work or to satisfy my own curiosity (which begins with a question or a wondering).
At the end of the day, early evening in fact, I quickly look back at what I tagged for a Future Blog Post, which is actually a “tag” I keep in Diigo. I might bookmark many items, but I only blog about those that are immediately relevant or connected.
In the past, I would copy-n-paste the link or the relevant quote or point that triggered my thinking into my blog program (Thingamablog) but now I just use Diigo. In that way, blogging for me isn’t a “special” activity, but part of everything I do. When I’m asked about what I know about a particular topic relevant to my work as a technology director, I am able to check my bookmarks. If I have spent time reflecting on the implementation of a technolgy-related project in my blog, I usually bookmark that as well and quickly can pull up the needed information. That work prepares me in advance for questions my job naturally throws at me.
So here I am again, coaching, and asking my students to trust that they will need what I’m requiring them to do: blogging, wiki-ing, social bookmarking, digital story creating, and online discussion. If they can get through my class, they will be able to apply those new skills to their teaching — and their students will benefit.
In a real way, this is a much different way of behaving and acting. Modeling it for our students is critical, as Cheri points out above, but understanding it ourselves is just as important. Before blogs (BB), I never would have done that (tag ideas, blog about my response/reflection, wikify my resources for others, podcast valuable conversations with other people for later listening). In fact, keeping a journal was a joke for me, even though I knew that every “good” writer kept one. It wasn’t until I started blogging — with a real audience reading it — that I understood the power of blogging everything.
Amy Gehran atContentious Blog articulates this really well when she writes the following (via Teach-n-Babble):
A blog post is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be) a writing assignment you must prep for and deliver as a finished package…Blog your initial brainstorming…Blog your research and discovery…Blog your interactions. Did you just have an interesting conversation relevant to a topic you’ve been blogging? Ask the person with whom you conversed if you can blog the relevant portion, and whether you can identify them…The clincher to all this is to use your blog as your “backup brain” or at least as a public notebook. Why not get more mileage out of work you would have done anyway by changing your habits toward managing information and communicating publicly? Instead of keeping your thoughts, notes, and conversations to yourself, post them.
In my recent Blog Your World! workshop at the PBS/KLRN ICTT 2007 Conference, I shared it in this way, as perceived by one of the newbie bloggers,Juliet Ray at Deep Thoughts (drop by and give her a comment):
What an exciting day today is! I have created my first blog. Hello digital world, here I am! I look forward to using this site as a way of not only communicating with others, but to “externalize (Miguel’s new big word/concept I learned today) my knowledge.” Additionally, it will serve as a personal journal to assist in reflection on my journey through life.
This kind of externalization is useful to others. For example, back in 2005 I wrote a how-to for doing something in GNU/Linux operating system that used KDE as the GUI (as opposed to Gnome or the others out there). In September 20, 2007, someone found it and blogged about it…if I hadn’t externalized my knowledge, made a “backup brain,” then the information would not have been here for Jim Plumb to discover:
If you want to change the default view in the Linux file manager konqueror check out this article:http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/archives/2005/04/entry_174.htm. I wanted to have the view in tree mode rather than the default icon view.
Another neat result of Jim’s discovery is that I rediscover my own blog entry when Jim writes about it or interacts with it. It makes me want to re-read the entry. In reviewing my social bookmarking network, I noticed Mark Ahlness had picked up on one of my favorite blog entries, The List Article. I hadn’t seen that blog entry in ages, even though every article I write is based on the structure outlined in it.
Blog what you learn, what you do. Soon, you’ll realize you know — and as importantly, discover more — about what is in your head than you think.
Example: LeaderTalk Blog for school district administrators at http://leadertalk.org.
Get started at Google's Blogger.com with an education-related blog about what you are learning and how it is relevant to your work. Ask yourself a few questions to get started, such as What are you most passionate about in your work? andWhat is the hardest thing you do in your work, and why is it challenging? Finally, share your successes — and failures – by answering such questions as What obstacle or problem have you encountered and how did you overcome it?
Some common questions technology directors might want answered include:

  • What backup software do you use in your district?
  • Have you considered switching from MS Exchange to Google Apps? How did you make the transition?
  • What special-education tracking software or web-based service are you using at the District level?
  • What kinds of audio/visual solutions are you using to broadcast school board meetings?

And many more. Responding to those types of questions in your blog and sharing resources with other educators via Diigo will enable you instantly to share ideas about important matters relevant to your work.


Use Google Reader to Manage RSS Subscriptions:
Most new web pages now have what is known as an RSS feed button. A web site with an RSS (real simple syndication) feed enables you to read the content without visiting the site beyond the first time. You can subscribe to a site’s content — and subscription is free — and any updates/changes to the site will be delivered directly to you. (Watch this Video.) The benefit of that method is that creating a personal learning network will not result in more email, but less. Instead of receiving email notifications, you go to Google Reader to review the latest updates and changes, and participate when you have a need.
My Example: Miguel’s Shared Items in Google Reader
Get Started at http://reader.google.com

REFLECTING ON THE TOOLS

The tools discussed here can save a lot of time and energy as you try to join the flow of conversation. One of my favorite quotes — which came to me via Mark Wagner — is, “He who learns from one who is learning, drinks from a flowing river.”
I hope you’ll continue to learn every moment and share that learning with others. The rewards are infinite.

About the Author

As director of instructional technology for a large urban district in Texas, past president of the state-wide Technology Education Coordinators group in one of the largest U.S. technology educator organizations (TCEA), Miguel Guhlin continues to model the use of emerging technologies in schools. You can read his published writing or engage him in conversation via his blog at Around the Corner. He is also a Moodle course management system advocate and founder ofMoodle Mayhem, a non-profit education group focused on facilitating learning conversations around Moodle's use in teaching and learning situations.

12Jul/101

Over the Pond and Through The Fiber #aha-moment

BACKGROUND OF MY A-HA MOMENT WITH EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

In the spring of 2006, I had a trans-oceanic, international conversation with other educators which fundamentally changed my perceptions about communication and learning. Using the free software program Skype, I joined Canadian educator Darren Kuropatwa (in Winnipeg, Manitoba), Scottish educator Ewan McIntosh (in Edinburgh, Scotland), and U.S. educator Miguel Guhlin (in San Antonio, Texas) in a live conversation over the Internet about the ways new technologies are reshaping the landscape of education in the twenty-first century. I connected from Manhattan, Kansas, where I was visiting my parents at the time. The idea for our live, synchronous conversation started with a blog post a few weeks earlier, and together the four of us built a wiki we called, “Over the Pond and Through the Fiber” where we outlined our planned discussion. During our call, which took place in the evening for me in US Central time, we were joined by several other educators in different locations, including Jeff Allen and Mark Ahlness in Seattle, Washington. While international phone calling has been possible for decades, this type of FREE, Internet-based conferencing was very new to me.

Epiphany 5-8:365
Creative Commons License photo credit: MyNameIsSQ

When my Skype conversation with Darren, Ewan, Miguel, Jeff and Mark ended on that spring evening in 2006, I had an “a-ha” moment which was an epiphany. New Internet-based technologies now permit us to not only access information from afar, but also access PEOPLE. While the cost of Internet-based calls like ours was not inconsequential (we each had our own computer and high speed Internet access) the MARGINAL (or additional) cost for the call was zero. I experienced joy as well as exhilaration being able to communicate “live” like this over the Internet for FREE. This experience led me to marvel with new wonder at my good fortune living in our current era of communication history.

Our access to other digitally connected people today is not limited to only synchronous, “live” access (which can be comparatively much more difficult to schedule and coordinate) but also asynchronous access. Email is an asynchronous communication technology which became mainstream for many computer users in the mid to late 1990s. Email remains, however, a “one to one” or a “one to a defined many” communications technology, and as such has inherent limits. Asynchronous communication tools like blogs and wikis (both of which can be considered “information portals” online) empower people to flexibly contribute to discussions at the time and place of their choosing, to “an undefined many.” While I was no stranger to computer-based technologies in 2006, I had not had as powerful and personal an experience with blended learning as I did during the “Over the Pond and Through the Fiber” Skype conference call. Since that time, I have wanted to better understand for myself the learning power and potential which now exists literally at our fingertips as we interact with digital screens, and also effectively share these ideas and skills with others.

REFLECTION ON WHY THIS EXPERIENCE WAS PERSONALLY TRANSFORMATIVE

Prior to this Skype conference call in March 2006 (incidentally still available as a recorded podcast) I had used Skype but never talked to anyone internationally with it. I had known Miguel Guhlin for years, going back to my first years of writing for TCEA's TechEdge in 1996-1997, but did not know Darren. I had read blog posts by Ewan, but had never spoken with him either. This experience was transformative because it not only led to a great synchronous conversation, but it also led to a LOT of subsequent reading and learning as I subscribed to and read both Darren and Ewan's blogs. Later in 2006 I was invited to become a co-convener of the K-12 Online Conference, and those experiences have proven to be exceptionally transformative for me as well. Prior to these experiences, I had not connected at a national or international level with other teachers. I had been blogging since 2003, but in 2005 I had moved my blog to speedofcreativity.org and had started a regular podcast. There were lots of other digital learning activities going on at this time which certainly contributed to the "a-ha moment" of this skypecast being so impactful, but this remains a specific event to which I can point as being very personally transformative.

I was able to meet Ewan in person for the first time at NECC in San Antonio in 2007, and finally met Darren in person at METC in St Louis in February 2010. I met Jeff Allen and Mark Ahlness in person in Seattle in February 2009. The fact that my connections to these individuals led to personal, face-to-face meetings has a lot to do with the impact of this learning experience on me. This skypecast created within me a desire to learn more and make additional connections, to these educators and to others. Perhaps it was most impactful because of these effects it had on my personal motivation as a learner.

[end of #aha-moment reflection]

I'm convinced as educators, we need to document and share what our individual "a-ha" moments have been with digitally connected learning. My experiences are different from yours, but as we share these types of "epiphany" moments when we make new connections or make connections more powerfully than we have before as digitally-empowered learners, I suspect we can identify some patterns as well as similarities. Perhaps like you, I want to help more people experience the transformative potentials of PLNs (professional learning networks) as well as interactive publishing environments which can enable us to learn in transformative ways. We can hear voices we wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to encounter. We can read about the ideas, struggles, and successes of others who we may have never met face-to-face, but can none-the-less be deeply touched by. With these goals in mind, I'm proposing a new meme with the tag, "#aha-moment." This week (as I'm largely offline and taking a break from my normal diet of digital reading and writing to work on a larger writing project) I'm inviting several folks to guest-blog here on this meme. I invite you to post on your own blog or to an openly accessible learning community to which you belong on this meme as well. Just remember to "tag" your post:

#aha-moment

What has been one of your most meaningful "a-ha" moments of learning with digital technologies? Please share the circumstances of your epiphany and elaborate on why you found that experience to be personally transformative.

If we do this, I'm betting we'll find new ideas we can share with others to encourage further "a-ha moments" with learning technologies and digital connections! The ingredients of an "a-ha" moment for each of us will vary, but I'm sure there are some identifiable similarities. I have a few hypotheses about what those might be, but I'm very interested to see if they are accurate for others' #aha-moments!

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , ,

8Jul/102

Why email is NOT good enough for communication today

Email is an example of "one to one" (or one to a defined many) communication. When you send an email, you have to specify the recipients in the TO, CC, and BCC fields of your message. While your email message COULD be forwarded on to others (resulting in a greater distribution) and along the line someone (or an automated program) COULD post your message to a website, generally most email messages have an inherently LIMITED distribution. The graphic below was created by two of our Oklahoma Creativity Institute participants on Wednesday to illustrate this idea of limited, or "one to a defined many" communication. They created this on my iPad using the Brushes app.

One to One (or a defined many) communication

Full attribution:

These images were created by Donna Barnard, art teacher at Westmore High School in Moore Public Schools, Oklahoma, and Carol Dvorak, art teacher at Carver Middle School in Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma. Created with the Brushes for iPad app.

When a message, a link, an image, an audio file or a video is posted to a website, however, that content becomes an example of "one to an undefined many" communication. The same teachers created the following graphic to illustrate this concept today.

One to an undefined many communication

Using a "QuickStart Guide to Posterous," I showed educators in our workshop how they could use EMAIL and the free web service Posterous to post text as well as rich media files (like images, audio files and videos) to a personal website. As educators we need to SHARE MORE! I am thrilled web services like Posterous and iPadio are available which make the process of sharing ideas and media easier than ever.

When it comes to communication in the 21st century, email is NOT good enough. We need to encourage more educators to SHARE ideas, resources, and media using tools like Posterous! If you can send an email, you can use Posterous. Many messages we create still SHOULD be sent with a "one to one" or "one to a defined many" distribution, but many of our ideas CAN and SHOULD be shared with "an undefined many." When we share ideas in this way, there is NO LIMIT to the number of people who could theoretically encounter and be influenced by our ideas. That is VERY powerful! To do this, we need to post content online using a tool like Posterous.

H/T to Clay Shirky who got me thinking about "one to a defined many" and "one to an undefined many" communication differences in his book, "Here Comes Everybody." H/T to Will Richardson for stating at NECC a few years ago, everyone NEEDS to read Shirky! H/T to Marco Torres for demonstrating how amazing the Brushes app can be at ACTEM in Maine last October! This was a quick sketch Marco did of me at the conference on his iPhone. :-)

We fryer, my friend.

Here's Marco's rendition of Bob Sprankle!

Maine_  4934

Now THAT takes a LOT more artistic talent than I'll probably ever have. Long live the power of visual art and visual media!

Technorati Tags:
, , , , ,

6Jul/100

Quickstart guides for Posterous and iPadio

Tomorrow our initial three days of the "Oklahoma Creativity Institute" for fifty K-12 teachers starts in Oklahoma City. I'm VERY enthused to be co-facilitating this with Tammy Parks, thanks to the hard work of an entire team including staff at Oklahoma A+ Schools. I've created two new handouts for the Institute which you're free to utilize and share as desired. These are:

  1. QuickStart Guide to Posterous
  2. Quickstart Guide to iPadio

If you're not familiar with and currently using both Posterous and iPadio, scan these quickstart guides to get started! These are both fantastic, FREE web services and currently my two favorite ways to share rich media content online!

All the Quickstart guides we'll use in our workshop are available on our handouts wiki page. These include handouts for Audacity, iMovie, portable digital audio recorders, media project planning, a digital storytelling map, PhotoStory3, Using Compfight to save copyright-friendly images, and Google Maps. Many of these were created as handouts for the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , ,

5Jul/101

Critical thinking is more important than ever amidst Internet-based denier propaganda

Critical thinking has ALWAYS been an important part of a high quality education. A case can be made in our information-awash society today, however, that critical faculties are needed NOW more than ever. The May 2010 issue of NewScientist magazine includes a special report section titled, "Age of Denial: Why so many people refuse to believe the truth." Article authors highlight many reasons for the success of today's "deniers" focusing on subjects like climate change, evolution, the Holocaust, vaccines, tobacco impacts and other subjects. Prominent among these reasons are the ease with which falsehoods are shared online and the relative infrequency with which people tend to verify and validate statements / claims. We need to make critical thinking a centerpiece of learning at all levels, to maintain the ideals of the Enlightenment and hold at bay those manipulators who would seed confusion by obfuscating "scientific research" and alleged "evidence supported" claims. Why do you think or believe that? How do you know that is true? These are critical questions to ask ourselves and our students, and this article series from NewScientist drives this point home.

Lunar Eclipse 20100626 Okinawa
Creative Commons License photo credit: Mixtribe

According to the English Wiktionary, one definition of "obsfucate" is:

To deliberately make more confusing in order to conceal the truth.

The etemology of "obsfucate" is from the Latin word obfuscare, from ob- + fuscare ("darken"). The "dark ages" was the era in European history following the fall of the Roman Empire, described in Wikipedia as the "period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the light of Rome, and the Renaissance or rebirth from the 14th century onwards." The Enlightenment should continue today as digital communication technologies fundamentally change the access we enjoy to information, and our abilities to share information ourselves. The advance of enlightened thinking relies principally on our abilities and willingness to think critically however, as well as the access we enjoy to varied sources of information and opinion.

Critical thinking and problem solving are not a new skills, even though they are often included in frameworks for "21st century skills" like those espoused by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Corporations as well as groups of individuals have intentionally shared falsehoods and obsfucating "research" findings for many years before Internet technologies arrived on the information scene. As an example, Richard Littlemore writes in his article "Manufacturing Doubt" in this NewScientist series:

You can't beat doubt as a corporate strategy-- especially if your product is life-threatening when used as directed. These days we don't have to speculate as to whether industries have manufactured doubt. They have admitted it too many times. In 1972, Tobacco Institute vice-president Fred Panzer outlined his industry's 'brilliantly executed' defence strategy. A key tactic was 'creating doubt about the health charge [that tobacco use increased chances of getting cancer] without actually denying it' while 'encouraging objective scientific research.'... Where tobacco led the way, coal and chemicals followed. And, of course, the fossil fuel industry has been working overtime-- and with shocking success-- creating doubt about climate change.

While groups like "Big Tobacco" have conducted organized campaigns to obsfucate societal perceptions about medical risks for years preceding the Internet information revolution, digital communication technologies are now used to rapidly repeat and therefore disseminate false messages which can gain cultural currency through repetition. In many cases, thanks to the indexing schemes of search engines like Google, these messages can also gain acceptance in the digital info-sphere much sooner than they might have in earlier eras of history. In his NewScientist article "Giving Life to a Lie," Jim Giles details the history of a falsely attributed quotation to John Houghton. Houghton was falsely quoted as saying, "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen," and this quotation has been used repeatedly since its initial publication in November 2006 by those seeking to debunk climate change. Giles explains how an "informational cascade" online today can rapidly cause quotations or ideas to gain popular currency much faster than they could in the past. Giles writes:

The process [of informational cascade] is amplified by the 'echo chamber' of the internet, which has made it easier than ever to encounter and generate falsehoods. It also makes it easier to start them. Propagators are often aware of what they are doing, according to [Cass] Sustein. Some act out of self-interest, such as the desire for money or fame. Others are defending an ideology or faith. Some are simply malicious.

Giles explains how repetition of messages can lead to the "illusion of truth."

'Hearing something 10 times does not mean there there are 10 different pieces of information,' says [David] Hirshleifer. 'But the more you hear something the more likely you are to believe it is true.' And so it is with denial: if everybody appears to be saying that climate science is corrupt, or that the MMR vaccine causes autism, it takes on the appears of fact.

Although it is not mentioned in this article series on "deniers," I was reminded of the common perception today that all interactive chat environments on the Internet are evil and can only be used for nefarious purposes. I think dynamics similar to those identified by Littlemore and Giles are at play with these discussions of "Internet Safety." After hearing multiple references to "predator danger" news specials, a common perception has been reinforced in many U.S. communities that the interactive Internet overall is a dangerous place which should be avoided by young people. While there are increasingly popular online destinations like Webkins, Club Penguin, etc. which might logically help to refute this perception, when it comes to many school-based discussions of Internet safety it's clear the fear message and perception continues to predominate. Too often, even as adults, we FAIL to critically analyze and validate messages we hear in the media and within our environment. It's not just students who need encouragement to be critical thinkers: We do as adults as well.

On the topic of safe chat environments for students at school, I recommend you check out the relatively new site Classchats.com. The Seedlings interviewed teacher Cherrie MacInnes about the website and its genesis in their June 3, 2010 webcast. Getting involved in an interactive class project using a site like Classchats may be one of the best ways we can individually help overcome overblown perceptions about the dangers of interactive digital technologies.

Few technology topics seem to bring the need for a focus on critical thinking to the forefront as much as WikiPedia. Like many other school districts in the United States, the public district where my two youngest children now attend elementary school simply bans WikiPedia use outright by students rather than talking about its value and the importance of validating information. When school leaders ban an important and relevant information resource like WikiPedia instead of helping learners of all ages understand how to use it effectively, they do an educational disservice to the entire community. We should not only be using WikiPedia regularly in our schools and homes, we should also be talking about the process through which we validate and trust information. Banning WikiPedia outright because it can (and often does) include erroneous information ducks vital conversations which we need to be having regularly as expert and novice learners. As teachers, we hopefully never tell our students to only use a single source for their research projects, and take everything that source says or has written at face value without any verification or corroboration. In practice, however, I find there is remarkably little QUESTIONING about sources, perspectives, and bias in many classrooms conducting research projects. This needs to change.

It's certainly easier to teach in an environment where facts are not contested and conclusions are not disputed. The real world outside of classrooms, however, is filled with situations which have ill-defined outcomes. Decisions must be made based on limited and imperfect information, and critical thinking is essential.

Explosions!
Creative Commons License photo credit: mia3mom

How can we encourage more critical thinking inside and outside our classrooms? Discussions of and practice with the scientific method, utilization of frameworks like The Big 6, and simply adopting an inquiry-based approach to learning are all ways to encourage more critical analysis. Conversations with students during and about their process of creating a knowledge product should include lots of open ended questions which challenge students' thinking.

The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy

This mode of teaching is certainly "messier" than traditional, teacher-directed instruction, but this is exactly the sort of dialog we need to prepare students to be engaged and educated citizens in the 21st century. Our need for critical thinking is greater today than ever before. Are you living in an echo chamber? Are your students? We need to find ways to regularly step outside our bubbles of normalcy and question both our assumptions and our sources of information. This inquiry-based process should allow us to act as true "sceptics" guided by a scientific way of thinking rather than "deniers" driven primarily by ideologies or other biases. Our digitally connected learning landscape makes this need even more apparent than it was a decade ago, last year, or last week.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Filed under: ethics, science, web 2.0 1 Comment
30Jun/103

If Google Moderator and YouTube are good enough for the White House, what about your classroom?

On June 15th, 2010, President Obama addressed the nation about the oil spill in the gulf. Following the address, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions submitted by thousands of people worldwide who used the free website Google Moderator. To date on the page, "Gulf Coast Oil Leak: What Are Your Suggestions?" 15,835 people have submitted 7,468 suggestions and cast 106,190 votes.

Gulf Coast Oil Leak: What Are Your Suggestions? - Google Moderator

I've used Google Moderator in face-to-face workshops, videoconferences, and online webinars with good results. It's free, and very similar to the commercial service UserVoice which ISTE used this year to solicit input for keynotes this week in Denver.

See my April 2010 post, "Discussing Digital Literacy with the New Literacies Collaborative at NC State" and podcast recording for a recent personal example of using Google Moderator in a professional development setting.

If Google Moderator is "good enough" for the White House to use for a national Q&A forum on the gulf oil spill, it certainly should pass muster as a classroom communication tool. Give Google Moderator a try this year! There's no better way to help students understand the possibilities presented by crowdsourcing than by using a tool like Google Moderator together for a meaningful purpose!

As of June 25, 2010, press staff for President Obama had uploaded 1,151 videos to the official White House YouTube channel. We have never had as many opportunities to hear directly from our President and Commander and Chief as we do today, thanks to social media and the way the Obama administration continues to embrace it. It's remarkable to contrast those uses of social media with the ways many of our school leaders continue to avoid the topic altogether, and seemingly pretend like communication platforms like YouTube are irrelevant to learning in the 21st Century.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , ,

29Jun/100

Podstock 2010 will be here soon!

The annual Podstock conference is just around the corner! Podstock 2010 will be held July 16-17, 2010, at the Old Town Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. You can RSVP via the 2010 PodStock Facebook event page! If you have not already, also join the PodStock Ning. :-)

PodStock 2010: July 16 - 17

Kevin Honeycutt and many others at ESSDACK in Hutchinson, Kansas, are the creative minds behind Podstock.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , ,