Moving at the Speed of Creativity

There is nothing quite like a U.S. Presidential election to highlight the importance of media literacy, critical thinking, and NOT taking media messages at face value. I recently purchased the revised edition of “How to Watch TV News” by Neil Postman and Steve Powers. This book needs to be further revised for our YouTube media landscape and renamed, “How to Watch Traditional Broadcast Television and New Media IPTV.” I’d be willing to write an appendix titled, “How to avoid being conned and duped by emails you receive from your friends.”

Like many others, I know several folks who enjoy periodically forwarding email messages they find shocking, upsetting, and/or politically controversial. With these types of email messages, my first step (if I don’t just delete and ignore it) is to check Snopes.com to see if the forwarded message is an unfounded rumor / urban legend or is, in fact, something which actually happened or is true. Today I received an email message from a friend with the subject line, “Extremely upsetting video that you need to watch oppose Obama.” Whether you support or oppose Senator Barack Obama in the current race for U.S. President, the contents of this email along with the YouTube video and other websites it references paint a stark picture for why we need an electorate of critical thinking citizens who are not easily manipulated by emotionally charged disinformation. I find it noteworthy that this email makes several direct references to God and “evil.” This message was crafted to be forwarded along by conservative, religious U.S. citizens who are willing to take the time to view a short “shocking” video, but perhaps not willing or interested in doing some background research to, as Paul Harvey would say, find out about “the rest of the story.” I also find it interesting the email begins by pointing out “This is not on Snopes.” This statement was apparently included to increase the chances recipients will accept the validity of the message’s contents and the message of the video to which it links without taking time to do some basic, independent fact checking. If that was the goal of the author, s/he has failed in my case to restrain me from checking for more information about these claims. The author has, however (sadly) succeeded in focusing my attention for a reasonably long period of time on an “unworthy elephant.” I’ll explain more about that below.

This is the text of the forwarded email:

CHANGE is this the change that God will tolerate? It’s our choice!!!

Thought you ought to see this.

This is not on Snopes. This is horrible and very disturbing.

This is one of the most disturbing things I have ever watched.

How can any person support doing something like this is just beyond me. May God protect us against such evil!

If there was no other reason to oppose Obama, this is.

I hope you will share this with everyone in your address book.

It is hard to believe that this is going on in the USA

This is so very disturbing and heart-wrenching that I had to forward it to you all and I’m hoping you forward it as well. We cannot have someone who cares so very little about the most innocent and vulnerable as the President of the United States !

Click on the link below to watch the video and pass the word.

I am not going to directly link to the video because I do not care to give this type of emotional disinformation, which was deliberately crafted to both inflame and mislead others, a Google search boost via a link here. If you want to view the video, here is the URL you can copy and paste into your browser: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdbYjmbFzo

Indeed this video IS shocking. What the narrators and creators describe IS illegal in the state of Illinois where this incident allegedly took place, as well as every other U.S. state as far as I know. When a human baby is born alive during the third trimester of its life, it IS legally considered infanticide to intentionally cause death to the infant. In the video, producers and narrators assert that because Barack Obama voted against a pro-life bill in the Illinois legislature in 2002, he directly has blood on his hands for cases of infanticide in his state. To push this message over the top, the video producers stage a closing scene in the video where an apparently healthy newborn baby is left alone in a dark room by hospital attendants to die.

If you are alive and able to both see and hear this video, I don’t know how you could watch it and be unmoved. The author(s) of this email are correct. This IS “horrible and very disturbing.” I agree that abortion is horrific. I am not going to make this post into a pro-life rant, however. What I DO want to point out clearly and persuasively is that it is “horrible and very disturbing” - although perhaps not unexpected, sadly, that in our era of YouTube politics we see people pulling out all the stops (so to speak) to distort facts, mislead the public, and subvert the truth. This is, of course, nothing new. I’d recommend Jane Mayer’s new book “The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals” for a greater inquiry about how our current administration has purposefully misled the public to promulgate costly and highly profitable wars which continue to this day.

So what is “the rest of the story” when it comes to this video, and specifically its accusation that Senator Barack Obama is a defender and proponent of both partial-birth abortions and infanticide? The video authors exhort viewers to thoughtlessly forward on the video to everyone they know, pleading “Expose Obama: Send this video on to everyone you can.” The video’s YouTube description reads:

ATTENTION: “I Invented the Internet” Episodes 1-5 are now available on one DVD for $9.99. Help us expose Obama! Show it to your church, at a local theater, or anywhere else you know people will gather.

“Kill and Destroy” Synopsis:
Featuring an interview with Jill Stanek, “Kill and Destroy” explores Barack Hussein Obama’s support of infanticide in Illinois, an alarming decision that was opposed by every Democrat and Republican in the U.S. Senate.

“What does it take to make a man a monster any more?” Illuminati Pictures president Molotov Mitchell recently wrote. “If Americans can watch this video and still support Barack Obama, then America is…beyond all hope.

To this statement by Molotov Mitchell I counter: “If Americans watch this video and fail to both ask questions and seek answers to pursue the real facts in this case, then we are failing as a society to uphold our civic duties to question our leaders, question our media, and question ourselves about the things we are told and the things we believe.”

Here are the results of a few minutes of research about the claims made in this email, this video, and by this apparently highly motivated and media saavy interest group.

The website referenced at the end of the video (nohussein [dot] org) is registered to Scott E. Walton of Fort Worth, Texas. The subtitle of the site is:

No Smears. Just Facts.

Yet as some basic research into the background of this video shows, “smears” is what this media message is all about. Misleading information presented to distort and obfuscate facts and truth.

Who is Scott E. Walton, the registry owner of this domain? What organization(s) does he officially represent? Is he the author of the content on this website, or is his name being used as a proxy for others who have authored and paid for this website?

A simple Google keyword search for “obama infanticide” yields almost 300,000 results this evening.

Search result #4 this evening is to the Annenberg Foundation’s website FactCheck.org article about this topic, which reveals this is an old issue and debate for Illinois voters which is now drawing national attention:

Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes attacked Barack Obama over this legislation during their 2004 race for the U.S. Senate, repeatedly accusing him of favoring “infanticide.” Because of this, Keyes said, “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.” Nevertheless, 70 percent of Illinois voters did vote for Obama, but now the issue has bubbled up again.

Jess Henig’s concluding paragraph points out that the issue here is NOT that Senator Obama supports infanticide:

Obama’s critics are free to speculate on his motives for voting against the bills, and postulate a lack of concern for babies’ welfare. But his stated reasons for opposing “born-alive” bills have to do with preserving abortion rights, a position he is known to support and has never hidden.

As we begin to sift through and analyze these Google search results, we (and our students) should be constantly asking ourselves about sources of information. Could the source of our information be biased? Of course it is biased! Everyone has bias, and it is exceedingly difficult to be objective in many cases. The question is not IS a source biased, but HOW is a source biased? Note I’m not saying truth is relative here, I don’t subscribe to postmodernism. (As the Barna Group defines it.) My point is that just as the observer effect in physics reveals the limits of experimental objectivity, I believe our objectivity in discussions focusing on social science topics is inherently limited as well.

Who is the Annenberg Public Policy Center (the sponsor of “factcheck.org”) and where do they fall on the U.S. political spectrum? There are a lot of “Annenberg” organizations around the country listed in WikiPedia. Identifying their bias and perspective would be a worthwhile task for a team of students investigating this issue and these allegations.

Hit #1 from this Google search tonight is the August 4th Huffington Post article, “The Next Smear Against Obama: “Infanticide.” That article includes a link to a Relevant Magazine article interview with Senator Obama from this summer, including the following direct quotation from him on this subject:

Strang: Based on emails we received, another issue of deep importance to our readers is a candidate’s stance on abortion. We largely know your platform, but there seems to be some real confusion about your position on third-trimester and partial-birth abortions. Can you clarify your stance for us?

Obama: I absolutely can, so please don’t believe the emails. I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.

The other email rumor that’s been floating around is that somehow I’m unwilling to see doctors offer life-saving care to children who were born as a result of an induced abortion. That’s just false. There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the “Born Alive” bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill. The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn’t think it was going to pass constitutional muster.

Ever since that time, emails have been sent out suggesting that, somehow, I would be in favor of letting an infant die in a hospital because of this particular vote. That’s not a fair characterization, and that’s not an honest characterization. It defies common sense to think that a hospital wouldn’t provide life-saving treatment to an infant that was alive and had a chance of survival.

Although these quotations appear to clarify the allegation that Senator Obama has not and does not support infanticide, it is important and worthwhile to search for information on his official campaign website posted by staff of his campaign about this issue. Again, turning to Google a keyword search for “barackobama.com infanticide” yields the page “Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In |” and the response to Bill Bennett’s 30 June 2008 repetition of this Alan Keyes assertion on CNN.

I could go on with additional links and analysis, but this is enough to make the main points I want to share in this post.

1. We must question the information we read, hear, watch, and otherwise receive in all contexts. These contexts include but are not limited to broadcast television, radio, newspapers, textbooks, friends in the hallway, teachers in the classroom, Presidents in the oval office, candidates running for President, videos posted to YouTube, and websites created by individuals located anywhere on our planet. We must ask questions, and we must challenge each other to think deeply and critically about important and basic questions. What is true? How do I know that is true? What is the source? Does the source have an identifiable bias? Recognizing a bias, are their reasons to accept or reject the ideas the source has provided? These are the basics of media literacy and responsible citizenship, and these skills are just as important today as they were in the dawning days of our fledgling republic.

2. We should recognize and subsequently trivialize “elephants” in political debates. No, I am not referring to Republicans or the U.S. Republican Party with this statement. Neither am I saying we should ignore abortion as a political and moral issue. My reference here is to George Lakoff, Howard Dean, and Don Hazen’s book “Don’t Think Of An Elephant! / How Democrats And Progressives Can Win: Know Your Values And Frame The Debate: The Essential Guide For Progress.” The point of “Don’t Think of an Elephant” is that the moment I say or write “elephant” and you hear or read it, you think about it. This is the apparent strategy of Deal Hudson and others (according to the Huffington Post - though I am summarizing and evaluating with this statement) who are promulgating this smear campaign against Senator Obama. By saying we should “trivialize elephants” I mean that when we identify a case where political groups have constructed a straw man, as they have in this case, we should choose intentionally not to spend much time thinking and talking about the straw man.

Do your students know what a “straw man” argument is in this context? Is it important they do to be able to understand and participate intelligently in political discourse this fall? Of course it is.

On a related technological and new media note, I’ll point out that the WikiPedia page for Deal Hudson is being regularly edited and defended by the WikiPedia user “Leviathan58″ who established a WikiPedia account on August 7th and has ONLY edited Deal Hudson’s page. I wonder if this person works for a political campaign, for Hudson himself, or is merely a helpful Wikipedian working to promote objective analysis and avoid bias in the encyclopedia? An interesting question to be sure.

Media literacy! Critical thinking! The ability to intelligently and proficiently validate information we encounter in the face-to-face and virtual world is a skill EVERYONE needs, not simply librarians or textbook authors. Alan November has been championing this idea for years through his presentation “Teaching Zack to Think.” (I first heard Alan share this presentation in February 2002 at TCEA, and my notes from that session are still online on my Texas Tech student website.) Alan was right in 2002 and we are correct today to evangelize the need for our students to be critical thinkers and consumers of information. This message was at the heart of my fall 2003 article for the TechEdge, “Digital Literacy NOW!” It is still a topic about which I am very passionate.

Elections are usually quite interesting to follow, and that is particularly true in societies which have a relatively high level of freedom and openness. Whether or not you support Barack Obama for president or not, I hope you will encourage your own students to be critical thinkers in this election. As I wrote in January 2007, we need to be educating shepherds instead of sheep. To do this, let us consider the ways of the educational coyote. Challenge. Question. Juxtapose. Ask for support. Challenge to defend. Expect hard work and deep thinking.

Too much is at stake in our nation to sit idly by and passively consume carefully crafted messages designed to distort and distract, like this email I received from a friend today.

Technorati Tags:
election, politics, obama, infanticide, thinking, critical, information, media, literacy, validate, check, snopes, barack, keyes, abortion, citizenship, school, education, library

My knowledge of Liberia has been pretty limited to date. I learned about the Liberian Renaissance Education Complex talking to Dr. Dennis Harper (founder of Kijana Voices and Generation YES) at NECC in 2007 as part of a podcast interview. Before our conversation I had not heard of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia and the first female to be elected as a head of state on the continent of Africa. I vaguely identified Liberia as a nation in west Africa, but did not realize until very recently it had been in the throes of a civil war which started in 1989. I was also ignorant of Liberia’s history as a country founded as a prospective home for U.S. slaves reversing the middle passage and returning to Africa. According to today’s English WikiPedia’s article for Liberia:

In 1822, the American Colonization Society established Liberia as a place to send black people who were formerly enslaved. Other African Americans, who were never enslaved, chose to emigrate to Liberia as well. African-Americans gradually migrated to the colony and became known as Americo-Liberians, from where many present day Liberians trace their ancestry. On July 26, 1847, the Americo-Liberian settlers declared the independence of the Republic of Liberia.

Some time ago I was invited to the Facebook group for the movie “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” At the time, I did not realize the group focused on a movie about an important recent chapter of Liberian history. According to the film’s official website:

Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country.

Thousands of women - ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim - came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they look on the warlords and nonviolently forced a resolution during the stalled peace talks.

A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverance of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.

Consider bringing a screening of the film to your local community.

After last week’s celebration events commemorating the life and achievements of Clara Luper who helped lead the nonviolent Oklahoma City Sit-ins in 1958, I have been thinking more about civil rights activism.

It is telling and unfortunate that the WikiPedia article for the African-American Civil Rights Movement is titled with the inclusive dates, 1955–1968. This struggle is not over in the United States or around the world.

NetFlix has the film listed in their database but the page does not show a DVD release date. The film summary from NetFlix is:

Director Virginia Reticker’s documentary tells the story of the thousands of Liberian women who helped end the bloody late-1990s civil war that killed 250,000 people, allegedly supported in secret by then-President Charles Taylor. Through nonviolent protests, the Christian Women’s Peace Initiative forced a resolution in the peace talks, and their efforts led to the election of Africa’s first female head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

I hope I’ll have a chance to this film about Liberian peace and human rights activists soon. Stories of courage and struggles like these certainly put the relatively minor challenges I face in my own life in stark perspective.

Technorati Tags:
liberia, humanrights, war, civil, civilwar, history, protest, nonviolent, nonviolence, sirleaf

THESE ARE MY NOTES FROM FROM DR. PEDRO NOGUERA’S KEYNOTE AT ALAN NOVEMBER’S 2008 BUILDING LEARNING COMMUNITIES CONFERENCE. THE TITLE OF THE SESSION WAS “CHANGING THE CULTURE OF SCHOOLS: CREATING CONDITIONS THAT PROMOTE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.” I DID NOT ATTEND BLC08 IN PERSON, BUT THANKS TO BOB SPRANKLE MAKING THIS AMAZING PRESENTATION AVAILABLE VIA PODCAST I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LISTEN TO THIS ENTIRE 77 MINUTE TALK TWICE THIS WEEK IN THE CAR DURING MY COMMUTES. THIS IS PART 1 OF MY NOTES FOCUSING ON THE FIRST 26 MINUTES OF HIS PRESENTATION. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST PRESENTATIONS I’VE HEARD TO DATE ABOUT SCHOOL REFORM, WHICH I RANK AT THE TOP OF MY LIST WITH PRESENTATIONS FROM DR. DAVID BERLINER, DR. STEPHEN KRASHEN, DR. ROGER SHANK, AND DR. STEVE WYCOFF. PRACTICAL, TO THE POINT, AND SPECIFIC, THIS IS AN OUTSTANDING PRESENTATION FOR ANYONE TO HEAR INTERESTED IN THE ISSUES OF SCHOOL REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES.

When employees of Apple are designing a new product, they don’t just look at existing products and their functionality
- they strive to imagine something completely new and different and don’t want to be bound by existing models and ways of thinking
- we need to apply this same idea to schools as we reimagine schools for the 21st century

We know many children today do not benefit from access to a high quality education
- NCLB does provide transparency, schools can’t hide subgroups of underperforming or underachieving kids now like they might have done in the past
- all kids must learn, and this is good

The real measure of how good schools are is how we/they do with the kids who actually need help (not just the affluent kids with educated parents, who really can do most of the learning on their own)
- metaphor: Lots of our schools today are like doctors who are only good with healthy people
- the problem is not the kids, it is the way we treat kids
- the problem is the way we often limit kids based on our inability to see their potential and cultivate their talents

We are 25 years out from “Nation at Risk” now

Read the 2006 Gates report “The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives on High School Dropouts” about our real dropout rates in the United States

International school testing comparisons show the U.S. is lagging behind in math, science, and basic literacy compared to many nations

MY THOUGHTS: I’M QUITE SURPRISED DR. NOGUERA REPEATED THESE HEADLINES WITHOUT EXPLAINING THAT ONE THING OUR NATION DOES DO DIFFERENTLY FROM MANY COUNTRIES IS EDUCATE EVERYONE. WE SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THESE INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON STATISTICS BUT WE ALSO NEED TO UNDERSTAND THEM IN CONTEXT, NOT TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR LOW PERFORMING SCHOOLS AND KIDS THAT CAN’T READ, BUT TO REALIZE THEY OFTEN PORTRAY A VERY SLATED STORY (A PARTIAL STORY) BECAUSE WE EDUCATE EVERYWHERE WHILE MANY COUNTRIES STILL JUST EDUCATE THE ELITE.

Sick kids don’t do well in school
- we keep ignoring the fact that conditions outside of schools have a great deal to do with conditions inside of schools

The adult literacy rate in Barbados is 95%, in the US it is close to 80% (that is a 6th grade reading level)

Problems with our educational system go back to basics and the way we attract or do NOT attract the best into the teaching profession
- typically we attract the lower one-third of college graduates into the teaching field
- this is a function of money and dollars
- Linda Darling Hammond says correctly that we don’t have a shortage of teachers, we have a shortage of people who want to work in these schools (the poor, often low-performing schools)
- we have an allocation gap when it comes to finances and school funding: we continue to spend the most money to educate the wealthiest children who need the least help from our schools
- those who say money doesn’t matter usually have a lot of money

Challenges we face
- changing demographics due to immigration and backlash against immigration in many communities
- when you treat people like fugitives you make it harder for their children to get an education
- when you do this, you create a permanent underclass
- Latinos have the highest employment rate of an ethnic group in the United States and the highest poverty rate
- they are disproportionally stuck in the lowest wage jobs

We have an illogical debate going on in our country today with respect to immigration

we have an unfortunate history in our nation’s schools and in our country of believing that the primary function of schools is to rank and sort kids based on their genetic gifts

funding for public education in our nation is at risk right now
- if you don’t realize that, you are or have been asleep
- there are more people than ever clamoring for vouchers, for home schooling, and for not supporting public education

I AGREE WITH THIS VIEW, I HAVE CONCLUDED (ALONG WITH OTHERS) THAT A PRIMARY STRATEGIC FOCUS OF NCLB AND ACCOUNTABILITY REFORM IS TO DISCREDIT PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES SO THE COFFERS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION DOLLARS CAN BE OPENED UP TO PRIVATE, COMMERCIAL INTERESTS– TO DISMANTLE OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM BY PROVIDING STANDARDS OF ACHIEVEMENT WHICH ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH. SEE MY FEBRUARY 2008 RESPONSE TO THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, “A CONTRARY VIEW OF EDUCATION AND NCLB” FOR MORE ON THIS.

Despite all its faults, we must support public education
- public education is the only group in our entire society which accepts all children: even undocumented, homeless children

I AGREE WITH THIS 100%

If we lose our public education system in the United States, our democracy would truly be at risk

Seymour Sarason’s 1972 book “The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change” was a very important work
- he pointed out that many times we’ve run into problems with proposed school reforms because we have viewed reform as something that could be like a cookbook: simply follow the prescribed recipe and everything will turn out great
- we often fail to contextualize solutions
- we must change beliefs, attitudes, expectations and relationships in our schools for meaningful reform to take place
- this is a complex challenge

My father who was a policeman for many years was fond of saying “Common sense is really not that common”
- certainly we see that is often the case with school reform movements
- it is never 1 thing
- it is always a complex set of issues and needs
- it is never a silver bullet: vouchers, testing, phonics
- we need good leadership, good teaching, parent support, and student engagement

We do see signs of good news in both Atlanta and Miami showing when you empower and support local campus leaders, provide extra incentive funding for teachers and focus on small class sizes, you can change the culture of low SES urban schools and move them forward positively
- Kipp Schools are right at the top of those top performers in these places

Technorati Tags:
school, education, reform, blc08

Thanks to Doug Noon for bringing Susan Harman and Deborah Meier’s new article series “How to Resist the Growing Threat to U.S. Education” to my attention this evening. As I listened to Scott Elias and Melinda Miller’s “Testing 1-2-3″ Practical Principals’ podcast from May 2nd on my commute to and from work today I kept thinking to myself, “How could so many many smart people elected to lead our nation take us down the forsaken path which has led to so much unnecessary suffering and misdirected energy in our classrooms with high stakes testing?” In line with thoughts I first heard articulated well by Dr. David Berliner in 2006, this article series by Harman and Meier offers a much-needed explanation of the educational policy decisions we’ve seen in the past decade which have ushered in the dark age of NCLB.

The purpose of this article series by Dissent is summarized in the following paragraph:

In these pages, we intend to connect the dots between the many pieces of research and demonstrate that the educational crisis is not what the public has been led to think it is, that there is virtually no research that supports ongoing corporate and federal policies, that the media has been irresponsible and complicit in hiding the truth, that the proposed solutions are unsupported and dangerous, and that the devastating consequences we are now seeing are not “unintended.” To the contrary, these radical reforms were intended by a powerful, well-funded wing of the reform agenda to dismantle our public education system and replace it with precisely the kind of marketplace reforms that are by their nature untrustworthy and unaccountable. We hope these articles will mobilize policymakers and citizens to join us in resisting this attack on our public education system and democracy.

These are, without a doubt, “high stakes” issues.

Stephen Krashen has shared the first article in the series, titled “Comments on Reading First: How to Save Billions and Improve Reading.” Krashen is one of my favorite literacy scholars, and granted me permission in the summer of 2006 to share a podcast recording of his fantastic presentation on “Encouraging Reading” at our Oklahoma EncycloMedia conference. Krashen highlights the National Reading Panel’s misrepresentation of research focusing on phonics and reading development:

This severe limitation of intensive phonics instruction was, however, ignored, and intensive phonics is a cornerstone of Reading First. The finding that heavy phonics instruction has limited value is consistent with earlier work by Kenneth Goodman and Frank Smith, who independently provided compelling evidence for the hypothesis that we “learn to read by reading”—that we learn to read by understanding what is on the page. Their conclusions were not armchair speculation, but based on experimentation and extensive analysis of published research. Smith and Goodman are not peripheral scholars far outside the mainstream. Goodman is the former president of the International Reading Association, both are winners of the National Council of Teachers of English David Russell award for Distinguished Research in Teaching, both have taught in major universities and have published influential books and articles in the most prestigious journals in the field. And both were ignored by Reading First.

Smith and Goodman did not dismiss all phonics instruction. They maintained that children can learn the simpler rules of phonics, and this knowledge can be of some use in the early stages of reading, helping children understand what they read. But they maintain that our knowledge of the complex rules of phonics is the result of reading, not the cause.

Krashen summarizes the findings of studies on the impact of ReadingFirst grants across the nation:

Reading First cost about a billion dollars a year, and, as noted earlier, Reading First children get considerably more instructional time in reading. A more accurate description of the report is: “Nearly half of the states showed little or no improvement, despite huge increases in funding and instructional time.”

What would you do with $6 billion dollars of discretionary money for education in the United States? I certainly wouldn’t try and funnel those dollars into the pockets of companies which produce drill and kill phonics worksheets and activities, as well as other educational testing materials. Yet that has been the result of NCLB and ReadingFirst policies. Instead of promoting more testing and phonics drills, I’d advocate buying more books for our libraries to support recreational reading, particularly in lower SES communities, as Krashen advocates. He writes:

The real issue is how to help children achieve higher levels of literacy; the ability to read and write complex texts.

The only way this can happen is by self-selected reading—reading that children chose to read by themselves. The evidence for the role of recreational reading is overwhelming. It includes studies showing that when students spend a few minutes a day doing recreational reading of their own choice in school, they do better on reading tests. The evidence also includes studies showing strong correlations between how much children read and their writing style, spelling ability, grammar, and vocabulary.

Access to books is the key prescription for reading, writing, and literacy development which Dr. Krashen has and continues to consistently champion. He is not an advocate for 1:1 learning initiatives, and I do not want to misrepresent his views as supporting mine on laptop learning, but I want to point out that these prescriptions for students “learning to read by doing more reading” fuel much of my conviction that we need more initiatives which encourage students to regularly read and write with digital texts as well as atomic texts.

It is tragic to both experience as a teacher and parent, and witness as a citizen, the devastating effects of our political leader’s educational programs in the United States over the past eight years. (Even longer when you count his tenure as governor of the Lone Star state.) My post from February 2008, “A contrary view of education and NCLB” was a response to his State of the Union speech comments about education, and is one of my more impassioned blog entries about these subjects. “Podcast228: Pedagogic Crimes Against Students,” also from February, is one of my more passionate and direct podcasts addressing these educational policy issues.

Our upcoming November elections in the United States are VERY important. We have moral obligations to change the course of educational politics in our nation not only as citizens, but also as educators who KNOW BETTER because of our experiences in classrooms dominated by an imposed culture of high stakes testing. We all should be media literate and savvy enough to read through the smoke and spin.

I encourage you to read Dr. Krashen’s article which launches this important series on U.S. Educational policy and where we need to go in the future. We must all strive to not continue or repeat the failed policies of the past, and we can speak loudly in November by casting our votes at the ballot box.

Technorati Tags:
nclb, reading, literacy, readingfirst, unitedstates, education, funding, krashen

The recent case of Bob Stoops kicking University of Oklahoma freshman Joshua Jarboe off the OU football team following the posting of a profane and disturbing YouTube rap video has understandably created a big stir here in Oklahoma. According to Carey Murdock’s August 1st article, “Jarboe dismissed from OU football team:”

A freestyle rap video by OU freshman Joshua Jarboe was released on the Internet Tuesday afternoon. In the video, Jarboe’s obscenity-laced rap talks about guns and shooting people in the head. After plenty of debate on Internet message boards and talk radio, a conclusion to the situation has been rendered. Joshua Jarboe is no longer a member of the OU football program.

Regardless of your opinion about OU football specifically or college athletics more generally, I think we should all agree that coach Stoops absolutely made the right decision in this case. The one minute, 14 second video of Jarboe on YouTube (which I won’t link here because of its content, but it’s certainly not hard to find via Google) is not debatable in terms of its propriety. I am curious about the background of who posted the video on YouTube, since that act proved to be the tipping point ending Jarboe’s prospects for a collegiate football career at the University of Oklahoma, but details like that are of minor importance compared to the biggest issues:

1. We should all feel a debt of gratitude to YouTube and similar “publish-at-will” websites which allow us to gain insightful windows into the behavior, thoughts, and actions of others.
2. As community members, we need to proactively and aggressively face the issues which Jarboe’s video raises. Why did Jarboe talk about women with such disrespect in this video? Why did he celebrate the use of violence to hurt and kill others? What opportunities for meaningful, constructive relationships with adult males did Jarboe have in middle and high school? What are we doing about crime in our communities and about gangs? Are we trying to paint over the broken windows which reveal deep-seated, complex problems in our societies, or are we trying to thoughtfully and constructively work together to address these issues? Who is helping Josh Jarboe NOW put together the pieces of his shattered collegiate and life dreams, channeling his passion and energy into constructive rather than destructive pursuits?

Rather than talk disdainfully about the digital communications landscape in which we currently reside, I encourage us to see the concrete benefits of this environment. Thank goodness this video made the decision for coach Stoops easy concerning Josh Jarboe’s membership on the OU football team. If this video reflects Jarboe’s attitudes toward women, violence, and other topics as a high school senior, it is doubtful they have changed 180 degrees in the weeks following his graduation, and doubtful he would have made a good role model for thousands of OU football fans (young and old) and others who followed his college football career down the road. It is good in my view that he was removed from the team, but larger questions remain. What now? Both for Jarboe individually and for our society which has many young men with attitudes similar to those Jarboe reflected in his video, what are we doing and what are we going to do?

My June 2006 post “Blocking social networking sites is an insufficient response” included the following statement regarding the “windows” which technology provides into the problems we face individually, as families and as communities:

The problems highlighted in this article do relate to technology, but I think they also DO have a lot to do with education. Technology is more the window to the issues and the problems, rather than the problem itself. That is why simply blocking social networking sites on school networks is an insufficient response. This response is analogous to a principal who hears a report about people in the community seeing students fighting inside the gym as they look through the window, and ordering the custodian to paint the window black so the public can’t see inside the gym from outside. Responses like this don’t fix problems, they mainly serve to mask them and challenge those involved to adapt to changed circumstances but persist in their same, problematic behaviors.

Are we working on fixing these broken windows together?

Technorati Tags:
jarboe, josh, ou, oklahoma, football, youtube, socialnetworking, windows, community

Last year in our statewide Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling project, we had a “teachable moment” arise concerning student profile pictures and avatars. According to Wiktionary, an avatar in a computing context is:

A digital representation of a person or being.

The situation in our COV project last spring involved a high school student who joined our learning community at the invitation of her librarian as well as our project coordinators, and chose to use a photo of herself on her Ning personal profile page which was not appropriate for the context of our project. I contacted her librarian about this, she had a conversation with the student, and the student changed her photo to an uncontroversial avatar image. This situation was not a bad one– I think it was good, in fact, because it provided an opportunity for an important discussion relating to digital citizenship to take place. It also pointed to the fact that we needed social networking guidelines for our project. The student in question along a friend of hers were apparently viewing our COV learning community as they would a MySpace or Facebook personal page. That was not the right “frame” to use in this situation. As a result of these conversations, our project coordinators decided that students needed to use an avatar rather than a photograph on their personal profile pages. Adult educators could use either one. At the time project coordinators posted the following clarification in our learning community forum as “Guidelines for using this social networking site:”

Student Members:
All members under the age of 18 will be categorized as students and should use a computer generated avatar as their member image. We strongly encourage students to remove their date of birth and location from their profile. This can be accomplished by going to the My Settings link on the site. Please make sure you have parental permission to join this social networking site.

All Members:
Blog postings, submitted videos and all content should be related to digital storytelling. Please keep your dialog and discussion appropriate for all audience members. We encourage everyone to join ALL appropriate learning communities realted to your profile. This can be accomplished using the icons on the right hand side of the site.
Thank you for participating.

This situation highlights the importance of discussing what constitutes an appropriate avatar or other profile image, both in a collaborative project space as well as on personal social networking websites. When visiting the Wordpress.org support forums recently, I found the website Gravatar. It explains:

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

After I setup my own free account on gravatar, I was asked to “rate” my avatar on the following scale, similar to the Motion Picture rating system for commercially published movies.

“Hard drug use?” Are the gravatar creators talking about “illegal drug use” with that phrase? I would argue that all student avatars should be “G” rated, particularly if the student is participating in an online learning community or collaborative project for school.

This is an important discussion to have with students of all ages who are participating in social networking activities at school and away from school. Because students already have background knowledge / schema for motion picture ratings, it could be good to use the ratings framework to discuss appropriate profile pictures and avatars. It might be good to explore the question:

Would it EVER be appropriate to use an avatar or profile picture which is not rated “G?” What are some possible consequences of using a “non-G-rated” avatar on a website which is tied / affiliated / linked to you and your online identity?

The PBS special from January 2008, “Growing Up Online” (individual chapters of the show are viewable online) is a good resource to utilize in a discussion like this with students. I have additional links and resources related to social networking available, as well as Internet Safety resources for parents. The Digital Dialog Ning is a learning community for educators, parents, and others interested in exploring and discussing issues like these.

Technorati Tags:
avatar, profile, picture, internet, safety, technology, parenting

You’re invited to join a conversation in Elluminate this Wednesday evening, August 6th, to discuss a proposed code of ethics for our Storychasers project in 2008-2009, as well as other ideas for this new project idea. We will meet for ONLY one hour this week, since some participants may (like me) plan to participate in the 9 pm Eastern Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast remembering and reflecting about Lee Baber on EdTechTalk.

The 2008 K-12 Online Conference has officially been dedicated to the memory of Lee. Please visit the memorial page EdTechTalk has created for her, and consider offering a donation to her family. That donation information will be added soon to her EdTechTalk memorial page.

I had multiple conversations with Lee over Skype and on the phone in the past two years, and I really feel an emptiness at her passing. I felt a similar way about a year ago when a good friend from my church men’s group back in Lubbock, Texas, passed away and I was not able to attend the funeral. There really wasn’t anyone around me face-to-face that knew about him or understood what had happened, and I felt weird not having people to mourn with over his loss. Our virtual communications, meetings, activities and relationships are as real as our face-to-face ones, but in a situation like this I find myself longing for face-to-face connections instead of just virtual ones. I’m at a loss. As a community and as individuals, we have lost a friend.

I miss you Lee.

Technorati Tags:
storychaser, storychasers, edtechtalk, leebaber, k12online08, k12online

I’m not sure when a blog comment should become a post, but the length and ideas discussed in the following response to Gary Stager and Steve Ransom in last week’s post, “Webcam and PSP Porn: More reasons for ongoing digital dialog” seemed to justify a separate post today. Please join in the conversation here or on the original post.

Gary: I think it is overly glib to ask, “Who cares?” A lot of people pay attention to Oprah and the stories she chooses to amplify on her program, and a lot of folks utilize the information she provides to shape their own perceptions of technology and its potential value. I am very concerned about helping encourage balanced approaches to discussing issues like Internet safety and social networking. I agree with Steve’s point, that we all have to be wary of generalizing based on our own experiences. That is the lens through which we each view the world, but certainly there are a host of different factors which play into parenting and these sorts of discussions / issues. To one of your points, I agree many parents should trust their kids more, but essential to that trust is the regular opportunity to engage in dialog. That is a missing element in many households and families, today. For support on this I’d again reference back to Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson’s work.

While I agree all parents should be aware of this story and the danger / potential for abuse which exists with webcams, I also think it is misleading to portray (as Oprah did on this program as well as the NYT writer who broke this story in his article and video interviews) that this can EASILY happen to ANYONE. When you listen to Justin tell his story (particularly in the NYT video interviews) it becomes clear he was “at risk” before any technology entered the picture. Here are some red flags:

1. He didn’t have any friends at school.
2. He was hospitalized after he was allegedly beaten by his father, and received seven stitches in his head.
3. His own father hired prostitutes for Justin so he could expand his activities on his website.
4. His mother claimed she had no idea anything was wrong.
5. Another student at Justin’s school found his website and circulated the videos around his school, embarrassing Justin and causing him to want to leave school. Yet no one apparently talked to Justin’s mother about this.

As I’ve shared in presentations and blog posts previously, it is my contention that “kids most at risk online” are also “at risk in the face to face world sans technology.” It is true that technology and Internet connections now provide direct access to children (as well as older folks) for people with harmful intentions (like pedophiles) and those types of DIRECT, personal and potentially private connections were not possible in earlier eras.

One of the most important things for people of all ages to realize is that the #1 behavior which puts them at risk online is TALKING ABOUT SEX. In Justin’s case, he registered himself on a webcam site with his picture and age, and immediately got contacted by strangers who eventually groomed him to talk about sex and do sexually related things. Talking about sex with strangers was the #1 tipping point here. Was his mom talking to him about sex? Was his mom talking to him at all? How could she let him go to Las Vegas to meet people she didn’t know, where he was molested and abused? This is a tragic story, and certainly the sexual predators who victimized Justin bear a huge amount of blame that should have severe consequences, but Justin’s parents also shoulder a great deal of this responsibility as does Justin at some point. Oprah and Kurt Eichenwald both shied away from this issue of “free will” and choices in their discussion of Justin’s case, but I don’t think we should ignore it. Yes I agree Justin was a victim, but he was also making choices and was not entirely a pawn at the complete mercy of his environment. Thank GOODNESS at last an adult (Kurt Eichenwald) helped him climb out of his pit of self-destructive behaviors. One lesson from that side of this story is that as individuals, OUR WORDS AND ACTIONS MATTER. Whether we are the biological parent of a young person or not, what we say and do can have an important impact on others.

Given those perspectives, perhaps you can better understand why I strongly take issue with the sentiment “Who cares?” We should care and must care. Yes, this is a sensationalized case, but as Steve points out in his comment these issues are “in our face” more and more in our digitally connected landscape, and we’ve got to do a better job being proactive about addressing them. Simply banning tools and technologies is not a viable answer, and neither is wishfully hoping that kids will be responsible and we just need to encourage parents to be more trusting. As I said before, what we all need are relationships of accountability and frequent opportunities for dialog with others.

Steve, I WILL write more about this down the road… I agree these ideas need to be further elaborated.

Technorati Tags:
internet, safety, webcam, oprah, justin, berry, kurt, eichenwald, isafety, socialnetworking, myspace, facebook, youtube, pedophile, parent, parenting

This summer Oprah Winfrey re-aired her shocking program from February 2006, “The Young Boy Lured into Becoming an Internet Porn Star.” My wife recently recorded this show on our home DVR and showed it to me this weekend. Neither of us had seen this show previously or heard about this specific case. For detailed and up-to date information on the primary person the show focused on, Justin Berry, refer to the WikiPedia article for him. External links at the bottom of the article provide additional background, most notably Kurt Eichenwald’s December 19, 2005 article for the NY Times which broke the story, “Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World.” Active discussions on Oprah’s message boards reveal this program continues to strike many nerves and raise many issues. These issues are not limited to the question of whether kids should be allowed to have webcams at all, or specifically webcams in their bedrooms. As kids gain access to more digital devices capable of accessing the Internet, like handheld PSP game systems, some parents are realizing the devices can be and are (in many cases) being used to access pornographic web content. These topics are important and worth discussing at length. For the sake of brevity as well as attempted organization, I’ll summarize my main thoughts under several headings.

1. ONGOING DIGITAL DIALOG IS THE KEY

There are many issues here, but technology is neither the complete culprit nor can it offer a complete “solution” or answer. We have always, and continue to have as human beings, important needs for ongoing dialog between adults and young people. Dr. Stephen Glenn defined dialog as “a meaningful exchange of perceptions in a non-threatening environment.” All too often in our fast-paced, multi-tasking and overcommitted lives, we fail to provide adequate opportunities for adults and young people to engage in dialog. In addition to dialog, we also ALL need to have ongoing, supportive relationships of accountability with others. Without dialog and real accountability, everyone can fall into trouble of some kind. BEING ALONE is the worst condition under which anyone can face serious challenges in life. When we try to stand alone, sadly we often fall alone. We all need dialog and accountability, and those two things do not come “naturally” in our day-to-day routines. We must intentionally shape our schedules and our lives to provide for these things, otherwise they will not / do not become regular parts of our daily routines.

2. DRAWING ATTENTION TO A PROBLEM IS EASY, OFFERING REAL SOLUTIONS IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT

I frequently address Internet safety and online social networking issues in presentations for teachers, students, and parents. Just as it is relatively easy to “scare parents off the Internet,” it is also easy to identify problems without offering practical ideas for constructively addressing the issues which have been raised. The main “solution” or action step which Oprah offers to resounding applause in this February 2006 episode for parents was to prohibit all webcams in children’s bedrooms. That suggestion is not novel, of course, virtually every website focused on Internet safety issues for families includes the suggestion that computers at home be located in family spaces (like the living room) rather than in bedrooms. NetSmartz, SafeKids, and the FBI’s Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety are three example sites which include this recommendation. Yet what about wireless, handheld gaming devices like the PSP which can be used to get online? What about laptops when your child attends a progressive school implementing a 1:1 laptop learning initiative? What about your child’s cell phone, which may already permit web access and almost certainly includes text messaging and media messaging? Telecommunications convergence means many things, but one of the most tangible implications in this context is that parents and other adults have far less control today than they/we did in the past to limit the access young people have to ideas and media.

The issues raised in this Oprah episode about Justin Berry ARE very important and worth discussing. I was disappointed to see that in that program from 2006, at least, Oprah and others speaking on the program did not seem to suggest much with respect to addressing this issue other than suggesting parents everywhere ban webcams from children’s bedrooms.

3. WEBCAMS HAVE VIABLE AND BENEFICIAL USES BESIDES PORNOGRAPHY

Episodes like this one from Oprah tend to be sensationalist in nature. These are REAL issues, of course, but we should be wary to not overgeneralize based on the statements and opinions of the show guests. Both Justin Berry and Kurt Eichenwald make the argument that webcams have no viable place in anyone’s home or on anyone’s computer. Their opinion seems to have been (during this 2006 show) that the only reason someone would need a webcam is to engage in Internet pornography. This position is both extreme and false. It is not baseless: Certainly Justin provides a disturbingly vivid example of how some Internet users DO choose to use webcams to engage in pornography. It is misleading and harmful, however, to generalize and state that ALL webcams are used for nothing other than porn.

Do terrorists around the world use cell phones to plan and coordinate violent attacks? Are students around the world using cell phones to cyberbully? Sadly, the answer to both questions is yes. Should we therefore assume that all cell phones are evil and should be banned from the planet? That would be ridiculous. Yet the audience in Oprah’s show in February 2006 seemed to accept this same argument about webcams.

I may be in the minority with this view, but I contend every K-12 and university classroom in the United States should be equipped with a webcam and microphone in addition to an Internet-connected computer. The reason for this is simple: We live in a global society with an interdependent global economy. As Andrew Churches wrote last week in his outstanding post “21st Century Assessment:”

Collaboration is not a 21st century skill it is a 21st century essential.

As teachers we should be using audio and videoconferencing technologies REGULARLY when we participate in and lead professional development workshops. Our students should be utilizing audio and videoconferencing technologies EVERY WEEK as regular elements of their classwork. Encouraging this type of regular digital collaboration is not a repetition of history, it is a tangible way to recognize the dramatically different economic landscape in which we live and make appropriate behavioral modifications in response to that new understanding. Without a webcam and a microphone, how will learners in our classrooms make these regular, critical connections? On their own cell phones when they get outside the school building? We shouldn’t limit student and teacher opportunities for collaboration to their own free time and their own personal telecommunications devices.

Videoconferencing has been limited in the past by access to costly hardware equipment, but those days are clearly over. In addition to $20 webcams, videoconferencing has already moved onto cellular phones in parts of Europe and the far east. In the United States, cell phone services like Video Share from AT&T are but a small preview of the videoconferencing technologies which are literally on our doorstep. Should we accept the view presented by this Oprah show from 2006 that “nothing good can be done with a webcam?” Certainly not. We should heed the advice of many when it comes to the issue of Internet safety, and take multiple steps to address the issues which are raised here. Just as an informed organization today approaches network security with a “defense in depth” approach, families, school groups, and communities should also approach Internet safety in a similar way.

4. CULTIVATING DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP SKILLS SHOULD BE OUR FOCUS

Some “Internet safety experts” like Parry Aftab suggest banning your child from having any access to social networking websites like MySpace, or sitting by/with your child every moment s/he is using a social networking website. This is completely unrealistic, in my view. Parry writes:

Professionals recommend either denying your children access to MySpace, or sitting there with them as they use it. This mom agrees. Of course kids go to other friend’s houses and use MySpace, but that requires increased supervision by the friend’s parents. MySpace damage must be discussed and taken seriously.

I spoke with an Edmond parent earlier this summer whose 8th grade daughter spends 2.5 hours EACH NIGHT on Facebook. The daughter does not talk with friends on the phone, she does not use IM or email, she uses Facebook. How many kids are “out there” like this? A lot. As parents, are we going to try and ban our children from EVER being on a social networking website of ANY kind, regardless of their age? I certainly agree that depending on the age of a child, social networking sites like MySpace are NOT appropriate. Like other issues which come up in parenting, decisions have to be made based on a variety of factors including the age and maturity of the child. Like it or not, however, we DO live in a media-centric society in which the Internet is playing an ever more important role. Google HAS and continues to create an electronic porfolio about every single one of us. The question should NOT be whether or not, as a parent, you are going to allow your child at some point to establish an online presence, instead it should be WHEN are you going to start encouraging your child to proactively and responsibly manage their online identity which will likely be one of the most important factors future employers take into consideration both before and after formal job interviews?

We must cultivate digital ethics as digital citizens. No, that is likely NOT one of your assigned state standards, but it is imperative to address with your own students as well as your own children in the months ahead none-the-less.

There are many more issues which this episode from Oprah raised and continues to raise, but I think I will close here. It was very worthwhile to watch this segment with my wife and discuss it at length. I wish, like the PBS Frontline special “Growing Up Online,” Oprah would choose to make the full-length video of that episode viewable for free online. While I still maintain we need to focus on constructive ways to address these issues and not merely point out the problems, there IS great value in catalyzing conversations about these issues– and Oprah certainly does that well in this case as well as others. The key is the ongoing CONVERSATION and dialog about these issues. Our need for “digital dialog” is the reason I started the Digital Dialog Ning many months ago. In the months ahead, I hope conversations will continue there and elsewhere about these issues and the ways we can address them as parents, educators, and community members. From these conversations can come actions, which can and will change the world in tangible ways for those we are able to influence in our own lives and contexts.

Technorati Tags:
webcam, porn, pornography, oprah, dialog, parent, parenting, education, school, myspace, safety, internetsafety, isafety, ethics, social, networking, socialnetworking, facebook

Ever since Dean Shareski showed me his Sony GC1 Net-Sharing Cam (along with some other, similarly priced cameras) at NECC 2008 several weeks ago I’ve aspired to add a camera like this to my digital backpack. Yesterday at our local Ultimate Electronics store in Oklahoma City, I found a Sony GC1 display model for sale without a box, manual, cables or charger, for just $50. This was too good of a bargain to pass up.

Much to my delight, I’ve found the GC1 to be a joy to use today, and am only disappointed that this model has been discontinued by Sony and is no longer available for purchase. (Unless you buy one used or happen upon a remaining demo model, as I did yesterday.) I thought I would have to buy an AC charger from Sony or Radio Shack, but it turns out the same standard USB cable which is used to transfer photos and video from the camera can also be used to charge it. Sweet! Since I had a USB cable already, along with a 4 GB Sony memory card I picked up on sale in March at a ridiculously low price, I really don’t need anything else to fully utilize and enjoy the GC1.

Dean wrote the the post “Sony Net-Sharing Camcorder Review” back in January, and more recently (in June right before NECC) the post “Comparing little video cameras.” Generally cameras in this category cost $150 to $200, so picking one up for $50 really was a great deal. In his most recent post, Dean observed “The Sony definitely does not play nice with the Mac,” but this was not my impression. I wasn’t able to use the GC1 as a webcam with QuickTime Pro or Ustream, but it did mount fine on my Macbook’s desktop and allowed me to drag both 5 megapixel images as well as 320×240 MP4 videos right onto my hard drive where I uploaded them readily. This is the first “little video camera” I’ve ever used like this before, however, so my frame of comparison reference is admittedly more limited than Dean’s. If what I’ve experienced today is limited functionality, however, I can’t wait to see what a more fully featured camera will offer!

We recorded some short videos in the “Tinkering Garage” at the Oklahoma City Science museum today. I posted several to Flickr, since videos less than 90 seconds can be posted and shared there, and was very pleased with how fast and relatively painless this process was.

I also attempted to email a video up to a .Mac gallery I setup previously with iPhoto, but apparently that video is still being processed as it hasn’t shown up for me yet in the gallery.

Some of the initial reviews of the Sony GC1 were less than enthusiastic last fall when this pocket camcorder first came out, and perhaps that is the reason Sony has discontinued it. I think the functionality and ease-of-use of this type of digital camera and camcorder is amazing, however, and I look forward to both using it more in the future as well as learning about other camera / pocket camcorder options like this which we may be able to start utilizing as standard equipment in the digital backpacks provided to participants in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices oral history / digital storytelling project.

Of course, many cell phones now offer photo and video recording functionality which can rival pocket camcorders like the GC1. I do like the fact that the native recording format is MP4, and that I can record in 640×480 video resolution at 30 fps if desired. (The default setting is 320×240 at 30 fps.) Pocket camcorders like these are sure to provide continuing challenges for the ethical and responsible uses of digital technologies in our schools and communities. We need to be talking about digital citizenship much more than we currently are in many schools and classrooms.

Have you had positive or negative experiences with pocket camcorders? Do you have a model you recommend?

Technorati Tags:
video, camcorder, record, pocket, sony, gc1, school, citizenship

The Webkinz display area at a local JC Penny’s store in Oklahoma City today looked pretty impressive at first glance.

As my own children explored and examined the Webkinz pets available for sale, however, they discovered the following LARGE number of pets had been pillaged.

Their unique Internet access codes had been removed from the plastic pouches attached to the animals, or cut/ripped off entirely. The codeless animals which had been identified by sales staff as missing their code had been marked down half price. Hopefully well-intentioned adults wanting to purchase a Webkinz pet for a child will realize that without an Internet code, a Webkinz pet is no different from a “plain” stuffed animal. No Internet code, no Webkinz web access.

On a related note, thanks to Maria Knee’s suggestion in a podcast posted by Bob Sprankle last year, I used the Webkinz website several times last year in talks I shared with students about Internet safety and online social networking. Many students are learning about online safety issues contextually through Webkinz and other tween social networking websites. In several cases, students I asked to share their experiences on Webkinz (particularly with accounts they had lost control of because of simple or shared passwords) provided the most potent and memorable moments during these presentations.

It’s sad to see prolific evidence of Webkinz thefts like we did today at the mall. My kids all understood we were seeing the evidence of crimes committed at the store, which were just like shoplifting.

Technorati Tags:
webkinz, theft, steal, ethics, shoplift, jcpenny, mall

The Media Education Lab at Temple University continues to create and publish a variety of outstanding materials for educators and students relating to intellectual property issues, copyright, and fair use. A discussion about copyright and their September 2007 publication “The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy” (PDF) will be facilitated by Kristin Hokanson at EduBloggerCon San Antonio this coming Saturday. In the proposed description for this session, Kristin wrote:

The Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Education will be released in November [2008] and will be endorsed by a number of educational groups, including The National Association for Media Literacy Education and others. The Statement will help bring clarity to the problem of copyright confusion by clearly identifying four common educational practices that rely on the use of digital copyrighted materials for educational use as qualifying for the fair use exemption.

This sounds like GREAT information important for every teacher, administrator and student using media in our 21st century classrooms!

A 5.5 minute video about this research project is also available on YouTube as well as the Media Education Lab’s website:

I’ve added a link to this report on my workshop wiki “Copyright, Fair Use, Intellectual Property & Podcasting.” This sounds like a GREAT topic for conversations at EduBloggerCon! I’ve emailed Kristin and asked for permission to non-commercially record and share this session.

Technorati Tags:
copyright, fairuse, intellectualproperty, school, teacher, education, law, legal