Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Today was day 2 of our July Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshop for educators, and this afternoon’s agenda involved three hours of (almost) uninterrupted work time for teachers, administrators, and librarians participating in the workshop. In the first day and a half of our workshop, educators learned:

• How to plan and organize a digital story using our “storytelling map” and COV project planning guide
• to use their Olympus WS-110 digital audio recorder to record interviews “in the field”
• to use their Platronics headset with Audacity to record and edit audio
• to use Switch software to convert WMA files into MP3 format and import the files into Audacity
• How to find openly licensed images on Flickr Creative Commons and WikiPedia
• How to use either PhotoStory3 or iMovie 6 HD (both free downloads) to combine their selected images and final audio file into a digital story
• How to upload and share their finished digital story on our Ning learning community

In addition to helping teachers with their questions, I took this opportunity to explore and utilize JumpCut to create my first-ever online edited digital story titled “Jim Thorpe: An American Athletic Legend.”

I do love iMovie and am fairly enthusiastic about PhotoStory3 (as enthusiastic as I probably can get about a free Windows-based application) but I’ve been yearning for a web-based video editing solution for digital storytelling that will function the same on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers. I heard about Jumpcut several years ago and have had it listed as one of several web-based video editing solutions on my main digital storytelling workshop curriculum wiki, but until today I’d never actually taken the time to create a full digital story with it.

Overall, I am VERY pleased and impressed with JumpCut. It does not appear filmmakers have the ability to customize the Ken Burns effect in JumpCut videos like you can do with PhotoStory3 and iMovie, which is a big shortcoming, but in general the functionality is excellent for projects like ours in Celebrate Oklahoma Voices. We use Audacity to create the entire background audio track for the digital story and then sequence/time still photos to accompany that audio track. JumpCut works great for this type of workflow.

I’m eager to experiment more with JumpCut. I’m not sure if we’ll ever entirely abandon client-side video/photo and digital storytelling software programs like PhotoStory3 and iMovie, but it is certainly powerful to find a free, web-based tool like JumpCut which “just works” to do the things we need from a basic filmmaking perspective. The fact that Yahoo owns JumpCut is hopefully a good sign that the site will be around for awhile. I wonder if we’ll see Google create or buy a web-based digital storytelling tool/site like this at some point? Our COV advisory committee has been discussing the possibility of offering several one-day workshops starting next spring around our state which would focus on using free web-based tools like GabCast and JumpCut along with existing technology tools like phones and cell phone cameras to create digital stories. Currently our COV project participants pay $150 and receive approximately $500 in technology equipment in what we term “a digital backpack.” It certainly IS exciting and beneficial to have “new technology toys” to use and learn about, but from a scalability standpoint it will be good to look at less costly (and even free) approaches to digital storytelling which can be shared with even larger audiences. Of all the equipment in our current digital backpacks, I think the Olympus digital audio recorder is the most valuable. I just wish it recorded directly into mp3 format instead of windows media audio! (That way we could ditch Switch software and the need to convert that audio before using it in Audacity.)

I’m quite enthused with JumpCut. Other web-based digital storytelling tools I’ve heard of but not used extensively include EyeSpot, Viddler, and Motionbox. I’m not sure if these three sites offer functionality similar to JumpCut or not. (I need to read and study Alan Levine’s Storytools more closely!) He lists JumpCut under the category “Video Tools” which “allow upload, editing, and remixing of video to create new content, playable through a web page.” He also includes SplashCast and JayCut, neither of which I’ve tried yet. For our project, tools like VoiceThread, DigitalStoryteller, and BubbleShare won’t work because they are limited to audio narration tied to a specific image. We need the functionality (which JumpCut supports) to import an entire audio file as background, and then sequence/time those photos as desired while adding some effects like Ken Burns.

Tomorrow our project participants in both our workshop locations (the Oklahoma Heritage Association and the Oklahoma City Public Schools administration building) will be uploading their completed videos to our Ning learning community site. It will be “showtime!” My 4 minute digital story about Jim Thorpe isn’t earth shattering or amazing content-wise, but it certainly is a big leap forward for me personally since it was edited entirely online!
To learn more about Jim Thorpe, who truly was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived, read the current WikiPedia article for him. I used paragraphs from that article in my digital story, and indicated these were read at the conclusion of the story. The story of Jim’s life is both inspiring and tragic. How sad that his Olympic medals were not restored to him until 30 years after his death.
In addition to creating this digital story this afternoon, I also created several resource lists for our project participants which you are also welcome to use. These address Music and Audio Resources for digital stories as well as Copyright and Fair Use issues. I created these as “list pages” on our project’s Google site, and I REALLY like the functionality of this page type.

This podcast is a recording of a session I shared on July 9, 2008, at the Missouri Distance Learning Association’s Annual Conference in Osage Beach, Missouri, titled “Digital Learning Objects on the Open Web.” The ideas shared in this session were strongly influenced by Karen Fasimpaur’s February 2008 presentation at NCCE titled “Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All.” The official conference program description for this session was: The Internet’s world-wide web offers unprecedented access, publication, and collaboration opportunities for connected digital learners. In this session we will explore the dynamic world of digital learning objects, paying particular attention to the ways learning objects can be effectively integrated into existing course curriculum and student assignments for both K-12 and higher education learners. We will also explore the educational ethic of publishing content on the open web, which contrasts sharply with traditional notions of limiting access to content and ideas by sharing on a closed web via login-restricted learning management systems like BlackBoard, WebCT, or Moodle. Creative Commons licensing is playing an important role in the continued evolution of the digital learning object landscape, and a case will be presented for encouraging learners at all levels to both utilize as well as contribute to learning object collections shared under permissive Creative Commons licenses.

 

 Podcast265: Digital Learning Objects on the Open Web [65:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (883)

Show Notes:

1. My wiki curriculum and links for this presentation
2. Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All by Karen Fasimpaur (podcast available too)
3. K-12 OpenEd Educational Content Links
4. Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia (on Fora.tv in 2006)
5. WikiBooks
6. Free-Reading
7. OER Commons
8. Curriki
9. NMC Learning Object Initiative (Retired)
10. NMC Learning Object Repositories
11. Traveler’s Guide to the Learning Object Landscape (PDF)
12. Elusive Vision: Challenges Impeding the Learning Object Economy (PDF)
13. Creative Commons
14. More Than Cool Tools - K-12 Online Conference 2007 keynote by Alan Levine, Brian Lamb, and D’Arcy Norman (New Tools Strand)

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

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

Technorati Tags: opencontent, content, copyright, creativecontent, elearning, distributedlearning, distancelearning, openweb, closedweb, learningmanagementsystem, licensing

These are my notes from David Thornburg’s NECC 2008 presentation “Open Minds: Open Education and Open Culture” on June 30, 2008. David has granted me permission to non-commercially record and share this presentation subsequently. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

dthornburg [at] aol [dot] com

David has handouts not related to this session, related to a new project he’s started
- this session will include technology but it is a broader topic
- concerns the state of the WORLD right now
- I am an American expatriot, I am a resident of Brazil, I work both in the US and Brazil and commute back and forth

Have you noticed when you were outside the US you were able to think in a bigger way about some issues?
- we are in a point of new ages of discovery
- one of the questions I ask now, do PCs have the potential to be as transformative in our culture as the book
- what will it take to make this vision real?
- will this benefit the entire world?
- what about 1:1 computing

Indiana and Mr. Michael Huffman are pioneering the uses of open technologies for children
- open source software: see the Open Source pavilion that Steve Hargedon is running

challenge we face in education:
- pedagogical practices have not been standing still
- Gardner’s multiple intelligences, many other things
- the challenge isn’t that we aren’t taking advantage of new discoveries in pedagogies and taking advantage of them
- the challenge is that technology is changing faster than classroom practices

now our technologies let us do things that our pedagogical practices have not caught up with
- lots of sessions now are addressing issues:
– given current technology, how should classroom practices change?
– given current classroom practice, how should technology change

We marvel at current technologies, kids today just view it as normal
- kids are going to marvel some day that they didn’t have 3D holographic projectors when they were in school

problem with racing technology bandwagons is that sometimes we lose other things

Now, more than ever, we need access for every learner in the world
- before these tools, you couldn’t do these things AT ALL

Bringing tools to all children
- 1:1 projects must be scalable
- sustainable
- low cost hardware and open source OS and critical applications are the ONLY way the goal can be achieved
- this does not mean there is no room for some proprietary titles, but costs must be scalable and sustainable
- single platform software is anti-child

I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THIS POINT ABOUT SINGLE PLATFORM SOFTWARE BEING ANTI-CHILD, AND HOW WE MUST PURSUE 1:1 IMPLEMENTATION PROJECTS AGGRESSIVELY

It is quite different kids you have in class may have very different computers at home
- children need to be able to use THE SAME SOFTWARE on any platform they have
- if you look at the number of vendors who are actually rising to that challenge, t

Tech4Learning is one of the companies leading the industry in this regard: Windows. Macintosh, and Linux versions

vendors who just publish on 1 platform are serving the platform and not the child
- I happen to believe in the children
- so I promote and support software that runs on everything

On the hardware side of things
- lots of talk about OLPC
- OLPC is definitely still around, has lots of management changes, not clear where it is going, they are continuing to go in the future

the OLPC has had a major impact on the industry
- before the XO was announced, you couldn’t buy a laptop for less than $1200
- now you can go to Tiger Direct and buy a powerful laptop for $350, without rebates and no limits on how many you can buy
- so hats off to MIT and this project

The Intel Classmate
- this machine is here at NECC]
- not as cute as some other machines
- can get your choice of OS: either Windows or Linux

Another machine in the One2OneMate: a Linux computer
- it looks like an AlphaSmart
- is a full blown laptop

Another example: koolu
- 10 watt power consumption

large hydroelectric dam is on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay
- that dam generates all the electricity for all of Paraguay and half of brazil
- if the number of computers in the world doubled, we’d have to build 20 more dams of this capacity!

Another Example: N Computing Box
- idea is most personal computers have far more power than any individual student is using at one time
- the processor actually runs on just 1 box and is shared

lots of talk about the iPhone, but it was/is a closed platform

Our friends in Brazil who love the iPhone bought them in the US and have them working in Brazil
- but why have to do that

There is a completely open source phone: NEO1973
- you want to add new features to your cell phone, go right ahead! It’s open source.

An argument was started a few years ago that students don’t need a computer, they just need personal storage devices
- I’m more willing to accept this idea now
- if you have enough computers in your community, this is viable
- that is a BIG “if”

The price of flash drives is coming

booth 5260: you can get a 1 gig pen drive for free after you play a game
- if I had said that a few years ago, this room

new version of linux called Puppy Linux
- can put that entire OS on a flash drive

Why open source?
- do the math
- (number of computers) x $100/ year to just run the Windows OS
- 2/3rds of Indiana students do not know they are using Linux! (and they didn’t care. they just cared about their applications and data.)
- applications are robust
- service calls are minimized
- new applications are being created every day
- applications can be shared legally

In Africa: Freedom Toaster
- take a CD, choose the software you want, and you can take the software home
- you know how the principal makes money selling pencils? Try this at your school!

some African countries are letting people also upload files, like music (I am sharing this as some factual information, not as a recommendation)

Linux and Education
- finally easy to install and maintain
- reliable
- low total cost of ownership
- graphical user inferface
- applicable and usable by all grade levels

Now lets go back down to Brazil
- photo of “the digital port”

instead of going northeast and risking capture, some Dutch Brazilians went NW and were looking for an island with rivers on both sides
- came ashore
- the same Dutch from Brazil founded New York

consider Brazilian kids in our neighborhoods, who 20 years ago would not have been in school
- curriculum in Brazil is inquiry driven and project-based

President Lula was asked by Microsoft to please use Windows
- He asked Microsoft to charge them just $3 just like China is
- Microsoft refused and said they would change $100 per copy

we have to export 60 bags of soybeans then for every license of Windows

we think of Linux as an emerging market here in the US
- 36 million children in Brazil will be using Linux by December 2008
- 52 million by the end of 2009

some people in our country are viewing children as wallets, not as human beings

Computers for All: Brazilian governmental program
- stores in Brazil sell both food and technology
- special logo on machine means the government will give you a 24 month interest free loan
- sold 800,000 of these machines without any marketing at all (grass roots word of mouth)

some countries get serious about education and technology, and that is really cool

MLK quotation: 3-31-1968: “Through our scientific and technological genious, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we haev not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood.”

We can talk of web 2.0 and these technologies
- the bottom line is that we CAN make of our world a brotherhood

Minister of Culture for Brazil: Gilberto Gil (also a singer and songwriter)
- founder of the movement Tropicalismo
- idea is that you understand someone else’ culture not so you can appreciate it from afar, but rather use it yourself in your own life and culture [APPROPRIATE AND REMIX IT]

Brazilian filmmakers are generally located on the coast
Quotations from Gil:
- a global movement has risen up in affirmation of digital culture…
- the creative impluses of teh Brazilian people need access to the digital world…

Gil is setting up schools on filmmaking in the interior, teaching final cut pro, seeing what types of creativity and innovation come out of this

Look at some of the AFrican cultures
- corn rows have a very rich cultural history
- there is a mathematical pattern there which is a fractal
- you can create a logo procedure which replicates that
- so now a kid who knows about corn rows (goes back at least to the 1700s) can now understand the mathetmatics of that
- and maybe that becomes a pathway to get students interested in mathematics who might

how can we build bridges to understanding and learning
a lot of schools now are like the United Nations
Many things like this can be used as pathways to learning, which are not in any textbooks

Breaking borders with software: CMap
- kind of like an ugly version of Inspiration, but it is a collaborative tool
- the map can stay open to other people and it doesn’t matter which continent you’re on

noticed when kids get stuck making a contact map?
- in CMap click on the suggestions map
- the program looks at what you have done so far, compares it to other Cmaps made by others on the web, and then gives you words it “thinks” (DAVID IS BEING APPROPRIATELY ANTHROPOMORPHIC HERE) might help you
- the idea may have come from Zimbabwe, it doesn’t matter
- you have to be online to use this feature

CMap runs equally well on whatever platform you have
- this is about the children, not the vendors

If your school server wants to be visible to the rest of the world, you can set this up with your firewall
- then your folders become available to the entire world, if you want
- you can also keep them restricted
- each child can then decide if their files can be viewed, commented on, or fully edited (sets permissions)
- this is about empowerment

Copyright has a very important role in our socity
- the default assumption in this country is that even if you don’t put a copyright sign on your work, you own it
- this is problematic when you want to share rights
- the clearinghouse for this is Creative Commons
- we have some papers on this on our website
- when you see the CC mark, that means you can freely use this without any legal restrictions
[HE IS TALKING ABOUT CC-ATTRIBUTION HERE, FOLKS SHOULD REALIZE NOT ALL CC LICENSES PERMIT COMMERCIAL WORKS AND DERIVATIVE WORKS]

I think these are very powerful and good ideas

what happens when we go from liberty, equality and fraternity to rip, remix and burn?

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society: H20 Playlist

MIT has made the bulk of its courseware available online
- once you say it is NOT about the content, you have to be really clear WHAT it IS about?
- what is it that justififes your salary then? it’s not just this body of knowledge that you are trying to protect

Gilberto Gill quotation: “Together we might become the most powerful laboratory of culture mixture in the world. (If we are) isolated from one another we may no longer be able to achieve that, since there is an increasing international tendency toward a multi-cultural style that hinders mixture, trying to reinforce borders as a strategy for the preservation of differences.”

Tropicalia is about cultural mixing: building networks, not walls
- It is xenophilic, not xenophobic

I like salads: you can keep the different tastes!
- there are surprises in salads that you don’t find in a soup bowl
- elements of different cultures (in the metaphor) are preserved
- this is powerful
- how are we doing in that regard

There is a movement afoot to build a wall with Mexico
- this debate will continue for some time
- if McCain is elected he may not build it, he was born in Panama
- there is a constitutional issue with that, but who has cared about the US Constitution the past few years anyway?

There was a problem with illegal aliens being used to build walls on the border
- story of listing some of the famous, very successful immigrants who at one time were here in the U.S illegally and whether

What is your fear?
- is someone going to sneak onto your property at night and mow your lawn?
- do you fear them sneaking into your house during the day, making your bed and cleaning your toilet

Story of a PhD from Monterrey who worked on the GNOME desktop
- is on a waiting list for 16 years to get a visa
- that is an exclusion policy, not an immigration policy
- 150K envelopes for H1B visas last year

Picture of Norma, David’s wife, took a process of 7 years and $15,000 in legal fees for her normalization documents

the longest part of the process in getting a Brazilian visa was fingerprinting

Questions
- who built the infrastructure of this country? Railroads?
- East: Irish
- West: Chinese

the infrastructure of this country was built by foreigners
- today it is being
- we have negative immigration now: we have more Irish leaving the US now than are coming
- we have a big challenge in terms of cultural issues, in the world we are living in

as we become more isolated, that diminishes the entire planet
- I want our children to see what others have, and others to see what we have

picture of the statue of liberty
- quoting poem from statue

I am so proud to be a citizen of a country people still fight to get INTO not to get OUT

book recommendation: “The Flight of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida
- we are seeing more people becoming bi-nationals
- not just about Brazil
- through modern telecommunications, the market is not just our neighborhood, it is the entire blue ball

familiar with the Phoenix probe
- the found salt and ice: they are THIS close to a good margarita!
we are really making huge progress

Toh Friedman: “The way to keep good jobs in this country is not by building big walls, but by attracting people with big ideas.”

“Your people, your people….” When will you realize that your people are our people too! (Graffiti david

We are all each others’ people on this planet.

Technorati Tags:
necc08, necc2008, n08s264, thornburg

At EduBloggerCon 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, on June 28th, some controversy arose regarding the presence of videographers hired by Pearson Education. Steve Hargadon, who was the primary organizer of EduBloggerCon, gave permission to Pearson to attend and videotape many of the sessions pending permission from the presenters and speakers themselves. Today I had an opportunity to interview Dr. Elaine Roberts, the Director of Product Development and Professional Growth for Pearson, about the video recording which took place at EduBloggerCon this year and Pearson’s plan for utilizing this video content. In my view, it is a real compliment that a respected and large educational publishing company like Pearson views the conversations and ideas discussed by educators at EduBloggerCon to be important enough to document and share. If we, as change agents in our schools and communities, want our voices and ideas to gain a broader and more mainstream audience, I think we should embrace opportunities like this to both share our perspectives as well as further educate educational publishing companies themselves. Respecting intellectual property rights is VERY important, and the conversations which took place before, during, and after EduBloggerCon regarding the recording and sharing of ideas are needed. How do we change? Through conversations. Hopefully the opportunity to have Pearson record and share participant perspectives at EduBloggerCon on Friday will lead to more constructive conversations about learning and educational change in the 21st century in the classrooms and educational board rooms around our nation and world. We’ve still had LOTS of great opportunities for “unconference” conversations at NECC 2008, and things are just getting underway here in San Antonio!

 

 Podcast 260: EduBloggerCon 2008, Recording, Intellectual Property and Recording: A Conversation with Elaine Roberts of Pearson [13:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (898)

Show Notes:

1. Ewan McIntosh: Edubloggercon’s not an unconference: here’s why
2. Stephanie Sandifer: EduBloggercon 2008 Reflections
3. Vinnie Vrotny: Growing Pains at NECC’s EduBloggerCon 08
4. Tim Stahmer: EduBloggerCon Reflections
5. Will Richardson: I’ll Be in the Hallway 
6. Dean Sharesk: EdubloggerCon 2008
7. Scott McLeod: NECC 2008 - Edubloggercon
8. All posts indexed by Technorati for EBC08
9. EduBloggerCon 2008 wiki
10. NECC 2008 Conference Ning
11. Pearson Education

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

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

Technorati Tags: ebc08, necc08, necc2008, necc, intellectualproperty, pearson, record, recording, technology, school, change, controversy

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

I have created a 1 page PDF file titled, “Guidelines for Non-commercial Recording and Podcasting at Educational Conferences,” in response to ongoing discussions about session recording and podcasting at NECC 2008.

At the bottom of the document, I included the following disclaimer:

* NOTE: These guidelines are provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Individuals seeking legal advice and opinions should consult a lawyer licensed to practice law in their jurisdiction. The Podcasting Guide from Creative Commons (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide) is an outstanding source of information on these issues. Also refer to Colette Vogele’s podcast, Rules for the Revolution (www.rulesfortherevolution.com).

If you think I’ve left something out of this document which should be included please let me know. I wanted to keep this limited to a single, printable page. Feel free to use and modify this handout for your own purposes/use, or those of your organization.

I had not previously heard of Colette Vogele’s podcast, Rules for the Revolution, and am subscribing in iTunes now. According to the EFF webpage where I found her podcast linked, she is a practicing lawyer in San Francisco, a non-resident fellow with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and the primary author of “The Podcasting Legal Guide” hosted by Creative Commons.

If you are looking for additional resources related to podcasting, copyright, and intellectual property issues as they relate to educators and students, refer to my wiki curriculum for my presentation, “Copyright, Fair Use, Intellectual Property & Podcasting” which I shared at COSN in March 2008.

Technorati Tags:
podcasting, necc2008, necc08, intellectualproperty, law, legal, podcast, guidelines, creativecommons, guide

Great news! Thanks to comments from Mike Muir and Tammy Worcester on my blog this morning and yesterday, I was alerted to ISTE’s announcement emailed to NECC 2008 presenters at 23:15 GMT on 21 June 2008 (yesterday evening here in US Central time):

Dear NECC Presenter:

ISTE recently disseminated a code of conduct regarding video and audio recordings at NECC 2008 which has generated some thoughtful and energetic discussion.

We welcome your interest and comments and would like to clarify and amend the code of conduct for NECC 2008.

For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.

However, for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive.

Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from both the session presenter(s) and ISTE.

Thank you. We look forward to an ongoing dialog about fair use.

NECC Program Staff

I have several responses to this new announcement, but the first and most important one is this: Thank you ISTE leaders for being “plugged in” and listening to the ideas and input of your members and constituents! I am very pleased to see ISTE making a policy change on this issue for many reasons, but one of the most important is the MODELING opportunity which ISTE has and is utilizing to show educational leaders around the world how new media recording, sharing, and collaboration technologies can be used CONSTRUCTIVELY to improve opportunities we have for professional learning and growth. Thank you ISTE leaders!

The NECC 2008 Attendees: Registration: Overview webpage which contains the original code of conduct has not been updated yet, but I’m sure it will be soon. (It IS Saturday here in the U.S., after all.)

This ISTE announcement sparked a large volume of discussion and conversations about intellectual property, new media coverage and publication, and educational conference participation in the blogosphere and in face-to-face meetups. I understand (thanks to a tweet from John Maklary) many people at the Classroom 2.0 meetup in Houston, Texas were talking about this yesterday. I sense this situation triggered MANY conversations at MANY levels with MANY folks. In this context, I think catalyzing these conversations is a wonderful thing.

I haven’t seen Miguel Guhlin get as worked up and passionate about an issue as he did with his original post on this topic, “NECC 2008- Old Fears and Habits Rule.” To Miguel’s credit along with ISTE leaders like Leslie Connery, these thoughts and emotions translated into thoughtful email messages which were not only received, but also thoughtfully considered. In reviewing the background of what transpired late this week, I encourage you to read Miguel’s posts “Not the Evil Empire” and “ISTE Responds.” According to Miguel, Leslie wrote:

We …have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC… Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community… For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.

One immediate result of these blog posts, email messages, and conversations is the official email announcement from ISTE which I quoted at the beginning of this post. It appears, however, these conversations will continue at an official level, and that is outstanding.

As I wrote in my post last week, “Are teachers in your building parallel players?” it is conversations which change us as individuals, and collective conversations which change the cultures and organizations in which we live, play and work. It takes TIME to change perceptions. It can be frustrating to wait for changes, especially when we see something taking place slowly or a policy announced with which we strongly disagree. Conversations, however, are the key to change. Conversations involve thoughtful sharing but also intentional and careful listening. This photo remains one of my favorites to visually communicate these ideas:

Chris Rogers, a management consultant, echoed this perspective of organizational and cultural change in his comment to my post last week. Chris wrote:

As a management consultant, I view organizations as networks of conversations, through which people make sense of their world and decide how they are going to act. Outcomes emerge from the interplay of these formal and - most importantly - INFORMAL conversations, and the actions that flow from them. As the content and patterns of conversation change, so does the organization.
The more scope that individuals have for meaningful conversation with others, the more likely it is that novel perspectives will emerge and new behaviours take hold, as people coalesce informally around these emergent themes.

These perspectives have been important as I’ve attempted to articulate “who I am” on my personal bio page, which includes the phrase “catalyst for creative engagement and collaborative learning.” According to WikiPedia:

Catalysis is the process by which the rate of a chemical reaction (or biological process) is increased by means of the addition of a species known as a catalyst to the reaction. What makes a catalyst different from a chemical reagent is that whilst it participates in the reaction, it is not consumed in the reaction. That is, the catalyst may undergo several chemical transformations during the reaction, but at the conclusion of the reaction, the catalyst is regenerated unchanged. As a catalyst is regenerated in a reaction, often only a very small amount is needed to increase the rate of the reaction.

Authentic conversations have great potential to constructively change ALL the participants. Conversations are NOT simply one-way delivery exercises in content delivery, but a dialog. My favorite definition of dialog comes from Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson, who defined it as “a meaningful exchange of perceptions in a non-threatening environment.” When we engage in conversations and dialog, we grow in our thinking and our intellectual development. Sometimes, cognitive changes lead to behavioral changes. Sometimes, those changes lead to larger political and policy-level changes in organizations.

To ISTE’s credit and specifically to the credit of ISTE’s current leadership, it is clear they ARE listening. And to the credit of many others, like Miguel Guhlin and Christian Long (who wrote not only in their blogs but also directly to the leaders of ISTE on this topic) we’ve seen in a few short days how the voices and opinions of ISTE members can and DO shape the policies of the organization.

Along these lines of organizational participation, Sylvia Martinez summarized the opportunity this situation presented and continues to present to US, the members of ISTE, in her blog comment post yesterday:

ISTE is a member organization. This is not “us” against “them”. Every member should expect that these policies are open for discussion and can be changed.

This is a perfect opportunity for ISTE members to make their voices heard - so now seems like the time to get involved. How about coming to the ISTE Member Welcome session Sunday afternoon and state the case there?

In fact, in past years, wasn’t there a member meeting at NECC to discuss ISTE policy and direction? Did that go away? Or am I not seeing it in the schedule?

I plead totally guilty of ignoring my duty as an ISTE member to speak up and take part in the organization policy development.

Sylvia is absolutely correct, this IS and REMAINS “a perfect opportunity for ISTE members to make their voices heard.” In much of the world, the opportunities for individuals to freely participate in public discussions about organizational policies and procedures are sharply limited. I know we are not talking directly about human rights issues, terrorism, or other more “explicitly political” topics, but the subjects we are addressing here and the processes through which we are discussing them are HIGHLY relevant and important to multiple facets of our connected, digital lives and societies in the early 21st century.

For some time, I’ve sensed that the potential for new media technologies like blogs, podcasts, photo and video sharing sites to constructively catalyze and organize conversations focused on supporting change at political, organizational, and societal levels is HUGE. If I had the time and opportunity to develop and lead a university course this fall on any topic, I would choose citizen journalism. When new media technologies are combined with more established communication technologies like email, television, radio, and print publications, the results CAN be dramatic. Any of us are just a phone call away from an invitation to be on Oprah. It doesn’t take a traditional television broadcast program leader like Oprah, however, to galvanize attention on a specific topic or situation today. “Regular folks” can do that as well, via the extended, digital learning communities which now connect us. While we may feel isolated and alone at times in our individual educational contexts, the web 2.0 world has offered us the potential (which is now only beginning to be realized) of drawing us ever-closer together in more tightly connected communities. When leaders in these contexts are responsive to the ideas and imaginations of individual members, the result can be a dynamic, forward-thinking and relevant role for the organization in helping influence and guide others who are both members and non-members.

The advocacy issues at stake in this conversation over who “owns” the right to give permission to record and share non-commercial copies of a person’s ideas at an educational conference extend far beyond San Antonio, Texas, at NECC in a few weeks. The tools and communication potential now at our fingertips as bloggers, podcasters, educational change agents and digitally connected learners in the 21st century are unprecedented in human history. It may seem repetitive and now blase, since I stay this fairly often, but I personally find this reality to be mind-blowing. Convergence is taking place before our very eyes, and we are participating in this digital communications revolution.

Technorati Tags:
iste, necc, necc2008, necc08, podcast, podcasting, policy, code, conduct, revised, revision, recording, audio, video, sharing, web2, conference, leadership, modeling

Although ISTE has published a controversial “Video/Audio Recording Code Of Conduct” for the NECC 2008 conference in San Antonio, they also have announced facilities will be provided for podcasters at the conference. According to the “NECC Presenter: Final Preconference Email” message this evening:

NEW! PODCASTING SUITE
Room 215 at the convention center will be set up as a resource for people who wish to create podcasts. There will be two stations for conducting and recording interviews and tables with electricity and Internet connections for editing and uploading.

From what I take from this “code of conduct,” ISTE is wanting participants to create podcasts of interviews from the convention hallways and vendor floor, rather than recordings of full conference sessions.

As in the past, selected NECC presentations will be published as podcasts by Apple on the Apple Learning Interchange following the conference. The NECC session program search includes a radio button to query the database for those sessions pre-selected for podcasting.

As of this evening, 27 sessions show up as “pre-selected for podcasting” presentations. I wonder if all these presenters have provided written permission to ISTE in advance that it is OK for their session to be recorded and shared? One of the presentations designated to be officially podcasted is “One Hour PowerPoint: A Strategy for Improving Presentations” by David Jakes and Dean Shareski. I’ve asked them both via twitter:

Has ISTE asked you both to provide written permission for your NECC session to be recorded and shared as a podcast?

It will be interesting to see the answer.

I did submit this evening via email a formal request to ISTE conveners to audio record for subsequent, non-commercial podcast publication 32 different NECC 2008 sessions, including two of my own. Hopefully ISTE will say yes! Since they are providing podcasting facilities at NECC 2008, I’d sure like to be able to use them!

Technorati Tags:
necc, iste, necc2008, necc08, podcasting, podcast, permission, intellectualproperty

This is the first time I have ever seen a statement and legal requirement of this type for an educational conference, and I suspect it will not be the last. According to the current (19 June 2008) NECC 2008 Attendees Registration Overview and Confirmation page, NO ONE is permitted to make a full-length audio recording for an online podcast of any NECC 2008 conference session without the explicit, written permission of BOTH the presenter and ISTE:

In case you are not able to view the Flickr image above in your present location because of content filtering, here is the text of the policy:

VIDEO/AUDIO RECORDING CODE OF CONDUCT

Full video/audio capture of NECC sessions and activities is strictly prohibited without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE. Those holding official ISTE-issued press credentials may capture footage for media coverage purposes only.

Amateur video/audio capture is permitted of ambient environments, informal exchanges and sessions, and sessions and activities not organized by ISTE, etc., provided that appropriate permissions have been granted by the parties affected. ISTE assumes no liability for copyright and/or intellectual property violations that may occur as a result. Amateur video/audio capture is also permitted in NECC sessions and activities provided that the length of capture does not exceed 10 minutes AND appropriate permissions have been granted by the presenter/s.

Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture of NECC sessions be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE.

This policy actually says two different things, as I understand it, which relate to full length session recordings:

1. Prior WRITTEN permission is required from both ISTE and a presenter(s) to record a full length presentation for any purpose. This apparently applies even to recordings made by actual presenters of their own sessions.
2. No COMMERCIAL use of any recording made at NECC can be used without ISTE and the presenter’s written permission.

Given the disruptive power of new media recording, sharing and collaboration technologies, I suppose a policy similar to this addressing these issues is inevitable. In many ways, including the NECC 2008 conference Ning and ISTE’s island in Second Life, ISTE is continuing to lead the way for advocacy of blended learning and digitally-infused professional development strategies. I hope we’ll see this policy and the ways ISTE addresses intellectual property issues continue to evolve and mature. (I feel confident we will.)

I’d like to see a set of fields for presenters which encourages and permits them to explicitly give permission to record and share their session online with audio and video included in the call for proposals. (Let presenters specifically select a Creative Commons license and other terms under which they want to share their presentation. LOTS - in my view a majority - of educators still don’t know about Creative Commons and understand how it can and should be used in education to support the open content movement.) This is what we do for the K-12 Online Conference in our call for proposals, except presenters can’t select a license, they have to agree to the one we’ve selected (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported) in order to submit. (The K12Online08 call has been extended to July 11, btw, giving everyone a week after NECC to complete them!)

To meet these NECC 2008 session podcasting requirements I have and am doing several things. First, I have created a new Podcast Permission and Release page on my blog, which includes a printable PDF form which I can use for presenters to sign face-to-face at a session, and an electronic form which can be completed by a presenter in advance. My plan (at this stage) is to flesh out my planned schedule for sessions to attend at NECC using the online conference planner, and then contact each presenter individually via email whose session I would possibly like to record and share on my podcast. I am thinking I’ll then email ISTE (unfortunately an email contact link is not yet provided on the Video/Audio Recording Code of Conduct page) with a complete list of the sessions I request permission to record and share as non-commercial podcasts. I’ll also (I guess, just to be legally safe) ask for permission to audio record and share MY OWN presentations at NECC 2008. This seems a little silly to do, but appears to be required by the verbage of the current policy.

In the past I have recorded and shared multiple presentations from NECC, but have always done so with the direct, explicit permission of the presenter and NOT ISTE. Having to obtain the permission of ISTE is something new, and will present new hurdles and challenges. It will be interesting to see what they’ll say in response to my requests.

This entire conversation over intellectual property issues and new media recording/sharing is both important and very interesting. This is similar to the conversations (and arguments) which took place at the university where I worked on staff for five years, over “who owns” the distance learning courses and course content created by faculty. This issue is still unresolved at some universities, but many have adopted policies which basically say ownership is “shared” by both the professor and the institution.

In the case of an educational conference like NECC, which is not paying “regular” session presenters anything to share their content, I question the legal basis for ISTE requiring written permission for anyone to record and share a conference session, when that recording and session is done on a non-commercial basis. In the case of a university and a professor who is developing a distance learning course, that academic professional in that case is receiving monetary compensation from the university, and as such their “work for hire” can arguably be co-owned by the paying institution as well as the educator. The situation with an academic conference is different, however. If keynote presenters and others are receiving financial compensation for their sessions, then perhaps the organization hosting the conference could lay claim to the intellectual property shared at their conference. That could be up for a lot of debate, however. I’d think the contracts keynote and spotlight speakers sign for conferences should address these issues. I may ask someone I know at EFF to share this with their lawyers and see if there are precedents to follow and know about in other conference contexts.

Again, I think this issue should be addressed directly in the call for proposals for academic conferences, where presenters are able to directly select a Creative Commons license for their conference presentation and UP FRONT specify the terms under which they are willing to allow or not allow others to record and share their work. At our recent “Survive and Thrive” single mom’s conference in Edmond, Oklahoma, conference conveners asked the Tulsa-based company Conference Resource to record and offer for sale all the presentations shared during the 2 day event. This was very cool, but I was surprised that:

1. Presenters were not asked whether it was OK to record, share and SELL their presentation audio.
2. The company sold audio recordings of each presenter’s session for $6 each, which was about half what they normally charge for events of this type.

Conference organizers SHOULD pursue the option of getting all sessions at an event recorded and shared, but in ALL cases presenter permission should be obtained. (This goes for amateur podcasters as well, of course.) This is particularly important if someone is going to SELL and profit from the recorded audio and/or video files. This permission-granting process is best accomplished at the front end, when presenters submit proposals. I consider it a 21st century educational conference “best practice” to solicit Creative Commons licensing terms from presenters at the outset, and then make those terms available/public on the conference website pages for each session. In addition to listing session tags for bloggers, NECC2009 can and should list whether the presenter consents to audio and/or video recording of his/her session, and the licensing terms of the content under which they are willing to share their recorded ideas.

Amidst all these discussions, I think we need to keep in mind that the ostensible goal of educational conferences and professional development events like NECC is to foster learning, personal growth, collaboration and idea sharing. Some observers (Gary Stager is the main one who comes to my mind in this context) have observed that educational technology conferences like NECC can take on more the atmosphere of a “boat show” than a learning event, and I think there is a LOT of truth to that on the vendor floor from time to time, as well as in some sessions. As leaders of different organizations, both local and national/international, we need to keep our focus on the learning and collaboration opportunities and be careful not to become focused on the “boat show” elements of conferences. Should conference attendees at NECC and other events be free to record partial or complete conference sessions and share them later as podcasts, if they receive permission from the presenters? (That is what I did last year in Atlanta with Dr. Tim Tyson following his closing keynote.) Absolutely yes! Will “we” (volunteer new-media archivists and documentarians of learning conferences) be able to do that this year at NECC 2008 in San Antonio? It looks like that answer is a qualified yes. WITH prior permission, session recording and subsequent online sharing will be possible.

I’ll discuss these issues in greater detail the week following NECC during my breakout session for the Missouri Distance Learning Association’s annual conference (on July 9th) titled “Digital Learning Objects on the Open Web.”

Now, to figure out all the sessions I want to attend at NECC this year…..

Technorati Tags:
necc2008, necc, necc08, podcast, copyright, permission, audio, video, record, recording, iste, legal, property, intellectual, intellectualproperty, own, ownership, openweb, education, learning, conference, technology

CNET’s April 14th article “The ‘500,000-song’ iPod isn’t surprising” caught my attention recently. As the owner of an 80 GB iPod but just a 16 GB iPhone, the desire for additional storage space on a mobile, handheld computer is familiar to me. The article cites a breakthrough by IBM researchers which will increase hard drive capacity by 100 times as well as reduce energy consumption. The summary of this breakthrough (according to the article) is:

So this shorthand would imply a hard drive size of just under 2TB–only 12.5 times bigger than today’s largest iPod.

I recently worked with staff in a school district which has purchased a new video server with over 2 TB of hard drive storage. Yes, that’s right, two terabytes. I first heard about a server with a terabyte of memory when I visited with the son of a professor at Texas Tech a few years ago, who had a RAIDed, homebrew media server with a combined storage capacity of just over a terabyte. At that point, my mind was blown. You mean someone had that much video server storage capacity on a HOME network in 2004? Yes. Now we’re hearing a two terabyte iPod is on the way in a few years, so we’ll be able to hold TWICE that quantity of video storage in the palm of our hands? Yep. Believe the hype. When my elementary age kids are in high school and college, they will likely not believe people ever actually used “floppy disks!”

It is important to note this hard drive research breakthrough does NOT pertain to “solid-state” flash-based digital storage. One basic difference between the iPod Nano, the iPhone, the iPod Shuffle and the “traditional iPod” is that the first three devices (Nano, iPhone, and Shuffle) use flash memory. The “traditional” iPod does not, it uses a mechanical hard drive.

Flash memory devices are not mechanical, but at this point are MUCH more expensive for a comparable amount of storage capacity. The larger iPod (with the greatest amount of storage capacity) continues to use mechanical drives for storage. For more background on the differences between iPod versions, check out the current WikiPedia article for iPod.

On the subject of floppy disks, remember the 1992 advertisement “Don’t Copy That Floppy?” I was reminded of this video a few weeks ago during one of our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshops as we discussed copyright, fair use, and intellectual property issues as they pertain to digital storytelling. The video is available on YouTube. Certainly illegal copying of copyrighted materials remains a concern, but the vocabulary of young people no longer includes the phrase “that floppy.” The Free Software Movement has changed this conversation in basic ways, as has the advent of file sharing. If you use this video as a discussion starter with students or teachers, be sure to point this out!

How much storage will my youngest daughter’s iPhone (or other converged, mobile computer) have when she starts college in 2022? I’m sure that figure would boggle my mind at this point.

I am pretty familiar with Moore’s Law, which focuses on computational processing power, but had not heard of Kryder’s law previously until reading this CNET article. Kryder’s law (according to WikiPedia) states that:

magnetic disk areal storage density doubles annually.

I’d like to see an annual doubling of flash memory storage density. I haven’t read a “law” (or more specifically, an identified pattern of growth postulated to continue into the future) relating to flash memory (NAND Flash) yet. As consumer demand for flash-based mobile devices continues to grow, however, I’m confident we’ll continue to see these solid state storage capacities increase and prices go down, although they may not move as precipitously as those for magnetic storage have and continue to change. Until we see some MAJOR movement in Flash memory prices, solid state hard drives like that available as an optional upgrade on the MacBook Air will remain outside the purchasing power of many people, myself included.

Technorati Tags:
harddrive, storage, flash, memory, NAND, ipod, iphone, research, moore, kryder

NOTE: PLEASE SEE THE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. I STAND CORRECTED, TECHNICALLY SPEAKING A NEEDLE WHICH HAS BEEN “MAGNETIZED” IS A MAGNET. I HADN’T REALIZED THIS PREVIOUSLY, SO THIS IS A BENEFIT OF MAKING YOUR THINKING TRANSPARENT… ALTHOUGH I FEEL SHEEPISHLY IGNORANT FOR NOT KNOWING THIS AS AN ADULT. THANKS TO THOSE WHO HAVE ADDED TO THIS DISCUSSION AND MY OWN EDUCATION!

My 7 year old daughter and I had an interesting disagreement a few weeks ago which was finally resolved on Monday. We had been discussing navigation and compasses, and she informed me that compasses have magnets in them. I asked her why she thought this, and she told me:

My science textbook says compasses have magnets in them.

I felt relatively certain she was mistaken, not only on a factual basis (because a compass is a freely spinning metal object on a pinhead or pivot, which is magnetized but does NOT have a magnet “in” it) as well as with regard to the facts included in her science textbook. SURELY her new, beautiful science textbook wouldn’t have a basic error in it like this? Surely she just “misunderstood” what was written in her textbook, and needs to re-read the information again to understand what makes up a compass?

To resolve this situation and clarify things, we worked together on Monday for about 10 minutes after school to build a basic compass in our kitchen. To do this, we used a needle, a small piece of foam which could float, and a clear bowl of water. We also used a magnet to magnetize one end of the needle. This was our simple, kitchen compass:

Sure enough it worked: The magnetized end pointed to the north, the same direction our house faces. Sarah experimented moving the floating pin around and watched as the free-floating needle spun around and always oriented itself to point north. Satisfied that, although we had magnetized the end of the needle with a magnet, the compass itself did NOT “contain a magnet,” we opened her 2nd grade science textbook to see “what the textbook says.”

As a second grader, Sarah has a beautiful, new science textbook from Houghton Mifflin:

As you can see in the following image, this textbook is copyrighted in the year 2007, so it was literally BRAND NEW last year in her school:

You will also likely note the copyright notice which is printed underneath the copyright year, and may wonder how I am legally able to share a few, limited photographs of this textbook here on my blog and still remain in legal compliance with U.S. copyright law. The answer is that I am complying with the fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law, which DO permit limited uses of excerpts of copyrighted works under certain conditions, including critiques and analyses of another’s work. This is a topic I discuss in my educational presentations on copyright, and addressed in more detail in the winter 2003 TechEdge article “Copyright 101 for Educators.” For more information about U.S. copyright and intellectual property law as it applies to bloggers and blogs, refer to the EFF’s Legal Guide for Bloggers.

Before I detail the erroneous information presented as “facts” regarding compasses in this 2nd grade science textbook, I want to show you the pages of the textbook (remember, printed in 2007) which focus on the planets of our solar system:

The first thing I notice, as a former elementary teacher as well as a lifelong learner interested in science, is that this picture provides an extremely misleading perspective on the relative distances separating our planets. No attempt has been made to make this “drawing” to scale, and no indication or disclaimer is included on the pages to bring this fact to the attention of 7 and 8 year old readers. The solar system overview of the wonderful “Nine Planets” website communicates these relative distances between the planets of our solar system quite well. Unfortunately, this critical “fact” is entirely omitted from my daughters’ science textbook.

Even more glaring, of course, is the fact that Pluto is presented as a planet on these pages, despite the fact that:

Pluto is now considered the largest member of a distinct region called the Kuiper belt. Like other members of the belt, it is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small: approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth’s moon and a third its volume.

It is remarkable that although astronomers officially changed the status of Pluto from planet to “dwarf planet” in August of 2006, this science textbook copyrighted in 2007 completely ignores this controversial change. This omission can sadly lead to controversy in some classrooms. As a “big brother” in the Kansas Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, a year ago my cousin had to meet after school with his little brother’s fifth grade teacher, who had graded down his homework project on the solar system because he had not included Pluto as a planet. Instead, he had noted it was a dwarf planet and cited his online source, but the teacher had replied “The textbook says that Pluto is a planet, and we have to go with what the textbook says is right.”

Good grief. Give me a break. Thankfully, after meeting with my cousin the teacher agreed to give his little brother full credit for his solar system project EVEN though it contradicted the written gospel included in the classroom’s science textbook. So much for encouraging critical thinking and media literacy in that teacher’s classroom…..

Given this background, I was not entirely shocked to find another mistake in my daughter’s second grade science textbook, but I was still surprised. This is the page which describes and provides “facts” about a compass:

In case Flickr is blocked in the location where you are reading this post, I will transcribe the sentences from this image of the textbook:

People often use a compass when they are hiking in the woods. Ships at sea use a compass. A magnet in a compass helps you find direction. The needle always points north.

The third sentence in this paragraph is patently FALSE. Compasses do NOT have magnets in them. Yet my daughter’s 2007 second grade science textbook says that they do.

What are our learning points and “takeaways” from this situation? In the conversation with my daughter, we discussed how we CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING WE READ, EVEN WHEN IT IS IN THE SCHOOL TEXTBOOK. This is a very important media literacy concept and conversation, and one which I am delighted to be able to have with her now. I don’t want her to believe everything she reads at face value, whether she is reading something on the Internet or a note written by one of her friends. She needs to consider the source as well as what other/competing sources tell her, and make up her mind for herself.

Hopefully, as a result of this conversation and our short, hands-on activity together building a simple compass in our kitchen, Sarah will have a much better idea of what a compass is and what it is not. Of course there are much more complex topics that we can and hopefully will dig into at some point that relate to compasses and magnetism. These include our current theories of how the earth’s molten core creates a dynamo and our planetary magnetic field, which in addition to making compasses “point north” also transforms the solar wind into the northern lights– also called the aurora borealis or polar aurorae. These are GREAT topics to discuss, investigate and explore in further depth, not only because they are so practical and engaging (using a compass is an important skill, and the aurora are beautiful) but also because they relate to scientific THEORIES which are continuing to evolve and develop through the work of diligent scientists around the world.

This conversation and controversy over “details” included in Sarah’s second grade science textbook also raises a critical curriculum and fiscal issue for our own school district and other school districts around our nation. WE ARE WASTING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN OUR COUNTRY PURCHASING PAPER-BASED, ANALOG TEXTBOOKS WHICH ARE OUT OF DATE AND OBSOLETE, IN MANY CASES, THE MOMENT THEY ARE PRINTED. We do NOT need to purchase ANY more paper-based textbooks in our schools. Instead, our school districts should be purchasing laptop computers for EVERY student which permit them to access up to date, multimedia and multi-sensory information online:

Unfortunately, the textbook lobby and textbook industry continues to maintain a virtual stranglehold on VAST quantities of public funding for education in the United States. For more on this, refer to my previous posts:

• House Bill 4 Could Dramatically Shape the Face of Public Education (2 March 2005)
• Sad to see the textbook lobby resort to personal attacks in the HB4 discussion (8 April 2005)
• HB2 / HB4 Advances in the Texas Legislature (6 July 2005)

We need to support 1:1 computing initiatives in our schools, and reject the pleas of textbook company owners, employees, and investors to “keep buying textbooks.” Please don’t misunderstand my position of advocacy here: I LOVE printed books, and libraries full printed books– especially children’s literature trade books. We still need books in our schools! We need to stop wasting money on PRINTED TEXTBOOKS, however, and instead embrace digital curriculum in various forms.

On a related topic, the WikiPedia article for compass contains a fascinating list of events and artifacts which relate to the question, “Who invented the compass?” The depth of inquiry and explorations to which we can stretch when we have access to online, digital resources is truly amazing.

When will this basic error regarding a compass and what it is “made of” be fixed in my daughter’s second grade textbook? Will Houghton-Mifflin issue an errata page in full color, and provide a copy free-of-charge to every student in the United States currently using this textbook which contains this basic, factual error? That doesn’t seem likely. If my daughter had access at school to DIGITAL curriculum sources, inaccurate information provided there could be fixed IMMEDIATELY. In her case, however, it seems likely this textbook error won’t be fixed for at least five years, when a new science textbook is adopted in the state of Oklahoma and purchased by our local school district. I hope by then, our state leaders in Oklahoma will have taken the enlightened step of providing a wireless, portable computing device for every student in the state, and freed up local districts to purchase varying types of digital and analog curriculum resources to meet the needs of learners. I’d much rather see our school district purchasing FOSS kits and student licenses to Explore Learning Gizmos than wasting money on another paper-based science textbook that can’t be updated once it has been printed.

Technorati Tags:
textbook, textbooks, compass, science, mistake, error, houghtonmifflin, houghton-mifflin, publishing, industry, hb4, texas, oklahoma, school, schools, politics, money, lobby