A Light in the Darkness

Much is written about the dangers of mixing teenagers and social media. Rightly so. With the area of their brain with is responsible for judgement a good five to ten years shy of being fully developed, teens are fully capable of making mistakes. Some of these are errors in judgement, they have failed to look ahead to the consequences of their actions. And when this lack of good judgement mixes with social media, the implications are instantaneous and far-reaching. We know the stories. They are not pretty.

But what happens when they do think ahead, when they do use good judgement? Well, here is where the picture brightens considerably. Across the country, and the world, teenagers have used the power of social media to create movements for good. The YouTube video A Sincere Compliment is just one example of how one person, in this case teenager Jeremiah Anthony, used the power of Twitter to spread compliments. Well, the idea took off and soon hundreds of people were tweeting compliments using the @westhighbros idea. 

We don’t tend to hear much about these things. Good news travels slowly, while bad news is like a wildfire. Perhaps we need to actively consider the positive power of social media. Perhaps our time is better spent considering and promoting positive messages through such avenues as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Perhaps in so doing we can create a more collaborative, less competitive culture which celebrates cooperation and the ability to compromise. 

As educators we can use this powerful medium as a force for good, a light in the darkness.

Now where did I put that portfolio?

If you've been around the education playground for any amount of time you have heard of portfolios. I’ll go out on a limb here and say you have probably even used them (that is, your students have used them). 

And if you’ve been around long enough, you remember them as giant three-ring notebooks full of REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF. Those notebooks were lovingly assembled, with a great deal of care and thought, and then promptly stuffed in a closet somewhere and forgotten about. Or, even worse, brought home by your children as a sacred artifact forever documenting 4th grade.

Well, this ain’t your old portfolio grandpa! Today’s portfolios are live documents. Web 2.0 technologies enable real-time editing, real-time feedback, and real-time collaboration. This leap into the e-portfolio means that students can not only reflect on their learning, just as they did before, but can also manage their learning.

When students can go to websites which can correct their math homework, they are managing their learning. When students can post their work, perhaps as a YouTube video, then they learn from the nearly instant feedback they can get from a worldwide audience. When students can take notes, design lessons, collaborate using shared documents, then they are managing their learning in ways never before possible.

This move to the world stage, to immediate feedback, to the ability to revise, can enable our students to become students of the world. They can engage with a wider audience, interacting with people from all over the world, with the possibility of authentic learning through authentic experiences, and all without leaving their desk.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane! Nope, that’s where I put that portfolio.

Taking My Ball and Going Home

The ability to collaborate is not unique to humans. Ants do it. Whales do it. Gorillas, chimps, and monkeys do it. In fact, examples of collaboration can be found across the animal kingdom. And often survial in some communities depends on collaboration.

So there is ample evidence to suggest that collaboration is an important skill, something to value highly. It is incumbent upon educators to help students develop that skill, for students’ future survival in the workplace, and, potentially, for our very survival on the planet.

 In 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, Bellanca said, “Cooperative learning groups provide an arena in which students develop the interpersonal and small-group skills needed to work effectively with diverse schoolmates. These interpersonal skills enable students to engage in discussions in which they share and solve personal problems. As a result, students’ resilience and ability to cope with adversity and stress tend to increase.” (2010) Students who work collaboratively learn a variety of transferable skills which they can then take into the workplace, into relationships, and into their families. 

Educators can help students by integrating collaboration into the classroom workflow. By integrating collaborative elements into class projects, students will practice such skills as communication, problem-solving, resolving conflicts, leadership, and compromise. Students who master these skills will be more productive and find more opportunities in the work world which increasingly demands them of their workers.

Sources:

Bellanca, James A. (2010-04-19). 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn (Leading Edge) (Kindle Locations 3865-3866). Ingram Distribution. Kindle Edition. 

Image source:

Flikr user: simpleinsomnia. URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/simpleinsomnia/11962336974/in/photolist-ipytp-eSdFF7-je572d-7Tguwg-5tksJn-6sc2q7-94Jz7j-66zHqA-8pSgC4-4X8DN5-6EX47g-wMgYa-5Vh8Wi-6tu3Yj-wMjpK-eRqb3-4X4nfF-wMj8x-gE1DKV-4X8FZ3-6dZT9R-cXehgu-6NXRZP-t3crL-4cPmgA-742f79-eRqFT-dsGLh7-7R3iP3-9TpAGG-26zNWL-eRqtt-wMh7E-gpGNig-4X4oia-9WyQpU-5UhLxe-4bbhLd-4bb619-4b77m8-4bb8uN-4b76V4-4tVtFF-5SvT3A-4b7766-cWEVp-xpuKg-5TEGm4-5oj5zf-wMiok

Flipping Out

Way back in 2004, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, two teachers in Colorado, came up with the idea of flipping their classrooms. It wasn’t a yoga class where students stood on their heads, but instead they decided to record their lectures, have students watch them before class, then spend class time helping students understand the content. Though this certainly wasn’t a brand new concept, as distance learning, in many shapes and forms, had been in place for over 100 years, it was a change in approach which had many advantages for teachers and students. 

But what really made this a fresh idea was that ordinary teachers, using commonly available digital tools, could now create and post simple videos for anyone to watch. Now, just as Web 2.0 democratized content creation for the masses, all teachers could feel empowered to deliver their content in new ways. And this ran the risk of engaging students in a medium they were powerless to resist- video! Yes, YouTube has created a generation of video zombies, and now teachers can further enable that movement. And as cruel as it may sound, students may be entrapped into learning something while they helplessly watch yet another YouTube video.

Clever.

But wait there’s more. With the addition of nifty screen capturing tools, teachers can also create content, such as a Keynote presentation, on their computers, and then discuss that presentation while annotating it, all the while thrilling their students by having their faces embedded live in the video. It sends chills down the spine.

Picture this- hordes of students mesmerized by teacher videos, each one packed full of delicious content, and with each teacher providing expert guidance, along with having her or his smiling face gracing the screen. It is almost too good to be true. But it gets even better. Now, the students show up in the classroom, completely engaged and immersed in the day’s topic, and ready to get to work demonstrating their understanding of the day’s work. It’s a beautiful thing. The only thing left is to cue the inspiring theme music. Oh wait, you can add that to the video too!

Valuing Creativity

If necessity is the mother of invention, then creativity is the father. Without creativity we languish, there is no more advance of culture, no more scientific progress, nothing to inspire. Being creative is one of my most deeply held values, far outweighing practicality or financial success.

So one of my frustrations with our current American education system is there is so little time for creative lesson planning. Now I’m not saying we can’t be creative in planning our lessons- we can. And I’m not saying we can’t have students being creative- we can. I’m simply saying we don’t value the time it takes to be creative enough to plan that time into a teacher’s day. The best education systems in the world do this. We don’t.

And that is ironic considering Gardner’s contention, in Five Minds for the Future, that perhaps Americans are creative enough and don’t need to focus on creativity in the classroom, where cultures such as China, who value uniformity over creativity, need to encourage creativity. It isn’t as though Gardner doesn’t believe in the value of creativity. On the contrary, he believes it so important he named it as one of the five minds we need to develop for future success. But he believes that mastery of a domain must precede creativity, and thus American students should focus on that first.

However, later in his book he writes about how the minds of young adults, from adolescence through early twenties, are naturally the most creative. And these are the students we work with. Thus it hardly seems wise to ignore their creative potential in an attempt to best prepare them for a future whose very success may depend on their ability to be creative.

In education, perhaps the use and creation of video is part of the answer. Assignments such as creating a simple video help us think both creatively and critically about how to present ideas. Clearly today’s youth are quite comfortable with video, to create and consume it. This may be one of our best mediums to consider when marrying the creative and the process of mastery.

Credits:
 Gardner, Howard. Five Minds for the Future. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School, 2007. Print. 

I Want My MTV

OK be honest, you started humming the song didn't you! Well, maybe just the older folks among us, but there really is a point here. The video revolution has been around for quite a while. So why does it still seem new in education?

Perhaps it is because change in education tends to happen slowly. Much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth has occurred because of this, but this may not be a bad thing. Or is it? Other fields seem to be more adaptable to innovation, and particularly when it comes to all things technological.

For example, some years ago I had knee surgery. The doctor did not have to slice a big hole in my knee and start digging around to find the part he needed to fix. Instead he made a small incision and inserted a tube into my knee, found the torn meniscus, and snipped it. Not only was my recovery faster, but I got some really cool pictures of the inside of my knee, complete with arthritis!

OK, I wasn't happy about the arthritis, but the use of video to greatly advance surgical procedures is fantastic. Now, has the change in use of video in education been just as fantastic? In some classrooms, it may be just that.

Some teachers, using a flipped classroom model, teach class content through video which students watch outside of class. Students then come to class ready to work with the information and the teacher is able to guide them along, since she is not stuck at the front of the room lecturing. Other classrooms use video as supplementary to the topic, giving a boost of information which can be viewed either in class or outside of it. Other teachers have students create video, making them active and creative, and enabling them to use tools they are mostly quite familiar with. 

YouTube, TED Talks, and many other video-based tools, have allowed countless new ways of approaching teaching and learning. The students are ready. Are we?

Feet on the ground, head in the iCloud

iCloud is Apple's latest attempt at cloud computing, and this time they got it right. 

iCloud is now like several products wrapped into one. To take full advantage of it, you should turn on all the iCloud stuff in iOS. To do that go to Settings: iCloud. There you should turn on Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Safari (very important), Notes, Passbook, Keychain, Photos, Documents and Data, and MOST IMPORTANT- Find My iPhone. 

I'll just mention a couple of things here, as some are pretty obvious.

If you use iCloud with Safari, it will sync all your bookmarks automatically between all your devices. Add a bookmark on your iPad, it shows up on your desktop and your iPhone. Fantastic. But even better, you can access any open tab from any device on any other device! Just go to the iCloud icon and it has a list of all open tabs. Very nice.

Photos is important because you get all the pics you take with your iPhone or iPad automatically aded to iCloud. And you can create shared albums in the cloud which can be viewed by others.

Documents and Data allows you to keep your Pages, Keynote, and Numbers docs in iCloud rather than on your desktop. I've got all my assignments from my entire Master's program at Wilkes in iCloud. I can start a doc at work on my Macbook, come home and open on my iMac, or even on my iPad. Docs and Data also allows other iOS apps to use iCloud to store data. I pay an extra $25 a year to go from the free 5GB storage to 25GB, so I don't have to worry about limits.

So how do you access iCloud? Go to iCloud.com. Use your Apple ID and password to login. There you can access your Mail (assuming you use the Mail app on either OS or iOS), Contacts, Calendar, Notes, and Reminders. You can also access all your Pages, Keynote, and Numbers documents there. And, perhaps most important, you can use iCloud.com to find a lost or stolen OS or iOS device. It can find and track any device you have "Find My iPhone" turned on on. 

iCloud is free, unless you want to add the extra storage. All you need is your free Apple ID, and it works best on a Mac running OS 10.9 and iOS 7.

From e-World to 2020, an Educator’s Vision

Back in 1969, Richard Lee Evans, of the group Zager and Evans, wrote the lyrics to the song In The Year 2525. One of the verses read, 

“In the year 5555

Your arms hangin' limp at your sides

Your legs got nothin' to do

Some machine's doin' that for you.”

That song was written before the personal computer revolution, but during the time of the space race, and in a period of increasing use of technology. Looking back however, it seems almost quaint, certainly outdated, as our use of technology has exploded in ways Evans could never have imagined.

Today I am not looking at the year 2525, but a year much closer to our own, 2020, a mere six years into the future, and attempting to glean from my own crystal ball what wonders are in store for us as we round into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Specifically, I’ll be looking at changes in the use of technology in education. If the last decade has taught me anything, it is that there will be leaps in technology that are nearly impossible to predict, and also that in many ways technology use will change very little in the actual classrooms across America.

Perhaps it will help to look at smaller pieces of the big picture, examining each one for potential changes. Then we can piece them together to form a vision of the future which may be somewhat realistic. Let us begin with Web 2.0.

When the World Wide Web emerged as a popular entity it was more of a static creature. Only the dedicated technologists among us were using the web at its birth around 1991. And a few years later when Mosaic, the first graphical web browser was released, the web was a fairly static place. It was read-only, which meant you did not interact with web pages, you simply read them and consumed content.

Web 2.0, the Read-Write Web, changed things. A variety of technologies were introduced to make it easy for non-techie people to publish to the web. This power of publishing revolutionized how the web was used. Now people could easily create blogs and wikis, and have them seen by potentially millions of people. Later came podcasts, audio recordings which could be listened to by everyone, and still later vodcasts, bringing video to the masses. The video revolution was completed by the website YouTube, which allowed anyone to publish their homemade videos to the web. There seemed to be no limit to what people would publish!

This won’t change in 2020. People will be publishing, but the publishing will be easier, and more integrated into our workflow. In Web 3.0 the culmination of the efforts to move applications to web browsers will be complete. With Web 3.0 all web-based applications will seamlessly publish to an included webspace, and those spaces will automatically generate URLs to be publicly shared when desired.

The race to complete this task will be between Apple and Google. Although Google has a head start with its Documents and Sites products, Apple has been in this game for longer, starting with its attempt to create an online BBS called e-World back in 1994. And Apple is unquestionably the world’s innovator when it comes to creating unique, user-friendly products. Apple has begun this move with its move to iCloud, where users can easily store their photos, and documents created by the iWork suite of web-based apps, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. And already, any of these documents can be shared with others.

But Web 3.0 will be more than just an extension of Web 2.0. It will erase the boundaries between products such as blogs and wikis. It will erase the boundaries between applications, making everything interoperable. And since apps will have moved to the browser, it will be imperative that the web is operated on open standards, so we will finally say goodbye to Flash, with its proprietary infrastructure, and move to a free, open architecture HTML 7. (Note: I am bypassing HTML 6, as I think it will be surpassed already by 2020.)

Web 3.0 will erase the boundaries between people who wish to publish together. Like a wiki, which can be shared, and the history of individual contributions both preserved and viewed, web publishing in Web 3.0 will have this as the default. Perhaps an example is in order. Today, when one writes to a blog such as this one, one can open that blog up to comments. And like this blog, should you comment back on it, that comment will be published for all to see. But unlike the blog itself, the comment is not editable. Why not? Why shouldn’t we each be able to change our minds, improve our writing, delete things we said in haste. Web 3.0 will change that.

So what will all this look like in the classroom? Well, since it is only a mere six years away, and education by nature and design is slow to change, perhaps not all that different looking, except in subtle ways. And perhaps a few not so subtle.

By 2020 ebooks will have become the norm. School districts across the country will have recognized the waste of money it is to purchase textbooks that are beginning to be obsolete nearly as soon as they are printed. Since ebooks can be continuously updated with new text, graphics, animations, etc. at any time, and simply uploaded for users to download, their currency and capabilities will make it obvious they are clearly the better choice. 

The move to ebooks will be one of many reasons all districts will finally commit to providing portable 1:1 computing for all students. This device will be a tablet, which will also run any of the thousands of apps developed for education. The move to tablets, with their reduced storage capacities (when compared to laptops), will coincide with the Web 3.0 capability of online storage for everything. Photos will be stored in places such as Flikr, iCloud, Drive, and Dropbox. Video will be stored in places like YouTube, Vimeo, Drive, iCloud, and Dropbox. The same for documents and audio files. And because Web 3.0 has now standardized publishing with HTML 7, these tablets will be able to create and publish websites as well. There will be no more pages which can’t be viewed! Note to teachers: there will also be no more copiers or paper handouts, everything will be delivered digitally!

The social nature of Web 3.0 will also bring changes to the classroom. Since all students in school in 2020 have been raised with the internet being constantly available, they will use it naturally, seamlessly sharing data and resources with each other, ignoring the constraints of ownership. Contribution will be the defining factor of learning, not a final product. The ability to share, to collaborate, will become the primary means of measuring educational success. 

Since collaboration has become the new standard, previous methods of evaluation will begin to be seen as relics of an education era gone by. No longer will standardized tests, the static measure of progress in 19th and 20th century education, be seen as valid measurements. Since it is now obvious that all information is readily available, the skills of retrieval, manipulation, and synthesis of information will become the new standards of measurement. Student progress will be judged by the ability to connect with other students, to find information, to collaborate with others, and by finding solutions to problems together. 

This will require everyone to make greater, and more precise, use of tagging, along with improved social bookmarking in such sites as diigo and delicious. RSS feeds will be ubiquitous, automatically generating collections which will self-publish in pre-defined categories to web-spaces of our choosing. All tags, feeds, and social bookmarks will conjoin, allowing public mashups which can be republished in new forms. This manipulation of data, now simplified in Web 3.0 using HTML 7, will allow all students, not just those who are avid programmers, to create sites utilizing the work of others to collaborate the creation of new work. And this work will be open for others to use. Imagine Creative Commons on steroids. All student work becomes CC, no attribution. All work is expected to contribute to the work of others.

Education in 2020 will be different than today. It will require teachers to become collaborators as well. Educators will share resources with peers, just as students will be expected to share. At the upper grades, teachers will become facilitators, guiding students toward resources and helping them make connections between prior, current, and future knowledge. The prevalence of video technology and the pervasive use of an improved access to the internet will mean some  teachers will be available at all times for distance education. 

Some things may not change in 2020. We will still have politicians asserting their world views into education. We will still have a society which values sports and entertainment over education. We will still have people fearful of technology, fearful of change, fearful of loss of control. Such is human nature. 

But we will still have hope. And within that hope is the dream that we can use these technological advances to improve and strengthen the education of our children. We can help them use their natural curiosity, and their natural inclination to work together, to create a model which they will carry into adulthood. And in the end, by working together, they will teach us what we should have known in the first place.

Resources

http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
Picture of e-World disc by Jim Braley

Look, up in the sky, it's a cloud!

Apple’s iCloud now includes the iWork suite of apps, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Though, not the first developer to develop web based apps, or even the first try for Apple, this contribution to online webware is significant. 

Like Google docs, Pages documents can now be created and edited in a web browser. Documents are saved to the cloud. The browser can be either Mac or Windows OS. But unlike Google docs, Pages documents can be edited in the Pages app on a Mac, as well as in a browser. And while they haven’t completed the transition to allow them to be edited in the Pages app on iOS (iPads and iPhones), a copy of a Pages document can be downloaded and open in those iOS apps.

Once iCloud is turned on, one uses one’s Apple ID to access documents. Backups are automatic, as is the saving of changes. Documents can be renamed and moved into folders for better organization. One great improvement to this beta version of these apps, is the ability to share them with collaborators. Documents can be shared via iCloud (via Message, Mail, Twitter, or Facebook), or through Mail, Message, iTunes, or any WebDav connection. The owner of a document can revoke sharing of the document at any time, or may make it “view only”.

I would recommend the use of Pages to students for a variety of reasons:

• Automatic backup of work, so work is never lost.
• Availability of iCloud via web browser makes it ideal for students who need to move around using different devices to access work.
• Cloud based storage means documents are always available, no more forgetting work at home or losing work. 
• Flexible documents easily allow the addition of graphics, tables, images, text boxes, and objects- all of which can be placed anywhere on the page (big difference from Google Docs).

Copier, what copier?

This has been an interesting school year. We switched to 1:1 iPads instead of laptops for all our students. And I stopped using the photocopier.

I didn’t go cold turkey. I’ve been weaning myself for a few years now. But I literally have not photocopied a handout yet this year. And we are in the fourth quarter, so it is very likely I just won’t use one at all.

However, in the interest of full disclosure, I have used books in my English classes. I’d rather not. I’d really rather have students try ebooks, but I don’t have any budget for them. So I guess technically I haven’t gone completely paperless. 

But mostly I have. Here’s how: I stopped using composition books for journaling with my English students. We now use Google docs. At the beginning of the year I have them create a folder and share it with me at my Google address. For the rest of the year, every assignment they want to share with me just goes in that folder. 

I add each of them as a contact. Then I create a group for each class and tag them as by group. I can then share any document I like with the class simply by typing the group name. And they get those docs no matter where they are, home sick, in Florida, or in a workshop. They pass in the work by putting it in their folders, which I have moved into folders I have created and arranged by class.

Even better, if there is a link to follow, and video to watch, a form or whatever, links can be embedded in the docs, making it foolproof for students to access the necessary information. 

This is long-winded, yes, and hasn’t really answered some of the questions we were to respond to. So let me add this. For me, given my students’ constant access to technology, my role as a teacher has changed by allowing more interactivity between students, as well as with me and my students. Learning has improved as students have more access to information, and are more interested in pursuing information using digital tools. 

My measurements of learning haven’t changed a whole lot, as I have been using multimedia tools for a long time in my classroom. They are much more common than papers. And finally, using paperless space is so much easier to build learning networks because they are designed to be fluid, flexible, and interactive.Students aren't limited to receiving or doing their work sitting in my classroom. Now their it available everywhere. They don't lose it, can't leave it at home, and can't say they left it in their locker. And so far this year, the dog hasn't eaten anyone's homework!

Try Pushing in the Clutch

Viktor E. Frankl said, “When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.” It strikes me that this is exactly the point for educators today. We cannot move back to a time when teachers were the sage on the stage, our students are just not interested  in learning from one source, or listening to a teacher drone on at the front of the room.  The genie is out of the bottle. 

One way this is evident is in Richardson’s Big Shift 4. In this shift, teaching becomes a conversation, not a lecture. Students are empowered to contribute to their learning. By publishing their work, students see that their learning matters. This shift has already happened in many classrooms, mine included. My students publish all forms of digital work, from blogs, to presentations, to animations and movies. I really don’t lecture anymore, but rely on prompts to springboard discussions. 

But I am interested in using technology. I am interested in changing the way I do things in my classroom if I think it will benefit my students. Probably most teachers feel that way too, at least about changes benefitting students. And this course has helped me see more clearly how and why some of these tools make sense to my students, even helping me re-vision how I might use some of these tools. 

The Big Shifts Will Richardson explained are significant. But they are no longer revolutionary ideas for educators and students who have 1:1 access to computing devices. These shifts have already happened.  For the students, that is. However, teachers are adapting to these shifts as humans adapt to any change, individually and uniquely. 

It is no more realistic to think that teachers have, or will, make these shifts, than it is to assume everyone has gotten rid of their DVD players and now all have BluRay. That is not the way people are. BluRay is clearly a superior technology. It looks and sounds better. Heck, it is even affordable now. But that doesn’t mean we all have adopted that change. I’m guessing there are some people who still even use their cassettes! Change is individual, the unique choice of each person.

Richardson is correct in saying the way we access information has changed. And I agree with the ideas of all ten of his Big Shifts. He is even correct in saying we as educators must change and adapt to and incorporate these shifts into our practice in order to be relevant and effective. So I don’t disagree with the big ideas here.

But in a show of hands, how many of you still don’t have 1:1 computing at your schools? Or reliable wireless? Or internet based content? I’m counting over half the room here. And until that changes for everyone, until we have time and training to become at least comfortable, if not adept, with these technologies, then the times, they ain’t a changing. Teachers need the tools, the training, and the time to become experts, change agents, in this new paradigm. Until then, our system will remain stuck, like an old model car whose transmission has failed, no big shift.

Richardson, Will. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2010. Print.

Connectivism as a Theory

Connectivism is a learning theory proposed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. It assets that learning comes from an initial connection to something. It has its roots in the concepts of connections as nodes, each interconnected, and each with the potential of spawning new connections. Siemens and Downes drew inspiration for this theory from the behavior of the internet, specifically how Web 2.0 technologies allow people to read, write, interact, and react to each other, with each new comment creating the potential for new learning.

There are those who counter that Connectivism is not a learning theory. They argue that the process of learning cannot be observed, only the results of learning can be proven. They also argue that the theory depends too much on the use of the internet as the basis for learning, arguing that if the internet were to go away, learning would not. Clearly that is true. Learning occurred long before the internet existed, and occurs in countless places where people have no access to it.

However, what that argument ignores is that Connectivism is about learning through connections. We learn when we make a connection. That the theory uses the workings of the internet as a basis of example, does not then lead to the conclusion that other examples cannot be made. So let me provide another. 

Classes have been taught for years without the use of the internet. In those classes, people interact and make connections. In making those connections, new information is shared, and learning occurs. While it is true that the learning might be different for different people, it is also true that the learning that occurred in those instances, would not have occurred without the connection which was initially made. Thus the learning itself occurred as a result of the reaction from the connection. And that makes Connectivism a learning theory.

Link to anti-Connectivism wiki

Link to pro-Connectivism wiki

Heartbleed- just another reason to change your passwords

Encyryption is the way internet data is kept safe in transit. Data is encrypted, and given an encryption key necessary for it to be unencrypted. The Heartbleed bug is a flaw in the encryption used by many sites. It has been around for a couple of years, potentially exposing personal data in such sites as Google and Facebook. 

Yes, it is time to change passwords folks. Now. 

For a great list on what sites may be affected, read the Mashable article below...


FMY on Mashable.com- "The Heartbleed Hit List: The Passwords You Need to Change Right Now"

Skype Hunting

Somehow, in the span of about a decade, it became normal to be able to be able to click a few buttons and magically see and speak to someone in real time hundreds of miles away. For free.

Using the magic we call Skype, Jenn and I had quite the discussion last night. We spoke of many things, and I got to meet her adorable daughter, who is determined to become an artist. (Or so it seemed.) And during this video chat, I was amazed, as always, that we can even do such a thing.

It is good to be full of wonder.

You see, I'm not only old enough to remember rotary phones, but when I was a kid we actually had party lines. And I'm not talking about Democrats and Republicans. Nope, a party line was shared by several people, which in my case, all lived on the same street in my small hometown. So when the phone rang, which wasn't that often, you had to listen to how many rings, as they told you who the call was for.

But last night I clicked my heels and was magically transported to a den in Pennsylvania, watching a mother multitask, and remembering how hard parenting can be. (My youngest is 25, it's been a while.)

And while Jenn managed keeping her darling little one entertained, we spoke of distance education. I am interested in facilitating online courses, so was very interested in picking Jenn's brain. It struck me that we were doing a kind of professional development. We were sharing some experiences and helping each other envision new ways of doing things.

It's a far cry from the party line.

Some things considered

Ok, it's not NPR. Not even close. But it is an attempt at a new vision for a student run paper. We can not only write articles, but we can post podcasts, maybe even interviews, which we can include on our website. 

And introducing this exciting new concept is (nope, not Robert Seigel)...me. Sorry folks.

Here is the link for the Weekend Edition of All Things Considered.


And I'm also adding a link back to the podcast page of our class wiki.

And for the copyright freaks out there, I wrote, performed and recorded the theme music of my podcast.

Wait, that's not snow!

The Flikr Photostream creates a live, updating collection of one's photos. Some people have elected to have their Flikr photo stream (where I got the picture above) listed as Creative Commons Attribution, which means anyone can use that photo in these ways:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

So I thought, what if my students create a story of just pictures, all CC attribution, that they take themselves and upload to a common Flikr account? I can embed a feed from that account into my website and we can watch the story unfold. 

The story can then become a writing assignment, which each student telling what s/he thinks the pictures are saying.

Now obviously I would have to be very clear with the students what kinds of pictures are acceptable! And they would need to clear each one with me before uploading to the photostream. They would also have to agree to the CC Attribution. But those considerations aside, we could have a very creative opportunity here!

CC Attribution License:
Sebilden. (2014, February 28). First signs of spring. sebilden's Photostream. Retrieved March 29, 2014, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/sebilden/12837849513/in/photostream/.

Why Use a Wiki?

I don't like wikis. Oh, I like Wikipedia well enough, but to make a website, no thanks. It's not like I don't like trying new things (not that wikis could be considered new anymore), but for me it is all around design- it is impossible to get a nice look and feel in a wiki.

Wikis are hard to beat when it comes to collaboration. The way they can track a document, keeping a log of the history so that it is nearly impossible to make a catastrophic mistake is fantastic. And some, like Wikispaces, which I used this week with some classmates, have a discussion feature which is pretty nifty too. Multiple threads can be started and tracked, but only on the page you begin the discussion from.

Sitting at the top of the wiki heap is Wikipedia. For those who have been without electricity for the past ten years, Wikipedia is a vast, user-generated encyclopedia covering every topic imaginable. (And if you can imagine one that isn't in Wikipedia, you should contribute an article on it!) So it is easy to see why one would use this wiki- to find information. But why would someone want to use a wiki s/he created?

Well, there are just too many answers to that question, but they all are centered on the same idea- collaboration. If you have a project requiring collaboration, a wiki can be much more convenient than say, email. All the communication of the project can be held in the wiki. Each member can contribute to the wiki, changing anything s/he thinks needs reworked. All contributors can see what everyone else has done, so the process is transparent. It's a thing of beauty.

Except it's not. Beautiful, that is. My classmates and I used a wiki this week to collaborate on how to use Wikipedia in education. Our wiki worked well. We shared ideas, changed a bunch of stuff, added, deleted, reworked, futzed, and came up with a decent product. So I can't argue with the functionality. It is the form I dislike. The web designer in me cringes when I look at the bland, off balance pages. Simply put, it's not pretty.

So OK, maybe I do like wikis a little. Kinda. I just don't like the way they look!

Connections Made!

In my blog titled Making the Connection, our blogical discussion was a peaceful one. We didn’t have much disagreement over the concern I posted about the challenges of making connections with students through online, rather than face-to-face, courses. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a meaningful conversation. Oh no, far from that!

Robin, ever the encouraging soul, believed that a teacher’s compassionate tone could convey caring online. Mindy suggested it would help to have synchronous online activities to foster a sense of connection. Beth reminded us there may be students who actually participate more readily in an online environment. Shannon shared the concern that, for some people, it is much more difficult to connect with person through a screen. Jenn added a reminder that non-visual learners will be challenged by online learning. 

It was Courtney who reminded us that the use of visuals, including video, can be a powerful connector. And Linda reinforced the idea that connections can be made, by reminding us how we already feel connected to those we have taken a course with previously. Mark R. made the provocative point that we may want to focus on helping students further themselves in a career, and that students will remember what they learned from the course, not the facilitator. The reminder that today’s students are very used to connecting through technology came from Julie. And, while Mark C. echoed that thought, he also shared a concern of how important the personal relationship can be to a student. 

At the same time, Tyler worried that children may even lose the ability to communicate face-to-face. Melissa has seen the importance of building relationships, and worried that the emphasis on testing is challenging our ability to develop relationships even in face-to-face classes. And Jami reminded us that although the connections may not be as deep, there is untold value in online education for students who are homebound or need alternatives. 

The depth of this discussion demonstrated the thoughtfulness and concern of educators when it comes to our students. We care. We want the best for them. These qualities, along with tech tools, some of which have yet to be invented, will shepherd us along in this journey to provide meaningful, high quality learning experiences online. We will find a way to make the connection.

Ed U K Shun

OK, it must be geek night. Cause I just spent half an hour redoing something I had already done. For fun. Kinda.

OK really it was for fame and glory, but don't tell anyone.

So what was I doing? Creating a public page in bloglines.com that had an RSS feed from all our class blogs in it.

There, I said it.

Social Bookmarking Plan

Social Bookmarking with Students

Introduction

This lesson is our first assignment within the journalism unit. In this lesson you will learn to use the social bookmarking site diigo.com to publicly and privately save bookmarks of websites you visit.

Purpose

Bookmarks are a way of keeping track of websites you may want to return to later. You may have used bookmarks in your web browser (like Safari or Chrome) at school or at home. You may use them on your phone or tablet. But when you use bookmarks in these ways, they are only saved to the device you are currently using. By saving bookmarks to diigo.com, you can create bookmarks which you can access from any browser, even one you have never used before!

Actions

Follow these steps to begin using diigo.com:

1. In a browser, go to diigo.com

2. Click on the “Get Diigo Now” button.

3. Create an account. 

4. Make a note of your username and password. Save it on your device.

5. Login to your diigo account.

Creating Groups

Saving bookmarks is great, but if you use diigo a lot, like I do, then you can soon have hundreds of bookmarks. This can quickly become an organizational nightmare. Do you really want to scroll through hundreds of bookmarks to find what you want? Of course not. So that is where Groups become very useful.

Groups are simply collections of bookmarks, a way of organizing bookmarks by project or category. You can create a group just for yourself, or you can create a group which you plan on sharing with others. This is social bookmarking, when you create a collection of bookmarks other people can use and benefit from.

Actions

Follow these steps to create a diigo group (you must be logged in to do this):

1. Find the My Groups link at the top of the page.

2. Click on the Create a Group button near to top of the page.

3. Type a Group Name. I would suggest “YourName Journalism”

4. Notice the URL fills in automatically, using your chosen group name.

5. Fill-in a quick description. Suggestion: “A group to track the news sites I use in my journalism project.”

6. Check the Education - K12 category.

7. Change the list to Private- so that only I and others in the class can use it.

8. Leave it Searchable.

9. Leave it Apply to join -moderator approval required. We will all request access from each other.

10. Select All group members for Who can invite new members. 

11. Enter the security code as two numbers, one from the picture, one as a big number in the text box below the numbers.

12. Click Create my group.

Joining Groups

You can create a group just for yourself and not share it with anyone. But for this assignment we are all sharing our groups with each other. 

Actions

1. In the diigo search box, type one of the names of your classmates’ groups. 

2. Click on the result.

3. Ask to Join that group.

4. Respond to your classmates request by allowing them to join your group.

Using RSS

RSS, Rich Site Summary, or sometimes called Really Simple Syndication is a system for distributing content from an online publisher to an end user. Often those online publishers are blogs which all people to post content simply by typing or adding a photo. Many blogs then allow comments on the posts. Think Facebook or Flikr.

In my classroom I plan on using the web-based RSS syndicator called Feedly. I will use this service because it also has an app which my students can use on their iPads. Here’s what I plan to do…

My Integrated Technology students will download and signup for Feedly. They will then search for some interesting feeds relating to technology. Once a week they will write a blog entry which summarizes one post they found particularly interesting. They will then post their entry on our Integrated Technology blog. Students will then be asked to comment on at least one other student’s post.

Making the Connection

For the past year I have been taking courses toward earning a Master’s in Online Teaching. From that statement, one could reasonably assume I am interested in, or even passionate about, online learning. Certainly I am interested. But where’s the passion?

For me, the passion in teaching has always been about relationships with students. The teaching jobs I have felt were my most important jobs were the ones where I thought I really made a difference in students’ lives. When I can make a difference, when I can go home at the end of the day knowing that something I did really made a difference to another person, then that is a good day.

Yes it wonderful to be passionate about a subject. I know many incredible teachers who are passionate about what they teach. I would love to be able to take their classes, and absorb their subject through their enthusiastic teaching. And on my best days I too am passionate about some of the things I teach. But for me, never does that passion trump the passion to connect, to make whatever we are doing have meaning in the life of a student, to help a student feel heard and cared about and OK in the world.

So I struggle with the idea of online learning. How will I connect with students? How will they be able to know that I care about them? Will they put enough effort into a making the connection happen? Obviously I’m not the only one worried about this. In their Online and Hybrid Learning conference Rutger’s University held a workshop called Best Practices for Building Student-Teacher Relationships in Online Learning you can find a video which discusses this issue. Further evidence that I am not alone in my hand-wringing can be found in this blog at Edutopia, Where MOOCs Miss the Mark: The Student-Teacher Relationship.

In my current job as an alternative education teacher, I have many of my high school students for  all four years of high school. Of course, some join my program in later years, but the point is I really get to know them. By the time they are seniors I may have had them in as many as seven or eight classes over the four years. I know the moment they walk through the door what kind of day they are having, how rough last night was on them, if they will be able to attend to their learning. Where will all that knowing come from when all I have is a screen?

There is a ray of hope here. Today’s students are digital natives, they have grown up using computers and digital devices all their lives. They have also grown-up online. My high schoolers all have Facebook pages, many use Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, etc. A lot of them used to use MySpace. So they are comfortable with the online milieu in ways my generation is not. Perhaps they will find it easier to bridge that divide than I can even imagine. 

But still, what if I am right? What if I lose that connection? What if I lose the very students I am trying to help?

Everything in Moderation

So, I found an interesting blog last week. It was interesting for a bunch of reasons, one being that it was being written by some local high school students. I got excited. I posted a response on one of their posts.

And I waited.

And waited.

What was I waiting for? The moderator to approve my comment. She still hasn't.

So here's what I have to say about that. If you are going to require a moderator's approval on your blog, then have a way of knowing when someone comments so you can quickly either approve or delete the thing. Otherwise your readers will lose interest in posting and, these days, probably lose interest in reading your blog as well.

My post appears below:

Gabby, I really like this post. It is so important to remind young women that they have the power to decide what is important in their lives. You did a nice job touching on some issues I’m sure are on the minds of young ladies in high school.

I’m also posting here to let you know I posted about your McMoments school blog. You can find that post here:http://edutate.blogspot.com/2014/03/i-googled-high-school-student-blogs.html

Plus I like Top 5 lists!

The blog I posted to may be found here: Five Things You Should Stop Worrying About

But I doubt you will see my comment there!