[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "adrSiteRootTable" hasn't been defined.]

—–

The newspaper thus far is doing just what I wanted it to do. The kids are involved in gathering news, making decisions about content, and publishing. Pretty cool! Aside from some connection problems yesterday, the process has been pretty fluid. It was quite a bit of preparation, but now that it’s up and running, it’s pretty low maintenance.

I’ll be like Pat…if you check it out, please leave a supportive comment…I know my students would appreciate it.

Our Ed Tech committee meets again today to further discuss a new classroom model for technology. We’ve spent the past month talking with and surveying staff members about how they use technology now, what they think they might need in the future, and what they see as the most effective use of the technology we currently have. Today, we present those findings.

From where I sit, this is going to be a longer process than most on the committee think. For one thing, I think we may be asking the wrong questions at this point. When I had my 20 minutes with the English Dept., and during my personal talks with teachers, I mostly got blank stares when I asked “What do you think you are going to need? What do you want to be able to do?” The sense I got was most teachers don’t know how to answer that question, because most don’t know what they COULD do. They don’t know what’s out there. How are they supposed to tell us how technology might improve their teaching if they don’t understand or know the potentials of the technology?

The process I’ve been thinking about is this: First, let’s do some research into what technologies are available at this point. What are other schools doing? Where does the technology seem to be headed? What are the costs of those technologies? Are they feasible here? Second, think about the ways we see technology helping us become better at what we do? Again, how are other schools answering that question? What are our weaknesses? What does the current research show? Third, let’s see create a menu of possiblities, give some basic information about what is available and what can be done with it, and let people think and talk about what might work best in their own practice. This would at least help people make informed decisions about the “model” classroom.” Fourth, talk about design and implementation.

I just don’t think asking teachers what they do now and what they’d like to do in the future is the logical approach. What other informed decisions do we make in our lives without first researching and understanding what’s out there? We don’t decide simply based on what we do and know now. That’s what it feels like we are aksing teachers to do.

The complexity of this question is enormous. Teachers have differing comfort levels with technology to begin with. Some courses lend themselves to technology and innovation more than others. Some rooms are more appropriate than others. Teachers need training. We need to clarify a budget. We are all pressed for time…and on and on. But it all has to start with a clearer picture of what the possibilities are.
—–

Something in Bill McCoy’s post has been flipping in my brain the last couple of days, the part about overcoming the cultural issues of Web log use. “…if teachers and administrators simply don’t really need to disseminate timely information online, or if even a much-decreased level of required effort still is too much for overworked, underpaid educators…” And Seb really nails it when he says: “…we necessarily are confronted with people who simply do not have any interest in sharing information on their activities, who don’t want to engage in a conversation with the students, their parents, and the wider community.”

I think this is my biggest fear, and would be my biggest challenge given the task of implementation on a wide scale. I can make the case for Web logs as portfolio, as knowledge management tool, as classroom portal, as any number of other things. I know they can work in these capacities given the person creating and using them commits the time and energy to use them well. It takes more time to write it all down, to find relevant links, to set up the sites. Using Ken’s rule, I can guess that about 1/3 of our teachers will adopt, and another 1/3 may come along grudgingly. The other 1/3 won’t. Yet underlying all this is what Bill refers to as a cultural shift in how we teach. We have to believe in the benefits of the technology, see the ways it can improve our teaching, implement it in creative, personal ways that motivate not only our students but ourselves.

Seb takes the point a notch further when he says:

“But I even argue that also learners need to build up “enthusiasm, altruism, optimism” to be comfortable to share an externalized record of their learning process with others. We live in a culture that mainly focuses on the measurable (…often short term) results of one’s learning efforts. The struggle, the mistakes, the detours, and breakdowns are usually kept private. So, while it is really important to talk about issues of tools, access, and hosting… we should not forget to think and converse about the conceptual shift that is required to support human learning efforts with these new technologies.”

Conceptual shift, culture change, call it what you will, I think this is the major issue.

A few weeks ago an old friend asked what I was doing to assess the effects of my use of Web logs on my student’s learning. I basically told her that right now, I’m in the “Do No Harm” stage, that what I am really interested at this point is CAN this work. I think I’m at the point where I believe it can. The much bigger challenge lies ahead, and I’m happy to see that conversation seems to have begun in earnest.
—–

Tried to take the next step with an rss reader but a couple of issues have arisen. First, any of the local readers such as Amphetadesk and Newzfeed won’t work through the firewall we have here at school. Second, while I can get them to work with this site since it’s “inside”, every student site that I tried to set up with a feed came back with an error that said something was wrong in a particular line of text from the page. Strange. It would be a time-saver to have my journalism kids’ Web logs fed to one aggregator. Just don’t know why it’s turning out to be so difficult.

Here we go…excellent Web log adventure #11? 12? I’m losing count. Thanks to a lot of help from my friends, I’m ready to give this online news site a go. Still not sure exactly how well thought out the process is, but if I can tweak that, I’m sure the site will work great in carrying it out. I think the kids are game…we’ll see how seriously they take it. (I know…that’s why I get paid the big bucks…) As always, suggestions, comments, etc. welcomed.
—–

Hence, the goal of this blog is to be a Socratic exploration of the pros and cons of a possible alternate approach. Namely, implementing the new Bryant web presence via weblog software.

Very interesting read from a parent on a school tech committee trying to decide whether or not Web log as school website might not be a better answer. He imagines parents able to subscribe via rss to different weblogs within the school (imagine getting the news and assignments for each of your kids classes each day aggregated into one page or e-mail!), online discussions accross the school community and more.

I love finding thinking like this…his personal observations and thoughts through the Web log teach me about my own thinking. Where could you find this type of content pre-Blogger?

Great writing too…here’s a gem of an entry:

Of course a blogware-based Bryant website could still fail. There are cultural issues here – if teachers and administrators simply don’t really need to disseminate timely information online, or if even a much-decreased level of required effort still is too much for overworked, underpaid educators, if more parental kibbitzing is more of a negative than a positive, and/or if there really aren’t enough connected Bryant parents then it just doesn’t matter. But – if that turns out to be the forordained outcome, then (assuming we’re going to have any Bryant website at all) setting up up some blogware and slapping on a Bryant theme is likely to be orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than any other solution. So in other words, Bryant-via-blogware is definitely the right implementation architecture if it results in a vibrant, living web presence but it’s probably still the right approach even if it doesn’t!

Will be watching and perhaps interacting in this most interesting process.

—–

I try to keep my politics out of this space, but it’s really early on a rainy Friday morning and I’m pissed. The lambs of Congress have fallen into step with nary a whimper behind a couple of spoiled boys who want to show how tough they are. Want to know what drives me crazy?

This:
“Public Enemy No. 1 today is a government that Mr. Cheney was in effect helping shore up just a couple of years ago.”

And this:
“What made the trick possible was Harken’s guardian angel, a powerful institution controlled by an oil man, Robert Stone, who was a strong political supporter of Mr. Bush’s father. This institution acquired a large stake in Harken as soon as Mr. Bush became a board member, and subsequently showed itself willing to do whatever it took to keep the hapless company afloat. This included taking much of the company’s debt off its books in return for assets of doubtful value, and giving Harken a share in their partnership almost twice as large as its contribution to the partnership’s capital.”

Can any semi-conscious person believe these guys are motivated by OUR best interests? Why do I have this sick feeling in my stomach that we are about to make a very, very big mistake?
—–

The newspaper site is just about ready…thanks in great part to Seb. It’s been very cool actually working on a project collaboratively with someone. We’ve come to the finishing touches pretty quickly, and now I’m getting anxious to start using it.

I don’t want to duplicate what the school paper is doing, so I’m going to have them focus on making editorial decisions about outside stories to link in the Web log with some annotation. At some point, they will also be contributing original writing…at least one story each. I want to try to simulate as much as I can the workings of a real news room for at least a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Here’s the plan as it stands right now. I have 23 students, six sections. I’m thinking six groups of four (one will have three students). Each day, the group has to come up with four potential news items to post to their sections. They’ll post these individual ideas in their own weblogs and write about their decisions. Ideally, they will then work as a team to decide on only one which will actually get posted. They’ll briefly summarize their selection process each day in their personal weblogs. Once each group makes its selection, a rotating group of editors will decide which of those six stories will be given the “Top Story” status. I’ll sit in on those discussions…while trying to figure out how to assess all of this!

In the meantime, they will be working on their own personal, school-related stories which they will post at some point. We’ll also have some mini-lessons on digital photography, and at some point each person will post an original photo.

So here I go again, flying into a cloud, hoping to come out right side up…
—–

Been thinking about how to expand the newspaper template into other classes and have come up with the following for next quarter’s media class: Six groups of four or five kids each with an area of study they are responsible for, say advertising, gender issues, violence, news reporting, video games, and Internet. Each area will have it’s own section in the newspaper. Groups will be required to post links to either news or to research information about their areas four times a week (once a week for each group member)with a bit of analysis and annotation (3-4 sentences). We’ll do this for seven weeks, meaning at the end of the project we should have a current study of each area with somewhere near 175-200 pieces of information collectively. At the end of the term, students use the information they have collected as the basis of a presentation (both oral and in the Web log) about their topics. Assessment will center on meeting posting requirements, depth of analysis, use of information in the presentation, and the presentation itself.

I really like this idea for a number of reasons: first, it’s not a high maintenance project for either student or teacher. It’s constructivist. It puts the onus on the student to collect relevant and useful data. It focuses learning on the student, and allows students to teach one another as well. It supports collaboration. It uses Web logs.

I’m sure I’ll flesh this out as I get closer to it, but I can already see many different ways to use this template in many different settings.
—–

“Our article examines how Weblogs offer a way to initially cloister, organize, assess and criticize, and then re-distribute knowledge and information for the purpose of convening a community that will then function to amass knowledge, each member sharing, collaborating, redistributing and redefining themselves in the act of knowledge production. Members of weblog communities enter into apprenticeships with one another that constantly enhance intelligence in knowledge spaces because the guiding principle is that we don’t know everything so we are looking to “the other” to complete us, and therefore complete the community.”

Wish I’d said that! Congratulations to Sarah, Hector and Barbara…let’s ride that wave…
—–

Sebastian is cranking on our version of a newspaper site. Feedback please!
—–

Pat continues his most excellent discussion on access issues…it’s obvious he’s been doing a lot of thinking and testing. Isn’t it great that we all can so easily share in his knowledge and experience? Very cool.

Which leads to this comment from Will: That is one kind of cumbersome aspect of reading kids’ Web logs that I am finding…having to go into each one separately to leave feedback. I’m just so time stressed right now that any shortcut would help. Again, writing classroom analogy: This is a problem with hard copy as well. Advantage with blogs is pushing kids toward response to each others’ writing; enlistment of trusted outside adults with Net access as response partners; and creative use of non-Blackboard, inexpensive work arounds. E.g.: We’re getting all our kids set up with Gaggle e-mail accounts. Why not have what you want to read sent to you as an e-mail that directs you to the blog page where the final copy is located? Or give kids access to a newsBlog that asks for teacher response with the posting of newsItem headlines that link to pages ready for response. Whatever you do, don’t respond to every posting. You deserve a life.

Great ideas. A life? I remember that!
—–

Sarah posts some provocative notes from Educause that are worth the time to work through. Some of the highlights for me, the idea of a school portfolio (which could be accomplished with a weblog), the idea of collaborative web projects that students do on their own time, and ITech at Lafayette, which is just up the road from me. Also here and here.
—–

There’s a really great discussion about student access issues going on at Pat and Seb’s sites…I wish I had more time to chime in. One of the kind of nervy parts about back to school night last week was when a couple of parents ask how we prevent knuckleheads from the outside from getting into kids Web logs and causing havoc. I didn’t have a great answer…I know that the easiest solution is to just sign up all the requisite members then close membership for the site and just let kids admit members by taking requests. At least that way their writing and their sites are still there for people to see. (Someone correct my thinking here if it’s faulty.)

Pat says “the simplest solution for mlk student blogging seems to be letting large numbers of students share Contributing Editor status on one blog.” I’m still trying to picture this…would each kid create a personal story page? And then just edit it as they go along?

Such aggregation of student pages gives tremendous “access control” to the ME, right? And to as many MEs as a teacher wants to add. Just have any page notices sent to whoever needs to be notified. But wait. Filter it even more. We have an Esoteric Setting plugin on the BAWP sites, letting us make a site “members only” or “open to the public” with the click of a button. Add to that the not-hacker-proof-but-useful turning off of public access membership and to various content (stories, pics, gems, etc.) in Editorial Preferences, and an ME can significantly limit public access to student work within a publicly accessible site. Throw in a strictly enforced appropriate use policy and we’re close to COPPA and CIPA compliant. That is one kind of cumbersome aspect of reading kids’ Web logs that I am finding…having to go into each one separately to leave feedback. I’m just so time stressed right now that any shortcut would help. And I’m still going to have to learn template creation so I can build some of those settings in like Pat suggests.

At any rate, this is the best part, this figuring it out stuff. Nothing like going through it to see how it works and clarify your thinking. And Manila has so many layers to explore. Which is a good thing…keeps me interested.

—–