I just LOVE this:

And yet, according to a Pew Charitable Trust study, an overwhelming majority of the middle and high school students who use the Internet say their schools don’t create assignments that take advantage of resources online – resources they can find on their own. They’re “far ahead of their teachers and principals in taking advantage of online educational resources” – such as weblogs – the report concludes. (Emphasis mine.)

And then this:

Some colleges, however, are beginning to use class blogs as a way to share assignments and get feedback. Paul Grabowicz, new media professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s school of journalism, teaches a course where students run a class blog…Through postings students can share their thoughts in a more comfortable medium – and hone their writing skills. (Hmmm…and high school and elementary teachers are doing what???)

I’m not so sure my students are so far out front when it comes to Web logs before they get to my class. But they’re definitely out front when it comes to getting some experience with what is without a doubt a tool that improves instruction and teaching. And I think more and more people around here are starting to figure that out.

Just some highlights from the last couple of days here:

From: Great Idea, but how do I do it? A practical example of learning object creation using SGML/XML

A learning object is any piece of information that can be used to contribute to a learning experience. The IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee defines learning objects as “…any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning.” (2001). Learning objects can take many formats including instructional videos, websites, textbooks, illustrations from textbooks, or audio clips. They can be any size; for example a full course and a single graphic could both be described as learning objects. The format and size of a learning object depends on the need the object was created to meet, including its potential for reuse. The value of learning objects is in their reuse.

To implement a structured content development model, the underlying structure for all text learning objects must be designed. The learning objects themselves are authored in accordance to this defined structure using a markup language such as SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) or XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Authored content in the form of SGML/XML files resides in a content repository, which has capabilities for search, retrieval, revision, and version control, among other things. Acquisition and administration of such a repository is required. For output, the SGML/XML file must be transformed for a specified media. The transformation process requires a programmer to develop custom scripts, a technician to run the scripts once developed, and visual designers to create the look of the output media such as web pages, print products, and CD-ROMs…Developing educational content using a structured content development model requires a great deal of effort. For organizations that create a lot of similar content, the effort is worthwhile as content can be output in a variety of media, with a consistent look within each output media. Also, the concept of content that can be reused in different contexts, both within and outside an institution, is the underlying theme behind the “economics” of learning objects (Downes, 2000).

With the evolution of desktop publishing, there has been much emphasis on the look of a document. Writers not only write content, but also spend hours formatting so it has a pleasing look. More sophisticated users set up style sheets in their word processing or desktop publishing software in order to apply consistent styles throughout their documents. Usually these styles have names like body text, heading, and subhead . This naming reflects the style applied to the content, not what the content is. For example, body list may be applied to a list of learning outcomes and a list of required resources for a lesson. It may be visually attractive to style these two items in the same way, however, semantically they are very different.

Using a markup language to define the content, the learning outcomes may be identified with a tag called learningoutcomes and the resources with a tag called resources. In output to the specified medium, the content in learningoutcomes and resources could have the same style applied to them, or different styles. The power of identifying content for what it is lies in the ability to intelligently search content for reuse.
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Seb points to an interesting post by Phillip Windley regarding Web logs as conversation. It pretty well echoes my experience and feeling of how these things work. While some would encourage more responses on other people’s sites, I feel more comfortable doing what I’m doing now, bringing the post back here and commenting. Phillip says:

Viewing weblogs as part of a two-way conversation takes some effort. In an email conversation, a chat, a mailing list, or a newsgroup, there is a threaded discussion happening. You see the conversation happening sequentially like you were watching a dialogue between two people. Not so with weblogs…

Conversations, important ones, happen on weblogs all the time. People feel remarkably empowered by their ability to control the editorial policy and speak in their own voice. This is an excellent example of a keyword I think describes an exciting trend in computing: decentralization.

Another term that has been used in conjunction with decentralization is “loosely coupled.” What sets weblogs apart from other ways of having a conversation is this loose coupling. Other conversational forms are tightly coupled by the explicit threading that is part and parcel of their very design. As we’ve discovered, weblogs lack this explicit threading. This makes them better for some things, and not as good at others. Weblogs would be a poor tool for quickly reaching a consensus on a meeting time for a large group, for example, unless someone in the group has dictatorial powers. They’re a great way, on the other hand, to share institutional knowledge.

Weblogs are a effective method for members of an organization to narrate their work, keep track of things they think are important, annotate links to important information, informally describe project plans, and understand what others in their group are working on. I think weblogs could be particularly effective in education as a way for teachers to share primary sources of information with their students, model good writing, and provide deeper commentary on issues being studied. Likewise, weblogs in student hands provide students with a place to practice their writing skills, try on new ideas for size before committing to them, and get a sense of what their peers are thinking on an issue.

Seb puts it this way:

I can only report a strong personal reluctance to distribute my comments and (possible) insights over a large number of Weblog comment spaces. I want to reach out, read your stuff, carry it with me, digest it, and then use my own writing space to contextualize it in a personally meaningful way.

That’s the way I feel, too. Just as with this post, my biggest pull when reading other people’s content is to contextualize it to my own experience. I think that’s only natural. Yes, there are times when I feel compelled to add a comment to someone’s Web log, but most often I bring it back here. This is my ongoing conversation primarily with myself as I go through the portfolio process of collecting information, selecting what I find most relevant, and then reflecting on it in terms of how it fits with my life view. That reflecting is where much of my learning takes place, on the fly, and I want to track and document that here, not in someone else’s space. It does make the “conversation” more difficult in that the threads go all over the place (which is one of the reasons Trackback is so intriguing.) But to me, that’s what the power of Web logs is really about. It is publishing, yes, but it’s more a learning log.

In that same vein, I find myself getting in the habit of doing a regular review of my posts, just reading back and seeing what sticks out. And if I’ve found one major weakness in my Web logging efforts, it is in the area of information recall. Searching is only so good, and I know that I need to learn and do much more in the way of data and metadata and mining the information I include here.

As Seb says:

After all, not many people are really good at reflecting upon processes that span longer periods of time in completely unaided manner. We can only pay attention to limited number of experiential items at a given point in time, and working solely on the basis of material that we retrieve from memory is not the best strategy either, as psychologists have documented in countless studies.

What I hope my students get out of this more than anything is the opportunity to learn real reflection on a body of work that in it’s prior form was too bulky and too wieldy to look at effectively (unless they happened to be extremely organized.) Of course, that’s my biggest job, to teach them how to reflect and to show them the value of doing so.
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(via Stephen) It’s great to see so much being done here. By the time I can really focus on this idea there will be a great many examples to choose from I’m sure.

Phil Windley (who I’m going to have to add to my aggregator) reports that he has a feed for his class syllabus either daily, weekly or monthly depending on his student’s needs. Now I know this is a college setting and that logistically there may not be a need for this in a k-12 setting. I guess I’m still amazed at the concept of supplying the information in a number of forms to a larger audience in they need or desire it.

In a meeting yesterday the supervisors were lamenting the fact that we have a couple of dozen committees running here dealing with “critical issues” that rarely communicate with each other. When I proposed the solution of creating a Committee Web log where minutes and notes for all the committees were posted that could be sortable by department AND, just for the heck of it, could also be pushed to individuals via e-mail if they so desired, everyone was like “We can do that?” and then “When can we do that?” It’s on the list for May 20, the day after the release of the new and improved Frontier/Manila product.
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Microsoft and AOL are getting the blogging bug, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone. And now the inevitable debates will ensue as to whether or not this is a good thing since both of those companies have a tendency to take great ideas and make them worse. I think, though, that more blogging publicity can only help.

I’m still amazed from last night at how few people had any knowledge of Web logs, much less their potential in the classroom. There were about a dozen or so that stayed after the presentations to talk and ask questions, and many of them expressed this sense of amazement. And I don’t think it was so much because of the Web logs I showed them as it was the concept in general. They were literally dumbstruck.

And something else that I haven’t really articulated here is that the half a dozen or so other teachers at my school who have put their collective toes in the water are all singing Web logs praises. They’re seeing real improvement in writing and thinking skills, and their students love them. Next fall I can see this really growing here.

I hope that the big boys get the word out and provide some useful tools…is there any doubt left that one way or the other Web logs or similar technologies will be a integral tool in an educator’s arsenal?

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Trained half a dozen teachers from Asbury Park yesterday and spent this evening demonstrating Web logs to 75+ alternate route candidates and I must say, people are amazed and very interested in what Manila can do. It’s not me…other than I’ve been learning where not to go as I do more and more of this. It’s all of those potentials that we’ve been seeing and thinking about all along. But the amazing thing? Out of all of the teachers I saw tonight, three had heard of Web logs, and none of those had seen one. Obviously, we need much more blogvangelism!
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This is a test post to show my friends at Asbury Park how this works.
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I’ve been trying very hard not to do much posting about politics and policy here since a) this space is provided by my employer, b) there is enough free, independent web space out there for the taking, and c) this country is more and more becoming a scary place in terms of intellectual and personal freedoms. The problem is that I just haven’t had time to create some new space, and the idae of another place to keep my thoughts is somehow daunting to me. Still, I read stuff like this and I just get outraged, and I have no outlet for it. (BTW, if I do create that new site, it’s name will be “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.” I saw that on a bumper sticker in Key West and it just rang very true.)

That’s one of the lures of this easy publishing stuff; all of a sudden you have a voice and it’s frustrating when you can’t fully use it. We’ll see…

I was thinking yesterday that I might start a Web log for this Web site transformation project just to keep all of the relevant info in one place and to give people an idea of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. There is so much to do.

The good news is that Seb has agreed to consult on the project, and I’m very happy to have him on board. He’s always been one of those that has pushed my thinking on this, and I think we’re both psyched to see where it might lead. And I have the good fortune of having a Systems Analyst and technology group that is very skilled and supportive. This idea keeps coming more and more into focus as we talk about process and implementation, and it’s starting to feel like a team instead of a lone voice in the wilderness.

One theme that has arisen as I’ve presented to various groups and begun to flesh out the details is that what we’re creating here is more than just a Web site; it’s going to be a tool to enhance teaching and learning. People have a bit of a hard time getting their brains around the idea of using the Web site not only as a communications tool but as a teaching tool. I’ve been able to show some great examples both of district use and of classroom use, but the vision that we’re creating deals with the seamless integration of the whole package: static information, department specific multimedia dynamic content (KM in here), teaching and collaboration space for lessons and learning objects, electronic portfolio space, SIS interface for data access, and eventually, personalized Intranet space utilizing highly specific RSS feeds to consume and publish relevant content to a variety of audiences. It’s a mind boggling concept for most…flexibility and empowerment for all members of the school community. Especially when you consider the limited interaction most have had with our current Web site.

So we’re taking that end result and trying to break it down into pieces that we need to build to form the whole puzzle. We’re going to spend the next month or two just talking to the people who are most involved here: teachers, supervisors and to some extent students. With any luck, we’ll have a site plan by Sept. 1 and we’ll begin creating and implementing in late Fall. Right now, we’re looking to launch portions of the site around the first of the year and have departments come on board slowly after that.

I’ve always been impatient, and that seems like such a long time to me. But I’ve been convinced that the bulk of the time needs to be spent up front. I don’t want to rush through the planning. But I am looking forward to seeing where this will end up. Really excited. Really scared.

Wow…have we already tipped past text blogs straight to audio? Geesh, and here I though I was a bit ahead of the game…

Moorehead predicts that once the novelty of audio blogging subsides, it will become just another tool in a blogger’s repertoire.

Yep…yawn…this stuff is so passé…ho hum.
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(via elearnspace) Stephen Downes does a nice job of framing the Web log experience for novices and veterans alike in this piece, but I’m especially intruigued by his assertion that:

The next educational use of blogs will be for the distribution of learning content. Blogs form an ideal medium for the distribution of professional development and other learning resources. Some initiatives have already started as places such as Maricopa College and the University of Calgary are experimenting with the use of RSS to distribute learning objects and learning object metadata. Coupled with a standard web browser or email client, or using a dedicated RSS headline reader such as Amphetadesk or Carmen’s Headline Viewer, a learner may be presented with a selection of learning objects supporting day-to-day or preprogrammed study. This allows a learner to access resources from a wide variety of sources, including not only education providers, but also companies and individuals offering specialized learning opportunities.

This is a vision that is still a couple of steps beyond where I can get with it, but it certainly makes sense. It really sets the stage for individualized learning to a great degree. But for me it still comes back to that whole idea of getting the information that’s relevant to your needs in an easy way.

Earlier today as I was discussing the school Web site project here with my connected-at-the-hip Systems Analyst, we were envisioning what the future might be like here. I’ve always pictured student and teacher startup screens on our Intranet as being driven by RSS feeds of all types, whether it’s timely school news or the latest sports results. But Stephen’s post helped me to see that we can do that with content area learning “objects” as well to spur further understanding or practice of concepts that kids might be struggling with. And then couple that ability with the use of Web logs-as-online-portfolios to illustrate the learning, and you really do have what he refers to as the “best the web has to offer.”

Because they tap into the heart of one of the web’s great strengths, personal expression and control, and because they draw on the communication capacities inherent in an inter-network, they have become an effective means of distribution [of]any digital content and at the same time a highly selective filtering and classification system for that content.

That’s a great way of looking at it.
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After a few weeks of fast and furious back and forth about Manila, the Dev Group has fallen ominously (?) silent. Hmmm…hope that means Jake is working. I’ve got a group coming in on Wednesday to be trained on this stuff and I sure would love it if the new News Item interface was released…who do I call???
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Jim McGee says:

I have a new hypothesis about why it’s difficult to get people to contribute to knowledge management systems in organizations. Conventional wisdom says it’s because people are worried that someone will steal their ideas. I think that’s a rationalization. I think the real fear is the fear of being ignored. The fear that the knowledge I share is so obvious or trivial that no one will care. What’s the old maxim from Mark Twain? “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

I can’t tell you how many times I think similar thoughts when posting to this site or others. I always wonder if people will read what I contribute and find it irrelevant. But that pushes me to think hard about what I post and to make it as clear and interesting as possible. I’m more than willing to share my ideas…as long as they make sense, of course.

That works for my students too. Today, as I read through their Web logs, I was thinking about how important it was to provide the audience for their writing. I think without conciously deciding to do so, I’ve been moving in ways that provide more opportunities for them to respond to each other. The working groups that I put them in will serve some of that purpose as they become more and more aware of readers.

I think Jim’s post speaks especially to teachers, however. There is a constant judgement on the part of students, parents, colleagues and supervisors that makes actually publishing our work a very daunting thought. While I truly believe that in a supportive atmosphere such contributions would promote good teaching (for many of the same reasons I believe Web logs promote good writing,) there certainly is a greater perception of risk than when everything is carried out behind closed doors. (And, of course, there are those who will resist because they don’t want to be held more accountable for their work in the first place.)

We’ve talked a lot about the technology in the last couple of years. We’ve come up with some truly creative ways to use Web logs in our classrooms. But as our ideas move from lessons to classrooms to schools to disctricts, I have a feeling we’re going to be talking much more about the implementation and marketing of the technology from here on out.

I shared my Web log “vision” with the admin team at my school today and lo and behold I think they got it. I’ve learned my lesson in the past and avoided the “really heavy stuff” like RSS and CMS and all those other initials that tend to make newbies’ eyes glaze over. I just stuck to the concept of distributed content creation, collaboration, ease of use, and knowledge management. Eight Powerpoint slides and about 20 minutes of tilling produced this: