Tools
On the slight chance that <a href=”http://www.blogger.com”>Blogger </a>users didn’t see this, now you can <a href=”http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html”>compose your posts and send them directly from Word</a>. Another step toward integration of all of these tools…

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I know that I have said this before, but very few edubloggers out there have more practical experience than Barbara Ganley at Middlebury College. She’s back from an extended break with a post that talks about getting ready for her fifth year of using blogs in the classroom.

And so, here I am, back again, delighted to be a part of this evolution of blogs in our classrooms, convinced that we should take the time to help our students develop a grammar of and a practice of academic blogging, both individual and collaborative, then pretty much step out of the way except to ask questions and provide feedback (i.e. step out of the center of the blog and thus the classroom). Our students will surprise themselves by how much they accomplish even in a single course in a single semester. Imagine if all their courses, all their semesters, all their disciplines of study were connected via their blogging…

Barbara is definitely an inspiration, and she mentions a visit I made to Middlebury, must be three summers ago now to meet with her and Bryan Alexander, Sarah Lohnes, and Hector Vila. I think that was the first time that I had truly been in the company of bloggers, and the fact that it was at such a beautiful and well-respected educational setting just validated a lot of what I was feeling about blogs back then. If these guys were using them, there must be something to it.

And there definitely is. If you don’t believe me, believe Barbara, who is without question someone who has been a wonderful teacher of mine through her blog. If it’s not on your list of regular reads, it should be. I’m really looking forward to see what she has in store for her students this year.
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Today was one of those days that made me yearn for the classroom again. It was the second of two Tablet PC Pilot trainings for about 20 teachers where we really started getting into the pedagogy of how we’re going to use these things in the classroom. It was part just exploring the potential of all the cool apps that are coming out for tablets, part evangelizing the changing nature of digital content, and part amazement at watching technology actually work. I love those days when you know people are walking out drained but psyched about the prospects.

For me, the coolest thing was not so much being able to walk around the classroom and have everything I did on the tablet project wirelessly to the screen as I taught. No, the coolest thing was the ability to give up control of the projector to other teachers who wanted to show what they were doing on the tablet. Three clicks and they were on screen. And then someone else would take over and show their work. And then someone else. We got into this cool kinda “And Then You Can Do This” dance with tablet and projector, each of us building upon the other…really wild. I can only imagine what it might be like to have a classroom of students with this technology, being able to seamlessly bring their work up on screen to talk us through it or annotate it.

The lightbulb moment in today’s session really had little to do with the tablets, however. It came when one of the teachers showed a Word document that he’d created that was full of links. Thing was, the links didn’t go to Websites; they went to pictures and audio files, and presentations or other documents. For some reason, this was a huge “a ha” moment for at least half the class, and I tried to develop it in the context of how digital content blows away traditional paper content. When you get that, you finally start to understand how inflexible paper is, and how powerful links are. All of a sudden, they were wanting to know more, and they started understanding what true hyperlinked documents can be. The energy level in the room just shot up.

I’ve got a second group to train next week, and then we’ll start bringing these into our classrooms in September. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens. But today was definitely too much fun.

From the Shameless Self-Promotion Dept. comes news that this blog ranks 294 on the Feedster list of top 500 blogs. Amazing and humbling and scary and motivating and a bunch of other things all at the same time. If you’d a told me four years ago…

Go, Blogs! Go!
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Bud’s thinking about getting his kids involved with YourHub this fall, the community news portal for Denver’s Rocky Mountain News. It’s a great idea, and it of course makes me yearn for the classroom once again. There’s just so much I could be doing with my journalism kids: blogs, rss, social research, wikis, Skype interviews, podcasts, photo stories at Flickr, all published to a dynamic online newspaper space of our own design. (Out here in the hinterlands of New Jersey, there isn’t a YourHub to work with yet…) My goodness how things have changed in just the past couple of years.

Last week I sat down with blogger/journalism teacher Tom McHale to talk about the class and our school newspaper and what we might be able to do. What struck me is how many more opportunities there are now to do regular, ongoing journalism, stuff that’s not relegated to the paper copy that comes out every two weeks. In fact, the newspaper site may be one of the biggest draws into our community. We talked about adding video editorials, regular audiocasts, photo montages…there are so many ways that students could contribute. And it’s really all about being able to read and write different types of texts. I can’t imagine how much fun it would be to teach that class again…

So thanks to Tim Wilson’s deepening interest in podcasting and his gentle prodding earlier this week, last night he got Tim Lauer, Steve Burt and me together on a Skype conference call and we did a 45-minute roundtable about Web 2.0 in schools a la the Gillmor Gang. And I have to say, that despite some issues with microphone levels and some pops and whirrs on occasion, it came out pretty darn good. About two seconds before we started recording, we lit on the “Coast to Coast” theme since Steve and Tim L. were in Oregon and I’m out here in Jersey. (The other Tim is in “flyover land” in Minn.) Tim W. lives up to his name as the Savvy Technologist with his smooth as silk intro music and voice over, and despite Steve calling me dead “wrong” at one point, what transpired was a fairly spirited and somewhat coherent discussion about the state of education in this new world.

As often happens, some disparate ideas came together while we were talking. The most interesting, to me at least, is the segment on providing online information to draw parents into a more active relationship with schools. I’m not going to give away the details, but the upshot was that there seemed to be a difference in whether to entice parents with access to grades and absence reports or access to content. You can probably guess what camp I fell into.

Anyway, the more meta reflection is about the podcast itself. I was really impressed by how well Skype seemed to work off my wireless connection at home. I didn’t realize how loud my mic was until I listened to the end result…we’ll have to work on that. But I guess I just really liked being able to talk about these issues with three smart, ed tech leaders out there who I’ve gotten to know fairly well over the last few years. Now the big question is whether or not potential listeners will find anything interesting in what we had to say. Please let me know what you think as we’re talking about trying to make this a regular event.

Download: STP-ETC2C (18.6 MB, 40:28)

So here are some still unpolished ideas about content that seem to have evolved over the last couple of months of presenations and workshops. Obviously, content and the way we create and consume it is what the Read/Write Web is all about.

1. We need to be able to Access Content–The Web is the greatest repository of knowledge and information that we’ve ever had. The fact that a good number of children in this country (and elsewhere) still don’t have access to it is downright sinful. These days, when it seems like knowledge doubles every couple of days, how can those kids be expected to compete, not just with kids around the world, but with kids from my district, for instance? The ironic thing to me is that now with this two way relationship, the one technology that could put everyone on an even playing field is instead just growing the divide between those that have access and those that don’t. Sinful.

2. Teachers and students have to learn to individually and collaboratively Create Content–Especially now when it’s becoming easier and easier to do, teachers need to do this to provide models to students of how to use the tools effectively. Students need to do this to begin creation of a digital portfolio of work that can serve as a lifelong repository of personal learning and reflection. We need to do this collaboratively so as to create our own networks and systems of support that go beyond the traditional classroom and the traditional school day.

3. We need to effectively Collect Content–With so much to consume, the ways in which we find, assess and archive relevant, interesting, important information is a crucial new literacy. This means being able to, manipulate search engines, evaluate sources, read critically, synthesize information, use technologies like RSS, and organize the results in effective ways.

4. We need to effectively Connect Content–Learning is a social act, and very little of what we learn is static and absolute. As George Siemens says, “learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity.” And so we must be skilled at finding ways to connect what we know to the database that is the Web, and, in turn, learn even more from those connections.

What’s overwhelming to me right now is not so much the content as it is the tools that are coming out to access, create, collect and connect all of it together. It feels amazingly crazy at present, and I’m sure that’s not going to slow down any time soon.
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Classroom
Ok, somebody pinch me…another <a href=”http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/09/Tampabay/Blogging_classroom_co.shtml”>positive newspaper article </a>about blogs in the classroom? I’d say we’re on a roll!

<blockquote>Blogs have long been popular among teenagers and young adults, who often use them at home as virtual diaries and write about their personal lives. But a growing number of teachers like Fred Roemer, Kayla’s teacher, are discovering that students are just as eager to blog about math and history.</blockquote>
And I absolutely love this:

<blockquote>On the class Web site, Schubert could see her daughter’s spelling grades half an hour after she had taken a test or monitor deadlines for assignments. But the highlight, Schubert said, was the daily classroom blog written by the fifth-graders.

She checked it at least once a day, she said.

“I liked knowing what was going on in class, seeing what they were doing, what they were learning, just knowing my daughter was in a safe place,” Schubert said.</blockquote>
Maybe we’re turning the corner here, and maybe this is a golden opportunity for those teachers using blogs successfully in the classroom to dial up their local newspapers and let them know what they’re up to. The angle is simple: Weblogs can be much more than just online journals. They can be effective learning and communication tools as well. AND, by using them in our curricula, we model appropriate use.

In fact, this has been a pretty good day, blogwise all the way around. Check out this excerpt from the <a href=”http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=27338″>Moodle blogs forum</a> from James Robertson:

<blockquote>I appreciate all the discussion about blogs vs forums — many fine points. But for me the clincher in the argument for blogs is my 18-year-old daughter who loves to blog. She is especially pleased with some of them, and reads them out loud to me. She explains why she wrote it and why she expressed herself the way she did, and what other approaches she might have taken but didn’t. She also reads blogs from her friends that she really enjoyed and talks about what makes them enjoyable.</blockquote>
We haven’t talked too much around here about the parent-child-blog relationship because there hasn’t really been that much to say. But maybe these are the seeds…

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(via Tim Wilson) I guess Yahoo News was putting them to shame on this, but whatever the reason, Google has finally stepped up to the plate and is now offering search results via RSS feeds. If you haven’t gotten the RSS bug yet, this is even more reason to. (Check out my Quick Start Guide to RSS for Educators if you haven’t already done so…I’ll be updating it soon now, too.) The news you want comes to you instead of you having to go find it. Since Google uses has over 4,500 sources in their news database, odds are you can track pretty much whatever you are interested in.

As Tim points out, however, the key to using this well is to go through the advanced search. There you can search for exact phrases, limit your search to certain publications or to a geographic area or to a certain date range and more. Just create and execute the search, then click on the RSS link on the left. (Here’s hoping Google makes the link a bit more obvious…)

You have to be prepared to tweak this as you go; see what you get for a few days and then revisit. But this is a skill that I think every teacher needs to master, and needs to teach all of her students. And from a research standpoint, it’s a great way to begin to understand the power of RSS.

Addendum: Don’t forget that if you do want to limit your search to one publication, you can find a growing list of Google News sources courtesy the Private Radio blog.
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So I’m on the road again, today at Franklin College in Indiana to do a four-hour workshop with IT types from colleges around the state. Unlike my last trip (shudder), this one has been going a little better…free upgrade to a convertible last night when I got here and the whole newly renovated college alumni house with a cable modem connection all to myself last night and this morning. (Believe it or not, it has a “Richardson Dining Room.”)

The plan is to talk about where things are regarding the Read/Write Web and then get them blogging and rssing and maybe Jot/Furling and Flickring. But we know how plans go. Maybe some scintillating photos from the workshop later.
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If you’re not reading the Connectivism Blog by George Siemens you should. I find his theories of learning and education as influenced by the Read/Write Web to be really interesting and in many cases profound (at least for my feeble brain.) But it’s just such a mind shift when you start thinking about how these technologies are all about connections, connections to people, to ideas and to information. It’s that last that he is writing about today:

As a learner, I need a way to have a connection back to the original knowledge source. Knowledge reflexivity is simply a means of ensuring that as the original knowledge source changes, we have a connection which ensures we remain current. The way most education is designed today makes this very impractical (imagine a designer emailing each learner who has taken a course informing them of a core knowledge change). The issue stems from the left over remnants of learning design from a society and era of greater stability. But reality has changed for learners. If I take a course, I should have some level of reflexivity for some period of time.

A couple of things in there jump out at me, the first being the phrase “an era of greater stability.” This is what I’ve been talking about when I say that we as educators don’t own the content anymore, that we can’t rely on traditional texts the way that we used to. Problem is that so many educators are trying to hold on to that design because it’s easy and familiar. I also like the idea of reflexivity with knowledge, that it’s a relationship, not just something we acquire.

So how do we stay connected to a knowledge base that is in flux? My favorite tool:

How can knowledge reflexivity be designed into existing learning processes? Probably the easiest method is some type of variation of RSS. Those who follow blogs (and use an aggregator) will understand that RSS is simply a means of staying aware of changes in blogs (or any other information source). Rather than requiring a learner to continually access a resource to determine if it has changed, an aggregator automatically performs the function. It’s a time saving process, but more importantly, ensures that the learner remains current and aware on a particular subject.

That is certainly how I stay connected these days. I don’t know what I did B.B. (before Bloglines.) Good stuff.
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So now that I’ve gotten into Jots to the point where it’s a seamless part of my practice, and since there is just way too much good stuff I’m finding to actually blog about it all, I’ve added a “Links Blog” to the right hand column for anyone who’s interested in seeing what else I’m consuming (or trying too.) Here’s the feed if you want to get it somewhere else, too.
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I’ve been a fervent supporter of Wikipedia and the idea of collaborative content creation, and I still am. But lately I’ve been trying to get out of the “echo chamber” and consume some alternative viewpoints regarding the things I hold dear. (I’ve even been spending some time at Instapudit lately…) The discussions over at Lessig Blog about what should be free led me to “The Great Failure of Wikipedia” by Jason Scott, which, to put it mildly, offers a contrarian point of view:

This is what the inherent failure of wikipedia is. It’s that there’s a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of triddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority. Even if you can prove something, you’re now in the situation that anybody can change it. And while that’s all great in a happy-go-lucky flower shower sort of way, it’s when you realize that the people who are going to change it could have absolutely no experience with the subject whatsoever, then you see where we are.

Now I know he comes at this from a content creation point of view vs. the content consumption relationship that most of us have with Wikipedia. But it’s an interesting read, one that has certainly got me thinking about my own somewhat euphoric view.
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So is this a good thing or a bad thing? I mean, we all want to be at the top of search results, but…