So this is the way it works, now. Read Thomas Friedman about how the World is Flat and that the Chinese are immersing their kids in the study of math and science and pumping out engineers at a rapid clip, and then, just to make sure, ring up an edublogger in Shanghai using a free Internet phone service to do some fact checking.

I got to spend about 20 mintues on a Skype call chatting with Jeff Utecht this afternoon (about 5 am his time) about what it’s like to teach in China, the state of the Chinese blogosphere, and what Chinese kids do after school. It was really interesting on a number of levels, first the incredible quality of the call from literally half a world away, and second, obviously, getting the lowdown on whether Friedman is just trying to scare our socks off or really telling it like it is. (Apparently, it’s the latter, which seems to provoke the former in quite a few people these days.) The only downside was that we had planned on doing this using Gizmo so that we could record it, but unfortunately, his install wasn’t working. Maybe next time.

Jeff has been teaching abroad for the last four years, three in Saudi Arabia and since August in Shanghai at the American School there. About 40% of his students hold U.S. passports and the remainder are Chinese tuition students. He’s teaching kindergarten, first and fifth grades, and the cool part is that his 130 fifth graders are all blogging over at David Warlick’s Blogmeister site, a blogging site it seems the Chinese government hasn’t decided to block…yet. Right now, all the Blogger blogs are out of sight, literally, as are many other blog servers. (Apparently even Tim Wilson’s Savvy Technologist blog is being blocked, even though the RSS feed gets through. So far, this site is still accessible…guess I’m not as politically extreme as Tim…) He hopes to get his first graders podcasting in the near future.

While the American kids go home and play soccer, the Chinese kids go home and get tutored in math and science for four hours. Jeff said that was more at the parents urging than anything else. They see it as a way to improve their kids’ lives, and to eventually be taken care of by their children. And while he’s only halfway through the book, Jeff says so far Friedman is “spot on” in his portrayal of how the world (at least in China) is changing. Shanghai is a boomtown, and everyone downtown is trading something, textiles, parts, whatever.

Jeff said he hadn’t really had a chance to spend time in any of the Chinese schools yet, and I was wondering if any of the Read/Write Web tools we’re playing with are being used over there. But I tend to doubt it. As Jeff said, he can’t imagine what would happen to that society should the Chinese get full access to the ideas and the tools on the Web right now. The world would definitely shake if that happened.

Really interesting stuff. And I just think it’s so wild that I could connect with him from my living room here in little old Stockton, NJ, for free no less. Even better, Jeff can add his own take to this little report should he get the urge (providing I haven’t been censored…) None of this could have happened even a few years ago.

What a cool new world this is.

So we’re at the point in our teacher model pilot that we want to add some curricular management systems to the mix with the hope of settling on one in the spring to implement in fall. We’ve been working with Moodle, which we like, but it doesn’t have the tie in to our student information system that we would like (I don’t think, at least.) We’ve also decided to look at Blackboard and Sharepoint (though not too enthusiastically on my part), and I’m personally interested in .LRN, the developers of which I met at the originaly BloggerCon so many years (two) ago.

So I’m wondering if anyone out there has any other suggestions to consider. We’re primarily PC with a Novell network and an SIS from a relatively small (but growing) company. We want a system that will allow teachers to easily move curriculum online, communicate with students, parents and colleagues, and create collaborative environments of all different types, and allow students and teachers to publish easily and widely.

Any nominations?

A typical night at the Richardson house is now punctuated by a conversation that goes something like this:

Tucker: (Screaming) Hey, DAAAAAAD!
Me: (Running in from the other end of the house thinking something is broken) “What????”
Tucker: “Can I blog?”
Me: (Trying to go from fright to calm and supportive) “Um, sure.” (Deep breath.) “That’s fine.”
Tucker: “Can you help me?”
Me: “C’mon Tuck, you know how to do it by now. You’ve got like 200 posts on your blog.”
Tucker: (Wide-eyed) “REALLY?!?”
Me: “Well, um, no. Not really. But at least 12.”
Tucker: “Coooool!” (Does awkward break dance thing he learned at break dance class last week.) “Can you at least help me login?”
Me: “Sure. Go to Blogger.com.”
Tucker: “Oh yeah, right.” (Short pause.) “How do you spell ‘Blogger’?”
Me: “Sound it out. You can do it.” (Add supportive facial expressions) “Bl…Bl…”
Tucker: “B?” (I nod.) “B…Bl…L?” (I nod again.) “Bl…Bl…Blo… W?”
Me: “What?!? W?”
Tucker: (Eyes wide) “A?”
Me: “You’re guessing. Sound it out.”
Tucker: Bl…Blah… O?”
Me: “Yep.” (Five minutes of this ensues)
Tucker: “Ok. What do I write about?”
Me: What do you want to write about?”
Tucker: “Aliens!”
Me: “Great. Write about aliens!”
Tucker: “How do you spell it?”
Me: (Trying not to frown.) “Tuck…you can do this. Sound it out.”
Tucker: “A?” (I nod) “A…Al… L?” (I smile.) “Al… E?” (Oy)

Get the idea? Thirty words in 45 minutes. But he’s blogging, by golly.

Teaching 1.0–information retrieval
Teaching 2.0–information creation

Hmmm…

So with some pointers from Barbara Ganley, I’ve been doing some reading on hypertext theory and over the past couple of days have immersed myself in Jay David Bolter’s Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print. The second edition came out in 2001, just before the blog explosion, but the table is clearly set by what he’s writing. This is probably the first of a couple “capture the main ideas” type posts about the reading.

We’re in “the late age of print” which captures the feeling I have about paper texts so well. Bolter says that the possibilities for print have pretty much been played out (2) and that “Digital media are refashioning the printed book” (3). Inherent in this discussion is the idea, I think, that hypertext is forcing us to shift our thinking as to the value of print.

In the late age of print, however, we seem more impressed by the impermanence and changeability of text, and digital technology seems to reduce the distance between author and reader by turning the reader into an author herself. Such tensions between monumentality and changeability and between the tendency to magnify the author and to empower the reader have already become a part of our current economy of writing (4). [Emphasis mine.]

Echoes of Jay Rosen, no doubt. And echoes of the connective reading that we must do when we are “empowered” by the ability to enter space with the author. As we read, we connect to ideas and personal knowledge with the intent to respond, not simply to passively, internally grapple with the meaning. Bolton connects this to Plato’s Dialogues which “invite the reader to participate in a conversation and then denies him or her full participation” (104). Not so any more.

What I’ve found especially interesting is how he discusses the network necessary for electronic writing.

If linear and hierarchical structures dominate current writing, our cultural construction of electronic writing is now adding a third: the network as a visible and operative structure. The network as an organizing principle has been present in many forms of writing; indeed Homeric oral poetry shows that the network is older than writing itself…After the invention of writing in the ancient world, it became the writer’s task to establish his own network comprised of references and allusions within the text and connected to the larger network formed by other texts in the culture. From that time until the advent of electronic writing, the referential network has often existed “between the lines” of text—that is, in the minds of readers and writers. Now, however, the network can rise to the surface of the text (106).

Digital technologies call into question the traditional treatise in which the writer assumes control over the argument. And this is the way we teach exposition today, without ever thinking that what is written may be connected to other ideas or interpretations.

Why should a writer be forced to produce a single, linear argument or an exclusive analysis of cause and effect when the writing space allows a writer to entertain and present several lines of thought at once? (107)

What a concept. This idea that a text speaks with a singular voice does not as easily stand in these new writing environments:

Publishing is fundamentally serious and permanent; a scholar or scientist cannot even retract his own previously published argument without embarrassment. A dialogue, on the other hand, speaks with more than one voice and therefore shares or postpones responsibility. A hypertextual essay in the computer could in fact be fashioned as a dialogue between the writer and her readers, and the reader could be asked to share the responsibility for the outcome. [Emphasis mine.]

Really good stuff, much of which seems to validate the shift in thinking that we’re going to have to complete in order to fully prepare our kids for what’s out there. That’s not to say that we don’t continue to teach linear forms of writing as well. But we have to begin introducing the idea of transactional writing, of writing in and for networked audiences that are invited into the conversation. The more they understand that writing is a part of a process of learning and not just a product of it, the better off they will be.
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I’m home sick today. I should be sleeping. Instead, I can’t stop reading and learning. So much to know…

I missed this post by Jay Rosen a month ago, luckily linked to by Ken Smith who has been blogging greatly lately and who I’ve been catching up on today. This is the way of connective learning, isn’t it? Based on personal passions, asynchronous, spontaneous, complex…

Jay says

Sure, weblogs are good for making statements, big and small. But they also force re-statement. Yes, they’re opinion forming. But they are equally good at unforming opinion, breaking it down, stretching it out, re-building it around new stuff. Come to some conclusions? Put them in your weblog, man, but just remember: it doesn’t want to conclude.

People trying to explain their attraction to the weblog form say it’s conversational, two way, personal, a medium for the individual voice— plus interactive with our untold wealth in information, and fun. All true. Doc adds something: weblogging is an inconclusive act— and that’s attractive, part of the fun.

I love that. But it’s so different from the way we teach writing now. The paper essay is a statement of opinion. The Weblog entry is a statement of opinion in progress. I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach the former. But if we believe the future rests in digital communication (which I do, btw), how can we ignore the latter? If our students don’t have the skills to negotiate their learning instead of state it, are we really preparing them for their futures?

The latest issue of Phi Delta Kappan is all about the challenges educators face in a changing world. Only the wrapup piece is free online, but it’s worth the read.

The implications of these changes are not completely clear, but it is clear that the changes will be profound. Information, people, and ideas now traverse the globe with unprecedented speed and frequency. Perhaps even more important, such internationalization affects every field of endeavor. Yet somewhat ironically, our educational discourse is largely stuck in a time warp, framed by issues and standards set decades before the widespread use of the personal computer, the Internet, and free trade agreements. But we can no more afford to isolate ourselves educationally than we can economically or in terms of national security.

Another peg in the “Web Changes Everything” argument, perhaps? “Time warp” definitely feels right.
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Jeff Jarvis e-mailed me this link to a Wall Street Journal article on blog banning.

As parents wring their hands about Internet predators, many teens are worried about a different kind of online intruder: the school principal.

Students are blogging about schoolyard crushes and feuds, posting gossip about classmates on social-networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com, and sharing their party snapshots on public Web pages. Increasingly, their readers include school administrators, who are doling out punishments for online writings that they say cross the line.

Pretty interesting stuff. So maybe we should have every student, teacher and administrator read this guide to student blogging from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Bloggers’ FAQ on Student Blogging addresses legal issues arising from student blogging. It focuses on blogging by high school (and middle school) students, but also contains information for college students.

Bottom line, however, is that case law just hasn’t been blogified yet. In light of the current discussions, this part is pretty relevant:

Is My School-Hosted Blog a Public Forum?

A public forum is one where the student bloggers, not school administrators, have the authority to determine the content. Whether a school-hosted blog would be considered a public forum, and therefore not subject to Hazelwoodcensorship, is determined on a case-by-case basis, looking at the school’s policies and statements. If your school has an Internet Policy or Terms of Use for its site-hosting services, look it over carefully to see if the school has a right to edit or censor content.

And, of course, the ultra bottom line is that we need to get EVERYONE up to speed on this stuff as quickly as possible.
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After mentioning that Tucker was taking to blogging, Darren e-mailed and said that he new of some really young bloggers that
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So does this give anyone else pause?

Current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years.

That is the conclusion of new European studies looking at ice taken from 3km below the surface of Antarctica.

The scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional.

Other research, also published in the journal Science, suggests that sea levels may be rising twice as fast now as in previous centuries.

And, on a more local note:

Rising sea levels caused by global warming may inundate up to three percent of New Jersey’s land area over the next century while affecting up to nine percent of the state with periodic coastal flooding, according to a study by Princeton researchers released last week.

Kind of makes me wonder why the heck I spend so much time blogging and thinking about these technologies. Like, what’s the point?

Well, the point is we’ve got to find some answers, change our behavior, start thinking past next week. We’ve got to start thinking more imaginatively about how we deal with the problems we’re facing, self-created or not. And we’ve got get more imaginative in the ways we educate the kids who are probably going to be the ones to come up with many of the answers we need. We need to teach kids to be real stewards of the earth, to be members of a global community, to work efficiently and productively with other people from disparate places. Alan always talks about creating “fearless learners” and I think it’s an apt label. Which is why we can’t be paralyzed by fear ourselves.

Sorry for the Sunday sermon. It’s just feeling like we don’t have time to waste. I’m not saying the Read/Write Web is the answer to all of our problems. But I sincerely believe, right or wrong, that it represents a huge opportunity to radically improve a system that by many indications is just spinning its wheels.

Just a quick note about the fact that James Farmer’s edublogs and learnerblogs sites are now being blocked by districts. Stephen Downes too. Decisions continue to be taken out of teachers hands. Make sure to read the comments after James’ post. And D’Arcy Norman’s post on the topic. No sense in once again getting into all the reasons why this is just wrongheaded, but it may be time to go on the offensive in more imaginative ways…

Not only do today’s novices use technologies unavailable at the time their teachers were becoming masters, but the quantity and types of information students need to assess has also expanded exponentially. Part of this shift in learning brought about by today’s digital, networked information results from the fact that we now often work, share, and search at the data level as opposed the level of conclusions, narratives, catalogs, or indices. That is, students are not limited to browsing a card catalogue to find just those books that their college library had the resources to purchase and that were described with Library of Congress subject terms as addressing a particular topic and which a publishing house has selected for publication by an author who had created a narrative by sorting and synthesizing years’ worth of research into a comprehensible whole. They can use search and collaboration tools to get at the primary source data as well as a wider variety of studies of the data. By so doing, they can wade through and remove four levels of filters between themselves and the information.

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It’s holiday time. I’m not gonna be around these parts for the next four days as I’m taking a much needed blog holiday to visit with the fam, watch other people eat turkey (Thanksgiving just hasn’t been the same since we went veggie), read one of those paper things with words printed in it, and dive into big piles of leaves with my kids. Bliss…

But before I go, I figured since this post is going to stay on top o’ the blog for a few days, I might do another one of those reader participation posts that seemed to liven things up around here last time. So, here’s today’s challenge…

We’ve already ascertained that the Web changes everything now. (Right?) But there are still a lot of burning questions that we need to think about (if not find answers to) as we move forward even deeper into the throes of this interactive, collaborative, conversation-laden space. I’m hoping we can start a list of the big ones. Here are a couple to start with:

Wes Freyer points to the Fall issue of Interactive Educator (.pdf put out by Smart Technologies) which features a slew of good articles by Wes himself, David Warlick and Dave Weinberger. A couple of quick quotes that resonated, first from Weinberger:

Educators therefore face a different set of challenges. Very different. Their authority is in question since we’ve learned that we can learn more from talking with others than by listening to any single expert. But, more important, if knowledge emerges from conversations, then just about all our educational focus ought to be on learning how to be good conversationalists: how to listen, how to kindle a conversation, how to evaluate claims, how to speak in a voice worth hearing… and, most of all, how to share a world in which knowledge is plural, for that’s what conversation – and knowledge – is about.

That’s really good stuff. The teachers we find are often more effective than the teachers we’re given, and the idea that knowledge is plural. Again, that is such an important shift for us to understand.

And David Warlick’s piece is just a great starting point for discussions about literacy. He’s such a great storyteller, and he really brings home the key issues we’re faced with today:

The networked nature of information has enormous implications for literacy. Before networking, information was produced at great expense. Editors and publishers selected only the information that was valuable in terms of its acceptability and worth to customers. In addition, information was made available in containers, such as books, magazines, newspapers, bookstores and libraries. Each container would hold only so much information, limiting our access to only that information that was immediately and physically available. In this published, print-based information environment, the principal literacy skill was the ability to read the information that. was in front of you. But as the nature of information and how we access it evolves, that is no longer the case. Educators need to replace practices that teach students to assume the authority of the content around them and instead teach students to prove the authority.

If you’re just getting your brain around these tools, this is an excellent starting point.

But also, don’t miss the irony of a magazine called “Interactive Educator” published as a pdf. It’s about the least interactive form you can use. Amazing…but not surprising…

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That to me has been the beauty of the Web, (what I have been blogging about lately), and of Thanksgiving when we’re at least supposed to be thinking of sharing, of embracing the contributions of the group to the common good. I love the free spinning out of ideas, the way they ripple out from blog to blog and come back again in new form. When have we ever been able to gather the expertise, the imagination, the potential from so many minds and experiences together with our own flawed, individual musings? Blogging lets us float ideas–sometimes half-baked–however we want.

–Barbara Ganley
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