Earlier I Tweeted that this post by danah boyd might be the most important blog post I’ve read of 2008 thus far and now, after reading it through for the fourth time, I’m thinking it might stay that way for a while. It’s important to me because it clarifies a lot of my thinking about social networks in schools yet leaves me with a number of other important questions that I struggle to answer.

I read both sides of the debate over the potentials of social networking in schools at the Economist, and while I obviously agree more with Ewan‘s view that “It’s more about helping learners become more world-aware, more communicative, learning from each other, understanding first hand what makes the world go around,” I have to admit to feeling a bit of “starry-eyedness” about the description of how this will all play out. I’m not so sure I agree that “exponential adoption of the ‘new web’ is only round the corner,” or that this new generation of “Bebo-boomers” (ugh) will suddenly impart effective pedagogy in classrooms simply because they will be “marrying their inbuilt capacity with social networks to the theory of sound educational practice.” (It would be nice if I saw more evidence of teacher prep courses actually teaching them to do that.)

But all of that is pretty much besides the point.

danah adds a much needed focus: there is a difference between social tools and social networking, and she argues quite compellingly that social networks have no place in the classroom.

“Social network sites do not help most youth see beyond their social walls. Because most youth do not engage in “networking,” they do not meet new people or see the world from a different perspective. Social network sites reinforce everyday networks, providing a gathering space when none previously existed.”

Reading through the rest of the post makes clear that for most kids, what they do online is simply an extension of what they do in physical space. They interact with primarily the same groups, and, as danah has argued in the past, they use SNS as a way to make up for the dearth of opportunities to socialize that our kids have today. She writes:

I have yet to hear a compelling argument for why social network sites (or networking ones) should be used in the classroom. Those tools are primarily about socializing, with media and information sharing there to prop up the socialization process (much status is gained from knowing about the cool new thing). I haven’t even heard of a good reason why social network site features should be used in the classroom. What is the value of knowing who is friends with who or creating a profile when you already know all of your classmates?

And this:

I’m not saying that social network sites have no value. Quite the contrary. But their value is about the kinds of informal social learning that is required for maturation – understanding your community, learning the communicate with others, working through status games, building and maintaining friendships, working through personal values, etc. All too often we underestimate these processes because, traditionally, they have happened so naturally. Yet, what’s odd about today’s youth culture is that we’ve systematically taken away the opportunities for socialization. And yet we wonder why our kids are so immature compared to kids from other cultures. Social network sites are popular because youth are trying to take back the right to be social, even if it has to happen in interstitial ways.

Often in my presentations I ask how many folks are teaching MySpace or Facebook in their schools. Not teaching with MySpace, but teaching the literacies of networking through the lens of a SNS. Rarely do more than a few hands go up. I wonder what would happen if we contextualized our approach not in the fears that our kids will get themselves in trouble by using these sites but, instead, in the spirit of encouraging them to experience the socialization that danah speaks of. Not that we invade their spaces or friend them, but that we acknowledge the importance of Facebook in their lives, stop pretending like it doesn’t exist, and include it in the discussion of what’s important in life.

The key thinking for me, however, is about the difference between social tools and social networks. To be honest, I find Facebook and even Ning hard to like in my own personal learning practice. They seem redundant to me in some sense, I guess, replicating in large measure what I already find so powerful in this “small pieces” suite of tools that I already use for social and learning purposes. And, in a lot of ways, and this may be ignorance, hubris, snobiness (or something much more disturbing), I feel like it’s almost cheating, like the hardest and best work is building that network node by node through blogging and reading and creating and developing those relationships with all the messiness that the Web allows for. I know, I know…there is a lot of that going on too in SNSs. But it feels too easy sometimes, like it’s moving into an apartment instead of building a house. You don’t learn too much about the way the thing works or how all the pieces fit. And you don’t learn all those building skills either. Yes, I’ve come around to the idea that much of what we need to know to flourish with these tools is nothing more than solid reading and writing literacy. But there still seems to me to be a network literacy as well, something that stands apart from simply reading and writing, something that deals with our ability to create and find and connect dots.

So yeah, I agree. Social networks as they are currently defined and delivered aren’t for schools. But using social tools to teach our students to build their own networks, networks that go beyond simply socializing with the people they already know has to be.

Technorati Tags: danahboyd, socialnetworking

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Just wanted to say thanks to those of you from around the world that contributed to the wiki for our presentation yesterday. (For those who may still want to play, it will stay public for the near future.) It took me a good part of last night and this morning to read through the wonderful responses. Suffice to say, my brain is reeling. The messages and resources and ideas that you left were absolutely powerful, and I know I speak for Karl and Anne when I say that it definitely brought the potential of collaborative, global, social tools home to our audience. As I was reading off the list of countries represented, the amazement was palpable. We really appreciate the help.

Also, just a public thanks as well to Clarence Fisher and his students in Manitoba, to Anne’s students back in Colorado, and to Jeff Utecht in Shanghai for Skyping in with us during the session. As one of the technology directors said to me at the lunch break, “The Skype stuff was the best. I turned to my headmaster and said ‘see, we can do this now. What are we waiting for?’” Amen to that.

I’ve been writing for a long time here and elsewhere that one of our changing roles as teachers revolves around the idea that we are now connectors as much as content experts. I think that holds true for presenters and presentations as well. We who travel around evangelizing these technologies are for the most part simply trying to start some conversations, conversations that are going to be unique for every school, every community, every district. Nothing does that better than making our own practice transparent to the people in the room. One of the less often noted aspects of the people who are nodes in this network is their willingness to help put a real face on the message. I’m constantly amazed by how generous people are with their time and ideas all in name of simply getting people to think and reconsider the state of their worlds.

My continued sincere thanks to all of you.

Technorati Tags: advis, karlfisch, annesmith, jeffutecht

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Tomorrow at a gathering of independent school heads, tech directors and teachers just outside Philadelphia, I will have the distinct pleasure of presenting with Karl Fisch and Anne Smith of Arapahoe High School. It’s billed as  “21st Century Education: 20/20 Vision for Schools” and we’re planning on making it a global event, bringing in students and educators via Skype video to tell their stories live and in living color. In essence, we want them to walk away understanding the power of connections that can reach far beyond the classroom.

To help in that effort, we’ve created a wiki page that we’d love your contribution to. Just leave your name, your place in the world, your blog if you have one, and one link or resource or piece of advice that you feel will help these folks get their brains around some of the challenges and questions and opportunities we face right now. I’ll be tweeting this tonight and tomorrow morning, and we’ll share it with them at the workshop.

Thanks in advance.

Technorati Tags: advis learning, networks

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So, a couple of months ago, this cat shows up at our house. Walks out of the woods, sneaks in a door that the painter left open and plants itself on the pillows at the head of our bed. The kids come home, see the cat, and within minutes have a complete feeding and grooming schedule for the next three months, coupons for litter box cleaning, and promises to vacuum the whole house every other day since, you see, dad happens to have been allergic for most of his life. Well, maybe it’s time to give a pet a try, we think (since dad’s allergies seem to have been abating lately anyway) and so it’s off to the vet. It’s a Siamese. A neutered male. About 14 years old. Declawed in the front. And it’s got fleas.

Nice.

Undaunted, Dad runs to the local office superstore to pick up a litterbox of some type (don’t ask) while mom and the kids put the cat through the ringer (literally) in the bathtub with flea soap offered by the vet. They leave the tick pulling job for later when dad can do it, however. Pillows and sheets are fumigated. “Found Cat” posters are created and distributed. The next few days, things are mixed; cat is litterbox trained (Yay!), but after chowing down a couple of cans of StarKist tuna on the day of his arrival, he throws up everything he eats for the next three days (Boo!). But things settle down, and we enter this pretty peaceful, flealess co-existence with “Oreo” who seems happy enough just to have two squares and a heater to sleep next to for 22.5 hours a day. This might work, dad thinks.

A couple of weeks later, the cat (who dad and mom have renamed “Catatonic”) begins waking up at precisely 5:34  each morning, emitting a quasi screech/howl that requires dad to get up and kick the cat out of the bedroom, leaving the cat to screech/howl on the other side of the door 10 minutes on, ten minutes off (just enough to let us fall back asleep) until we finally succumb and roll out. Soon, the cat starts the night outside of the bedroom, where screech/howling then begins at 3:45, one night prompting dad to get up and sleepily retrieve a piece of plywood and a old screen door frame from the freezing cold garage to fashion a gate that would keep Catatonic in the doorless dining room, farther away from the bedroom and out of earshot. Of course, just as dad gets back to sleep, Catatonic shoulders through the “barrier” with relative ease to take up screech/howling in front of the bedroom for the rest of the night as dad and mom pile pillows over their heads. (Children, btw, are fast asleep in their beds upstairs through all of this.) The gate building continues to get more complex, as does the cat’s ability to punch through, jump over, get around. One early morning, when the kids are at sleepovers, mom gets up and throws (not literally, of course) the cat upstairs, shuts the door, and we finally get peace. Both wakeup realizing that mom didn’t throw the litterbox upstairs with the cat, and sure enough, son comes running down the stairs that night screaming “EEEEWWWWWWW! Something smells in my closet!”

This weekend, we consruct the ultimate plywood, screen door, piano bench, bamboo stick, bar stool, aluminum foil (cats hate that, right?) barrier imaginable. Dad thinks about taking pictures and posting them to Flickr, it’s such an example of innovation and beauty. Mom and dad give each other a knowing wink before turning out the light. Peace at last.

Until about 4:30 am.

So I’m reading this book, Mindset by Carol Dweck which talks about the two types of minds that people have and how it affects the way we learn. There is the fixed mindset which believes that intelligence is pretty much static and that there’s not much you can do to get smarter. So these people avoid challenges and give up easily, ignoring feedback and feeling threatened when others succeed. Because of this, they don’t realize their own potentials. And then there is the growth mindset which says that intelligence is not static and can be developed. A growth midset loves challenges and is persistent in the face of hardships. It is focused on effort, it learns from feedback, and it finds inspiration from others. People with a growth mindset go beyond expectations and achieve at ever higher levels.

Any doubt which mindset Catatonic has? (Now our kids on the other hand…)

I’m going to blog more about this as I think it through, but for now, all I know is I want my kids (and my kids teachers) to be like Catatonic. (Not the sleeping part, of course.) I haven’t gotten to the part of the book that runs through how we can move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, but I’m expecting it to tweak my thinking about teachers and technology and my own approach to teaching it. And I’m going to be thinking about my own mindset, which is a mix right now, I think.

We’re trying to find Catatonic a good home. (After this narrative, I’m sure I won’t get many offers.) But for now, I’ll be holding him up as an example of learning perseverance for my kids.

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Technorati Tags: learning, cats, mindset

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Just a reminder that the first ever EduCon 2.0 will be happening in Philadelphia at Chris Lehmann‘s Science Leadership Academy in two weeks starting on Friday, January 25th with a tour of the school and the Franklin Institute and running all day Saturday and Sunday with a wide ranging list of conversations. As Chris says:

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference. And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.

Last I heard, registrations were nearing a couple of hundred, which means this is going to be an awesome opportunity to wrap our collective brains around some of the most important questions facing us as educators (and to carry those conversations late into the Philadelphia night.) For me, I’m going to get to cross a few more names of my blogging life list, people like Konrad Glogowski and Arthus Erea and I’m sure a few others, to see a lot of good friends who have been on this journey for many years, and to meet and talk to potential new friends and connections in my network.

Really hope to see you there. (Oh…and don’t forget to bring your own refillable water bottles…)

Technorati Tags: educon20, sla, education, learning

Not sure if this has been blogged much but UStream now has a privacy feature as in the ability to password protect your show. That’s a huge first step that all of a sudden makes classroom television a little more palatable for teachers. Let’s kick this around a bit…this lets us provide a limited, invited audience to:

• Poetry readings
• Dramatic interpretations
• Skype interviews
• Homebound lessons
• Lectures
• Demonstrations
• Debates
• Interpretive readings
• Concerts
• Meetings (BOE, Administrative, etc)
• Sporting events
• Talent shows
• Ceremonies
• Assemblies
• Food fights

What else can you think of???

As an aside, UStream has also done some sprucing up in terms of your ability to design our show homepage and other fun things. I’m going to be playing with some of the alternatives more and more this winter and spring, but right now, I’m liking UStream more and more.

Technorati Tags: ustream, streaming, video, education, schools

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I don’t often have the chance to get in a classroom these days, and even more rare is when I drop into a room with just middle school boys. And after the day I spent doing just that yesterday, I was reminded that I need to do that more often. Ostensibly, I was invited to talk about making smart decisions about the things that they create and publish online (read: Facebook angst). But I also had the chance to talk about how absolutely cool it is to connect with people around the world who share your passions and interests, and to show them some of the fun tools that you can use to to do that. Despite the great responses to my opening Tweet, I’m not sure if they got Twitter (who really does?) but they loved UStream (“We could make our own TV station”) and Jing (“Isthatfree?DoesitworkwithWindows? Isthatreallyfree?”). It was just plain fun to be in the room with these guys…their enthusiasm and interest was palpable, and I could just see their brains cranking with the possibilities.

And not that the brains of the teachers who I had a chance to speak with weren’t cranking as well, but it was interesting (at a minimum) how differently the body language and reactions were. Much more measured and thoughtful. No wiggling in the seats, for the most part. Not that I expected that, but the difference was brought home by one of my hosts when we went to dinner before an evening presentation to parents. (It was a long day.) At one point, as he was talking about his classroom teaching, he said “I always think like a kid; I want to learn like a kid.” Yeah. Me too. On some level, this is all play, isn’t it? But it’s directed, collaborative, connected play that has learning as a payoff (much of the time at least.) I love the “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” approach that many kids have about technology (and tree branches and skateboards and whatever else they might be pushing the limits of.) And I wish it were easier for adults to take that approach. Not be so thoughtful. Not think so much, just play.

Tuesday night as I was finishing up the prep for my presentations and scanning the stunning election results from New Hampshire, I got Skype pinged by Arthus who asked “would you be willing to Skype in re: NH?” About the same time I saw a Tweet go by noting that Arthus (who is 14, btw, and probably hates the constant references to that important contextual fact) was broadcasting live at UStream, dissecting the vote tallies coming in from around his home state. A few seconds later, I’m there with about 30 other people, watching and listening to his analysis and his wide ranging discussions with Skyped in guests.

Whoa.

And here I am, the guy doing the spotlight session at NECC on “Creating Live Web TV for the Classroom for Global Audiences” typing into the chat box “Hey Arthus, how do you get Skype to work with UStream?” and Arthus in a much nicer way basically saying “Read my blog, doofus.”

How. Cool. Isthat? (I love playing with language too, obviously.)

Anyway, just for the record, I learned a lot from kids the last couple of days. I could stand to do more of that…

Technorati Tags: learning, technology, education, schools

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Here’s the confession: I love presidential election years, and this one is getting more compelling by the day. Both of my kids, 8 and 10, can name all the major candidates on sight, and last night a wide ranging discussion among the four of us about Mike Huckabee included a stop at Wikipedia to get our facts straight on the roots of the Islamic religion. (Try connecting those dots.) We taped the two debates from New Hampshire  the other night and have been watching them in 5 or 10 minute chunks (they are 8 and 10 after all…) and we’ve spent a good amount of time using politics as a jumping off point for some larger Q & A sessions. Tonight, we’re going to place our bets on what happens in New Hampshire tomorrow. (Tucker, btw, wants Hillary to win since he wants “a girl president.” Hey…it’s a start.)

Here’s the complaint: So much of the media coverage both in print and on television is utter pablum. I just hate the spin and insipid interpretation of events and history. (Sounds like what many might feel about my blogging here…) And here is the perfect example: In today’s New York Times, in the story about Hillary’s emotional response to a question during a New Hampshire coffee klatsch, the reporter compared her “not crying” moment to Ed Muskie’s breakdown in 1974. (Video here, along with more insipid CNN commentary.)

If it was not an Ed Muskie moment — Mrs. Clinton did not cry (or
look like she was crying) — she was certainly on the verge of it after
a woman asked her, at a round table discussion at a coffee shop here,
how she managed to get out of bed and soldier through each day.“How do you do it?” the woman, Marianne Pernold, asked. And, with a touch of humor, she added, “Who does your hair?”

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

Ok, she had a moment. And yeah, it might say something about her ability to cope in the face of a nuclear attack (though the campaign trail may make that seem like small potatoes.) But what kills me is that there are huge issues that are not going to get air time on the evening news tonight (any bets on how many will lead with this story?) because one of the candidates’ eyes welled up after getting like seven hours of sleep in the last month and eating pizza non stop. “Hillary on the Ropes!” “Hillary Buckles Under the Pressure!”

Here’s the plan: We’re not going to rear passive political patsies. No sir. Did I mention we have TIVO? Godsend in these situations. Someone on TV says something that raises an eyebrow, we just stop the feed and deconstruct it. And we’re going to YouTube and the other raw video sites to watch the unedited, uncommentedupon versions. And we’re breaking down the videos that the candidate’s offer, like this one from Barack and this one from Huckabee. And so on and so on…

We’ve got this mountain of information at our fingertips now. If this isn’t a great moment to teach kids how to really us it well, not sure what is.

Technorati Tags: politics, media, education, learning

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Since it’s still close to the first of the year, and since if I remember to do it at the beginning of ’09 it would be an interesting comparison (I think), let me follow the TechCrunch meme and make a list of the tools and sites I currently use on a regular basis. These are in no particular order, btw, and the only requirement here is that I use it at least once a week, but I’ve put a * next to the ones that would probably be near the top of the usage list. Here goes:

• WordPress*
• Skype*
• Gmail*
• Google Search*
• Google Reader*
• Google Notebook*
• Google News
• Google Calendar*
• Google Docs*
• Firefox*
• Flickr
• Ning
• Elluminate
• Audacity
• Wikispaces
• Delicious*
• Netvibes
• Pageflakes
• Jing
• MindMeister
• iTunes
• iPhoto
• Skitch
• Twitter*
• Twitterific
• NeoOffice
• YouTube
• Jott
• Rhapsody
• Pandora
• Wikipedia
• Amazon

Kinda Google-centric, I know. Scary on some level. And I’m sure I missed some along the way. (Btw, Facebook is missing on purpose…I’m not going there at least once a week these days…not feeling the Facebook love.) If you have better suggestion to a tool listed here, I’d love to hear it.

I’ll be sending my 10 Favorite Tools to Jane Hart as she’s updating her list for 2008.

Technorati Tags: tools

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“In the emerging model, students learn to navigate, assess, construct and participate in a living network that comprises the heart of their learning network and they take that with them when their time as part of any particular institution’s offerings come to a change…’Going to school’ is an activity that has a life and dies; learning is a continuing process. Enrollments and degree programs terminate; personal living networks accompany learners through life– the ultimate educational institution– serving as companion, confidante, and oracle alike.” Chris Lott

Um…yeah. I really like that.

Technorati Tags: learning, education

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“Personal learning becomes possible because everybody – and not just teachers – can teach. Why does this matter? This: we should not be teaching our students using video, we should be teaching our students to use video, not so they can be better students, but so they can be better teachers.” Stephen Downes

And, I would add, we should be teaching ourselves how to use video too, so we can model better teaching for our students so they can be better teachers.

Technorati Tags: education, learning, tools, video

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So Leigh Blackall points to “The Personal MBA“, a “pdf version of a pay for text that guides people through an equivalent curriculum to a MBA.” It’s basically a reading list of all sorts of good stuff, from George Leonard’s “Mastery” (which I really need to read again) to “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki. It’s billed as an experiment in educational entrepreneurism, a way to save about $100,000 and still get the knowledge you need to succeed in business. Does it work? Well, I think the better question is “Can it work?” And to that, I would say, absolutely. Yes.

As Leigh points out, it won’t just work by reading the books in isolation. You’ll probably get a lot smarter, but you need the conversations and connections that the expensive MBA offers as well. So, Leigh says, leverage the social technologies we have at hand:

Enter a networked learning model to support this text perhaps. A way for people who are using this text to make contact and communicate about their efforts. Clearly the information doesn’t change all that much, but the packaging (and the fees) change considerably.  Is this the niche that traditional education ought to be looking at more closely? I think so.

I think so too. I don’t think there is any doubt that it is possible if you are motivated to learn and have the network building and organizing skills to pull it off. And it doesn’t hurt when the guys putting out the free curriculum build a site around it where folks can connect. As I know I say here a lot, we can build our own classrooms, find our own teachers, writing our own flexible texts and curricula as we go. Right now, everyone still gets hung up on the creds, I know. But we’re already seeing disruptions in that thinking. In this world, what you can do is a better assessment of what you know.

On a similar note, I’ve been struck by the mostly inside the box thinking about teaching and classrooms that’s been running through the responses on my recent post and on Clay’s post that spurred it. There are passionate defenses of teaching and classrooms and the importance of being with kids, all of them absolutely genuine and valid. For instance, Mark Ahlness says:

But this is what keeps me going: The 9:00 bell. That’s when the kids come in the door. Thank goodness for the kids. There, I’ve said it again…But that 9:00 bell keeps ringing. For one year my kids and I will have an incredible experience. Nobody can take that away from us, and my kids will remember.

I know a lot of teachers feel like that. I used to feel like that when I was teaching. The presence of Mark and others like him in our kids lives will always be important. But here is the thing. In the midst of the quote above, Mark writes:

Yes, it kills me when I see dysfunction in my educational system. Yes, it breaks my heart when I see 4th and 5th graders not using, and losing, the incredible tech skills they had in my classroom. Yes, it is incredibly frustrating when absolutely nothing I have tried in over a decade of encouraging technology use with my colleagues has made a bit of difference.

What jumps out at me here and many of those other responses is that despite what the system takes away from good teaching, few write about teaching as if it is something that can be done just as meaningfully outside of the system. That’s obviously what Clay is struggling with. And it’s what my brain continues to be chewing on. How can we start to think differently about teaching? How can we teach in meaningful, important ways outside of the current construct? How can we give good teachers the opportunity to teach without the inconsistencies and constraints of the system? And how do we do it in ways that can still serve all of the kids the system currently serves?

That last one is the really tough one…

(“Group Failure” by Cold Cut)

Technorati Tags: teaching, education, schools, learning