http://www.odeo.com/channels/2952-Ideas-and-Thoughts-from-an-EdTech Shareski no I'm here to learn, join me I'm here to learn, join me Exploring technology and its role in learning en 40 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:00:13 -0700 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:00:13 -0700 Formal Education http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25388565-Podcast-47%E2%80%A6When-You%E2%80%99re-Not-the-Smartest-Person-in-the-Room This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   tag:odeo.com,2009-10-29,25388565 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:00:13 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, Presentations, SIAST http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25391060-Podcast-47%E2%80%A6When-You%E2%80%99re-Not-the-Smartest-Person-in-the-Room This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   This is the audio and the slides from a presentation for SIAST Virtual Campus. When You're not the Smartest Person in the Room View more documents from shareski. You can subscribe to my podcasts in itunes.   tag:odeo.com,2009-10-29,25391060 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:00:13 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, Presentations, SIAST http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25231200-The-Posse-and-Sir-Ken-Robinson 4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   tag:odeo.com,2009-10-04,25231200 Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:10:38 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, rick, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse, rickschwier, heatherross, sirkenrobinson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25231055-The-Posse-and-Sir-Ken-Robinson 4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   4/5’s of the Posse gathered at Convocation Place at the University of Saskatchewan to hear Sir Ken Robinson. You seen his TED talk right?  If not, go watch it now. Anywho, as usual we had a great time talking, laughing, being silly and of course, as sure as I’ll spill food on my clothes, Rob brings out the microphone and begins recording. No theme, no purpose, just friends yacking. After Sir Ken, Rob and I hit a local coffee shop for the debrief. Just because I felt like it, I’ve added some show notes. I haven’t done that for a while. Enjoy. Alec’s crying photo Alec’s student’s post The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment Out of Our Minds A radical alternative: Real teaching Howlett Academy Summerhill Reading is Not a Skill Ken DeRosa and Facts Kristin Cummings   tag:odeo.com,2009-10-04,25231055 Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:10:38 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, rick, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse, rickschwier, heatherross, sirkenrobinson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25026077-A-Powerful-Learning-Opportunity One of the most powerful things I’ve been part of recent years is the opportunity I’ve had to connect pre-service teachers with experienced classroom teachers via an online mentorship. This has transformed many young people and offered them an experience to work with great teachers from around the world and observe first hand what it means to use technology to amplify and enhance learning through technology. This video illustrates one example of what happened last term as Carey Pohanka and one of my students worked together. If you were one of those students or teachers impacted by this mentorship program, please feel free to leave a comment as well. I’ve written about it before here so I won’t go into any more detail other than to invite you to be a part of this experience from September to December. If you’re interested, fill out this form and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.   Loading… One of the most powerful things I’ve been part of recent years is the opportunity I’ve had to connect pre-service teachers with experienced classroom teachers via an online mentorship. This has transformed many young people and offered them an experience to work with great teachers from around the world and observe first hand what it means to use technology to amplify and enhance learning through technology. This video illustrates one example of what happened last term as Carey Pohanka and one of my students worked together. If you were one of those students or teachers impacted by this mentorship program, please feel free to leave a comment as well. I’ve written about it before here so I won’t go into any more detail other than to invite you to be a part of this experience from September to December. If you’re interested, fill out this form and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.   Loading… One of the most powerful things I’ve been part of recent years is the opportunity I’ve had to connect pre-service teachers with experienced classroom teachers via an online mentorship. This has transformed many young people and offered them an experience to work with great teachers from around the world and observe first hand what it means to use technology to amplify and enhance learning through technology. This video illustrates one example of what happened last term as Carey Pohanka and one of my students worked together. If you were one of those students or teachers impacted by this mentorship program, please feel free to leave a comment as well. I’ve written about it before here so I won’t go into any more detail other than to invite you to be a part of this experience from September to December. If you’re interested, fill out this form and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.   Loading… tag:odeo.com,2009-08-26,25026077 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:32:00 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Networks, mentorship, ecmp355, careypohanka http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24891634-What%E2%80%99s-so-good-about-Face-to-Face I’ve been grabbling with this question for quite some time now. Influenced by this book as well as my own journey into a hybrid teaching situation, I’m more and more convinced answering the question, "what is face to face good for?" is one of the most important in education today. With the advent of technology and distance learning, I’ve stood in front of teachers and administrators many times and asked them to consider why their students would choose to come to school. While the quality of distance learning is far from perfect, it offers the opportunity for students to learn with and from anyone at anytime. With more and more choice students will start asking if they really need to come to class. At the same time, it’s hard to deny what it means to learn in the same physical space. Notice I was careful to say "learn". Many people take for grant it that students will come to school simply to socialize and enjoy extra-curricular activities ... I’ve been grabbling with this question for quite some time now. Influenced by this book as well as my own journey into a hybrid teaching situation, I’m more and more convinced answering the question, "what is face to face good for?" is one of the most important in education today. With the advent of technology and distance learning, I’ve stood in front of teachers and administrators many times and asked them to consider why their students would choose to come to school. While the quality of distance learning is far from perfect, it offers the opportunity for students to learn with and from anyone at anytime. With more and more choice students will start asking if they really need to come to class. At the same time, it’s hard to deny what it means to learn in the same physical space. Notice I was careful to say "learn". Many people take for grant it that students will come to school simply to socialize and enjoy extra-curricular activities with others. I say that’s not good enough. Learning has to be social, otherwise why come to school? This article and the accompany video might at first glance be a anti-technology message but in fact its arguing for better face to face encounters. Some might view the article as anti-technology or anti-powerpoint, I simply see this as trying to determine what the best use of face time might look like.   The undergrad course I teach is usually 3 online for every face to face experiences. I’ve learned a great deal in teaching online for the past 3 years. I’ve worked hard to make it interactive and participatory. I’ve had my share of successes and failures and will endeavour to make the best experience possible. That said, the face to face classes prove invaluable. In many ways, the content and delivery of these classes is no better than the online sessions but somehow students say it offers something the online sessions can’t do. Simply seeing faces and understanding each other in a different way fosters community in ways online interaction cannot. Maybe it’s just a return to the comfortable setting they are used to. I believe its more than that. Yet, without the asynchronous and synchronous online components, my courses would not have near the impact. We need both. I no longer take face to face time for grant it. I think many teachers have become lazy and aren’t considering the current and upcoming options that are available to students. Rob Jacobs viewed the above video and article and considered Professional Development. I also think about meetings and conferences. In the district I work, we have many teachers and administrators travelling 3 hours to go to a meeting.  It is deplorable that they might attend a meeting and leave thinking, "I should have stayed home". Consider the time and money spent. I don’t want to be responsible for wasting their time. It shouldn’t really matter how far you have to drive, being together should be time well spent. We owe to teachers and students to make the face to face time we have valuable and important.  While interactivy and particpation are two huge elements that ought to be present, what else is good about face to face? How do you insure that your students/teachers/co-workers/clients find the time they spend with you valuable?   I’ve been grabbling with this question for quite some time now. Influenced by this book as well as my own journey into a hybrid teaching situation, I’m more and more convinced answering the question, "what is face to face good for?" is one of the most important in education today. With the advent of technology and distance learning, I’ve stood in front of teachers and administrators many times and asked them to consider why their students would choose to come to school. While the quality of distance learning is far from perfect, it offers the opportunity for students to learn with and from anyone at anytime. With more and more choice students will start asking if they really need to come to class. At the same time, it’s hard to deny what it means to learn in the same physical space. Notice I was careful to say "learn". Many people take for grant it that students will come to school simply to socialize and enjoy extra-curricular activities with others. I say that’s not good enough. Learning has to be social, otherwise why come to school? This article and the accompany video might at first glance be a anti-technology message but in fact its arguing for better face to face encounters. Some might view the article as anti-technology or anti-powerpoint, I simply see this as trying to determine what the best use of face time might look like.   The undergrad course I teach is usually 3 online for every face to face experiences. I’ve learned a great deal in teaching online for the past 3 years. I’ve worked hard to make it interactive and participatory. I’ve had my share of successes and failures and will endeavour to make the best experience possible. That said, the face to face classes prove invaluable. In many ways, the content and delivery of these classes is no better than the online sessions but somehow students say it offers something the online sessions can’t do. Simply seeing faces and understanding each other in a different way fosters community in ways online interaction cannot. Maybe it’s just a return to the comfortable setting they are used to. I believe its more than that. Yet, without the asynchronous and synchronous online components, my courses would not have near the impact. We need both. I no longer take face to face time for grant it. I think many teachers have become lazy and aren’t considering the current and upcoming options that are available to students. Rob Jacobs viewed the above video and article and considered Professional Development. I also think about meetings and conferences. In the district I work, we have many teachers and administrators travelling 3 hours to go to a meeting.  It is deplorable that they might attend a meeting and leave thinking, "I should have stayed home". Consider the time and money spent. I don’t want to be responsible for wasting their time. It shouldn’t really matter how far you have to drive, being together should be time well spent. We owe to teachers and students to make the face to face time we have valuable and important.  While interactivy and particpation are two huge elements that ought to be present, what else is good about face to face? How do you insure that your students/teachers/co-workers/clients find the time they spend with you valuable?   tag:odeo.com,2009-07-31,24891634 Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:18 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech change, professional learning, Classrooms, José A. Bowen, ronjacobs http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24890431-Inside-the-Cancer-Video I was asked to produce a series of videos for an upcoming breast cancer fundraiser event in September. The concept was to interview someone who is currently in the midst of breast cancer, someone who has survived breast cancer and someone who has lost someone to breast cancer. This video is of a local women who has terminal cancer. It’s challenging and a little nerve racking to be working with such a sensitive subject. The intent is obviously to tell her story in a clear and concise way and at the same time evoke the emotion that will get people to open up their wallets. I Have Cancer from shareski on Vimeo. I thought I’d take some time to reveal some of the reasoning and thought behind my production/design choices. I’ve always believed and have been taught that nothing should be random so hopefully I can address those choices.   Trimming The raw interview was about 12 minutes. I had a goal of getting the interview under 5 minutes. Determing what to cut was di... I was asked to produce a series of videos for an upcoming breast cancer fundraiser event in September. The concept was to interview someone who is currently in the midst of breast cancer, someone who has survived breast cancer and someone who has lost someone to breast cancer. This video is of a local women who has terminal cancer. It’s challenging and a little nerve racking to be working with such a sensitive subject. The intent is obviously to tell her story in a clear and concise way and at the same time evoke the emotion that will get people to open up their wallets. I Have Cancer from shareski on Vimeo. I thought I’d take some time to reveal some of the reasoning and thought behind my production/design choices. I’ve always believed and have been taught that nothing should be random so hopefully I can address those choices.   Trimming The raw interview was about 12 minutes. I had a goal of getting the interview under 5 minutes. Determing what to cut was difficult. This is where you need an unbias eye to see if you’ve captured a coherent story. I had my wife watch the first cut to see if the story was clear. This is crucial since it’s often hard to remove yourself from the knowledge you have of the entire footage. Camera Positions When doing interviews I prefer to have the camera slightly off centre. The interviewer in this case is sitting slightly to the left of the camera. It’s actually farther off centered that I prefer but without moving too much furniture around, it’s the best I could do. I shot the main footage with a Sony HD camera. The second camera is simply my Canon SD 780 still camera that shoots in HD. The use of a second camera is always a plus and in this case I think it helps the viewer see the setting of the interview and get a sense of being present. The split screen view makes that clear. Transitions The transitions between shots using the flowers and backyard footage has two purposes. First you see the subject and interviewer in a casual setting which provides context and background information to the interview. I rarely show the interviewer since they aren’t really part of the story. In this case I wanted to reveal a sense of friendship. Although you never see the interviewer ask a question, I’m hoping the transition video makes that clear. I switch to using the flowers in transitions to represent the beauty of life. The whole idea of a transition between scences is done to allow the viewer time to feel the impact and emotion of the story. It seems that for me the greater the emotion, the longer the transitions. In this case I would have lengthened the transitions even more in some cases but wanted the entire project to be under 5 minutes so I had to trim some of them. Audio I can’t stress enough the importance of a microphone for interviews. I have a bluetooth, wireless mic that works wonders in all sorts of environments. The air conditioner was humming in the background but the quality of this mic eliminated external sounds. This also allows me to easily add background audio withouth having to a lot of tweaking. The music, which I found on Jamendo (my new favourite Creative Commons source) is used to provide a delicate, soft backdrop to the story. I sampled dozens of instrumental music but was thinking piano as the core instrument. Music can certainly be overdone and I sampled until I found the one that best fit the piece. Special Effects 5 minutes of "talking head’ can be a bit much. I’ve rarely seen it done effectively. If I’d had more time or had more ownership of the project, I would have liked more "b-roll" footage. In order to provide interest I used the dual camera and split screens. Again, these are done with purpose. The viewer gets a sense of place and hopefully adds to the intimacy. I used a bit of slow motion on the pan of the family photos. This was done as much to cover up the use of a handheld pan. There are a number of interesting filters in Final Cut Express which may have been interesting but time and the fact they have to be rendered each time to view them made that less desirable. I will need to explore them more to understand how they might enhance future projects. The story is still the key. However these other elements represent the design and as I’ve mentioned many times, cannot be separated from the final product. I hope these insights are useful and certainly am open to critique of my choices. I just wanted to be transparent and explicit with how and why I did what I did. I was asked to produce a series of videos for an upcoming breast cancer fundraiser event in September. The concept was to interview someone who is currently in the midst of breast cancer, someone who has survived breast cancer and someone who has lost someone to breast cancer. This video is of a local women who has terminal cancer. It’s challenging and a little nerve racking to be working with such a sensitive subject. The intent is obviously to tell her story in a clear and concise way and at the same time evoke the emotion that will get people to open up their wallets. I Have Cancer from shareski on Vimeo. I thought I’d take some time to reveal some of the reasoning and thought behind my production/design choices. I’ve always believed and have been taught that nothing should be random so hopefully I can address those choices.   Trimming The raw interview was about 12 minutes. I had a goal of getting the interview under 5 minutes. Determing what to cut was difficult. This is where you need an unbias eye to see if you’ve captured a coherent story. I had my wife watch the first cut to see if the story was clear. This is crucial since it’s often hard to remove yourself from the knowledge you have of the entire footage. Camera Positions When doing interviews I prefer to have the camera slightly off centre. The interviewer in this case is sitting slightly to the left of the camera. It’s actually farther off centered that I prefer but without moving too much furniture around, it’s the best I could do. I shot the main footage with a Sony HD camera. The second camera is simply my Canon SD 780 still camera that shoots in HD. The use of a second camera is always a plus and in this case I think it helps the viewer see the setting of the interview and get a sense of being present. The split screen view makes that clear. Transitions The transitions between shots using the flowers and backyard footage has two purposes. First you see the subject and interviewer in a casual setting which provides context and background information to the interview. I rarely show the interviewer since they aren’t really part of the story. In this case I wanted to reveal a sense of friendship. Although you never see the interviewer ask a question, I’m hoping the transition video makes that clear. I switch to using the flowers in transitions to represent the beauty of life. The whole idea of a transition between scences is done to allow the viewer time to feel the impact and emotion of the story. It seems that for me the greater the emotion, the longer the transitions. In this case I would have lengthened the transitions even more in some cases but wanted the entire project to be under 5 minutes so I had to trim some of them. Audio I can’t stress enough the importance of a microphone for interviews. I have a bluetooth, wireless mic that works wonders in all sorts of environments. The air conditioner was humming in the background but the quality of this mic eliminated external sounds. This also allows me to easily add background audio withouth having to a lot of tweaking. The music, which I found on Jamendo (my new favourite Creative Commons source) is used to provide a delicate, soft backdrop to the story. I sampled dozens of instrumental music but was thinking piano as the core instrument. Music can certainly be overdone and I sampled until I found the one that best fit the piece. Special Effects 5 minutes of "talking head’ can be a bit much. I’ve rarely seen it done effectively. If I’d had more time or had more ownership of the project, I would have liked more "b-roll" footage. In order to provide interest I used the dual camera and split screens. Again, these are done with purpose. The viewer gets a sense of place and hopefully adds to the intimacy. I used a bit of slow motion on the pan of the family photos. This was done as much to cover up the use of a handheld pan. There are a number of interesting filters in Final Cut Express which may have been interesting but time and the fact they have to be rendered each time to view them made that less desirable. I will need to explore them more to understand how they might enhance future projects. The story is still the key. However these other elements represent the design and as I’ve mentioned many times, cannot be separated from the final product. I hope these insights are useful and certainly am open to critique of my choices. I just wanted to be transparent and explicit with how and why I did what I did. tag:odeo.com,2009-07-31,24890431 Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:43:25 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Design, video, creativecommons, cancer, digitalstorytelling, digital stories, breastcancer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24800803-Are-We-Text-Snobs This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, ... This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence. (This post continues with the following video) (And now some audio) Listen! In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes. OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them? This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence. (This post continues with the following video) (And now some audio) Listen! In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes. OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them? tag:odeo.com,2009-07-14,24800803 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:00:47 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, video, change, assessment, digitalstorytelling, digital stories, stephendownes, techlearning, marcotorres http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24800761-Are-We-Text-Snobs This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, ... This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence. (This post continues with the following video) (And now some audio) Listen! In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes. OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them? This post will be double posted to the tech learning blog shortly. Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery. So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence. (This post continues with the following video) (And now some audio) Listen! In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes. OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them? tag:odeo.com,2009-07-14,24800761 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:00:47 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, video, change, assessment, digitalstorytelling, digital stories, stephendownes, techlearning, marcotorres http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24744470-2-Guys-from-Saskatchewan-Rethinking-Teacher-Education I had the privilege of keynoting last week with Alec Couros as the TCEA Area 7 conference. Scott Floyd and crew did an amazing job of organizing this one day event complete with great wireless access, streaming video of most sessions, not to mention a wonderful BBQ and golf. We were treated like royalty. I come away from an event like this feeling blessed to know such awesome people and leave with great memories. Our talk revolved around our efforts to change traditional teacher education to leverage the power of networks and technology in teaching and learning. We hope to spark some new conversations and support the great work already begun by Scott and friends. Here’s the video to our Keynote and our other session can be found here. Slides from the keynote are here: Cooliris slides Thanks again to Scott and  Paul Wood in particular for an outstanding weekend.                Tweet This Post  I had the privilege of keynoting last week with Alec Couros as the TCEA Area 7 conference. Scott Floyd and crew did an amazing job of organizing this one day event complete with great wireless access, streaming video of most sessions, not to mention a wonderful BBQ and golf. We were treated like royalty. I come away from an event like this feeling blessed to know such awesome people and leave with great memories. Our talk revolved around our efforts to change traditional teacher education to leverage the power of networks and technology in teaching and learning. We hope to spark some new conversations and support the great work already begun by Scott and friends. Here’s the video to our Keynote and our other session can be found here. Slides from the keynote are here: Cooliris slides Thanks again to Scott and  Paul Wood in particular for an outstanding weekend.                Tweet This Post  I had the privilege of keynoting last week with Alec Couros as the TCEA Area 7 conference. Scott Floyd and crew did an amazing job of organizing this one day event complete with great wireless access, streaming video of most sessions, not to mention a wonderful BBQ and golf. We were treated like royalty. I come away from an event like this feeling blessed to know such awesome people and leave with great memories. Our talk revolved around our efforts to change traditional teacher education to leverage the power of networks and technology in teaching and learning. We hope to spark some new conversations and support the great work already begun by Scott and friends. Here’s the video to our Keynote and our other session can be found here. Slides from the keynote are here: Cooliris slides Thanks again to Scott and  Paul Wood in particular for an outstanding weekend.                Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-22,24744470 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:17:14 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, Presentations, aleccouros, professional learning, tatc09, scottfloyd, paulwood http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24733240-Edtech-Posse-5-6-Chatting-with-Howard-Rheingold What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-19,24733240 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:34:20 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Uncategorized, robwall, aleccouros, edtechposse, howardrheingold, ricks http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24733159-Edtech-Posse-5-6-Chatting-with-Howard-Rheingold What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  What a treat it is to be able to chat with someone who you read and admire. Howard Rheingold is a legend in terms of social networking. His book Smart Mobs is a classic and his historical perspective is really important as we try to understand our current world. This video from 1989 was of particular fascination for me. Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-19,24733159 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:34:20 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Uncategorized, robwall, aleccouros, edtechposse, howardrheingold, ricks http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24706903-Student-Involved-Assessment Reposted from the Tech & Learning blog The concept of student involved assessment is hard to deny as a powerful learning practice. Students taking care of their own learning and being able to use meta-cognition to dissect understanding and progress and seek ideas and support to learn more. The work of Rick Stiggins and others provides extensive research into this practice as the most important component leading to student achievement. Whether or not you’ve done any study of this concept, this video does more than about anything I’ve seen recently to support this notion. (via Will Richardson) I apologize if youtube is blocked at your school but allow me to offer some insights as to why this is a great example of student involved assessment at its best. First the young boy demonstrates what he already knows. Using a simple video camera he models and speaks to his current level of understanding. Second he identifies what he doesn’t know, not simply by saying he d... Reposted from the Tech & Learning blog The concept of student involved assessment is hard to deny as a powerful learning practice. Students taking care of their own learning and being able to use meta-cognition to dissect understanding and progress and seek ideas and support to learn more. The work of Rick Stiggins and others provides extensive research into this practice as the most important component leading to student achievement. Whether or not you’ve done any study of this concept, this video does more than about anything I’ve seen recently to support this notion. (via Will Richardson) I apologize if youtube is blocked at your school but allow me to offer some insights as to why this is a great example of student involved assessment at its best. First the young boy demonstrates what he already knows. Using a simple video camera he models and speaks to his current level of understanding. Second he identifies what he doesn’t know, not simply by saying he doesn’t know but by offering some suggestions about what might be wrong but questioning his methodology. And here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of him floundering around with the people in his local vicinity who may not be able to help him he reaches out. Reading the comments below the video you’ll see at this writing 10 comments that are very likely going to allow him to learn more. Lest you think this is some obscure example, the first time I viewed this there were only just over 100 views. That’s pittance in youtube terms. Anyone can get 100 views but that’s all it took for learning to happen. I do know that a teacher helped him learn this. I don’t if that “teacher” works in a school but he definitely was taught. It’s not simply a matter of posting a video and awaiting responses, this video was tagged and categorized very well. Without this understanding, it’s unlikely that he would get 10 quality answers. It’s not at all surprising to me that people are willing to share their knowledge and help him out. I experience that everyday as part of living in a connected way via social networks. This represents some of the best ways to help classroom teachers and students understand the power and value of technology. I realize this boy never thought much about what he was doing with technology beyond helping him figure out how to start a fire. As a teacher it would be very easy to assess his understanding but more importantly HE COULD assess his understanding and create his own path to learn more. Now, what if all kids did this? Tweet This Post  Reposted from the Tech & Learning blog The concept of student involved assessment is hard to deny as a powerful learning practice. Students taking care of their own learning and being able to use meta-cognition to dissect understanding and progress and seek ideas and support to learn more. The work of Rick Stiggins and others provides extensive research into this practice as the most important component leading to student achievement. Whether or not you’ve done any study of this concept, this video does more than about anything I’ve seen recently to support this notion. (via Will Richardson) I apologize if youtube is blocked at your school but allow me to offer some insights as to why this is a great example of student involved assessment at its best. First the young boy demonstrates what he already knows. Using a simple video camera he models and speaks to his current level of understanding. Second he identifies what he doesn’t know, not simply by saying he doesn’t know but by offering some suggestions about what might be wrong but questioning his methodology. And here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of him floundering around with the people in his local vicinity who may not be able to help him he reaches out. Reading the comments below the video you’ll see at this writing 10 comments that are very likely going to allow him to learn more. Lest you think this is some obscure example, the first time I viewed this there were only just over 100 views. That’s pittance in youtube terms. Anyone can get 100 views but that’s all it took for learning to happen. I do know that a teacher helped him learn this. I don’t if that “teacher” works in a school but he definitely was taught. It’s not simply a matter of posting a video and awaiting responses, this video was tagged and categorized very well. Without this understanding, it’s unlikely that he would get 10 quality answers. It’s not at all surprising to me that people are willing to share their knowledge and help him out. I experience that everyday as part of living in a connected way via social networks. This represents some of the best ways to help classroom teachers and students understand the power and value of technology. I realize this boy never thought much about what he was doing with technology beyond helping him figure out how to start a fire. As a teacher it would be very easy to assess his understanding but more importantly HE COULD assess his understanding and create his own path to learn more. Now, what if all kids did this? Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-15,24706903 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:12:19 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech video, Networks, assessment, willrichardson, techlearning, rickstiggins http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24653663-EdTech-Posse-Podcast-5-5-Teaching-outside-the-limits-of-space-and-time Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-04,24653663 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:59:32 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24695959-EdTech-Posse-Podcast-5-5-%E2%80%93-Teaching-outside-the-limits-of-space-and-time Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-04,24695959 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:59:32 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24697269-EdTech-Posse-Podcast-5-5-%E2%80%93-Teaching-outside-the-limits-of-space-and-time Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-04,24697269 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:59:32 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24654066-EdTech-Posse-Podcast-5-5-Teaching-outside-the-limits-of-space-and-time Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  Rob and Alec and I sat down in our respective residents for our monthly discussion. This time we examined some of the challenges and successs of teaching outside the limits of time and space. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-06-04,24654066 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:59:32 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, edtechposse http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24591920-Podcast-46-Why-Technology-A-Follow-up-to-a-Follow-Up It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-05-21,24591920 Thu, 21 May 2009 16:22:05 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, blogs, EdTechs, bengrey, budhunt http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24592321-Podcast-46-Why-Technology-A-Follow-up-to-a-Follow-Up It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  It started here and continued here.  Here’s my 2 cents. Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-05-21,24592321 Thu, 21 May 2009 16:22:05 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, blogs, EdTechs, bengrey, budhunt http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24580929-How-the-book-destroyed-Community I recently attended a session by Rory McGreal at the Tlt Summit. Rory was discussing how video games are often considered to be making us more isolated and how they are destroying students ability to communicate. Rory points to the book as the real culprit. Before the printed book, people had to flock to a select few scholars who had the knowledge and learning that needed to be shared in the community. This oral tradition meant people had to learn in social ways. The book transformed this and made it possible for people to learn on their own and in private. The scholars and teachers of the day had lost some of their power and significance. People could learn in private. The horror! I think we’ve seen that the book hasn’t really destroyed community and neither will video games or the web. In fact, as Rory argues, most games cannot be done in private but have to be done together. I’ve observed my son many times yell, scream, laugh and have these seemingly incoherent ... I recently attended a session by Rory McGreal at the Tlt Summit. Rory was discussing how video games are often considered to be making us more isolated and how they are destroying students ability to communicate. Rory points to the book as the real culprit. Before the printed book, people had to flock to a select few scholars who had the knowledge and learning that needed to be shared in the community. This oral tradition meant people had to learn in social ways. The book transformed this and made it possible for people to learn on their own and in private. The scholars and teachers of the day had lost some of their power and significance. People could learn in private. The horror! I think we’ve seen that the book hasn’t really destroyed community and neither will video games or the web. In fact, as Rory argues, most games cannot be done in private but have to be done together. I’ve observed my son many times yell, scream, laugh and have these seemingly incoherent mumblings on a headset and be in contact with several friends and strangers involved with a scheduled raid on WOW. I don’t totally get it but when I ask if he’s going to get together with his friends, he simply answers, “I already am”. Had he been sitting in a chair reading a book all evening, many would be much more pleased and feel his time is being better spent. I’m not prepared to make a complete judgment.  Yes balance will always be important but there is still a shift here that my 45 year old brain is still working out. The shift in how we consume content continues to challenge and amaze me. Social reading is something I’m trying to wrap my head around.  Diigo is something I’m recently exploring that facilitates this.  Being able to highlight content, leave sticky notes, see what other parts people have annotated creates a social experience and richness never possible before. Will explains it really well in this post.  As I sit in my easy chair reading online with others many might find that odd. Again, if I had a printed book and was reading alone,  it would likely get more respect.  For many people, sitting in front of a screen is not a social experience.  For my son and I, that’s not the case. This is certainly not to say that all reading should be social. But as we spend more time working out what learning looks like on the outside, we need to keep this in mind. So the next time someone blames the web or a video game for destroying community and social interaction, tell them the book started it. Image: by Yives http://www.flickr.com/photos/yives/3025506130/ Tweet This Post  I recently attended a session by Rory McGreal at the Tlt Summit. Rory was discussing how video games are often considered to be making us more isolated and how they are destroying students ability to communicate. Rory points to the book as the real culprit. Before the printed book, people had to flock to a select few scholars who had the knowledge and learning that needed to be shared in the community. This oral tradition meant people had to learn in social ways. The book transformed this and made it possible for people to learn on their own and in private. The scholars and teachers of the day had lost some of their power and significance. People could learn in private. The horror! I think we’ve seen that the book hasn’t really destroyed community and neither will video games or the web. In fact, as Rory argues, most games cannot be done in private but have to be done together. I’ve observed my son many times yell, scream, laugh and have these seemingly incoherent mumblings on a headset and be in contact with several friends and strangers involved with a scheduled raid on WOW. I don’t totally get it but when I ask if he’s going to get together with his friends, he simply answers, “I already am”. Had he been sitting in a chair reading a book all evening, many would be much more pleased and feel his time is being better spent. I’m not prepared to make a complete judgment.  Yes balance will always be important but there is still a shift here that my 45 year old brain is still working out. The shift in how we consume content continues to challenge and amaze me. Social reading is something I’m trying to wrap my head around.  Diigo is something I’m recently exploring that facilitates this.  Being able to highlight content, leave sticky notes, see what other parts people have annotated creates a social experience and richness never possible before. Will explains it really well in this post.  As I sit in my easy chair reading online with others many might find that odd. Again, if I had a printed book and was reading alone,  it would likely get more respect.  For many people, sitting in front of a screen is not a social experience.  For my son and I, that’s not the case. This is certainly not to say that all reading should be social. But as we spend more time working out what learning looks like on the outside, we need to keep this in mind. So the next time someone blames the web or a video game for destroying community and social interaction, tell them the book started it. Image: by Yives http://www.flickr.com/photos/yives/3025506130/ Tweet This Post  tag:odeo.com,2009-05-19,24580929 Tue, 19 May 2009 09:11:55 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech videogames, Rants, change, Diigo, willrichardson, rorymcgreal, tltsummit, socialreading http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24545144-Understanding-Lurkers Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-11,24545144 Mon, 11 May 2009 13:02:00 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech privacy, spark, socialnetworks, Lurkers http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24553630-Understanding-Lurkers Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise. Either way, it’s a worthwhile 3 minutes. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-11,24553630 Mon, 11 May 2009 13:02:00 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech privacy, spark, socialnetworks, Lurkers http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24535794-The-Lazy-Professors Alec and I presented last week at Tlt in Regina on our experience teaching undergrads and grads. The audio isn’t the greatest at all times but hopefully you’ll get a sense of the presentations. I’ve also embedded the Ustream below as well. Lazy Professors View more presentations from shareski. Alec and I presented last week at Tlt in Regina on our experience teaching undergrads and grads. The audio isn’t the greatest at all times but hopefully you’ll get a sense of the presentations. I’ve also embedded the Ustream below as well. Lazy Professors View more presentations from shareski. Alec and I presented last week at Tlt in Regina on our experience teaching undergrads and grads. The audio isn’t the greatest at all times but hopefully you’ll get a sense of the presentations. I’ve also embedded the Ustream below as well. Lazy Professors View more presentations from shareski. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-04,24535794 Mon, 04 May 2009 09:51:31 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, Presentations, aleccouros, professional learning, Classrooms, universityofregina, tlt2009 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24524904-10-Disruptions-that-Can-Transform-your-Classroom I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-29,24524904 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:55:41 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, change, Presentations, cooliris, leekolbert, karlfish, coolirispres, pbs2009 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24522218-10-Disruptions-that-Can-Transform-your-Classroom I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. I gave this presentation a couple of times back in March. Here’s the video from the Palm Beach School District Conference. It was a beautifully run conference (Lee Kolbert and friends rock) and they recorded a number of sessions and recorded them with multi cameras and high quality sound.  I also had the privilege of watching Karl Fisch in action. Enjoy his as well.  Here’s one of my three presentations: 10 Disruptions that can Transform your Classroom. I used Cooliris to build it. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-29,24522218 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:55:41 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, change, Presentations, cooliris, leekolbert, karlfish, coolirispres, pbs2009 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24524905-Telling-the-New-Story-Year-4 A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-28,24524905 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:53:28 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, darrenkuropatwa, new stories, Classrooms, clarencefisher, kathycassidy, thenewstory, itsummit09 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24522219-Telling-the-New-Story-Year-4 A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit. We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students. Here are the slides and the audio is below: Telling the New Story Part 4 View more presentations from shareski. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-28,24522219 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:53:28 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Conferences, darrenkuropatwa, new stories, Classrooms, clarencefisher, kathycassidy, thenewstory, itsummit09 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24500349-EdTech-Posse-5-4-Grumpy-Old-Digital-Residents We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-24,24500349 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:00:58 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, privacy, robwall, EdTechs, heatherross, digitalcitizenship, kylelichtenwald http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24498920-EdTech-Posse-5-4-Grumpy-Old-Digital-Residents We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. We missed Rick and Alec but welcomed back Heather Ross and Kyle Lichtenwald as we talk about digital safety and identity, digital residents and digital tourists. I was able to elaborate further on the debacle of the other night’s presentation. I actually don’t show up until about 15 minutes into the conversation. I was busy eating donuts. Thanks to Rob for the quick turn around. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-24,24498920 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:00:58 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, privacy, robwall, EdTechs, heatherross, digitalcitizenship, kylelichtenwald http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24489557-The-Continuing-Saga I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids wi... I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators. And then it was my turn. I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side. It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd: Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart. I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story. Today this happened at the school. That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful. I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators. And then it was my turn. I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side. It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd: Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart. I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story. Today this happened at the school. That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-22,24489557 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:57:11 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Personal, Presentations, privacy, socialnetworks, internetsafety, danahboyd, willrichardson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24490189-The-Continuing-Saga I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids wi... I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators. And then it was my turn. I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side. It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd: Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart. I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story. Today this happened at the school. That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful. I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the organizer stating that I don’t spend a great deal of time on the dangers and lures of the internet but rather how to leverage online spaces for positive purposes. I acknowledge dangers but also utilize many research studies that debunk common beliefs about internet safety. So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators. And then it was my turn. I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side. It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd: Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart. I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story. Today this happened at the school. That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-22,24490189 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:57:11 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Personal, Presentations, privacy, socialnetworks, internetsafety, danahboyd, willrichardson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24409211-Inside-a-Slide-Deck Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff ... Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three. So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other. Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three. So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-04,24409211 Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:29:22 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech flickr, Presentations, danmeyer, digitalstorytelling, garrreynolds, digital stories, visualliteracy, cliffatkinson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24409556-Inside-a-Slide-Deck Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff ... Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three. So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other. Dan Meyer is at it again. Stirring up trouble and asking hard questions. That’s okay, in fact it’s good. While the specifics of his post might seem targeted at the small number of educators who regularly present at conferences and meetings, I think, and I’m sure Dan would agree it’s for all teachers. I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging. I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division. Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three. So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other. tag:odeo.com,2009-04-04,24409556 Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:29:22 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech flickr, Presentations, danmeyer, digitalstorytelling, garrreynolds, digital stories, visualliteracy, cliffatkinson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24389961-The-Ukulele-Project Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have bee... Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future. I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now. *Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner. Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future. I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now. *Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-31,24389961 Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:30:56 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech music, Classrooms http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24385453-The-Ukulele-Project Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have bee... Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future. I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now. *Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner. Another gem from the Spark podcast. Listen to this 3 minute story about the Ukulele Project. There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story. Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others. The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts. People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web. Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking. Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future. I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now. *Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-31,24385453 Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:30:56 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech music, Classrooms http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24357711-EdTech-Posse-5-3 The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-24,24357711 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:58:11 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, Conferences, EdTechs http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24357220-EdTech-Posse-5-3 The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. The IT Summit conference offered a great chance for Rick, Alec , Rob and I (we’re still waiting for Heather to return) to gather with some friends - Kathy Cassidy, Dean Loberg (time to start blogging again, Dean), Kyle Lichtenwald and Clarence Fisher - at Winston’s Pub for food, refreshments and a great conversation. Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-24,24357220 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:58:11 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, Conferences, EdTechs http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24320746-That-was-fun So that fact that your birthday is splattered in any number of places means some interesting things.  We get all kinds of well wishes from different spaces. It’s nice. It’s part of the glue of social networks, little bits of sharing to build community. My life is pretty much an open book. For some that’s just too weird, dangerous or stupid. It works for me.  My network of acquaintances/colleagues/connections and yes, some friends, know a lot of odd things about me. I received many birthday wishes but David Jakes (I linked to his blog so you’ll all head over and urge him to blog more) started this little beauty: And the fun began.  I’m not sure I capture them all but I hope so. For those who  have had the opportunity to observe my online nattering, I can see how some might find it trivial, self-absorbed and even perhaps useless. There’s some truth in that for sure. But I can say that much of this it isn’t far off from the way I approach teach... So that fact that your birthday is splattered in any number of places means some interesting things.  We get all kinds of well wishes from different spaces. It’s nice. It’s part of the glue of social networks, little bits of sharing to build community. My life is pretty much an open book. For some that’s just too weird, dangerous or stupid. It works for me.  My network of acquaintances/colleagues/connections and yes, some friends, know a lot of odd things about me. I received many birthday wishes but David Jakes (I linked to his blog so you’ll all head over and urge him to blog more) started this little beauty: And the fun began.  I’m not sure I capture them all but I hope so. For those who  have had the opportunity to observe my online nattering, I can see how some might find it trivial, self-absorbed and even perhaps useless. There’s some truth in that for sure. But I can say that much of this it isn’t far off from the way I approach teaching and learning. Wrapped around the glaze of foolishness lies the belief that you need to invest and embrace a level of vulnerability (looking for a blog post by Jim Groom but couldn’t find it) in order to build community and in turn truly learn from each other. For me this means sharing silliness, exploring new ways to share and communicate and discovering that being playful and curious about other people actually matters.  I also think this doesn’t necessarily lose you academic credibility, although again, many would write me off because of my overt sharing practices. I hardly care. I’m sure there are other ways to do this but I’m quite happy with how things have worked out for me. Not that I’m seeking power but “the less you share the less power you have.” In a time of economic downturn, I have tons of social capital. So with that I give you a really neat little gift that from some really cool people. They supplied the gift, I wrapped it up and put it in a box.  That was fun. (FYI, I uploaded this first to youtube but the rendering of the screen captures was pretty unreadable, vimeo does a much better job. There, you learned something) Birthday Tweets from shareski on Vimeo. So that fact that your birthday is splattered in any number of places means some interesting things.  We get all kinds of well wishes from different spaces. It’s nice. It’s part of the glue of social networks, little bits of sharing to build community. My life is pretty much an open book. For some that’s just too weird, dangerous or stupid. It works for me.  My network of acquaintances/colleagues/connections and yes, some friends, know a lot of odd things about me. I received many birthday wishes but David Jakes (I linked to his blog so you’ll all head over and urge him to blog more) started this little beauty: And the fun began.  I’m not sure I capture them all but I hope so. For those who  have had the opportunity to observe my online nattering, I can see how some might find it trivial, self-absorbed and even perhaps useless. There’s some truth in that for sure. But I can say that much of this it isn’t far off from the way I approach teaching and learning. Wrapped around the glaze of foolishness lies the belief that you need to invest and embrace a level of vulnerability (looking for a blog post by Jim Groom but couldn’t find it) in order to build community and in turn truly learn from each other. For me this means sharing silliness, exploring new ways to share and communicate and discovering that being playful and curious about other people actually matters.  I also think this doesn’t necessarily lose you academic credibility, although again, many would write me off because of my overt sharing practices. I hardly care. I’m sure there are other ways to do this but I’m quite happy with how things have worked out for me. Not that I’m seeking power but “the less you share the less power you have.” In a time of economic downturn, I have tons of social capital. So with that I give you a really neat little gift that from some really cool people. They supplied the gift, I wrapped it up and put it in a box.  That was fun. (FYI, I uploaded this first to youtube but the rendering of the screen captures was pretty unreadable, vimeo does a much better job. There, you learned something) Birthday Tweets from shareski on Vimeo. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-17,24320746 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:17:47 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Personal, fun, isaacmao, robwall, aleccouros, socialnetworks, jimgroom, davidjakes http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24281794-THIS-is-a-21st-Century-Skill I’ve struggled with the term 21st Century skill since many of these skills have been around for a long time. It’s not a discussion I’m passionate about but sometimes I’m struck but the clarity of a skill that is clearly new to this century. Video is indeed a 21st century skill. Take the recent contest for the Best Job in the World. Applicants were charged with creating a one minute video as their application. The ones highlighted on Presentation Zen are impressive. But Stephen Downes nails it, They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there argue that such skills (a) are old hat, and (b) not worth teaching. The world is p... I’ve struggled with the term 21st Century skill since many of these skills have been around for a long time. It’s not a discussion I’m passionate about but sometimes I’m struck but the clarity of a skill that is clearly new to this century. Video is indeed a 21st century skill. Take the recent contest for the Best Job in the World. Applicants were charged with creating a one minute video as their application. The ones highlighted on Presentation Zen are impressive. But Stephen Downes nails it, They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there argue that such skills (a) are old hat, and (b) not worth teaching. The world is passing such critics by, and they should not be heeded. Our schools need to re-evaluate how much time we spend on print alone and start broadening our focus. Joe Brennan, among others, does a great job connecting the dots between writing and video. Unfortunately, most of our educators have difficulty understanding the value and nuances of creating and viewing effective video. Even more unfortunate are those who think of video as faddish or no different than teaching writing. While there are similarities, there are enough differences that it requires teacher training to make it as required as learning how to teach writing.  I’ve been using video in the classroom and making movies for the past 10 years and I know I’m far from being an expert. 95% of our teachers I’m guessing know less than I do. How long will it be until employers will ask applicants to submit a video? Not just for unique and quirky jobs like an Australian tourism promoter but for teachers, lawyers, managers. Any job that features communication as a primary skill, will ask future employees to present themselves in this way. Here’s my favourite from the contest. A Canadian of course. bengrey, stephendownes, garrreynolds, bestjobintheworld, joebrennan I’ve struggled with the term 21st Century skill since many of these skills have been around for a long time. It’s not a discussion I’m passionate about but sometimes I’m struck but the clarity of a skill that is clearly new to this century. Video is indeed a 21st century skill. Take the recent contest for the Best Job in the World. Applicants were charged with creating a one minute video as their application. The ones highlighted on Presentation Zen are impressive. But Stephen Downes nails it, They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there argue that such skills (a) are old hat, and (b) not worth teaching. The world is passing such critics by, and they should not be heeded. Our schools need to re-evaluate how much time we spend on print alone and start broadening our focus. Joe Brennan, among others, does a great job connecting the dots between writing and video. Unfortunately, most of our educators have difficulty understanding the value and nuances of creating and viewing effective video. Even more unfortunate are those who think of video as faddish or no different than teaching writing. While there are similarities, there are enough differences that it requires teacher training to make it as required as learning how to teach writing.  I’ve been using video in the classroom and making movies for the past 10 years and I know I’m far from being an expert. 95% of our teachers I’m guessing know less than I do. How long will it be until employers will ask applicants to submit a video? Not just for unique and quirky jobs like an Australian tourism promoter but for teachers, lawyers, managers. Any job that features communication as a primary skill, will ask future employees to present themselves in this way. Here’s my favourite from the contest. A Canadian of course. bengrey, stephendownes, garrreynolds, bestjobintheworld, joebrennan tag:odeo.com,2009-03-09,24281794 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:34:48 -0700 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech video, Rants, change, digitalstorytelling, garrreynolds, stephendownes, joebrennan, bengrey, bestjobintheworld http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24239852-Rules-aren%E2%80%99t-the-answer Thanks to a comment from Bill Ferriter, I finally took the time to watch Barry Schwartz’ recent TED talk. Schwartz talk on the Paradox of Choice remains one of my favourites but this one might surpass it. For a great synopsis of the talk check out Rob Jacob’s post. As Bill connected my post on worthless pursuits to this talk, I continue to believe how important it is for us to devise organizations that are focused on responsibility rather than accountability.  Accountability infers rules. Responsibility infers caring. I’m reminded of friends of ours who are a few years older than us and when we were young parents, they talked to us about their approach to parenting. They told us they had very few rules. They preferred to invest time in developing guidelines and developed understandings with their kids that made sense to everyone. It didn’t mean their kids always did the right things but the discussions and time spent was on values and relationships, not maint... Thanks to a comment from Bill Ferriter, I finally took the time to watch Barry Schwartz’ recent TED talk. Schwartz talk on the Paradox of Choice remains one of my favourites but this one might surpass it. For a great synopsis of the talk check out Rob Jacob’s post. As Bill connected my post on worthless pursuits to this talk, I continue to believe how important it is for us to devise organizations that are focused on responsibility rather than accountability.  Accountability infers rules. Responsibility infers caring. I’m reminded of friends of ours who are a few years older than us and when we were young parents, they talked to us about their approach to parenting. They told us they had very few rules. They preferred to invest time in developing guidelines and developed understandings with their kids that made sense to everyone. It didn’t mean their kids always did the right things but the discussions and time spent was on values and relationships, not maintaining or rewriting rules. Reminds me of SLA. I understand that many view this approach as idealistic but not realistic in every situation. I would argue, that rules often make us lazy. We would love if we could simply develop a bunch of rules and know that they will be followed. Rules, on their own are never enough. I pulled a great quote from the talk and created another image for my collection. Thanks to a comment from Bill Ferriter, I finally took the time to watch Barry Schwartz’ recent TED talk. Schwartz talk on the Paradox of Choice remains one of my favourites but this one might surpass it. For a great synopsis of the talk check out Rob Jacob’s post. As Bill connected my post on worthless pursuits to this talk, I continue to believe how important it is for us to devise organizations that are focused on responsibility rather than accountability.  Accountability infers rules. Responsibility infers caring. I’m reminded of friends of ours who are a few years older than us and when we were young parents, they talked to us about their approach to parenting. They told us they had very few rules. They preferred to invest time in developing guidelines and developed understandings with their kids that made sense to everyone. It didn’t mean their kids always did the right things but the discussions and time spent was on values and relationships, not maintaining or rewriting rules. Reminds me of SLA. I understand that many view this approach as idealistic but not realistic in every situation. I would argue, that rules often make us lazy. We would love if we could simply develop a bunch of rules and know that they will be followed. Rules, on their own are never enough. I pulled a great quote from the talk and created another image for my collection. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-01,24239852 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:21:13 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Rants, ted, SLA, robjacobs, barryschwartz http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24148850-EdTech-Posse-5-2 Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-20,24148850 Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:05:32 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, rickschwier http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24147073-EdTech-Posse-5-2 Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-20,24147073 Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:05:32 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, rickschwier http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24181964-EdTech-Posse-5-2 Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. Just four guys sitting around talking. Strangely enough, many find it mildly interesting. I apologize for more than the usual level of incoherence as I had some weird audio issues. Nonetheless my three counterparts made up for it. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-20,24181964 Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:05:32 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, robwall, EdTechs, aleccouros, rickschwier http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24054038-Timeline-of-Productivity-and-Stupidity The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the b... The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) tag:odeo.com,2009-02-05,24054038 Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:46:23 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech aleccouros, Classrooms, ecmp355, ecmp455, benhazzard http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24052863-Timeline-of-Productivity-and-Stupidity The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the b... The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) tag:odeo.com,2009-02-05,24052863 Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:46:23 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech aleccouros, Classrooms, ecmp355, ecmp455, benhazzard http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24181965-Timeline-of-Productivity-and-Stupidity The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the b... The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) The following took place on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. All events are true. 24-time-effect 5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked) 6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight) 6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment) 6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat. 7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards. 8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive) 8:55 Class ends. 9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions. 9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec) 9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive) 10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid) tag:odeo.com,2009-02-05,24181965 Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:46:23 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech aleccouros, Classrooms, ecmp355, ecmp455, benhazzard http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24017506-Podcast-44-Facebook-Filtering-and-all-that The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing... The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With one special needs boy, I have been using it to help him develop social skills.  He cannot write but wants to communicate with his peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  Our goal is for him to be as normal a possible.  I use Word to convert his speech into text and he pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am stuggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulas.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulas.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addicitive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With one special needs boy, I have been using it to help him develop social skills.  He cannot write but wants to communicate with his peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  Our goal is for him to be as normal a possible.  I use Word to convert his speech into text and he pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am stuggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulas.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulas.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addicitive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-02,24017506 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:13:12 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, filtering, Classrooms, contentfiltering http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24181966-Podcast-44-Facebook-Filtering-and-all-that The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing... The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With special needs students, I have used  it to help them develop social skills.  They struggle with writing but they want to communicate with their peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  I use Word to convert speech into text and they pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue.. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am struggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulus.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulus.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addictive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With special needs students, I have used  it to help them develop social skills.  They struggle with writing but they want to communicate with their peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  I use Word to convert speech into text and they pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue.. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am struggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulus.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulus.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addictive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-02,24181966 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:13:12 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, filtering, Classrooms, contentfiltering http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24017661-Podcast-44-Facebook-Filtering-and-all-that The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing... The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With one special needs boy, I have been using it to help him develop social skills.  He cannot write but wants to communicate with his peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  Our goal is for him to be as normal a possible.  I use Word to convert his speech into text and he pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am stuggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulas.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulas.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addicitive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. The question of filtering and facebook continues to be a major discussion item for schools. In my division, we do not block social networking sites and have a very liberal filtering policy compared to most. However, teachers struggle with students traveling to spaces they shouldn’t and being off task.  Rather than coming at them with my own position, I decided to enlist a number of teachers to respond to the following question: Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’ The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted. I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With one special needs boy, I have been using it to help him develop social skills.  He cannot write but wants to communicate with his peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  Our goal is for him to be as normal a possible.  I use Word to convert his speech into text and he pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue. I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools? Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars! Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations - our cell project proved it - I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations. Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance. I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK I am stuggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulas.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulas.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addicitive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus. We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this. We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids. In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No. The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-02,24017661 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:13:12 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, filtering, Classrooms, contentfiltering http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23889539-Ed-Tech-Posse-5-1 That was quick. We talked yesterday and today it’s published. Way to go Rob. It was a great conversation with Alec, Rick and Rob. One of my favourites. To think it’s year five. Wow. I’m particularly satisfied with the dicussion around Alec’s flickr issue. I think Alec in particular provides a nice response to the issue. Shownotes That was quick. We talked yesterday and today it’s published. Way to go Rob. It was a great conversation with Alec, Rick and Rob. One of my favourites. To think it’s year five. Wow. I’m particularly satisfied with the dicussion around Alec’s flickr issue. I think Alec in particular provides a nice response to the issue. Shownotes That was quick. We talked yesterday and today it’s published. Way to go Rob. It was a great conversation with Alec, Rick and Rob. One of my favourites. To think it’s year five. Wow. I’m particularly satisfied with the dicussion around Alec’s flickr issue. I think Alec in particular provides a nice response to the issue. Shownotes tag:odeo.com,2009-01-16,23889539 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:56:06 -0800 no Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech Podcasting, flickr, Networks, robwall, aleccouros, edtechposse, rickschwier, socialnetworks