johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

Halavais writes about the challenges with blogging in college courses.

This post is more of a personal bookmark for me to go back and consult this later. What would be difficult for me, I think, is keeping up with all the blogs for a class. I think what’s worked well for our teachers who have tried classroom blogging in the K-12 environment has been using RSS as the sole tool to keep track.

I recently read a post on Karen Richardson’s blog about questions surrounding reading and literacy. Then I remembered an article I read that came from one of our media specialists.

It was called Wonder Woman and was in the August 2007 edition of the School Library Journal. It describes how authors have been changing their writing to accommodate their young audiences. The audience, you see, has been impacted by digital technologies. They like choice in their reading. Which reminded me of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books.

I fear that tests will be the last part that “catches up” in education. Does it matter if they can read text? Or does it matter that they extract the content? I think it does. But we don’t stop there.

We need to ask the next question, and the next. Can they write their own text? Can they draw their own pictures? Can they develop their own multimedia? Can they “decode” the multimedia someone else has created?

I think the part scary to many will be the the to-be established fact that media in the future will de-emphasize text.

I see it in my own longing to use new services (such as Jott.com) that are voice/audio based.

I see it in my talking to teachers. “Less text, more pictures.” We were working on a brochure today, and I said “Who is going to read this?”

She said to me: “I wrote it… you don’t think people will read it?”

“Some will,” I said. “But many have now adapted a Web reading style to traditional text. Parents won’t read this brochure, there’s a sea of text. Instead, they’ll scan it.” We highlighted the main words or point in each paragraph to make them stand out. We made her brochure scannable.

The future of text may in fact be simplification. Time will tell. But the texts, albeit slowly, are changing.

I encourage you to play at Free Rice.

It’s a vocabulary-building website that donates rice to hungry people.

Are you an educator who uses a Macintosh? This new Vimeo channel is for you!

I partnered with Deb Cross to produce some videos (some of the same ones you’ve seen me post here, individually), and I’ve put them together all in one place–a “channel.”

You provide the popcorn.

Yet another video… this one is on calling-up Oxford dictionary definitions on any word in Mac “Cocoa” apps, including: Mail, TextEdit, Keynote, Safari, and Pages.

Using OS X Built-in Dictionary Services from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Safari Trackback from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Changing Themes in Keynote from John Hendron on Vimeo.

This video is on YouTube; I was less-impressed with the quality for an instructional screencast.

Deb Cross and I look at simple copy and paste. But how do you make the text take on new style attributes?

Pasting Text with out “Style” from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Deb Cross and I explore the printing options unique to Apple’s Keynote.

Printing Options in Apple Keynote from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Deb Cross and I produced this video for zooming-into things on a Macintosh.

Zooming Tips on a Macintosh from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Over the past couple weeks, I have begun an interest in teaching folksonomy skills to students. I have written a working paper (available for download) that outlines some of my ideas.

I welcome any comments on this preliminary research.

I’d like to turn this into a published article, or perhaps, the basis for another book idea.

This weekend, I did the last bit of touch-up work for the book on RSS. I had to update the standards mentioned in the book to “ISTE NETS-S 2007″ from their previous version. While the previous and current standards are both six in number, the new standards break-down each standard into 4 “micro” standards, i.e., 1a, 1c, etc. So many different standards are numbered/identified in different ways. I don’t like “1a” because I don’t know what 1a is. I’d prefer they had simple one-word labels. “Citizenship-Leadership.” Oh well, I can stand using things like 1a, 3c, etc., right?

This morning I finally signed up for Twitter. I’ve been holding out. I very much like the idea behind Twitter, and that is, at any time, you or anyone else can ping me online and see what I’m up to. But I’m much against having to do this myself. I’m looking for something far less intrusive.

Let’s say I’m driving to work. I want that to appear, sure, but I don’t want to report it. I’m working on a report, okay, but I don’t want to take time out of report-writing to see that appear. I’m on the treadmill at the gym. Great. Somehow, report that for me.

I’m also interested in geo-tweets, or the idea that my physical location can appear in Twitter. I’d find it interesting to automatically report my whereabouts for the day, and be able to see this on Google Earth, or Google Maps. But the automatic part isn’t here yet for any of this. So I question my success with using Twitter.

Then, I began to think about the idea of microblogging for education and how it was “missed” in the book! The book was written really before microblogging took hold, and now, before it’s published, it’s a big deal. Oh well, if Thomas Freidman can write versions of his book, I could too. It’s just sad that the book isn’t even printed yet, and it’s already missing the latest developments.

I think we’re a ways-off. But some teachers out there who embrace this stuff are likely already thinking about exploring and using these microblogging tools in their classrooms. I’m guessing some type of eyeglasses with student tweets appearing in the display/lens someday might be how this manifests. Who knows! Will it be a big company like Pearson delivering this type of solution? Or will we put it together ourselves with these free, simple-to-configure tools?

The future will be interesting!

These search engines offer unique interactivity and social concepts to be donned “Web 2.0″ searchers. Enjoy.

I still love the Google.

Okay, there’s nothing too weird about this… but I thought I’d share a wikipedia page on… a comparison of different wikis.

Check it out.

A nice list if you’re shopping for a wiki to satisfy your needs. At work, I’ve begun exploring the new Apple Leopard Server wiki engine, tied to blogs and also a calendar server. But we’ve been using PMWiki now for 2 years and I’m still happy with it.

Here’s another link on wikis, too, explaining what you should know about them.

Author Malcom Gladwell spoke recently on a topic I thought was interesting. He weighed the importance of producing one super-genius to solve problems, versus having a set of folks working together to solve a problem. His analysis suggests that for so-called “modern problems” that it is better to have people working together. 13 smart people outweigh the one genius.

Watch the video here.

What I got out of it is this: how important collaborative relationships are, and solving problems together is, in schools. Students need the support of one another to solve problems.

This post contains some “off the top of my head thoughts” as I get ready to go to work in the morning…

First, let me say that the requirements of N.C.L.B. are likely to stifle innovation in the classroom. I have this great idea, but I can see it being impeded by a need to “focus on test scores.” Okay. End the disclaimer.

What if your classroom was a podcasting studio? The lessons would become projects, the projects–what goes into our next episode–writing–recording–editing–publishing–feedback, etc. In other words, if your classroom was a podcasting studio, your students would be publishing audio (and perhaps video) podcasts on a regular basis, they’d be getting feedback from the public (yes, it might just be their parents, but it’d also be their peers), and boy, you’d have plenty of content to be able to do evaluation and assessment.

What would it take? It would take a centers-based arrangement in the classroom… planning areas… learning areas (maybe an interactive whiteboard or two, some computers, tables, reading areas with a stock of books and reference materials), recording areas (with nice microphones and sound-absorbing foam), and a video staging area (blue screen?) with lights and a camera. Oh yeah, a creative teacher with a vision to make learning fun and to know the standards and implications for letting students publish online.

Why would it be a good idea? By publishing content into the “real world” of cyberspace, with an authentic audience impossible to find within the schools’ walls, the lessons would be life-long inspired. Feedback from the public at-large makes the context of the learning different, I think. It gives relevance to the lesson. I mean, project.

Who would listen? You never know who might listen. I know I won’t. I mean, with all the podcasts already out there, who has time to listen to a 5th grade classroom do podcasts. I’d listen perhaps for the ideas being used to make the podcasts, but I only have so many hours in the week I can devote to personal listening time. Yes, you might invite the mayor to listen, or the superintendent, and of course, the parents. But I think the real audience should be their peers… “Listen to what our group came up with on……. triangles… the history of Mexico… World War II…. our poetry….” These peers will learn from the content, too, of course. And they’d be invited to give feedback. Student podcasts become the new textbooks. And the relationships between these peer groups is important as a 21st century skill. The peers could be down the hall in another classroom, or in the same classroom. Or why not work with students in another school, or in another country.

Is it expensive? Not really. The hardware costs aren’t that high (a multimedia computer and a microphone), but you do need a spot to host and store your projects (podcasts). You can rent space on a yearly basis or buy your own server. Simple.

What might be standing in the way? Teachers who try this would need some support. They might want to try 3-4 projects before they go hog-wild and only do podcasts all the time. They’d need to plan ahead. Make those connections with other educators to create peer listening/feedback groups. Organize what types of podcasts students would produce.

So, it’s the classroom of the future is only podcasts, all the time?” No, I think everyone would burn-out on that, don’t you? Classroom time would also be spent in physical education classes, music, and art… but classroom reading and research time would be spent for working on the “next” project… reading, playing games, exploring outdoors–these activities are driven by the products/projects.

How is this scenario of a podcast/project based approach different from… other PBL/constructionist approaches? I am not sure it is too different. The emphasis here is on creating a multimedia delayed-time broadcast. The reason this type of project is so attractive is that it requires practice, it’s a performance, it calls for creativity, and it would have an audience, thus connecting the content creators with listeners. This contact with other learners is important and is sometimes missing in other PBL-type projects. Posting the projects on the Internet makes it easy for all parties to share their output.

At this time, I’m interested in getting your feedback on this idea. The idea again is… what if you could have a classroom (I picture grades 4-7 in my head, but that’s just me) where the entire year was focused on producing a series of podcast episodes? Students would work in groups to write, record, edit, and publish podcasts. They could work with students outside their classroom. They’d connect with these other students through social media online. What would be the benefits? Hurdles? What kind of teacher could do this? Might there be a better approach?