johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

Tonight I discovered a neat physics simulator that would likely “rock” on a Promethean (or SMART) board.

Visit the Phun page.

Before setting out for work this morning, I received a marketing e-mail from PBwiki announcing a new feature. They also linked to this example hosted at their site: a wikitechbook, “homemade” by students in a college course studying to become teachers.

In my book I mention a scenario for wikis where students in a school produce their own version of the Wikipedia. But the idea here, instead, is students of education create their own textbook. While conceivably high school juniors and seniors might take on such a project in K-12, I think you’d need a special group (highly motivated).

But the idea of having college students, who are learning to become educators (and will very likely encounter the paper-based textbooks in their first jobs) is an excellent idea. They will be collaborating to put this thing together, always be asking themselves “what belongs in a textbook”, and hopefully discovering ways to improve the textbook concept. Alongside other efforts to make open-source textbooks, projects like these could be submitted to some central authority for quality-control and licensing (something “copy-left”, not for profit).

So, kudos to Dr. Delta Cavner of Southern Baptist University for having her students establish a wiki textbook.

Last night I came across a blog post criticizing a recent article in Leading and Learning with Technology magazine, the most widely-read ISTE journal. Scott McLeod, a professor at Iowa State University, had issues with the article’s quality.

Specifically, he found sections of the article lacking, dated, irrelevant; the whole thing, perhaps, a “squandered opportunity.” He says the ISTE editors “didn’t do their job with this one.”

As it turns out, I hadn’t read the article yet. I figured “it can’t be this bad.” At least once before, I found Dr. McLeod’s negativity discouraging. With such an open, critical review of this article, I know if I had been the author, I would have been crushed.

Worse yet, comments on the blog only echoed McLeod’s sentiment. One said: “I can only imagine the damage the author is doing to her reputation and credibility as tech-savvy educator,” while another said: “I just went back and read it again and you are right on target with your criticism. Looks like an article from 4-5 years ago with a section added in the middle about the collaborative web.”

So this morning, before I checked my morning e-mail, I broke-into the article and examined it with a careful eye. It was a leading article for this issue, and even enjoyed fanciful artwork and “Web 2.0″ glossy “Aqua-esque” treatment to headers in the table comparing online web services.

I wanted McLeod’s review to be unfair and mean. I wanted this article to have redeeming qualities. I found, however, the article does fail, but for somewhat different reasons.

First, the title isn’t addressed. “Creating Valuable Class Web sites” suggests some newfound knowledge that will make a class webpage… worth making. The article does little of that. Instead, it focuses on three methods for creating a website. This might have been okay. Basically, these are the options author Betsy Baker offers:

• Use an online webpage creation tool (Geocities, Tripod)
• Use the Read/Write Web (blogs, wikis)
• Start from Scratch (but cheap), i.e., using web design software (Dreamweaver, FrontPage, iWeb, etc.)

Second, I did question why certain tools and services were listed (i.e., “Macromedia” Dreamweaver was one that stuck out), and McLeod and company did the same. The problem is, some of these tools (including Geocities) still exist! Today, it’s Adobe Dreamweaver, and so what if FrontPage is the 2003 edition. What I thought was unfair in McLeod’s review was the assumption that just because the latest and greatest tools weren’t being used, the article stunk.

Instead, the article lacked merit because it didn’t build on its own strong title. Comparing FrontPage 2003 to a modern wiki page is not even fair. It’s not comparing apples to oranges. Sure, some educators I work with still are nostalgic enough to want to goal-set “having my kids make a webpage.” “So what?” I ask. “What is that going to do for them?”

“I don’t know.”

Well, let’s start: what would make for a valuable learning experience when it comes to the Web?

Instead, the article offers this pull-quote: “Research indicates employers soon will expect workers to be able to create, maintain, and use Web sites.”

Whoa. My legs are weak from the time-warp. I forgive McLeod. Yeah, some of tools are out-dated. But is the author suggesting kids should make websites because it’s a future work requirement? Back to that question.

A valuable class web site is one (100% my opinion here) that:

• communicates what students are learning,
• is easily accessible by all the stakeholders,
• encourages 21st century collaboration and cooperation,
• allows students to connect their own emerging knowledge.

Yes, some day employers will want employees to have web skills. In my district, teachers have to maintain a weblog. The day has already come for many of us.

But let me return to my original point: the tools we use shouldn’t really matter. Sure, the “read/write” tools make it easier (and quicker) to focus on content rather than HTML. But I have teachers who today use a variety of tools to create their own presence on the web: one who maintains a digital version of her curriculum using Dreamweaver, another who podcasts regularly, and another that built an awesome drama website for her kids using iWeb. It’s a mixture of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools.

What’s the value in publishing on the Web?

• Motivation through the sharing of student work,
• Communication with parents about what’s going on in the classroom,
• Self-paced instruction for students,
• Creative expression by students.

Ultimately, the most valuable web site might be one that gives equal access to publication by all learners. That’s why I’d have framed the article in a completely different way.

Giving students voice means they’ll likely be using Read/Write tools. That’s what’s most valuable; it’s also the point I think that ultimately disappoints in this particular article.

Our focus then becomes, as McLeod rightly suggests, on how to gain access to read/write tools, or as he says, “[the article] should have included “Some discussion of the desirability of using outside, non-district-sponsored tools…”

And then, finally, it all starts to make sense when we read Karen Work Richardson’s article (”Don’t Feed the Trolls”), calling for students to participate online as bloggers to learn a few things about civil discourse. Now that’s valuable.

Some time ago I did a little paper on folksonomy, and in writing it, I became a true believer in tagging as a means to organize my digital life.

I was first introduced to tagging through del.icio.us and Flickr.

Tagamac is a website dedicated to doing tagging on the Mac platform. I’ve linked there to their page of software. Together really looks nice; I’ve tried Things and love it; I’m thinking of buying Yep and Leap soon, too; both support tagging.

But I’ve also told people that you can tag using the Finder (Spotlight comments) and this tip might help you too. It suggests using a unique character for adding tags.

I am really excited about what may come with new apps being written for Apple’s iPod Touch/iPhone.

If this any example, I have a real reason to be excited.

Brad Bird was recently interviewed, and four quotes I thought were worth sharing.

Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.”

How many times do we encounter educators who have seemed to lose their involvement?

The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. … “You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.

How often do we find this attitude in schools? How many times do parents share the same vision, the one that’s sometimes imposed on teachers? What happens when everyone doesn’t believe… in the impossible?

If you work in lighting but you want to learn how to animate, there’s a class to show you animation. There are classes in story structure, in Photoshop, even in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Pixar basically encourages people to learn outside of their areas, which makes them more complete. [and more creative].

(Emphasis, mine). I think learning together–even if it isn’t, let’s say, a pedagogical skill, or a software application, can be fun and encouraging. I’d actually love teaching something off-the-wall with teachers. Encouraging creativity is good for education; I believe it 110%.

If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

The payoff in education is not sales, of course, but… the importance is just as great, if not more so. Too many folks, I’ve seen, ignore morale problems because honestly, they aren’t equipped to fix them.

I know that having access to technology is most important in the equation of using it for education, but… this story, and Negroponte’s quote rubbed me the wrong way.

Okay, it wasn’t a quote, but a paraphrase.

Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children’s hands.

It seems the leadership behind OLPC is falling apart, even though they still hold optimism. Optimism for open-source on one side, optimism for Windows on another.

It would seem to me, getting more copies of Sugar out there is a good idea. Only with a wider base will it evolve (and in theory, improve) more quickly. It would make sense that we could install it on a fancier (read: larger) computer here in the U.S., and perhaps, even pay a small subsidy, that would pay for the hardware elsewhere.

But having “laptops in their hands” alone won’t solve many issues. OLPC is an experiment, and one, when I saw it introduced, I thought deserved a chance to succeed.

Mr. Dembo over at the techlearning blog posted this past August on a False sense of security from school filters. He was surprised tips were so easily found online for bypassing the filter.

I’ve heard the argument before; it was most blatantly made by Marc Prensky at a conference I attended 2 years ago here in Virginia.

To wit:

The bigger question is, if our expensive filters are insufficient for keeping students off websites we’d like to block, how do we teach our students to navigate these sites in a safe and appropriate way?

Let’s have a reality check here.

1. Schools need money, including what (little) the federal government supplies us.
2. The filter is a federally-mandated requirement.
3. Many educators feel “entertainment” isn’t a part of the school day, at least when they consider why a $1200 computer and a fast Internet connection has been provided.

We sometimes find a student who tries to find racy pictures. Twenty years ago, the kid’s father might have attempted to bring-in a racy magazine. The media has changed, the behavior, not so much.

But by in large, kids aren’t up to all looking for dirty pictures, hateful language, or instructions for making a bomb. They want entertainment. Web-based games, videos, etc.

Yeah, some teachers have the itch, too.

But I don’t like it when folks suggest that maybe we might look the “other way” or that we’re facing an uphill battle. It does ring with some truth, from time to time, but can we change the attention away from the “bad schools” who use filters and instead on the “bad government” that imposes these rules?

I like a filter and I’d vote to have one without a federal mandate. I’d open certain things we have to filter, and perhaps close off other stuff that was more gray.

Despite my distaste for suggesting all the filters are smoke and mirrors, my point is that filtering should be a local issue. Curriculum should be a local issue. And, gosh, we ought to teach students how to deal with the “real” Web. But maybe we ought to also hold them to a higher standard that sets boundaries and limits on what’s permitted. Too often, the consequences are either not understood, or too weak to deter the game.

The real solution here is as complicated as the one for cheating. Would it be easier to educate all the teachers about all the Web so they can educate all the students?–or just block the stuff that gets in the way of learning? We (as schools) more often than not, take the easy route.

No, change they way our students learn. Change the rules. Don’t cut out a website because it’s powerful, cut it out because it’s harmful towards the mission of the school. As I’ve been told by colleagues for many years, the best filter is the one upstairs in your head.