This is Hendron’s Digest, a weblog devoted to the intersection of education & technology.
Just for the record, I think the Internet is amazing.
I mean, you can watch a video of someone being struck by lightening, and read about all the reactions to the experience.
Or to find visualizations of the spread of the Wal-Marts across the country from the late 1960s to the current day. Wow.
Yes, this InterWeb stuff is great. (Links via Kottke).
Merlin Mann’s e-mail organization scheme (used in a positive way, not a slimy, user-car salesman way) is based on GTD (getting things done) and recently another website is inviting folks to celebrate their victory by emptying their inboxes.
While I follow GTD and dabble, I’ve not yet achieved victory. The day awaits.
Aza Raskin has developed something called Algorithm Ink which lets you code, using JavaScript, “artwork” in a web browser. Think Logo, fractals, and… fun with math!
As I prepare for the July 25 ITRT Summer Camp sponsored by VSTE, I’ve been thinking, and I like the idea found here: quarantine your new tools.
My presentation is just about complete, but I am going to tell folks exactly what Scott says in that post: don’t just share what new tool you found; share what it is, how you use it, and your evaluation of it.
It is far more valuable for other educators who may then want to adopt it in their classroom.
Tonight I joined a “newcomers group” in SL. They passed out hats and a nice packet. It was fun sitting in the new meditation chairs and getting a cowboy hat.
More interesting was seeing all these folks excited about going to NECC soon.
If you will remember some time ago, when candidates were first just getting started, the McCain campaign had come out with a MySpace page, but who ever made it, stole the design.
In fact, they never changed the references from the original designer’s graphics. So, as a prank, they made pro-gay statements on McCain’s page by changing their own graphics. This is called “hotlinking” sometimes, and is a discouraged practice. When you hotlink graphics, you’re stealing someone else’s bandwidth, not to mention their intellectual property.
Well, at least we know now it wasn’t McCain himself.
Say what you will about a candidate who can’t use a computer.
Wesley Fryer recently posted about a presentation he saw, by Kevin Honeycutt.
I loved reading about it because, well, it provided some ripe ideas and ways of thinking.
I especially liked the idea to run through YouTube with teachers and see what they can find. I also liked his notes on the “better” teachers (getting in trouble), and the only way to help a child like that learn is to build a relationship and create a safe space…
This recent comment in the Richmond Times-Dispatch reminds us that technology for teachers can be a very good “friend,” and not a “foe.”
Thanks to Carolyn Phillips for sharing this with me, and Lewis P. Lawson from Collegiate for writing it!
When I recently read that an Ohio high school recently passed-out diplomas with mistakes printed on them, something told me to “click.”
Sure enough, I knew the school. Westlake High School is where I did my student teaching. I am not sure they had a webpage when I was there, but they do now.
In a recent C|Net article on Blockbuster, we learn of a new idea the company has which at worst seems doomed, or at best, misguided and miscalculated.
Sometimes I think you simply have to ask teenagers whether or not something is going to work.
The idea is to put movie refilling stations inside of Blockbuster stores, so that you can bring in your Archos-brand media player and “fill it up.”
Why do I think this will fail?
Now, if they offer this in stores plus via the Internet to homes, well then, maybe there’s something to it. But they seem to be late players in this game, if that’s a strategy.
After reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, it seems Blockbuster is doomed, as their stores, which are bleeding them money, cannot compete with online sellers/renters. So, this idea on the surface is intriguing because it says “Hey, there’s a reason to come to our stores!”
Let’s see, this is 2008. If in 2004 they offered this, hmm, I might have bitten. But it’s not, it’s 2008. And I cannot think of a compelling reason why I’d want to go to their store if a) online I can match price, quality, and selection, and b) I don’t have to drive or return anything.
Unlike many of my friends, I do not subscribe to Netflix. I simply don’t have that much time to watch so many movies. So, I do visit Blockbuster stores, maybe 7-9 times a year. But I’ve gone less thus far since buying an AppleTV and trying Comcast On-Demand. Not necessarily for the huge catalog (it still needs to grow), but because these devices offer movies plus other video content that otherwise takes my time.
I don’t blame them for trying, but… to echo the comments already appended to the article, the outlook is dim.
Now, Google Spreadsheet Forms have new power, the ability to embed the form within a webpage, without anyone signing in!
Kevin Lim recently posted a presentation he created on using the Wikipedia in academia.
Thanks to Slideshare, you can see his visual aid (the link above will actually show you a video of the talk).
It’s a great idea to invite college students (undergrad or higher) into a high school to tell high school students how they conduct research for their classes. I always felt I had to sort of “teach myself” the ropes of research when I was in college. We knew how to use the card catalog and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, but were wholly unprepared to deal with academic writing, an electronic card catalog, and journals.
What I found missing from Kevin’s slides, and it’s likely missing in a lot of other places too, is the detail surrounding what he mentions around his discussion of “berry picking.” The Web is an excellent research tool because you can link to all these other sources of information. But it’s also a poor one: there’s so much stuff (good and bad), you may not be able to easily distinguish expertise from good marketing, and how to you manage all the webpages you do find?
I can imagine the kid hearing this (honors or not), and thinking… “Gee… this is kind of like… you know, wearing your seat belt. It’s good to do it, because it can save your life. But… I mean, last week, I got away with it. I drive safe enough. I didn’t get killed. I didn’t get caught.”
More research? Yeah, research isn’t typing “G O O G L E” or “W I K I P E D I A” and printing the first thing you find. I’d advise any teacher to break up research projects by stopping kids at every step and doing mini-evaluative assessments. Maybe, even, kids can draw a meta-map of their research process (there are many tools to do this, my favorite, Omni Graffle, another popular in schools, Inspiration).
I’ve been working with our technology resource teacher on a “Research for the 21st Century” initiative. It’s a work in progress, but it gives students actual concrete tools for reporting what they find (verbatim), how they have backed it up (found confirming sources), what they know about the source(s), and how what they found expands their initial research idea (thesis). I figure if we do well enough, it could be a nice guide or better, a book. We cover advanced techniques with Google. We cover non-traditional media. We cover domain lookups. We also suggest methods of digital collection and bookmarking (using folksonomization tools) and here’s another idea–getting feedback from peers.
Kids need help with research more than ever. It’s too tempting to believe the first thing you read. (Many adults need reminded of this, too.)
I think too many educators “feel” and consequently block Wikipedia when there’s nothing to fear. Like Lim says, quoting his former professor, Alex Halavais, the search ought to begin with using a encyclopedia (read: Wikipedia), but never end that way. It’s funny, but I’ve heard that same advice in our own libraries and media centers for years, referring to the World Book and Encylopædia Britannica.
Tonight while looking at several MIT online courses, I came across one by Mitchel Resnick. Of course, he was behind a project I’m real fond of, Scratch, which is a simple programming environment that is appropriate for elementary and middle school learners. (I personally think Scratch can be introduced a grade 3, but it will likely become limited after 3 years of use, i.e., use at grades 3-5, 4-6, or 5-7).
I also came across a reading he lists, from the Alliance for Childood, their Tech Tonic. The brief is highly suspicious of corporate entities (read: Intel, Apple) and some organizations like CoSN and ISTE.
Some points are valid questions. They are opting for less screen time and more people time. In today’s American culture, I don’t think anyone would argue that “quality” time from/with caring adults could ever be in excess, harming a child. Instead, we often identify problems with children in situations where parents are too busy, missing, or abusing.
In a section of the report centered on “Developmental Guidelines” (see page 79-82), they suggest middle school age children just might be introduced to educational uses of television after they understand how TVs work. And suggest high school students be able to perform research on the Web, at the same time that they become involved participants in community-based ethical norm setting to help them deal with both the obvious and hidden aspects of using technology.
I’m all for helping develop literacy, ethics, and technology fluency in schools. But, to suggest that we deal with the ethical issues only at the high school level, or research at the middle school level, is rather novel. Naive, perhaps, too. Parents who aren’t card-carrying members of the Alliance may not have TVs or Internet at home, and certainly don’t give their children cell phones. But what about those misguided parents who do have broadband Internet, have 2nd graders who can load DVD players, and a copious pile of cell phones at the ready in the home?
I feel this “tonic” assumes that the only technology students have access to is in school. And it is highly suspicious about most of it. The premise, assumed, is: “It can’t be good if its good hasn’t yet been proven. For the sake of Mother Earth, technology is of course assumed suspect!”
The reality in many communities is that students and their families are quite fluent with the use of a variety of technologies. And the effects of assuming a digital lifestyle aren’t always traditional, healthy, or advantageous. Yet, we push forward, for a variety of reasons–reasons that schools are inadequate to significantly influence. Instead, as some have called for, we might turn to the “tools in their pockets” as a new means to educate them.
I felt that this report gave some valid concerns about current-day society, without fully accepting what society has become. It’s far too late to turn Luddite and think we can make our digital reality go away. Their call for “giv[ing] our children and youth the full opportunity to get to know themselves through play, the arts, and hands-on learning, so that the have a solid sense of self–and confidence in their own creativity and competence–before tackling the major issues of the world” need not be exclusive of a world that communicates, emotes, sings, dances, solves problems, and sees itself with digital technology.
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.
I was quoted in an article that appears this morning in the State.
Of course, Dr. Morgan was our former superintendent who rallied behind our teacher blogging initiative. As many of you who read this blog already know, VoiceThreads aren’t special podcasts, but rather, are suped-up slideshows available only through VoiceThread.com. Their popularity stems from the fact that you can embed these multimedia creations into blogs, webpages, etc., just as easily as you can with other Web 2.0 multimedia, such as YouTube videos.
It was cool to appear in a South Carolina newspaper supporting what we do in Goochland County.
Tim recently posted about being Googley, and as much as I admire Google and all, I decided to read into the list for profound underpinnings.
As it turns out, these are good traits, no matter if you work for Google, want to be a good citizen, or simply want to change the lives of young people.
To paraphrase,
I think #10 is most important. It’s that #6 I want to spend just a couple sentences on, however.
Their #6 is design for the world, but I changed it slightly. When I design things in my job (a screencast, an after-school class, or a writing I do) I look beyond its immediate use. I don’t intend it just for my immediate, intended audience, but instead, a far-wider, far-reaching net.
After all, what I publish invariably ends up online. But shouldn’t we all aim higher, and take the extra effort, to make world-class things? If you speak of it another way, “Well for us here, I only would have to…”, you dumb it down.
I think one of the more important things I can do is share the fruits of my labor with more than just the 220 employees who are in instructional positions. Someone once said of me, “You’re always willing to share, you put so much of what you do out, online, for others to use.”
That’s right. I’m aiming for those outside my typical reach. And shouldn’t this be something we all go for? How are we to compete for the recognition of our ideas in an Internet-accesible age when our ideas aren’t good enough for a wider audience?
Be Googley. It can’t hurt.
Wow. This is significant.
Microsoft’s IIS servers have been hacked, sending malicious code to you through your browser, if you visit an affected website.
This report says perhaps over .5 million web servers have been compromised.
johnhendron.net uses the Apache web server.
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