Readers' Resistance!

I know some "real readers." You know them, too: the "old school" type. They read books, not screens. They are afraid that all this "computer reading" business threatens academia and dilutes the purity of book-reading, and that anything on a screen must be inherently of lesser value than the contents of a dusty, leather-bound tome.

I propose a compromise: LibraryThing! Here's a great site that allows you to catalog and share your personal library online.  Join communities and conversations built around authors and works, get recommendations & reviews, or build a database of your personal books to track loans!  The old school book snobs can now be old school book snobs with other old school book snobs who appreciate their snobbyness!

Here's an example, featuring just a few of the books from my library.  Education applications include the possibility of online book reviews & reports for students, and print resource information sharing for staff.  Check it out!

RSS -- let the information come to you!

Who has time to surf the vast content of the web looking for the occasional nugget of valuable education information? What if there were a way for all the information updates from many valued sites & blogs to come directly to you in one, easy to access place? There is! Enter the world of RSS...

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a system for pushing out new information from multiple sources to multiple subscribers. You get an RSS reader or "aggregator," find the website or blog you like, subscribe to the site's "feed," then sit back and read the new info. as it comes in.

If you have a Gmail account, you already have a "Reader" -- follow the easy instructions below to learn how to use it. Wondering what education blogs to list as your first few feeds? Why not try one of the ones I follow, listed to the left of this blog. Of course you should also add the one you're reading right now: ParticiFaction!

The Wonderful World of Wikis

A wiki is an online document that is editable by as many users as the author wants: an open space for contribution & editing.

Wikis have a multitude of possible uses from organizing who brings what to a Thanksgiving dinner (I'd bring a time machine so we can get to the food more quickly!) to capturing the knowledge of the world (see Wikipedia -- the open, editable, online encyclopedia).

For education, think of the possibilities! Group work, collaboration, sharing feedback... use a little technology and a lot of imagination -- get your wiki going today! There are plenty of online services available. If your School Board blocks or disallows wikis, develop an awareness campaign to change that -- start now!

Google Docs for Education!

Ever used Google Docs, the online word processor and document sharing tool? It's worth a peek. Users can create, save, print, and edit documents -- just like with any word processor -- without having to buy software or even open an application beyond a web browser; it's all online!

Beyond this functionality, however, is another layer of usefulness for collaborative, educational purposes. Users can set document-specific permission levels for group sharing & editing; if I'm working with others to create a single document, we can all work on the one true copy of the document, instead of e-mailing different, edited versions to each other. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed of changes to the document! Now that's Web 2.0!

Whether writing a book review for a community of librarians or planning a common vision for your business, or just journaling, Google Docs has something for you.

Prepare ye!

Who knows what the future will bring in 50, 10, or even 5 years?  During the first few decades of formalized education systems, "the future" likely seemed more certain; change happened at a slower rate then -- what the "jobs of the future" looked like was more realistically predictable.  If it is our job, as educators today, to best prepare today's students for their uncertain futures, then it's easy to understand why many teachers don't know where or how (or, possibly, why) to begin.  The only thing we can be sure about is what we've always done in the past.

Even though we are not certain about the specifics of the futures of our students, there are some general assertions that, I'd argue, are hard to refute.  Chief among these are, that, as a result of currently available (not to mention future!) technology, social networking as a function / necessity of employment will become more prominent, and the read/write web will change what "work" looks like for an even larger number of people.

As a result, web 2.0 education is increasingly important to the futures of our students.  Despite this, the fact remains that changing curricula and training teachers to deliver such an education would take at least a little time and a lot of money.  Can we afford it?  Can we afford not to?  I've made a chart to help sort it out in my mind.  Here it is!

What is the greatest possible tragedy?  I'd say not teaching Web 2.0 skills in a world where they continue to become more important.  What do you think?...

Purpose of Education - Teacher Wordle

I asked my staff to answer the question "What is the purpose of Education?"  Here are their answers, expressed as a Wordle.  Beautiful as well as interesting...

I'm asking the students next.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Food for thought from "digital ethnographer" Professor Michael Wesch...

What's in my bag? - School

What's in my bag? - School
Originally uploaded by Brandy Shaul

A random sampling of a high schooler's school bag. Check out the tech!

This shot is from Flickr; use it to share or find pics for classroom discussion & sharing.

Flickr could be used as a starting point for discussion of copyright, attribution and fair use -- many photos are by professionals and many are by amateurs. Creative Commons licensing tags are present for some pics but not others; discuss the types of licensing, and how the students feel about CC-tagged photo use vs. use of pics with no license...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Rhizomatic Learning in an Arboreal Structure?

How do students learn these days?

Yes, government-developed curricular content is delivered through formal educational systems, but students are also -- and, arguably, more significantly for their futures -- engaged in social, Web 2.0, or "read/write web" learning.  Want to learn something today?  See if there's a how-to video on YouTube, join a blog on the topic to tap into an existing community of knowledge, or create a Facebook group and wait for the information you need to cluster around you.  This type of learning is significant at present, but it can only become more significant in the future.  Are we adequately preparing our students of the present for this future?  

I think the problem that education systems have with this new way of learning is that it conflicts with the way they work at a systematic, structural level.  Governments and education systems run in a top-down, hierarchical way that is very different from this "networked web node" way.  Thinking of this reminds me of one of the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, namely, A Thousand Plateaus from their Capitalism and Schizophrenia Project.

Here they contrast the "Arboreal," or tree-like structure, of some systems to the "Rhizomatic," or web-like structure, of others.  Sound familiar?  Maybe we need to  implement a new (ie: level, networked, nodal) structure for education systems themselves before we can expect to see a lot of support for learning in a Web 2.0 way.

If, as Glynis Cousin argues in Learning from Cyberspace,  "the medium is the pedagogy" (117), then maybe we need to pay serious attention to how we teach instead of (or at least as well as) what we teach...

Prosperity from Creativity: Education?

Last March, the Provincial Government of Ontario initiated a study to discover

"how to ensure our economy and people remain globally competitive and prosperous."

The results are summarized in yesterday's Toronto Star, one conclusion being:

"We are moving to an economy that values people's creativity, especially a combination of analytical skills – reasoning in uncertain environments to make good decisions – and social intelligence skills – capabilities to understand other people and to work in team settings."

Given this conclusion, if one purpose of school is to prepare our students best for their futures (and given Sir Ken Robinson's assertion that almost all education systems kill creativity), then can't we conclude that we are doing our students a disservice?  Limiting creativity leads to a less prosperous future these days...

Given the range of potential ways -- using available technology today -- that schools could foster student creativity, it is of concern that some Boards / Schools / Teachers don't fully embrace the potential of Web 2.0: arguably the number one way in which the students of today DO practice and express their individual creativities.

(Quotes above taken from The Toronto Star article -- "Ontario's prosperity hinges on creativity." 5 February, 2009. -- available here).

(un-)acceptable use guidelines? No more!

Check out Karl Fisch's revolutionary new idea for abolishing School Boards' (Un-)Acceptable Use Guidelines for technology, and replacing them with something useful instead: click here!  What a great idea: a list of what should be done instead of what can't!

Two Tools for Education

Contrary to the post title, this entry is not about that pair of goofy teachers you had in grade 9. Two valuable tools in the 2.0 world of education today are Del.icio.us and the ever-controversial Facebook. Not sure what one is or how the other might have educational value? Read on:

Del.icio.us:

Ever save your favourite web sites to your web browser's "favourites" or "bookmarks" folder? Sure you have. That's great for when you're on your computer, but what about easy access to your bookmarks when you're on a different one? Get a Del.icio.us account and you have online bookmark access through one site, and can benefit from such "social" features as popularity evaluation, tagging, and sharing. Education applications? -- limited only by your imagination. Example: have students create accounts, and tag and share good sites around any curricular topic; have them blog comments on the sites that others chose...

Facebook:

Get them where they live! Why not create a Facebook site for your class or extracurricular activity (before the students do it anyway)? You'll have administrative control, be the cool, tech-savvy teacher, and tap into the sharing / discussion power of this social networking tool. As well, you can teach kids appropriate use of Facebook for your context, and make them aware of the implications of its use. Does it make sense for Educational institutions to continue to ignore and/or disallow what is arguably the most popular, significant, and powerful communication tool available today?

Your Facebook profile only contains as much information and is as accessible as you want: make a point of understanding the privacy settings, and only upload information with which you are comfortable. Learn to use it, and then you can teach proper use of it well. I have 2 accounts: one for personal use, and one with which I administrate my Library's Facebook page.

Warning: more than one teachers' federation has recommend against engaging with students in this medium, citing potential legal implications. you make the right call for you; I guess my personal position is clear... ;-)

A must-watch for all educators!

Twenty minutes well spent! The (hilarious!) Sir Ken Robinson with an important message about how "The Education System" kills creativity, and how creativity is actually becoming much more valued outside of the education system...

Watch it here. Watch it now!

21st C. Pedagogy

Horizon Report Available online!

Check out the 2009 Horizon Report!

One excerpt:

"Today’s learners want to be active participants in the learning process – not mere listeners; they have a need to control their environments, and they are used to easy access to the staggering amount of content and knowledge available at their fingertips."

Shift Happens: Update!

If you haven't seen the update to Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod's "Did You Know" Shift Happens video, check it out here.  Incorporate it into your classroom: have students watch & blog their responses individually, then foster some group discussion (online or face-to-face) and have them re-blog any changes to their thoughts as a result.  Caution: this video may change your world view and / or make you a more informed individual.

If your Board blocks YouTube access, get around it by using youconvertit.com.  When done converting, create a public awareness campaign to change Board policies: the learning potential denied students by such filtering is becoming greater each day...

Consider this...

... we are preparing the students of today very well for the 1950's. Times, they are a-changin, and if educators, and the education system, do not change radically, and soon, we will not only be doing our patrons a greater and greater disservice, but wasting the potential of their futures and our own.

This blog will be a sounding board for the consideration of the importance of the impact of contemporary technology on the future of our students. Call it "Web 2.0," call it the "read-write web," call it what you will; educators need to be all over it, and soon.

Join in! Participate in the faction of educators who are willing to learn and teach what is necessary for their future success in the Web 2.0 world!