Worker’s Playtime!

Pssssst…..come visit my new blog space on keenecommons.net:

http://jennydarrow.keenecommons.net

I’m in the ed tech field so it’s my job to keep a lookout for technologies that will make an impact in education. It’s pretty common to see technologies with great promise fizzle because of poor business decisions, a bumpy economic landscape, or maybe they’ve solved a problem that doesn’t exist yet. Does the search engine *Northern Light ring a bell? Way back in 2002 they closed their public search engine because their business model rested on advertising-supported revenue which just didn’t work for the NL demographic.

I bring this up because I’m trying to understand the slow sputter of Delicious, the self-proclaimed granddaddy of social bookmarking. Founded in 2003 Delicious was purchased two years later by Yahoo which presumably had the resources for upgrading the user interface and making social-bookmarking, well, more social. And yet innovation was slow to come. Finally, Delicious has integrated real-time search and options for sharing links with non-Delicious users. Not exactly cutting edge but it’s a step in the right direction. The problem is that it took so long that users looking to personalize the web and Search are looking elsewhere for a more robust tool. I’m not suggesting that Delicious is going to fold. On the contrary it has the most users in this market but I’m just wondering where the innovation is.

Delicious is a great tool and one that I champion again and again but I have to wonder if I need to switch, entirely, to Diigo, Delicious’ more contemporary, though lesser-known, cousin.  But popularity doesn’t boil down to “better”. Diigo has taken innovation by the horns by addressing collaborative research and knowledge sharing, two fast growing areas on the web. Here’s a quick overview:

“Diigo is two services in one — it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other…. Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages…. You can easily share your findings, complete with your highlights and sticky notes, with friends and colleagues.”

I recently joined three Diigo special interest groups: Diigo in Education, Clif’s Notes on EdTech, and Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0. Our academic technology group also uses it to share relevant material. My point is that I’m becoming enamored with Diigo and unless I can find a way to use Delicious differently, I’ll probably abandon it all together. And I’m not sure why I feel sad about that.

_________________________________________________________________________

*NL reworked their mission into a ‘business research tool and as such has premium functionality for professional researchers including support for full BOOLEAN queries, as well as saved search and alerting capabilities, and our Market Intelligence Wikis.’ (http://www.nlsearch.com/home.php)

“For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.”

The Atlantic (by Amanda Ripley): http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/201001/good-teaching

With data-driven-decisions driving change, its’ about time to pay close attention to what data is being collected and how that data is being interpreted. It seems like Teach For America is getting it right!

While the exchange below was cordial and a followup meeting was scheduled,  it highlights the disconnect between the professionals in the educational technology field and, well,….the profession of “education”.

To give you some context: this meeting was on the heels of a hands-on workshop announcement that the faculty member below was unable to attend. Because this person expressed interest I offered to meet with them one-on-one to presumably go over the workshop content. That was my mistake.

_____________________________________________________________________

“So, tell me again; how do faculty use this tool “?

Me: “Well, it’s a  great tool for giving feedback to students either one-to-one or to the entire class. There are lots of different ways you can use it. For instance….”

“But I don’t provide feedback to students that way. I generally use office hours for individual feedback. Or I send them written feedback. I find that email is a great tool for that. I actually do use technology you know”.

Me: “Well many faculty are using it to post discussion questions to be answered outside of the scheduled class time. They’ve found that the results transfer into a richer class discussion. If you did this, it would allow you to free up time to do other things during class time. I can show you some examples if you’d like.”

“But I don’t use that tool now and I’m not sure if I could add on something new. My class is crammed full already.”

Me: “Well, how did you envision using this tool?”

“It seems like there has been a lot of talk lately about technology and how we should use it to engage students. I just don’t see how I could possibly add it to what I already do. I was hoping you could tell me how to use it.”

_____________________________________________________________________

I have to admit that I left the meeting a little frustrated but in the back of my mind I understood the resistance. I assumed that we were going to be discussing the technology but I should have steered the conversation towards this persons expectations. This would have taken the focus off of the tech/workshop content which ended up hamstringing the conversation.

For most faculty adopting something new (new assignment, new piece of media, new…anything) can’t just happen in a 20 minute exchange (yeah, I know, that’s not revolutionary).  And, the conversation shouldn’t center around the adoption of a particular tool unless the deeper (i.e. - harder and more time consuming) conversation about learning (or efficiency which is always the big carrot) has already occurred. There are those of course who constantly re-work their syllabus and can tighten up an assignment mid-flow but many are so overwhelmed by the unknown that anything new causes panic.

So, I’ve decided to do an about face on the way I conduct one-on-one meetings following a workshop announcement.  I will ask faculty about their ideas for adopting the technology and suggest that they share with me their assignment objectives. Again, not revolutionary. But it did take this exchange to remind me how important it is to take full advantage of the 20 minute face time with faculty who seem mildly interested in adopting technology.

Michael Wesh’s video ethnography “A Vision of Students Today” has made the rounds in the ed tech circles for some time but an explanation of how it came to fruition is detailed in his 2008 lecture given at the University of Manitoba. If you’re interested in media literacy, student learning, web 2.0, or education, please, please take the time to watch (it’s 66 fascinating minutes).

One of the more poignant moments for those interested in media literacy comes when Wesch comments on the assumption that students “get” web 2.0 technology:

“…they (students) may know all about how to navigate these things (YouTube and Facebook) and to entertain themselves but but they know nothing about how to use these things to learn and for critical thought and, more then anything, they rarely know how to use these things to create something interesting and new…..and because there are no natives here we cannot assume that our students are media literate and know how to navigate this world….we need to create platforms for participation that allow students to realize and leverage the emerging media environment…”.

Wesch goes on to to discuss in detail how he embeds bakes media literacy and web 2.0 into his curriculum. He ends up sharing a link to his media literacy portal located here: http://www.netvibes.com/wesch#Social_Media_Research_Resources

It’s fascinating stuff!

161 days.

That’s how much time has elapsed between my last post on March 6th and today. I’ve felt the pull back to this space but at times it felt like, well, work. Writing isn’t a fluid activity for me so the thought of sitting down to compose my thoughts into a coherent post became more and more of a barrier. The rewards though, when I did hit the “publish” button were tremendous. Blogging is a mental and tactile exercise that forces me to slow down and think a little more deeply about a subject that I would otherwise skate over. There is really something to the link between a tactile activity such as writing, understanding and memory.

So why tweet? I’ll tell you. It’s the 140 characters and the quick interplay between and among *my network. It’s fast, relevant, and oh so rewarding. The gems that are uncovered are rich and have led me to the danah boyd’s (aka zephoria on Twitter) dissertation on social networking and teen behavior, Scott McLeod’s insightful posts about leadership and his work in the trenches, and let’s not forget StephenAtHome ( aka Stephen Colbert) for a little levity.  I’ve even sent out an S.O.S. tweet pleading for assistance with a klugy Word Press plugin. My network didn’t let me down - within 5 minutes I had help and within 10 minutes the problem was solved.

So now that I can say with absolute conviction that Twitter is a powerful and necessary tool, I’ll revisit this blog and the exercise of writing. It seems though that I’m not the only one who’s trending back to their blog. Check out these posts about this very topic:

http://siliconangle.com/ver2/2009/08/12/blogs-are-back

http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/is-there-a-trend-back-to-blogging-how-will-it-impact-twitter.html

* My network is 90% educational technology and education professionals.

This is a true story of a teacher in a highly regarded southern N.H. H.S. which is also a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

Student: “Hey, Dave, we can’t get to our Wellness blog. We were going to post our plyometric training routine but the server is timing out. It was working yesterday.”

Dave: “Let me check with IT and see if they can help.”

IT Staff: “We’re tying to increase our bandwidth so we’re blocking all blog sites. We can call the district Ed Tech. person and see if he can unblock the sites your students are working on.”

Dave: “Okay, when do you think this will be done and how come this wasn’t a conversation shared with teachers? You know blogging is a component of many classes, not just mine.”

Truth be known I’m not sure how IT responded to this question but it’s not really the point. It’s unfathomable to me that a tool was indiscriminately taken away without any kind of conversation about why and when. But that too is not really the point. The point is that there was no effort to reach out and ask teachers if blocking blogs would have any impact on teaching and learning.

I’m not sure why these kinds of conversations don’t happen but it’s a reminder that there is still a very deep rooted disconnect between how people view “Technology” and “Learning”. They’re not separate. But the way we organize ourselves keeps the silo walls firmly in place, (you’re in IT so you don’t get to talk about “education”, and you’re a teacher so you don’t understand “tech” issues).

So, as always, it seems that the issue can be addressed not by a new process or a new technology but by opening up the channels of communication. Sounds easy enough doesn’t it? Believe me it’s tough. It really mines down to culture change and the willingness of all parties to recognize the need to do things differently to improve teaching and learning. And sometimes it’s a grass-roots effort and sometimes it’s top-down but whatever the method change is needed.

If this isn’t addressed then before you know it YouTube and Vimeo will be blocked too…oh wait, that already happened <sigh>.

After laboring over the academic affairs technology plan for over a year, through many iterations, we’re finally done. Or at least done until its annual review.

Have a peek. You might be surprised to learn that it’s not about technology. Really, it’s not. It’s about learning, teaching, and work.

Go on, have a look.

You too can join the symphony orchestra mashup! YouTube and Carnegie Hall are holding online auditions for the world’s’ first collaborative online orchestra.

“The YouTube Symphony Orchestra revolves around two main goals: the creation of a mash-up performance of a symphony from video submissions; and second, a live performance of the same symphony (written for the occasion by composer Tan Dun) at Carnegie Hall on April 15, 2009, with about 150 players selected on the basis of their YouTube video submissions.”

I can’t wait to see the end result of this unique approach to creating music.

I’ve never fully embraced the “digital natives/digital immigrants” label of Marc Prensky but I’ve used it often to describe the differences between young, tech savvy students and the their older less plugged-in teachers. It was an easy label to adopt because, on the surface, it made sense.  Walk across a college campus and you see ear buds or cell phones glued to the sides of students heads or listen as students ask questions which reveal their expectations for online access to grades/books/courses/campus tours/etc. Digital natives are said to have been born into technology which have given them sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which Education is unprepared. The problem comes when the conversation begins with learning and teaching and ends with an explanation of digital natives. As though that would be enough to prompt changes in approaches to teaching and learning. As though D.O.B. determines technology fluency.

Generational comparatives such as this is a conversation starter but that’s it. But if the conversation is to lead to real change in Education then the “so what?” needs to be addressed. And it needs to be the focus.

Terry Doyle of Ferris State University and author of Helping Students Learn in a Learning Centered Environment, will be our guest speaker at “Student Learning Day” on December 17th. This day headlines a series of programming that will begin to answer the “so what”:

“Terry is urging us not only to take a brain-based approach to teaching, but to show our students how their brains and memories work so that they can understand how to learn most effectively. He grapples with the hardest challenges that classroom teachers face when they try to give students responsibility for their own learning.”(John Tagg).

Stay tuned to the CELT web site for updates and other programming events s we try to answer the “so what”: http://keeneweb.org/celt