edublogs

Steven Spielberg hits Seesmic nearly now video conf.

Who says social media doesn't bring people closer, and even allow to you to connect with seriously famous and cool people those non-digiratis could only dream of?

Jemima was amongst many posing questions directly to Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford on Seesmic, the video discussion site from long-time ScotEduBlogger friend Loic Lemeur, ahead of the launch of the new Indiana Jones film. You can see some of the Q&A on the Guardian's PDA blog.

Nearly now video conferencing is something that I'll be experimenting with inside Glow, the national schools intranet here in Scotland, with some exciting names already booked up for live debates and nearly live explorations around the world. Hopefully you'll be up for experimenting, too, whether you're 'in' Glow or sitting outside it.

Whether LTS get Spielberg, though, is another matter. We've ended up having a different force with us.

Multitasking not good for learning in that way, but maybe teaching something more worthwhile

Donald Clark carries a summary of some interesting research into multitasking teens as they instant message. It compliments nicely what I was saying about kids' 200 minutes of evening online time last Thursday at the RSA.

While multitasking appears to affect learning in the way we are used to expecting it (concentrate on one thing at a time, achieve it first then move on to the next thing) there is perhaps a more useful skill of being able to cope with different types of communication, address and medium:

So don't imagine that all of this social networking is helping people learn in the way we think they should be learning. On the other hand they may be learning skills that are far more useful - handling information, communication and people skills.

Other stats are impressive including the fact that multitasking can add seven hours of activity to your day. So is 75% of 200 minutes spent doing homework actually 75% of 380 minutes?

Computing Studies and Social Media: finding new ground

I've just ended the week in the most comforting way I know (other than with a fine Bordeaux) - in the company of teachers passionate about teaching, technology and finding untapped potential in the two. Mark Tennant helped group a good number of Computing Studies teachers from across East Lothian at its farthest Eastern point, Dunbar.

This post summarises some of the tools we looked at in this 'splurge' session. In May we have two more sessions together to look at how the Computing Studies curriculum and/or pedagogy might be adapted to take advantage of the exciting tools, the web as a platform for learning and the opportunity to teach children digital literacy skills. After meeting this group I am convinced that they are best placed to help both teachers and students understand the issues at stake, and not run away scared.

Taking digital images as a self-publishing starting point
It's the easiest thing to visualise and examine some of the new web's principles by using image sharing and online manipulation.

• Bubbleshare
  • Easiest to share images / sequences
  • Good for storytelling, giving instructions, doing step-by-steps
• Flickr
  • More 'adult' interface
  • Good for step-by-steps with more interlinking between photos using 'notes' (good for recipe instructions), hyperlinking between photographs or to other areas of the web (like Wikipedia definitions). Notes also useful for creating a descriptive presentation.
  • Most widely used for education - so good for making serendipitous links about Vikings or joining educational photo groups.
  • Photo groups allow you to find stimulus for classroom activities e.g.: Five Frame Stories or Six Word Stories, Lego Vignettes
• Phixr
  • Registration-free, email-free online photo editing.
  • Avoids the need for expensive software.
  • Opens up digital editing as homework.
• Splashr
  • Allows exciting presentations to made from Flickr photos, tagged with the same thing
  • Helps students understand the importance of good folksonomy versus forced taxonomy.

Podcasting for audio learning logs
Kids generally hate talking about themselves and what they do in front of others. Recording it to microphone is less daunting, more anonymous, and helps get over the nerves to talk about learning. If the kids doesn't feel they've done their best, they can delete and edit, representing themselves and their work in the best possible light.

• Allows continuous, purposeful creation of multimedia products. Podcasts might just be done for the heck of it, or to sum up a period of learning, like they do in Sandaig.
• Possible to do at home or in school using free audio creation apps (Audacity and the LAME Mp3 encoder) or online video editing apps (like Jumpcut)
• Encourages Assessment for Learning principles (peer assessment, two stars and a wish, self-assessment, confirmation of learning and next steps) and Curriculum for Excellence aims (publishing their discoveries makes them effective contributors, shows their success at learning and helps them realise their role in helping others)
• East Lothian teachers and students can publish audio or video for free as a podcast on eduBuzz.

Collaborating on the exciting - and the mundane
Everyone in Computing Studies has to learn how to use a spreadsheet and a word processing document. In the last month I've used Google Docs more for writing documents than Microsoft Word. It's easy to collaborate, is exportable, allows chat to take place while collaborating... It's free and it works.

Both the Word Processing and Spreadsheet functions can be used in their own right to learn about the apps, but also provide a superb collaboration planning tool for when students come around to planning multimedia projects and presentations. There's never enough time in class to do this properly and Google Docs allow us to do this from day-to-day in the classroom without losing information on Sick Boy's server space.

There's also Open Source desktop publishing with Scribus, for Mac and Windows.

Blogs to hold it all together
Teachers and students stand to gain if they can harness the positive force behind being Googleable and having a site that is useful or interesting for others. Pupils running their own blogs might be rewarded each term for having the most unique users, the most comments, the most read post, the best blogroll of useful study links...

Teachers benefit from having their own blog when they are able to provide useful insights to their subject that perhaps don't 'fit' into the curriculum, where they can provide good study links and provide a model of being a learner themselves, even if that just means posting links to videos that really make you think. Teachers also stand to benefit for future employment if we can find them easily and then see from their blog that they are not egotists ;-), that they regularly and publicly reflect on their practice and on how to do better at their jobs - and encourage others, including pupils, to help them do better.

A blog, being a website that is so easily and quickly updated, so easily categorisable, can help order the chaotic thoughts and experiences we all have while learning. It can become the revision guide and, best of all, it's the kids who will have written it.

Creating an ever-changing school or class webpage
Wikis on Wikispaces or PBWiki are good for creating quick and easy websites in a click, but they're not exciting unless they change a lot - and that means someone has to change it. Using an Ajax-based RSS aggregator such as Netvibes or PageFlakes (the latter works best in East Lothian and is what we use on the eduBuzz Explore page) provides an ever-changing, minimum effort, quite easy on the eye homepage for students. For younger kids and probably teens, too, YourMinis is prettier to look at.

Guidelines and letters for parents
East Lothian is one of the first Local Authorities in the country to have a policy on social media use both for teachers and for learners, together with letters of permission for Under-16s and for Over-16s. All schools in the Authority will use these as standard from the beginning of the school year, with non-returns or negative responses logged on the pupil monitoring system, Phoenix. In the meantime, feel free to use these for ad hoc projects. They are, of course, Creative Commons, so other Local Authorities and teachers may use and adapt these (at their own risk ;-).

Introduction to new technologies for student teachers

The video/audio of the lecture David and I delivered at Jordanhill, the Education Faculty at the Uni of Strathclyde, is up and his post reveals how we managed the feedback of students. It was nice to meet some of the students afterwards and see how different technologies got different people so excited. I can't wait to see what happens with this group as they head into the world of the classroom.

David's got some of the things we used on a special del.icio.us page that the students (and you) can use to see what we were talking about for yourself. I'm going to forward more of the ones we mentioned there over the next few days to populate it a bit better.

Socialising, Identity 2.0 and education

After some weeks (months?) I have now found the time on a TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) to Brittany, France to put some thoughts together on a few ideas that might be linkable, or might not be linkable. While this train is hurtling along at 380km per hour, my previously fizzing thought train on this one, in typical British fashion, has now lost momentum in the crumbling infrastructure that is my post-Christmas head. I am only really taking some more time to reflect.

 

Why are social technologies such a Big Deal?

I challenge anyone to reckon that they’re not and it’s only those who don’t know (and who, with some ignorant pride, refuse to ever learn) that would even bother with that argument. It’s not that I, along with many of the readers of this blog, have some kind of cause to fight, a cause from which we stand to gain.

It's just that these social technologies work for something.

And lots of people are using them.

Yes, there are only 23.6 million public blogs, the same again in private ones and a tiny proportion of internet users have a Flickr account. But many more are reading them and looking at the pictures. These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance. In fifty years I hope that our kids wonder what all the fuss was about – these tools will be just another part of the daily toolkit, and might even be obsolete.

Suw Charman started off the Socialising in the year 2055 panel (not Social Work panel) of Les Blogs 2.0 with what appears a simple statement: the reason these social technologies work is because they are social. But they are also changing the way that we socialise.

 

A changing-changed social world

So not only do these technologies cater for a need until now unfulfilled by the on-off yes-no I-O binary of technology. They are also allowing us to socialise in a different way. Where technology has thus far helped us in a changing world, social software tools are being proactive in helping us work, rest and play the way we want to and not, for the first time, the way that the rest of society wants/expects us to behave. Suw reveals some truisms: people have less time to socialise than before; taking breaks is frowned upon; where are we getting our social input? Her answer: we’re getting our social input on short text messaging, MSN chat, on multiplayer games (World of Warcraft), on blogs (and on leaving comments on Flickr: I’ve added this last bit since discovering the friends you can make through a mutual passion for taking pics of Paris).

 

Independent Digital Lifestyles

This digital lifestyle is just what I am living this year as a home and mobile worker. I use MSN (virtual) to ‘chat’ with colleagues over a coffee (not virtual), Skype to phone for free to friends and colleagues around the world I wouldn’t have made / wouldn’t have kept in touch with / wouldn’t have known about, blogs to expand my thinking on hi-tech stuff and not-so-hi-tech stuff, to keep informed of my mother’s life and to keep her informed of mine (there’s nothing worse than having not phoned your mother in a month; blogging removes some of the shame). I use Flickr to store and share my photos with families and friends, as well as to search for like-minded souls who might be of professional benefit for me and my projects, and who I might be able to help out. Flickr and LinkedIn have together helped me branch out my professional reach in no time at all. I even started an ICT Policy Strategy wiki in a totally spontaneous and natural way. This slightly awkward glove actually fits!

Hugh McLeod shares my views on the lone-ranger front. He runs a small tailoring business in the middle of Yorkshire, England, a.k.a. end of the valley. For him, blogging has meant that people don’t need to live in cities to make a living. They don’t need to please people they’re not interested in, either, because they can reduce their costs and do more of what they want to do. If he wants to tell someone to f*&@ off, he can. His overheads are so low/non-existent that he is able to pursue what he feels is important. Marc Canter also agrees with this sentiment: we can ignore things we find boring without losing face. Try ignoring someone in meatspace: not easy, unless you’re Hugh, of course ;-) But in a virtual world we can choose to ignore people, not give them our attention. Our attention is worth something. And so is our inattention.

Another thing that blogging has allowed individuals to do is become self-employed to a large extent. Anina, a model who blogs: “Your people speak to my people” is not required any more. Things can be done for free, where agents would normally not allow that (they want the commission). You can solicit people for a job by leaving a comment on their blog – subversing the middleman via interconnectivity. Hierarchy is subversed. The mobile phone takes it a stage further, making the digital subversion quicker, a quick response unit of the blogging world, if you will.

Often, in this deluge of information, the Non-Believer (not that blogging is ever some kind of personality cult) will proclaim: “I want to filter information”. In a beautifully simple exemplification Anina points out that information filtering is not useful in fashion. There’s a need to see things that take you out of your comfort zone, teach you something new or point out something that needs resolved. Like white socks and sandals, man.

 

Why give learners a social life?

What’s wrong with classrooms, text books and paper-driven homework diaries and learning logs? Nothing much. But our kids think differently to the way that most of our (aging) teaching population think. And if I, a teacher aged 27 who has had a computer since the age of six, has blogged since 2001 and has won two national awards for the connections my websites have made for kids is already using these tools to socialise, goodness knows what our children are going to be doing in 27 years' time. There are some reassuring words from a research report mentioned in Anne Davis’ Edublog Insights:

Brown (1997) suggests that for effective instruction of people who think differently than we do we must be able to step outside of our personal experiences and into the world of the learner. We must be able to engage the learner to make a commitment to learn. To do this with digital minds we do not necessarily have to involve devices (though it helps). What we do have to do is to accept some of their life experiences. [Edublogger comment: this is the social element] The following list draws on ideas from Brown (1997) and Driscoll (2002) as we offer the following suggestions:

1 Focus on Outcomes Rather Than Techniques

Provide students with opportunities to put information to work. Allow them to do something and not just to know something. Reality based learning, learning in context, situated cognition, and problem√based learning are strategies that should resonate with digital minds. [Edublogger: this is the kind of thing that got my colleagues and me very excited on our study trip to the schools of New Brunswick, Canada. Learning for purpose, in context, problem-based with kids actually doing tasks to achieve the production of a final product. Revolutionary stuff is what it felt like at the time, but this is just good teaching in the 3rd Millennium]

 

2 Provide Options for Learning

Universal Designs for Learning (O'Neill, 2001) suggests that students will excel with options in learning. Multiple options to express learning, multiple representations of content, and multiple ways to engage learners will help digital minds in the classroom. [Edublogger: multiple ways to engage learners and let them represent their learning might happen all at once (Flickr photos embedded in the audio from a poem) or might be used in turn (blogging a thought, following up with a separate blog post via a Flickred photo)]

 

3 Respect Parallel Thinking and Multitasking

People who grew up with the WWW, mobile phones, MTV and video games are used to dealing with many streams of information coming in at one time. And while we, as teachers and digital immigrants, may see it as disruptive, they really can do more than one thing at a time in class. [Edublogger: need I say more than the word ‘Backchannel’. Hugely disruptive for some, highly engaging for me, leading to productive thought after the main conference panel event (read ‘classroom lesson’)]

 

4 Highlight Key Points

New learners are surfers and scanners. While we had limited sources for writing papers they essentially have every library in the world available to them. They make decisions quickly based on side heads and highlighting. We must provide them with cues they recognize and help them to slow down and process when needed. [Edublogger's note: Great last point that I am going to keep for the next time someone criticizes blogging, internet reading or has a bash at technology for the apparent lack of reading in their students. I’ve never read as much since I blogged (nor written as much) and I’ve learned to spot the signs of a piece that I wish to ignore or go into in great depth – like this one]

 

5 Involve Learners in Setting Learning Goals

Provide them a role in establishing learning goals, building the learning community, setting up the rules for the class and in writing the rubrics that will be used to judge their performance. [Edublogger: In Assessment is for Learning Scottish teachers have managed to get most of this. What’s missing is the most important ingredient: building the learning community. Social software helps build this community. Paper, pens and the rushed atmosphere in the 40 minute lesson just don’t cut it.]

6 Provide Active Learning Environments

Allow learners to use what ever tools they may need in an assignment. Allow them to play to their strengths, be it media production or artistic expression in assignments and activities in appropriate ways.[Edublogger: this is where the devices come in. It’s not bad, though, to have got to number 6 without having to talk about tools and devices]

 

7 Allow Learning to be Social

We have long recognized the importance of working in groups. It builds social skills and provides students with the ability to work in the type of environment they will be working in as adults. Working in groups means that people will need to talk, discuss and interact, activities that are typically discouraged in most classrooms.

 

8 Provide Opportunities for Reflection

Lest we think we must only allow people to do things that are fast moving and lack depth of processing, we must provide digital minds not only with the time to reflect, but the requirement to reflect. A digital mind does not mean a better mind necessarily. We should provide opportunities for both experiential and reflective cognition.

In my next post I will take a look at Point 8: Time. Is there a case for the luddites who complain that all blogging and podcasting do is contribute to a flux of irrelevant information, best left ignored than skimmed? Or is there some kind of socialising that can take place to make better sense of this information and lead to a more connected, social world than the one we live in now?

---Ewan

Get around those firewalls with MSN Web Messenger

Graham at work has just tipped me off about MSN Web Messenger, a great tool for internet chat in schools where firewalls have prevented the download of the MSN programme.

"What!" I hear you cry. "A great tool for internet chat?? But therein lies Evil!!"

Well, no. MSN Messenger is one of the best research tools I own. I can chat to my research buddies in New Brunswick, Canada, for free, I can see them through my webcam and show off my tan from summer holidays and, with NetMeeting, I can share my own computer desktop with them.

And in the classroom...
Internet chat has clear disadvantages for the classroom: it's not very safe if your students get propositioned by a stranger and they can easily fall off task if their pals start to ping them. However, it does have obvious uses in the Modern Languages class.

Video conferencing is expensive and horrifically difficult to organise with a partner school who (a) don't have broadband, (b) have worse technical support than you do (yes, it is possible) and (c) having spent three weeks experimenting to make sure it works with the class, the system then breaks down during the very lesson that you had planned it in. Doh!

With MSN, ad hoc meetings with foreign classmates can be organised at the drop of a hat. Log in while other work is being done and if MSN pings, go and answer it.

Live internet chat is also good for pushing those language skills to the limit. Try typing fast, and thinking of how to say what you want to say. It's really tricky. This is conceivably a shortfall but, after saving the discussion to disk, the teacher can then take the whole class through it to learn from any mistakes either correspondent has made (often the ones made by the French/German/Spanish/Italian student on the other end are very reassuring for learners: "they get it wrong, too".

Having said all that, while download of the MSN programme is almost certainly banned, don't forget to see if the website has been firewalled, too. Those pesky Local Authorities - when will they learn?