http://voicethread.com/share/1272072/
VoiceThread is a very interesting piece of software. I would say that it may have a great deal of application in instructional fields, especially if people keep insisting on using Powerpoint for everything. I can recall from my days managing a school lab that often people would come in to 'print out the notes' -- and they'd end up printing out powerpoint files.
Anyway, I don't think there's much call for a full writeup, but one application that comes to mind is enabling students to 'raise their hands' and ask questions, either through voice or text (text might work better in general on the student's end) so that they can be answered by the teacher, thus, in a sense, preserving the inquiries and what lead to that particular answer or development of the subject.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
A minor question of nomenclature
I really wish people would stop describing Second Life as a "game." Second Life is a framework to provide content in, which involves some gamey aspects (moving your little man about, altering the appearance of said little man) which probably help Linden Labs keep the boat afloat.
However, it is really more of a content provision and hosting service with good branding than a "game." VRML wasn't a "game" either.
However, it is really more of a content provision and hosting service with good branding than a "game." VRML wasn't a "game" either.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A discussion of Brazen Careerist.
It is definitely brazen. Rather careerist. And rather small, too... for now. Get in on the ground floor, maybe? But I'm not so sure it's good for educational purposes.
Listen to my thoughts here.
Some images from brazen careerist to keep you company as you listen:
Listen to my thoughts here.
Some images from brazen careerist to keep you company as you listen:
Saturday, July 24, 2010
More conversation about Cacoo
1. Name of the Tool
Cacoo.
2. URL of the Tool
http://cacoo.com
3. Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Communication Tool, Collaboration Tool, Productivity Tool, Creativity Tool, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Tool, Reflection Tool, Feedback Tool, Networking/Social Tool, Presentation Tool
This is primarily a tool for productivity, although it can be used for other ends, due to a collaboration module - you can work together and chat with someone else - and some possibilities for communication and creativity.
4. Please describe this tool in your own words in about 250 words.
Cacoo is built for the easy creation of collaborative diagrams, using a bunch of fairly intuitive tools.
I assume that there is a lot more to the details of many of the particular icons they've included (though you can scan in your own images) because most of them seem to be related to creating organizational flowcharts or network maps.
The primary interface is selecting images from a wide bar of premade options, which include rough shapes, explicitly "flowcharty" tags, outlines for placing office equipment and other architectural details - such as length or width lines. All of the premade images have anchor points on them, and the software includes tools to automatically draw lines for you, curving or bending them as you might like, and providing spaces for adding text.
There are a few traits which make Cacoo different from more conventional paint programs. For one thing, there is no "paintbrush." While you can fill a
space or otherwise color it, or add a drop shadow, you cannot simply free-hand draw something, at least within Cacoo itself.
On the added side, however, it is possible to invite others to work on the diagram with you directly; there's even a chat box to allow you both to communicate more directly than, say, by drawing notes in the corner.
5. What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
There is not a great deal which you "need" to know. However, unless you are designing a flowchart, concept map, network map, or something architectural in design, you may have some difficulty in making a lot of specific use of Cacoo's features.
6. What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
Other than an internet connection, very little. If you are using it for new designs or wish to include specific things that are not in the image library, you will need images to upload.
9. Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (about 500 words).
The "go to" utility for this program outside of the customized applications that it seems to be made for, like network mapping, would be in the creation of concept maps.
And there are many ways you could do this. One possibility would be the creation of concept maps for distribution to students, much as in the research which I cited in my discussion board post regarding "scaffolded" concept maps, as well as in the creation of erroneous concept maps - which is probably less easy than it sounds. Either way, making excellent looking concept maps is pretty simple and straightforward, and will only get easier with practice.
Another idea would be to make use of a computer lab or similar facilities to get the students to create their own concept maps and then "invite" your account to look and comment on them, so it would be possible to work with them directly. This might be especially good for distance education purposes, although in that case scheduling may pose some potential problems.
10. What are the advantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
It would be quite easy to use this to produce high quality diagrams, flowcharts, and the like in a manner that would not require special and expensive graphics tools. If you happen to work in an architectural or network-mapping related field, it would be even better, having clearly been designed with those needs in mind.
It also allows for relatively easy self creation and production of concept maps, which could be easily farmed out to children who have computer access. The collaborative aspect would also make "turning it in" easy, as well as correcting it - perhaps using a distinctive color, such as red, to make such indications. It wouldn't be impossible to do wholly automatic grading.
11. What are the disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
The tool may not last terribly long, as any web 2.0 program might not, and it is also clearly specialized for an audience which is not the standard sort of educator. It is also possible that putting students' work somewhere where they might have it available to public view could be a problem; also, Cacoo appears to be based originally in Japan, which could cause connection issues.
For a higher level class, however, such as high school or even college freshmen, I can see few genuine downsides to this program. It is however a niche program; you would need to plan its use somewhat carefully, to avoid having the use of the program expand to be a primary part OF the course.
Cacoo.
2. URL of the Tool
http://cacoo.com
3. Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Communication Tool, Collaboration Tool, Productivity Tool, Creativity Tool, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Tool, Reflection Tool, Feedback Tool, Networking/Social Tool, Presentation Tool
This is primarily a tool for productivity, although it can be used for other ends, due to a collaboration module - you can work together and chat with someone else - and some possibilities for communication and creativity.
4. Please describe this tool in your own words in about 250 words.
Cacoo is built for the easy creation of collaborative diagrams, using a bunch of fairly intuitive tools.
I assume that there is a lot more to the details of many of the particular icons they've included (though you can scan in your own images) because most of them seem to be related to creating organizational flowcharts or network maps.
The primary interface is selecting images from a wide bar of premade options, which include rough shapes, explicitly "flowcharty" tags, outlines for placing office equipment and other architectural details - such as length or width lines. All of the premade images have anchor points on them, and the software includes tools to automatically draw lines for you, curving or bending them as you might like, and providing spaces for adding text.
There are a few traits which make Cacoo different from more conventional paint programs. For one thing, there is no "paintbrush." While you can fill a
space or otherwise color it, or add a drop shadow, you cannot simply free-hand draw something, at least within Cacoo itself.
On the added side, however, it is possible to invite others to work on the diagram with you directly; there's even a chat box to allow you both to communicate more directly than, say, by drawing notes in the corner.
5. What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
There is not a great deal which you "need" to know. However, unless you are designing a flowchart, concept map, network map, or something architectural in design, you may have some difficulty in making a lot of specific use of Cacoo's features.
6. What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
Other than an internet connection, very little. If you are using it for new designs or wish to include specific things that are not in the image library, you will need images to upload.
9. Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (about 500 words).
The "go to" utility for this program outside of the customized applications that it seems to be made for, like network mapping, would be in the creation of concept maps.
And there are many ways you could do this. One possibility would be the creation of concept maps for distribution to students, much as in the research which I cited in my discussion board post regarding "scaffolded" concept maps, as well as in the creation of erroneous concept maps - which is probably less easy than it sounds. Either way, making excellent looking concept maps is pretty simple and straightforward, and will only get easier with practice.
Another idea would be to make use of a computer lab or similar facilities to get the students to create their own concept maps and then "invite" your account to look and comment on them, so it would be possible to work with them directly. This might be especially good for distance education purposes, although in that case scheduling may pose some potential problems.
10. What are the advantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
It would be quite easy to use this to produce high quality diagrams, flowcharts, and the like in a manner that would not require special and expensive graphics tools. If you happen to work in an architectural or network-mapping related field, it would be even better, having clearly been designed with those needs in mind.
It also allows for relatively easy self creation and production of concept maps, which could be easily farmed out to children who have computer access. The collaborative aspect would also make "turning it in" easy, as well as correcting it - perhaps using a distinctive color, such as red, to make such indications. It wouldn't be impossible to do wholly automatic grading.
11. What are the disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
The tool may not last terribly long, as any web 2.0 program might not, and it is also clearly specialized for an audience which is not the standard sort of educator. It is also possible that putting students' work somewhere where they might have it available to public view could be a problem; also, Cacoo appears to be based originally in Japan, which could cause connection issues.
For a higher level class, however, such as high school or even college freshmen, I can see few genuine downsides to this program. It is however a niche program; you would need to plan its use somewhat carefully, to avoid having the use of the program expand to be a primary part OF the course.
A walkthrough for Cacoo, with screenshots!
NB: These images are quite large, and you may have to click through to see some of them in full detail. If you do, make sure to open them in a new tab or browser window, so you don't lose your place!
First, you need to create your account, which does not require much further explanation.
Second, after logging in, go to your Diagrams list and select "create new diagram."
Something to keep in mind: I am in this example demonstrating a simple concept map that might or might not fulfill your own needs. It is meant to demonstrate mechanics more than provide an example of "best practices" for concept mapping. I encourage you to experiment with the software on your own.
A quick walkthrough now with this screenshot of the main interface. The tabs along the top of the screen allow you to turn the image, copy/cut/paste, set text or lines, import an image or take a screen shot, or toggle on the stencils, chat, and inspector tabs. There is also a zoom function and the self-explanatory function tabs in green. I will be turning off the chat window for future screenshots, since we don't have a lot of space.
Third, under "basic shapes" in the Stencil display, scroll down until you reach a hexagon. Select it and drag it to the center of the screen; adjust its size with the tabs on any of its eight sides and, if you like, click the green circle above it to turn it around. If you click away and then back, you'll notice that the object is considered by the software to be on a roughly square-shaped 'tile.'
Fourth, on the "inspector" tab, go to fill and note the various options for opacity and colors. Go select one of the shades of color you prefer and click it to fill the hexagon. (You can put in any color you like with the six-character color codes.)
Fifth, go up to the 'text' button - an A in a square on the upper toolbar - and click within the hexagon. Drag to outline a text space. Type whatever you like in it; in this case, "penguins". Click away for the inspector screen to reappear; here you can click on that space and alter things such as the font you used, the size of the text, its color, and other traditional text-editing options. You can also use the green circle to rotate the text.
Sixth, scroll back up in the "basic" tab in the stencil display and go up to find some simpler shapes. Spread four or five around - give yourself a little room to work with. Adjust their size as you like; you could also try zooming in with the tab near the top of the window, although that may be more important if you are creating truly large-scale concept maps or similar diagrams.
Go and sprinkle them with text as well; don't worry about high precision here.
A note you may see as you move objects around; when you have one object in some sort of line with another, an automatic dashed line will pop up and the object will 'stick' slightly. This can be very useful if you do want to place things in quite precise relation to one another.
Seventh, the line tool. Go up to this button, near the Text button; you will notice it has a drop down menu. You can pick any of the five options of line that you like; there is an option also to alter the appearance of created lines in the Inspector tab, but for now the default lines should be more than enough.
Now that you've picked a line tool, mouse over one of the shapes - you'll notice that it has some little circles for each object.
Click on one and drag a line towards another object, and you will find it too has circles; when you have dragged up to one of them and let go, the lines will automatically dock in a very neat and crisp manner according to the style you selected.
Like this!
Continue this until you've connected all the objects together. You can change line styles if you'd like, although generally you'd want to keep it consistent, to avoid giving false information.
You will note that you have to reselect the line tool each time.
Eighth, pick the text tool and place short connecting terms between the various concepts, near the lines you just drew. Remember that you can rotate and move text around, as well as adjusting its colors, etc. For instance, let's set all these connecting terms to italics after we type them in.
Ninth, secondary connections. Your example may not have many, but they can easily be built out, and are connected in the same way as the original lines. Let's use a different style, in this case "rounded corners" to distinguish these. It is worth noting that if you drag an object around, any lines connecting to it will automatically redraw; however, since text is tracked as a separate object, you'll have to move it, too.
Tenth, deleting. You can select individual items and delete them, or if you prefer you can click and drag a square shape and all of the objects within it will be selected, and can be deleted or otherwise modified; for instance if you had a particular "segment" that you wanted to copy and use in several disparate parts of a very complex flowchart. Only items that are more or less completely selected will be highlighted for mass modifying.
Finally, when you've gotten your diagram the way that you want it, you can save it or export it, or use the "share" option to invite someone else to come look at your diagram; for instance, if you're preparing a concept map and you have a co-instructor, you might invite them, either as members of Cacoo already or by sending them an inviting email. All of these tabs are in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
First, you need to create your account, which does not require much further explanation.
Second, after logging in, go to your Diagrams list and select "create new diagram."
Something to keep in mind: I am in this example demonstrating a simple concept map that might or might not fulfill your own needs. It is meant to demonstrate mechanics more than provide an example of "best practices" for concept mapping. I encourage you to experiment with the software on your own.
A quick walkthrough now with this screenshot of the main interface. The tabs along the top of the screen allow you to turn the image, copy/cut/paste, set text or lines, import an image or take a screen shot, or toggle on the stencils, chat, and inspector tabs. There is also a zoom function and the self-explanatory function tabs in green. I will be turning off the chat window for future screenshots, since we don't have a lot of space.
Third, under "basic shapes" in the Stencil display, scroll down until you reach a hexagon. Select it and drag it to the center of the screen; adjust its size with the tabs on any of its eight sides and, if you like, click the green circle above it to turn it around. If you click away and then back, you'll notice that the object is considered by the software to be on a roughly square-shaped 'tile.'
Fourth, on the "inspector" tab, go to fill and note the various options for opacity and colors. Go select one of the shades of color you prefer and click it to fill the hexagon. (You can put in any color you like with the six-character color codes.)
Fifth, go up to the 'text' button - an A in a square on the upper toolbar - and click within the hexagon. Drag to outline a text space. Type whatever you like in it; in this case, "penguins". Click away for the inspector screen to reappear; here you can click on that space and alter things such as the font you used, the size of the text, its color, and other traditional text-editing options. You can also use the green circle to rotate the text.
Sixth, scroll back up in the "basic" tab in the stencil display and go up to find some simpler shapes. Spread four or five around - give yourself a little room to work with. Adjust their size as you like; you could also try zooming in with the tab near the top of the window, although that may be more important if you are creating truly large-scale concept maps or similar diagrams.
Go and sprinkle them with text as well; don't worry about high precision here.
A note you may see as you move objects around; when you have one object in some sort of line with another, an automatic dashed line will pop up and the object will 'stick' slightly. This can be very useful if you do want to place things in quite precise relation to one another.
Seventh, the line tool. Go up to this button, near the Text button; you will notice it has a drop down menu. You can pick any of the five options of line that you like; there is an option also to alter the appearance of created lines in the Inspector tab, but for now the default lines should be more than enough.
Now that you've picked a line tool, mouse over one of the shapes - you'll notice that it has some little circles for each object.
Click on one and drag a line towards another object, and you will find it too has circles; when you have dragged up to one of them and let go, the lines will automatically dock in a very neat and crisp manner according to the style you selected.
Like this!
Continue this until you've connected all the objects together. You can change line styles if you'd like, although generally you'd want to keep it consistent, to avoid giving false information.
You will note that you have to reselect the line tool each time.
Eighth, pick the text tool and place short connecting terms between the various concepts, near the lines you just drew. Remember that you can rotate and move text around, as well as adjusting its colors, etc. For instance, let's set all these connecting terms to italics after we type them in.
Ninth, secondary connections. Your example may not have many, but they can easily be built out, and are connected in the same way as the original lines. Let's use a different style, in this case "rounded corners" to distinguish these. It is worth noting that if you drag an object around, any lines connecting to it will automatically redraw; however, since text is tracked as a separate object, you'll have to move it, too.
Tenth, deleting. You can select individual items and delete them, or if you prefer you can click and drag a square shape and all of the objects within it will be selected, and can be deleted or otherwise modified; for instance if you had a particular "segment" that you wanted to copy and use in several disparate parts of a very complex flowchart. Only items that are more or less completely selected will be highlighted for mass modifying.
Finally, when you've gotten your diagram the way that you want it, you can save it or export it, or use the "share" option to invite someone else to come look at your diagram; for instance, if you're preparing a concept map and you have a co-instructor, you might invite them, either as members of Cacoo already or by sending them an inviting email. All of these tabs are in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A podcast guide to Scrapblog.
Please feel free to provide me with feedback on what would improve it, as I realize it is quite rough. A revised version will be posted in several days (unless, of course, this one is... perfect.)
Here is the link. Thanks for listening!
As you listen, here's a guide through using the tool.
First of all, go to scrapblog.com and register an account. You can connect it to your Facebook if you care to.
Second of all, I would encourage you to follow through all the introductory pop-ups. They will walk you through what to do a good deal better than I will, and they'll even give you a few "credits" when you're done, in case there's a particular sticker you want.
Third of all, plan out a small project; even if it is simply an introduction to your cats. Import the photos you want to use with the "photos" tab on the right hand side.
Fourth, add a picture to the first slide; resize it as you like with the little tabs that appear in the picture's corners when you click it once to select it, or click in the center and drag it around to position it somewhere different.
Fifth, add text; go to the "Text & Balloons" tab and select the first option. The others may be fun as well, but are somewhat more "niche" uses. Click and drag the text box to wherever you like, remove the "Add Text here" with the Delete or Backspace key, and start typing.
Don't worry if it looks strange in terms of size. Click away from the box and then on it to bring up an options menu, which will allow you to change the font, size, color, and other text editing details. Click the text once more to be able to edit it again. This may sound slightly confusing but will come quite easily when you begin playing with it.
Sixth, a new slide. Just go down and hit an "add page" button. You can also alter playback options, as well as being able to set a transition from a list of them between the two slides.
Seventh, video. This is optional and works more or less as placing a photograph does. However, resizing does not seem to work.
Eighth is to publish your video; the software will process all of your settings and will then give you a link. The show will also be present underneath your account, and you will be able to link it in other contexts.
Here is the link. Thanks for listening!
As you listen, here's a guide through using the tool.
First of all, go to scrapblog.com and register an account. You can connect it to your Facebook if you care to.
Second of all, I would encourage you to follow through all the introductory pop-ups. They will walk you through what to do a good deal better than I will, and they'll even give you a few "credits" when you're done, in case there's a particular sticker you want.Third of all, plan out a small project; even if it is simply an introduction to your cats. Import the photos you want to use with the "photos" tab on the right hand side.
Fourth, add a picture to the first slide; resize it as you like with the little tabs that appear in the picture's corners when you click it once to select it, or click in the center and drag it around to position it somewhere different.
Fifth, add text; go to the "Text & Balloons" tab and select the first option. The others may be fun as well, but are somewhat more "niche" uses. Click and drag the text box to wherever you like, remove the "Add Text here" with the Delete or Backspace key, and start typing.
Don't worry if it looks strange in terms of size. Click away from the box and then on it to bring up an options menu, which will allow you to change the font, size, color, and other text editing details. Click the text once more to be able to edit it again. This may sound slightly confusing but will come quite easily when you begin playing with it.Sixth, a new slide. Just go down and hit an "add page" button. You can also alter playback options, as well as being able to set a transition from a list of them between the two slides.
Seventh, video. This is optional and works more or less as placing a photograph does. However, resizing does not seem to work.
Eighth is to publish your video; the software will process all of your settings and will then give you a link. The show will also be present underneath your account, and you will be able to link it in other contexts.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
A guide to using Twitter, with pictures
The first step in making use of Twitter is to register, which is very easy and requires only an email address; I will presume that everyone in the audience has one, but free ones can be obtained at yahoo.com and hotmail.com if you wish.
The front page has, as you can see, a rotating list of example "tweets." Let's sign in.
As you can see, this page does have a lot of options on it. I have not yet entered a tweet (as of when this screenshot was taken, anyway), but let's consider some of the other options. Direct messages allow one to send a "private" tweet to another address; retweets help you by propagating links and other comments. Let's add a friend, so I have something to re-tweet.
I reached this screen by clicking on "following." Now, let's add, for instance, Roger Ebert's Twitter.
Of course I don't have Roger Ebert on my mailing list. However, it's possible to have Twitter search for contacts you already have, for you to look for suggested additional contacts, or to give you a form to invite someone - for instance, your students - to sign up for Twitter. But we'll skip past that for now, and use...
... the "find account" tool. Since we know Roger Ebert, we simply put in his name. You could look for other groups, such as "the University of Houston," "Barack Obama," "the Trilateral Commission," or whatever you might like.
As you can see we have several options here. You may have to look for the "real" version in some cases with independent sources; I know Roger Ebert's website and this is his Twitter page linked from that same website, which gives me great confidence that "ebertchicago," as opposed to the other ones, are in fact him. (As you can see from the last entry, it's possible to have simple mistakes; in a nation of three hundred million people, and a world of six billion and counting, some names will simply occur more than once.)
There are three buttons next to his twitter account information on this page. The first button will add him to your list of people whom you follow, which is straightforward and what we are setting out to do. The second lets you alter what lists you have in which he appears, which can be useful if you have a great many lists and want to adjust in which one he is kept - or remove him from some but not others.
The third contains four options; the first allows you to "mention" him in a tweet without needing to type in his name (which is not so urgent for "ebertchicago" but can matter for longer, more arcane Twitter names), follow him (a repeat), block his account or report him as a spammer.
The interface works another way as well. Say I click through to Mr. Ebert's Twitter.
As you can see he has a variety of things set up, which you can use as well. For instance, he has a variety of lists - one's lists can also be displayed to the public - and most importantly for our purposes, a big button that says Follow. Let us add ourselves to the storied ranks of his followers.
Now we're following him! Hurray! (You may notice that he has set a custom background image for his Twitter page; you can do that as well, but we shall leave that aside for the moment.)
Now we go back to our homepage, and we find that there is a great deal of Roger Ebert. This is because Roger Ebert is our only Twitter account being followed, and we are thus seeing everything he has said (down to a certain point, anyway). As you can see his Tweets have a variety of natures, and you also see an assortment of shortened links.
There is also a pop-up from Twitter, explaining that one of the tweets in Mr. Ebert's twitter feed is a re-tweet, and giving the gist of what a re-tweet is. Twitter in general has had a great deal of these "user friendly" features self integrated; I recommend you set a few hours aside to explore the tool and add people to your list. If you're concerned about presenting a professional image, make a small "personal" twitter and then go and create a proper one as Professor Soandso later.
Now then, retweeting. As you see when we mouse over this tweet we see an option to reply or to retweet. When clicked you gain the option to confirm your desire to retweet; click yes, then go to your own twitter page - like so, at http://twitter.com/tompile -
And there it is. It tells you who you retweeted from, informs you helpfully of various other facts (such as that this is your page, which can be a concern...) and other matters. For instance, 22 others have re-tweeted this, and I have not yet uploaded an image.
Tweeting oneself is quite easy - indeed self explanatory; type in the letters and hit "tweet." Let's try sending a message to Roger Ebert himself --
one can click "Reply" on any tweet someone has said in order to have their "twitter handle" pop up as we see here, which can be important for people with complex or easilly mispelled handles. Then type in your message, using the remaining characters...
As you can see, Twitter helpfully gives you a character count, allowing you to moderate your words and engage in judicious Tweeting. And when you're done, just hit "Tweet" - and you've sent a message to the world! Mr. Ebert can find this, if he cares to, by pressing the "@ebertchicago" option. Here's the equivalent for this account.
Not much going on. But this account is mere hours old, so it's not too surprising. Feel free to add it and communicate with me, if you care to!
And as a reward for bearing with me through all that - here's the picture Mr. Ebert linked to in that re-tweet:
The front page has, as you can see, a rotating list of example "tweets." Let's sign in.
As you can see, this page does have a lot of options on it. I have not yet entered a tweet (as of when this screenshot was taken, anyway), but let's consider some of the other options. Direct messages allow one to send a "private" tweet to another address; retweets help you by propagating links and other comments. Let's add a friend, so I have something to re-tweet.
I reached this screen by clicking on "following." Now, let's add, for instance, Roger Ebert's Twitter.
Of course I don't have Roger Ebert on my mailing list. However, it's possible to have Twitter search for contacts you already have, for you to look for suggested additional contacts, or to give you a form to invite someone - for instance, your students - to sign up for Twitter. But we'll skip past that for now, and use...
... the "find account" tool. Since we know Roger Ebert, we simply put in his name. You could look for other groups, such as "the University of Houston," "Barack Obama," "the Trilateral Commission," or whatever you might like.
As you can see we have several options here. You may have to look for the "real" version in some cases with independent sources; I know Roger Ebert's website and this is his Twitter page linked from that same website, which gives me great confidence that "ebertchicago," as opposed to the other ones, are in fact him. (As you can see from the last entry, it's possible to have simple mistakes; in a nation of three hundred million people, and a world of six billion and counting, some names will simply occur more than once.)
There are three buttons next to his twitter account information on this page. The first button will add him to your list of people whom you follow, which is straightforward and what we are setting out to do. The second lets you alter what lists you have in which he appears, which can be useful if you have a great many lists and want to adjust in which one he is kept - or remove him from some but not others.
The third contains four options; the first allows you to "mention" him in a tweet without needing to type in his name (which is not so urgent for "ebertchicago" but can matter for longer, more arcane Twitter names), follow him (a repeat), block his account or report him as a spammer.
The interface works another way as well. Say I click through to Mr. Ebert's Twitter.
As you can see he has a variety of things set up, which you can use as well. For instance, he has a variety of lists - one's lists can also be displayed to the public - and most importantly for our purposes, a big button that says Follow. Let us add ourselves to the storied ranks of his followers.
Now we're following him! Hurray! (You may notice that he has set a custom background image for his Twitter page; you can do that as well, but we shall leave that aside for the moment.)
Now we go back to our homepage, and we find that there is a great deal of Roger Ebert. This is because Roger Ebert is our only Twitter account being followed, and we are thus seeing everything he has said (down to a certain point, anyway). As you can see his Tweets have a variety of natures, and you also see an assortment of shortened links.
There is also a pop-up from Twitter, explaining that one of the tweets in Mr. Ebert's twitter feed is a re-tweet, and giving the gist of what a re-tweet is. Twitter in general has had a great deal of these "user friendly" features self integrated; I recommend you set a few hours aside to explore the tool and add people to your list. If you're concerned about presenting a professional image, make a small "personal" twitter and then go and create a proper one as Professor Soandso later.
Now then, retweeting. As you see when we mouse over this tweet we see an option to reply or to retweet. When clicked you gain the option to confirm your desire to retweet; click yes, then go to your own twitter page - like so, at http://twitter.com/tompile -
And there it is. It tells you who you retweeted from, informs you helpfully of various other facts (such as that this is your page, which can be a concern...) and other matters. For instance, 22 others have re-tweeted this, and I have not yet uploaded an image.
Tweeting oneself is quite easy - indeed self explanatory; type in the letters and hit "tweet." Let's try sending a message to Roger Ebert himself --
one can click "Reply" on any tweet someone has said in order to have their "twitter handle" pop up as we see here, which can be important for people with complex or easilly mispelled handles. Then type in your message, using the remaining characters...
As you can see, Twitter helpfully gives you a character count, allowing you to moderate your words and engage in judicious Tweeting. And when you're done, just hit "Tweet" - and you've sent a message to the world! Mr. Ebert can find this, if he cares to, by pressing the "@ebertchicago" option. Here's the equivalent for this account.
Not much going on. But this account is mere hours old, so it's not too surprising. Feel free to add it and communicate with me, if you care to!
And as a reward for bearing with me through all that - here's the picture Mr. Ebert linked to in that re-tweet:
A discussion of Twitter in the classroom (pt 2)
For the first module of this class I have studied Twitter, a program
that needs relatively little introduction. It can be found at
twitter.com, which is the clearinghouse for all of your Tweeting
needs. It comes under the heading of a "communication tool," although
it could also accurately be sorted as a networking tool or perhaps
even a reflection or feedback tool.
Twitter is somewhat notorious on its own and has been used by a wide
variety of people for a wide variety of ends, most of them involving
very short updates to one's situation. The defining feature of Twitter
is what you can put into the entry field: you are limited to 140
characters of ASCII text, no more. (Less is fine.) This is then fed to
a list under your registered handle, together with a timestamp and
other optional details.
There have, as a result of this enforced austerity, been a lot of
innovations in how to use those 140 characters. One key one is the way
to address others; an example might be like this:
@bernardrobin My cat is screaming! How can I shut him up?
An option on the twitter page allows you to look for comments
addressed to that Twitter, allowing Dr. Robin to see my cry for help
and, perhaps, reply:
@tompile Try giving him twenty bucks, works for me...
It can also be used to make simple statements. Since it is possible to
both pull up a Twitter using only the username, and it is possible to
also subscribe to a Twitter "friends list," one can easily monitor,
for instance, a course's twitter page -- which is the main utility
we'll be considering throughout here.
Other utilities allow you to make shortened references to links,
allowing links to complex addresses that would be well in excess of
the 140 character limit to be reduced to (for instance)
http://bit.ly/983yrl2, which can even leave you room for a description
OF the link and its contents.
Twitter does not require a great many specific skills to use. One particular talent that may be useful is a knack for expression yourself concisely; while Twitter does, so to speak, allow for the occasional 'u' or 'lol' to shorten frequent expressions, it is still best to avoid such things if you possibly can. Nor does it require many resources, although reading a guide to the purpose and nature of Twitter and its functions would probably be useful before you got started.
The obvious way to use Twitter is to have either a personal "teacher" account, or perhaps an account for each class, which you use to send out updates and reminders. You inform your students of this in the syllabus and then regularly post notes such as "Class in library on Wednesday," "Essay now due 9/15 instead of 9/12," and the like.
However, Twitter can also be used to engage students in class discussion; it may happen spontaneously, or one can pose a question. A great variety of teachers have made use of Twitter, and I encourage to share your own stories or theories. Here are some links to help you get some initial ideas; many people have done quite impressive things, such as write collaborative stories using Twitter! The field of this and other similar applications is still young, and so you should not be afraid to give new ideas a try.
http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-education/
http://searchenginewatch.com/3630980
http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html
An article on a somewhat more rigorous plane from a Hungarian conference: http://www.morsmal.org/documents/members/admin/Can-we-use-Twitter-for-educational-activities.pdf
This document also lists some of the possible pitfalls of using Twitter in the classroom, such as "tweeting" being a distraction in class or disruptive to establishing an air of politeness and listening to what the lecturer (or other students) are saying. It can also discourage good grammar skills, due to the 140 character limit, and also may place teachers in a position of being "on call" 24-7, which will lead to more professional stress.
There is also one particular concern which should be mentioned. Twitter, at present, does not have any built in content filters; there is no fundamental factor preventing a student from subscribing to a twitter feed that is full of swearing and vulgarity, or - directly - from swearing themselves. As such Twitter may be best reserved for upper level classes, such as high school and (of course) college.
that needs relatively little introduction. It can be found at
twitter.com, which is the clearinghouse for all of your Tweeting
needs. It comes under the heading of a "communication tool," although
it could also accurately be sorted as a networking tool or perhaps
even a reflection or feedback tool.
Twitter is somewhat notorious on its own and has been used by a wide
variety of people for a wide variety of ends, most of them involving
very short updates to one's situation. The defining feature of Twitter
is what you can put into the entry field: you are limited to 140
characters of ASCII text, no more. (Less is fine.) This is then fed to
a list under your registered handle, together with a timestamp and
other optional details.
There have, as a result of this enforced austerity, been a lot of
innovations in how to use those 140 characters. One key one is the way
to address others; an example might be like this:
@bernardrobin My cat is screaming! How can I shut him up?
An option on the twitter page allows you to look for comments
addressed to that Twitter, allowing Dr. Robin to see my cry for help
and, perhaps, reply:
@tompile Try giving him twenty bucks, works for me...
It can also be used to make simple statements. Since it is possible to
both pull up a Twitter using only the username, and it is possible to
also subscribe to a Twitter "friends list," one can easily monitor,
for instance, a course's twitter page -- which is the main utility
we'll be considering throughout here.
Other utilities allow you to make shortened references to links,
allowing links to complex addresses that would be well in excess of
the 140 character limit to be reduced to (for instance)
http://bit.ly/983yrl2, which can even leave you room for a description
OF the link and its contents.
Twitter does not require a great many specific skills to use. One particular talent that may be useful is a knack for expression yourself concisely; while Twitter does, so to speak, allow for the occasional 'u' or 'lol' to shorten frequent expressions, it is still best to avoid such things if you possibly can. Nor does it require many resources, although reading a guide to the purpose and nature of Twitter and its functions would probably be useful before you got started.
The obvious way to use Twitter is to have either a personal "teacher" account, or perhaps an account for each class, which you use to send out updates and reminders. You inform your students of this in the syllabus and then regularly post notes such as "Class in library on Wednesday," "Essay now due 9/15 instead of 9/12," and the like.
However, Twitter can also be used to engage students in class discussion; it may happen spontaneously, or one can pose a question. A great variety of teachers have made use of Twitter, and I encourage to share your own stories or theories. Here are some links to help you get some initial ideas; many people have done quite impressive things, such as write collaborative stories using Twitter! The field of this and other similar applications is still young, and so you should not be afraid to give new ideas a try.
http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-education/
http://searchenginewatch.com/3630980
http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html
An article on a somewhat more rigorous plane from a Hungarian conference: http://www.morsmal.org/documents/members/admin/Can-we-use-Twitter-for-educational-activities.pdf
This document also lists some of the possible pitfalls of using Twitter in the classroom, such as "tweeting" being a distraction in class or disruptive to establishing an air of politeness and listening to what the lecturer (or other students) are saying. It can also discourage good grammar skills, due to the 140 character limit, and also may place teachers in a position of being "on call" 24-7, which will lead to more professional stress.
There is also one particular concern which should be mentioned. Twitter, at present, does not have any built in content filters; there is no fundamental factor preventing a student from subscribing to a twitter feed that is full of swearing and vulgarity, or - directly - from swearing themselves. As such Twitter may be best reserved for upper level classes, such as high school and (of course) college.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Skeletal outline for a backchannel interface for online classroom stuff
This is not the most beautiful mockup but it doesn't have to be.
1. Chat window. Shows scrolling text of other people speaking, can be disabled or activated to some extent by instructors; you could appoint a "student op," or have a TA do it. Ideally there would be short periods of explanation as necessary followed by open question-taking. (I figure that lecture or at least something vaguely approximating it can't be completely eliminated.)
2. Chat input window. This is where you type what you want to put into 1. which will be read and responded to by the instructor, probably verbally.
3. A bar for various options and the like, included to be somewhere fairly unobtrusive.
4. Note-taking. Auto-saves every ten or so seconds to a .rtf or similar file somewhere on the student's drives. Good for being able to jot something down on the fly, even if it may be used mostly to write down and compose questions in practice.
5. Find/replace etc. options for the word processor window.
6. Primary window; 7. secondary window
The default would have the instructor on a video camera on 6, with 7 used to display some relevant supplementary material, such as a powerpoint outline, a slide show of a more visual nature, or a whiteboard/oekaki style thing for allowing the teacher to make diagrams to answer questions on the fly. These could be reversed; for instance the teacher could appear in 7. while larger scale visuals or a movie (for a film class) appear in 6.
The teacher would have display control tools; it would be possible for them to access links provided to various content by students, or to materials they have on hand. They might be able to grant access to the "whiteboard" for students to draw an outline of what they mean, or to, for instance, indicate on a representational image which part is confusing them. Possibly there would be some sort of control mode which would go a bit like this (this being, essentially, the "prevent prankster student from drawing a penis on the whiteboard" mode):
1. Student is "called on," granted whiteboard privs
2. Student cues up image 7, which is a demonstration of the commutative property in algebra; circles sections that confuse her
3. Teacher looks at the circles and the explanation of them, authorizes display of the circled area.
4. Teacher explains issues.
In fact a "hand raise" system would probably be a good thing, perhaps with a twitter-esque field in which one can put in what you're raising your hand for -- "question re: comutative property" for instance, or "is it true geo washington was a mason?" or the like. Hand-raised students can elaborate, either aloud to the "class" or, if they prefer, directly to the teacher -- this may help those who have awkward questions or who don't want to have a speech impediment or accent picked fun of.
Ideally the teacher will then answer the question to the class as a whole (barring extremely short answers or questions to the effect of "can you go back to slide 12 for a moment").
Anyway, sessions would be recorded to disk and ideally placed up somewhere for viewing by those who couldn't make the session. I imagine everything involved in the class would be posted, excepting perhaps "Your instructor needs to go AFK for ten minutes due to a building fire drill," which could be edited over. Everything would be recorded, possibly excepting any private inquiries to the instructor; display could either be by video display of a representative "dummy screen" mode or else a literal, so to speak, log of everything that happened, which the software would simply play back. The former would probably actually be more useful.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Vocabulary Building: Part Une
Let us look first at the concepts of distance education and distance learning.
Well, Distance Learning is probably primary, because it is literally learning at a distance, but the two terms are more or less interchangeable; "distance education" is really more about formal coursework as opposed to simply learning about something through media (newspapers, TV) as opposed to personal experience (teachers, actually doing).
Historical research using that vaunted library of factoids, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education) has told me that the concept of distance education of actual lessons was first attested to in Boston in 1728. It was in shorthand, and so were later lessons. I think there is an interesting metaphor here, because these instructions were delivered largely by the postal system, and focused on shorthand, which was after all a method of data compression and encoding - a skill one could learn in order to write down words or events quickly and thus have a more efficiently gained written record.
Anyway, the core concept is that these courses are done through mostly pre-created materials distributed to the learner at a regular interval, and then presumably returned for marking. There is a concept which must be dealt with, however, which is NOT in our list! But Wikipedia once again comes to my rescue. This concept is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_distance
An interesting concept. I thought that it made a lot of sense and was easily digested once I had reframed it in terms of things I knew; basically, it refers to the 'cycle' of a communication and the necessity of the frequency of them. Dialogue, as mentioned, is a key part of this -- namely being able to ask a question and get a quick answer on a potentially minor tidbit.
Also important, though only briefly touched on in the Wikipedia definition, was "structure." I assume this meant framing the study so that various matters were presented in a logical order that tended to build on one another, and also perhaps making sure that the materials could be understood easily. The last part, learner motivation, could be increased but is to some extent beyond one's ready control.
The topics also came up of synchronous and asynchronous learning. I had encountered these terms before in discussions of communication. Conventional classroom instructions, and its various other forms listed, which focus on things which require attendance, so to speak, at a given time are compared to "asynchronous" technologies, which are something that one can approach at one's own pace and which do not revolve primarily around immediate communication. This certainly has the advantage of not requiring as much staffing.
I did find the listing of a message board as asynchronous, and internet radio as synchronous, to be a bit odd based on my idea of the matters, but I suppose it makes sense; internet radio is usually not "recorded" and then put up as a podcast (presumably the podcast would fall under the same heading as audiocassette, and thus, asynchronous) even if it is also not at all interactive, while message boards, while interactive -- you talk to others and get replies, possibly even quite quickly -- are not fundamentally so, and the wait could be more like hours or days.
At the same time this seems to imply that there needs to be a third category. Material such as pre-made web lessons or, to be a little more iconoclastic, "books" are clearly asynchronous, but does a web forum post thread have more in common with that or with direct linked contact (as in face to face or teleconferencing)? I would be inclined to say there's a third segment here, which I will call "demi-synchronous" for want of a better term, and which I will define as "those methods of communication and learning which involve feedback within a meaningful time frame, but not necessarily instantly." Examples would be "email office hours" and message boards that are rather rigorously monitored.
Well, Distance Learning is probably primary, because it is literally learning at a distance, but the two terms are more or less interchangeable; "distance education" is really more about formal coursework as opposed to simply learning about something through media (newspapers, TV) as opposed to personal experience (teachers, actually doing).
Historical research using that vaunted library of factoids, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education) has told me that the concept of distance education of actual lessons was first attested to in Boston in 1728. It was in shorthand, and so were later lessons. I think there is an interesting metaphor here, because these instructions were delivered largely by the postal system, and focused on shorthand, which was after all a method of data compression and encoding - a skill one could learn in order to write down words or events quickly and thus have a more efficiently gained written record.
Anyway, the core concept is that these courses are done through mostly pre-created materials distributed to the learner at a regular interval, and then presumably returned for marking. There is a concept which must be dealt with, however, which is NOT in our list! But Wikipedia once again comes to my rescue. This concept is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_distance
An interesting concept. I thought that it made a lot of sense and was easily digested once I had reframed it in terms of things I knew; basically, it refers to the 'cycle' of a communication and the necessity of the frequency of them. Dialogue, as mentioned, is a key part of this -- namely being able to ask a question and get a quick answer on a potentially minor tidbit.
Also important, though only briefly touched on in the Wikipedia definition, was "structure." I assume this meant framing the study so that various matters were presented in a logical order that tended to build on one another, and also perhaps making sure that the materials could be understood easily. The last part, learner motivation, could be increased but is to some extent beyond one's ready control.
The topics also came up of synchronous and asynchronous learning. I had encountered these terms before in discussions of communication. Conventional classroom instructions, and its various other forms listed, which focus on things which require attendance, so to speak, at a given time are compared to "asynchronous" technologies, which are something that one can approach at one's own pace and which do not revolve primarily around immediate communication. This certainly has the advantage of not requiring as much staffing.
I did find the listing of a message board as asynchronous, and internet radio as synchronous, to be a bit odd based on my idea of the matters, but I suppose it makes sense; internet radio is usually not "recorded" and then put up as a podcast (presumably the podcast would fall under the same heading as audiocassette, and thus, asynchronous) even if it is also not at all interactive, while message boards, while interactive -- you talk to others and get replies, possibly even quite quickly -- are not fundamentally so, and the wait could be more like hours or days.
At the same time this seems to imply that there needs to be a third category. Material such as pre-made web lessons or, to be a little more iconoclastic, "books" are clearly asynchronous, but does a web forum post thread have more in common with that or with direct linked contact (as in face to face or teleconferencing)? I would be inclined to say there's a third segment here, which I will call "demi-synchronous" for want of a better term, and which I will define as "those methods of communication and learning which involve feedback within a meaningful time frame, but not necessarily instantly." Examples would be "email office hours" and message boards that are rather rigorously monitored.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Responsa to Steve Hargadon
He's got a fun name to say. It's like a dinosaur or a fantasy warrior. "Beware! Hargadon draws near!" Anyway.
This is in reply to http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/03/web-20-is-future-of-education.html and is based on my thoughts about the trends he observes.
Trend #1: A new publishing revolution. This seems quite likely. We have a lot more ability to produce material now. I think as these things become more and more ubiquitous we will see them being more and more widely incorporated, although I expect there will be other effects - for instance, it will possibly be another pressure on or against minority languages, although I suppose it's equally possible that minority language speakers will simply make sure to adopt one of the other major tongues and keep their own mama-loshen, possibly leavening their use of English (or chinese or Russian or whatever) with that native language.
Trend #2: A tidal wave of content. I think this is true; when I read the comment threads of blogs I often see a lot of things.
Except that I don't think this is really information. So many of these are often cut from the same cookie cutter mold; in my case I tend to read the Huffington Post, and if I, to use a hoary old analogy, had a dollar for every time I'd seen a man produce the following post:
"Man, you all are just hating on $conservativeentity. You libs are hilarious, or would be, if you didn't make me sick." etc. etc.
I would probably be able to buy a new car. (Nota bene: I'm sure there are equally perpetual posting memes in other communities.)
Many people have a lot of things to say, but, this call to create content seems to be making it totemic. I am certainly, to use this very act I am engaging in as an analogy, learning about writing in a blog - though I was an early adopter of this thanks to livejournal - and it may well be very useful when I should perhaps later in life create a blog of my own. And yet, I don't feel that it fundamentally empowers me, and it doesn't grant me some new gift from the heavens to peer through a vast sea of repetitive goading comments.
Trend 3: Everything becoming participative. Yes - to an extent, I agree with him.
But then my relationship with books is different from his. I enjoy them, but generally speaking when I go to buy anything I am looking with some idea of what I already want. I do not go browsing for books to buy unless I should, say, get a bookstore gift card. That said, these factors provide information, information I have just never really thought to consult.
As for the Kindle, it has advantages, but so do the current version of books. When bookreaders are cheap enough that you can buy one for the same cost as a Gameboy or a textbook, and rugged and reliable enough that I can read one on the toilet or in the bathtub, then we can talk.
I do not think the electronic dialogue he describes is going to be productive without active moderation. I cite here two examples:
One is Roger Ebert's blog, which is directly maintained by Ebert himself. He goes through the threads and replies to people (as he wants, as he pleases; as he himself pointed out in a reply I read once, "On this blog I'm the boss.") People post the usual thing -- whenever he makes a political comment he is accused of the most perfidious of biases, whenever he makes a religious comment there is the usual churning argument over faith vs. reason etc. He replies to them.
The other is the Something Awful humor website's forum community, which is large and active and has many fields of endeavor. Many of these are dedicated to pursuits which appeal to the "goon" (as they dubbed themselves) community - for instance, private servers for online games, or discussion of those online games. And yet, in the "Ask/Tell" forum's section, a question about a new form of unusual shoe may sit next to "Tell me about nuclear power!", which will sit next to "Tell me about having children - A parenting megathread!" (Megathreads in this sense being a discussion thread that is not quite large enough to gain its own subforum.)
So how does this mess work? It's simple.
The forum is run as a small business by Rich Kyanka, the founder of the website. He has moderators, who I believe are community volunteers but are also possibly to some extent his employees. Individuals who misbehave are barred from posting for a while, and often verbally dressed down; those whose 'crimes' are more severe are banned, which is a strong disincentive as registering for the forums requires ten dollars. (Severe or repeat offenders may be "permabanned;" an individual who is merely banned may restore his account for ten dollars.)
While there are some bells and whistles that can be bought, essentially twenty dollars and not being a fool will gain lifetime access to this community. I think this is a model which may be able to expand outwards - or at least be looked at by other discussion matters.
Trend #4: The new "prosumer."
I like his concept here. I hate the word.
I think that for educational matters this could probably be useful, as a concept anyway, because individuals interested in, for instance, learning a foreign language might be able to share drills which they develop themselves and found especially useful. These tips and tricks could be shared around and put to a practical test, and further, the nature of the internet, where one can store large quantities of information fairly trivially (especially if it is simple still images and text), means that if - for instance - a man in Indiana's Japanese kanji drills are not terribly popular or useful for his classmates, they might be discovered, to great profit, by a class in South Korea two years later.
Trend #5: The age of the collaborator.
Maybe. Maybe.
Here is the thing that I believe Steve overlooks. (Other than the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago, at least in nearly all cultures in the world, a guy who can't digest milk, gets sunburned easily, and has a bum foot, would have been put to SOME use. Maybe his family come from PNG hunter-gatherer stock. I have no idea.)
His idea requires open and free communication and collaborative scholarship to be, I suppose I would say, be prone to finding the truth -- and I think it is quite possible for there to be an open and active and vibrant and energetic community dedicated, for instance, to proving that reality as we know it is in fact an illusion created by the Matrix, or that the September 11th attacks were done by the US government (or the Zionist Occupation Government), or that a certain race is in fact quantifiably superior.
And maybe this is an inevitable side effect... certainly, the fact that Mein Kampf was published on a printing press does not defame the printing press. However, it is possible for bad information, particularly if that bad information seems to fill a human emotional need or a prevailing prejudice better (and oh yes, we are all filled of prejudices; not all of them evil, either) to become "common knowledge." Chinese newspapers have cited The Onion, a comedy newspaper - multiple times. (I am sure American newspapers have done comparable things.)
And it may become ever increasingly possible to live in your own private sphere. It may even be inevitable, and it may well be that these possibilities, even if they come to fruition, will be well worth the costs they bear. But there WILL be costs in the change, as well as benefits.
I suppose then that as educators our greatest role is to teach, constantly in a thousand ways, the need to look at many views, to judge the use of evidence, and perhaps most pressingly, to teach people to seek the truth of the matter, or as close as they can get -- even if that truth may make them personally uncomfortable.
#6-10 later when it's not 5 AM! Isn't this exciting?!
This is in reply to http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/03/web-20-is-future-of-education.html and is based on my thoughts about the trends he observes.
Trend #1: A new publishing revolution. This seems quite likely. We have a lot more ability to produce material now. I think as these things become more and more ubiquitous we will see them being more and more widely incorporated, although I expect there will be other effects - for instance, it will possibly be another pressure on or against minority languages, although I suppose it's equally possible that minority language speakers will simply make sure to adopt one of the other major tongues and keep their own mama-loshen, possibly leavening their use of English (or chinese or Russian or whatever) with that native language.
Trend #2: A tidal wave of content. I think this is true; when I read the comment threads of blogs I often see a lot of things.
Except that I don't think this is really information. So many of these are often cut from the same cookie cutter mold; in my case I tend to read the Huffington Post, and if I, to use a hoary old analogy, had a dollar for every time I'd seen a man produce the following post:
"Man, you all are just hating on $conservativeentity. You libs are hilarious, or would be, if you didn't make me sick." etc. etc.
I would probably be able to buy a new car. (Nota bene: I'm sure there are equally perpetual posting memes in other communities.)
Many people have a lot of things to say, but, this call to create content seems to be making it totemic. I am certainly, to use this very act I am engaging in as an analogy, learning about writing in a blog - though I was an early adopter of this thanks to livejournal - and it may well be very useful when I should perhaps later in life create a blog of my own. And yet, I don't feel that it fundamentally empowers me, and it doesn't grant me some new gift from the heavens to peer through a vast sea of repetitive goading comments.
Trend 3: Everything becoming participative. Yes - to an extent, I agree with him.
But then my relationship with books is different from his. I enjoy them, but generally speaking when I go to buy anything I am looking with some idea of what I already want. I do not go browsing for books to buy unless I should, say, get a bookstore gift card. That said, these factors provide information, information I have just never really thought to consult.
As for the Kindle, it has advantages, but so do the current version of books. When bookreaders are cheap enough that you can buy one for the same cost as a Gameboy or a textbook, and rugged and reliable enough that I can read one on the toilet or in the bathtub, then we can talk.
I do not think the electronic dialogue he describes is going to be productive without active moderation. I cite here two examples:
One is Roger Ebert's blog, which is directly maintained by Ebert himself. He goes through the threads and replies to people (as he wants, as he pleases; as he himself pointed out in a reply I read once, "On this blog I'm the boss.") People post the usual thing -- whenever he makes a political comment he is accused of the most perfidious of biases, whenever he makes a religious comment there is the usual churning argument over faith vs. reason etc. He replies to them.
The other is the Something Awful humor website's forum community, which is large and active and has many fields of endeavor. Many of these are dedicated to pursuits which appeal to the "goon" (as they dubbed themselves) community - for instance, private servers for online games, or discussion of those online games. And yet, in the "Ask/Tell" forum's section, a question about a new form of unusual shoe may sit next to "Tell me about nuclear power!", which will sit next to "Tell me about having children - A parenting megathread!" (Megathreads in this sense being a discussion thread that is not quite large enough to gain its own subforum.)
So how does this mess work? It's simple.
The forum is run as a small business by Rich Kyanka, the founder of the website. He has moderators, who I believe are community volunteers but are also possibly to some extent his employees. Individuals who misbehave are barred from posting for a while, and often verbally dressed down; those whose 'crimes' are more severe are banned, which is a strong disincentive as registering for the forums requires ten dollars. (Severe or repeat offenders may be "permabanned;" an individual who is merely banned may restore his account for ten dollars.)
While there are some bells and whistles that can be bought, essentially twenty dollars and not being a fool will gain lifetime access to this community. I think this is a model which may be able to expand outwards - or at least be looked at by other discussion matters.
Trend #4: The new "prosumer."
I like his concept here. I hate the word.
I think that for educational matters this could probably be useful, as a concept anyway, because individuals interested in, for instance, learning a foreign language might be able to share drills which they develop themselves and found especially useful. These tips and tricks could be shared around and put to a practical test, and further, the nature of the internet, where one can store large quantities of information fairly trivially (especially if it is simple still images and text), means that if - for instance - a man in Indiana's Japanese kanji drills are not terribly popular or useful for his classmates, they might be discovered, to great profit, by a class in South Korea two years later.
Trend #5: The age of the collaborator.
Maybe. Maybe.
Here is the thing that I believe Steve overlooks. (Other than the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago, at least in nearly all cultures in the world, a guy who can't digest milk, gets sunburned easily, and has a bum foot, would have been put to SOME use. Maybe his family come from PNG hunter-gatherer stock. I have no idea.)
His idea requires open and free communication and collaborative scholarship to be, I suppose I would say, be prone to finding the truth -- and I think it is quite possible for there to be an open and active and vibrant and energetic community dedicated, for instance, to proving that reality as we know it is in fact an illusion created by the Matrix, or that the September 11th attacks were done by the US government (or the Zionist Occupation Government), or that a certain race is in fact quantifiably superior.
And maybe this is an inevitable side effect... certainly, the fact that Mein Kampf was published on a printing press does not defame the printing press. However, it is possible for bad information, particularly if that bad information seems to fill a human emotional need or a prevailing prejudice better (and oh yes, we are all filled of prejudices; not all of them evil, either) to become "common knowledge." Chinese newspapers have cited The Onion, a comedy newspaper - multiple times. (I am sure American newspapers have done comparable things.)
And it may become ever increasingly possible to live in your own private sphere. It may even be inevitable, and it may well be that these possibilities, even if they come to fruition, will be well worth the costs they bear. But there WILL be costs in the change, as well as benefits.
I suppose then that as educators our greatest role is to teach, constantly in a thousand ways, the need to look at many views, to judge the use of evidence, and perhaps most pressingly, to teach people to seek the truth of the matter, or as close as they can get -- even if that truth may make them personally uncomfortable.
#6-10 later when it's not 5 AM! Isn't this exciting?!
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