Internet

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Must be a sign that certain ideas buzz around networks at a similar time, prompting a wide array of thoughts and ideas. I posted my mind dump yesterday at a similar time that Terry Freedman was pondering his own questions.

Then this morning, I found that one of my very favourite online writers, Jennifer Jones, had posted her own querying and probing cogitations. I was trying to nail down what I personally thought a PLN was, but Jennifer was pulling the whole thing apart questioning the unwritten laws and conventions that seem to accompany such a concept. Some excerpts:

2.  I believe people learn all the time, and everywhere.  I don’t need to isolate or elevate a group of individuals to be my PLN.

9.  I know people who have no desire to blog. I know people who lack charisma. I know creative people, who don’t function well in this space.  They will be excluded, for not playing by the rules.  They don’t “get it.”

I'm looking forward to her next "thinking out loud" installment. I think it is really good when "givens" are questioned openly and potential meanings of a phrase like PLN fully interrogated.

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I watched this video with interest today:

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) from Erik Qualman on Vimeo.

I noted that Facebook now has a population that would place it third in the world were it a country. But there seems to a growing groundswell of discontent with savvy web users looking to delete their accounts amid cries for a more open alternative. (Thanks for the links, Warrick and Alex.)

I'm questioning my citizenship. It's not as if I would be missed. I don't play any games, I ignore every second friendship request, decline almost every other cause or invitation and don't post any photos. I joined so that I would have a working knowledge of this social media phenomenon. And an interesting world it is. I could get lost for hours linking from one friend list to another, future-gazing on how former students have made their way through life, seeing how old schoolmates have handled impending middle age and shaken my head at how naive and gullible so many younger kids are.

Maybe Facebook is redefining privacy. As one slogan might go, it is certainly "home of the brave" but I am not so sure that is "land of the free." Apparently, it is quite hard to renounce the Facebook homeland once you've been under its rule for any length of time.

I learn more about my online friends in my aggregator than I can ever get on a FB status update. Connecting on the open web - that's what I'm interested in. It might be time to move on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43993720@N02/4341585713/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43993720@N02/4341585713/

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I've got Leigh Blackall's retrospective screencast paused at the half way mark and I'm mulling over a few of his points. I've also been at a meeting together of the partner schools in my own system's Learning Technologies Project where we've been tossing around ways to ensure that what we've discovered in our documented journey over the last two years is able to used by DECS to ensure that learning enabled by technology is valued and integrated into the work that we do. I'll connect back to some of my thoughts about that meeting as I go and I'll add the preface that I'm thinking about Leigh's ideas and today's discussion from a very personal, what's-my-role-in-this-all point of view.

Leigh speaks about consciously avoiding using the institution's tools in order to take his learning and his network connections wherever he goes. His institution happens to be the University of Canberra, mine happens to be DECS but you could substitute any over-arching body that funds and directs your daily work in education. His first example is email and how being locked into the institution's email system compromises portability. People who use that system invest in it and when they move on, it is hard to take all of that built up digital history with them. The institution owns your email. The institution owns resources and initiatives developed by you whilst on their time or their domain. So, in a sense, my institution owns the professional me. But exactly how much? Where are the boundaries?

In the words of my principal, I am a user (of technology for learning!). When I go online and read blogs, leave comments, publish posts, respond in forums, create and share resources, I do so for my own learning first, and as an extension of my profession second. I want to be a better educator so naturally the lines between when I am doing something for my own personal betterment and when it can be beneficial for those who work alongside of me within my institution become somewhat hazy. I use tools that I sometimes bring back into my classroom. But I always start with the selfish premise of how can this tool / community / node / resource benefit me? In my mind, I strongly feel that this is my own stuff. My blog is my own content. My presentations that I develop for the audience reading here is my own content that I believe that I can share as I see fit. But it isn't totally clear cut. Because on that Slideshare account mixed in with my Blogging As Professional Learning and my OpenEducatorPLE, content created for an audience beyond my institution, are slideshows like iwb+literacy and my Blogging@School which were developed as part of my paid employment. Who owns what there?

I use GMail as a personal email account. I have an sa.edu.au account for school. Occasionally, I communicate with people about school related matters on my GMail. Does it matter? Is it a case of either an institution owning my email or a giant corporation?

And things get even blurrier when it comes to my students. When Leigh mentions students in his screencast, he is talking about adult learners for whom the barriers to use of free-ranging social media for learning are much lower. It makes perfect sense for them to want the portability of their own online spaces of their own choosing as they could (potentially) move between courses or even institutions. I work with primary school students. They have an email account for as long as they are students at my school. They leave - that account is retired and they no longer have access. We use Edublogs as a blogging platform and the process comes down to decisions that are grappled with at a local level as these blogs are hosted beyond the jurisdiction of the institution. The student leaves primary school and then what happens to the blog they have worked on for two years? I've tried to treat their blog to be their content as much as possible while still maintaining that duty of care via my role as administrator of all student blogs, through my moderation of comments and exerting of my teacherly authority in the maintenance of certain standards and purposes. So their ownership is not as pure as it would be in the higher education world. So my obligations handed down to me from my institution become a method for control of the use of an outside tool, even one hosted on the open web.

To wind this up (and you'll note that despite my promise in the first paragraph, I have not linked any of this back to today's meeting; that might the subject for another post) Leigh talks about operating as an autonomous independent from the institution. I concur, but it is not easy. We find that our ideals are constantly compromised by reality and that what I pursue as a private citizen is inevitably intertwined with my professional goals. It is hard to see where one ends and the other begins.

Just thought I'd point to a few things that I've found and enjoyed of late.

Went onto last.fm the other night to find out that what I thought was a free service is actually a limited trial. Saw a new station on there for the band Angels And Airwaves and had a quick listen before realising that this band was former Blink 182 front man Tom De Longe's current main musical project. I can sort of relate to the way that DeLonge started off making his mark in, well, the making of some pretty immature music content and concept wise (I still enjoyed it) and now as he's heading into his mid thirties is more interested in "creating positive music that he hoped would inspire kids to make a difference." Sounds like a late maturer - and I can definitely relate to that.

Anyway, following the lead of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, the new Angels And Airwaves album "LOVE" is now available as a free download. If the music is to your taste, then it's nice to see another quality band trying to shake up the traditional music distribution model.

This album is free for you. If you like it and want to put some money towards it, we would be grateful for your support. In fact, as our way of saying thanks, we'll give you an exclusive song remixed by Mark Hoppus of blink-182!
If you don't want - or aren't able - to contribute, then please accept the album free of any charge.
You don't even have to give us your email address.

In class, we are looking to sharpen up our apostrophe usage and I'm loathe to critique the students' own errors in a public way to learn the differences between omission and possession. Thankfully, there are a few very useful web based resources that any teacher can use with their students - starting with the Grocer's Apostrophe Flickr Pool. Back this up with some savvy blogs (apostrophism, Apostrophe Catastrophes and my personal favourite Apostrophe Abuse) jam packed with real life boo-boos and laced with snappy, sarcastic one liners and apostrophes can be a lot of fun to tangle with.

http://www.apostrophecatastrophes.com/2010/03/not-britains-leading-experts-on.html

http://www.apostrophecatastrophes.com/2010/03/not-britains-leading-experts-on.html

So, in the absence of any insightful blog posts, I humbly share these offerings. And I hope that I haven't allowed any errant apostrophes into the place.

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I work three days a week in a primary classroom. So, theoretically, I am in a good position for putting edtech and Web 2.0 idealism into a realistic roadtest situation. I don't stand behind podiums at conferences berating and exhorting the masses to bring their classroom into the digital world. I don't have influential push (or pull) within my own system - and I'm not sure what I'd be suggesting even if I did. But I have invested an enormous amount of my life over the past four years into this networked learning thing. If anything, I have a lot of digital runs on the board. Heh, the Geoffrey Boycott ¹ of edublogging. That could be me.

So, I feel that my personal benefit has been enormous. I connect with a wide array of educators who feed me a daily diet of inspiration, insight and practical resources. I have become more aware of how education systems work in various parts of the world. I've had the opportunity to meet some of the most interesting people that I've come across in my lifetime - some I've conversed with on Skype and in Elluminate and Adobe Connect or just the comments sections of blogs. My network connections have given me opportunity to present about my experiences at conferences and online events, and I've learned about connectivism, social media, gained a more balanced view about cybersafety issues and heard about Illich, Gatto and Postman for the first time.

I couldn't give up my Network now - it gives too much to me.

But I work in a role where I'm meant to be bringing the "good oil" to teachers, helping them to get their feet wet in technology use and showing them how the web can transform student learning. It is a role that sets me up as some sort of "expert" which can be a problem in a couple of ways.

Firstly, Darren Kuropatwa points out in his reference to neophytes that "Experts have a different aura about them. That aura of expertise is intimidating for neophytes." His basic premise is that any message that an educator with "expert" status might try to seed with his or her own colleagues will be perceived to be unattainable and beyond their reach. So all of my efforts to highlight how easy digital tools are and how empowering technology can be via workshops, team teaching and other training could actually be unproductive.

Dean Groom also talks about the burbclave effect - where teachers don't have to go and become innovative users of technology because if they have one connected educator on staff, they just have to wait until it is brought to them. It's the effect when staff say they can't use their IWB until they've had some training, where they wait for a list of good numeracy websites to be emailed to them (or given to them on a printed piece of A4) or wait until they are given release time for planning before they will even look at something like the ISTE Standards.

Ironically that while someone like me may well be viewed as somewhat of a local expert, the educators I connect to and learn from leave me feeling very neophytic indeed. When I measure myself globally, my local credentials shrink down to small proportions.

The building of your own social media network is such a personal journey that it is a very difficult beast to describe in such a way that non-web-savvy educators see the point. It's why I won't ever bother offering a Web 2.o / PLN / using social media to learn presentation or workshop ever again. I'll guarantee that no-one has ever been turned onto blogging based on anything I've ever said or wrote - its value is intrinsically linked to the individual's needs. If a teacher is not interested in exploring the internet on his or her own time, then they are never going to see where this could take them or how it could impact their classroom.

Which brings me to my next point. Many of us edubloggers assume that what we learn online is directly transferable into our classrooms. We also assume that if more educators did what we did (read, write, link, share, create) then we would end up with these amazing transformed classrooms. So, we spend time preaching the benefit of social media tools even though there is no one simple recipe, even though this networked learning thing is intensely personal and damn near impossible to replicate.

I keep wondering if the time spent to become proficient in the online world (note I wrote proficient, not expert!) is worth the investment in potentially transformed pedagogy in the classroom. I have spent many hours online, eschewing television and other possible hobbies, and I know that many, many of my colleagues are not prepared to invest the same amounts of time into this medium. I know that my investment is worthwhile - for me. But I struggle to see how social media can transform the primary school classroom. There are so many compromises that need to be made in the name of online safety and duty of care, barriers in terms of computer access and the pressure of the traditional curriculum that I can see why so many teachers wait to be told what to do in terms of technology use, rather than take the risks involved with being an innovator.

I think my next step is examine my own classroom practice to see what has changed in my approach since becoming connected back in 2005. I suspect that the process is so gradual that I may find it difficult to recall my former practice with any accuracy. And if I, the enthused educator playing with connected technologies in my spare time, can take so long to work out what can translate into today's classroom, what hope does a less enthusiastic teacher have of bridging the gap of digital possibilities?

Just thinking, that's all.

walk2web

¹. The metaphoric comparison may be lost on any non-Commonwealth non-cricket playing readers. Geoffrey Boycott's career was characterised by lengthy stints at the batting crease, accumulating runs at an extremely slow rate often to the frustration of both the opposition and his team mates. Certainly not as talented as others in his era, his dogged style meant that he hung around for a long time in a somewhat selfish manner.
2. The really cool visualisation of links out from my blog comes from walk2web.

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One of the biggest challenge of my position as leader in the use of ICT in the classroom is reaching back and offering a helping hand to those who are not as confident and sure in the use of tools like laptops and IWBs in their classroom. It is easier to share with those in the near vicinity, the ones who are prepared to join the staff Ning or plan on a wiki, leaving others to languish. Even though Mark Treadwell's message of not leaving kids to wander through the internet wilderness and teachers actively searching and bundling the relevant resources for their students to use is accepted as school practice, we have students who are left to Google for themselves because their teacher trusts in their digital native skills. So, this week on the advice of my principal, I crafted this tactful email out to staff in an effort to get everyone back on the same page.

Hi folks,
I don't know about you but I am amazed at the power of Google as a tool for searching the internet. It takes very little effort to get a result BUT does take some skills in search terms and background knowledge to get meaningful results. So, when we set our students a web based task, we have to take on board the research that Mark Treadwell cited for us earlier in the year. We need to be guiding our students to appropriate content and resources. I've attached a small poster that might help guide your thinking.

If you think of a metaphor that your class is a tour bus heading into the unexplored world of cyberspace, who should be at the wheel? Who should be determining the destination and the relevant sights (sites!!) along the way? Should the kids really be at the wheel?

So, consider the use of Expert hotlists - here's one from a Teacher-Librarian <http://teachers.ash.org.au/suel/default.htm> and another <http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jmresources/>. See Rosie (our teacher-librarian) as well, or search the edna teacher resource database <http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/resources> .

Don't forget delicious.com both for finding resources, and bundling your sites for student use together with tags.

Use your own Google skills to locate sites and resources for the class - use Advanced Search, become familiar with a site like <http://www.googleguide.com/> so that you become more efficient in your own Google use.

If you absolutely must have students doing their own searching, consider one designed for students. I have four that I have personally used tagged here - <http://delicious.com/wegner/studentsearching> - KidsClick, Ask Kids, Quintura and for upper primary kids, Boolify.

We must also consider copyright issues so grabbing images from a Google image search is a no-no, because students invariably save the low grade thumbnail image (looks terrible when enlarged) or grab the first thing they see. With our new filtering system, teachers can access the Flickr Creative Commons section and save images that are of a superior quality, with less restrictive licensing than copyright images on the web.<http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/>

Kids don't develop effective information literacy skills on their own - it is up to us to ensure that we follow good practice in this area.

Sorry, this was such a long email - it has taken on a life of its own.

Cheers,
Graham.

Picture 5

Sometimes, the best way to reach folks is by using old fashioned tools like email.

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It's my birthday today. I'm 43.

You'd think that I could make up my own mind about things by now but I'm as easily influenced as I ever was. Except now my influences seep in through digital connection as much as face to face.

I went down and upgraded my mobile phone today at the Allphones store at our local shopping centre. I went with a new iPhone on my old plan which turned out to be a good deal as it includes a monthly data allowance of 1G which my old plan didn't have. My choice was heavily influenced by the numerous educators that I have read praising the iPhone as a device. I read in detail on this forum too about some of the issues that I might face with my carrier (3) after a warning tweet from Dean Groom. His past experiences led me to a greater understanding of roaming networks and whether my new upgrade would be a decent deal.

Consider my network as a pretty big influence in that decision. It's also the reason I plan to purchase and salary sacrifice a Mac laptop later in the term. I no longer have to rely on the salesman's pitch - I can gather intelligence from users already using the products I am interested in. I even tweeted a request out to ascertain the need for the Apple Protection Plan and got useful advice from Rachel Boyd, Isaak Kwok and Paul Luke.

Then tonight I watched the first episode of a DVD set that was my birthday gift, purchased way back in March. (A$13.99 a Season, good value.) The series is "The Wire" which I've never seen on Australian television but came higly recommended from another node in my network. Thanks, Dan.

Maybe somewhere my own bits of digital content help to influence and shape other people's choices in a positive way. Wisdom of the crowd, indeed.

dy/av : 006 : carver's classroom management from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

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My interest was captured by this reference from Stephen Downes to a Christoper Sessums' post where Christopher related a fascinating tale about an intriguing twitter exchange with Don Tapscott. I'm not so much interested in the controversy of this 140 character word swap as the simple statement Don gave to Chris in one of his tweets - "... Google me. Don Tapscott..."

I'm still not sure who or where I first heard the idea of offering a Google search of one's name as a form of presence and credibility - it was either Leigh Blackall or Alexander Hayes who suggested that their perfect business card would simply have their online blended lowercase name (google:leighblackall OR google:alexanderhayes) on it. The free ranger vs the DIY domain guru - where does Christopher's nemesis fit?

Or is just a good example of Will Richardson's clickability?