What I've Learned About Ed Tech from Open Source Software

(Cross-posted from TechLearning)

After my first post to TechLearning two weeks ago, I've had more and more time to think about the basic idea which had formed in my mind and which was expressed in that post: that the new technologies of the Web will have a greater impact in driving educational change than pedagogies will. A good comment dialog at TechLearning, on here, and by the ever-thoughtful Glenn Moses have challenged my thinking and helped me to better understand why I have come to this conclusion--and it turns out, many of my opinions (an my ultimate optimism) have been greatly influenced by my experiences with Open Source Software and education.

I've spent the last four years as something of an Open Source Software (OSS) evangelist to schools, and I'd like to propose that the reaction of the educational technology community to OSS might be helpful in some understanding of what the role of technology in education has been, why schools find it difficult to change, and how and why change occurs when it does.

I've run the Open Source lab areas and speaker series for the CUE and NECC shows for the last three years, and am the director of CoSN's K-12 Open Technologies initiative. At pretty much any ed tech show I go to, I live in an Open Source bubble, spending most every waking moment discussing Open Source Software and its progeny, the open technologies of the Web. The number one lesson I've learned from that work is that there is typically a huge gulf between those who are responsible for acquiring and maintaining computer equipment, and those who are expected to use that technology to teach. It's one thing to keep computers working, available, and virus-free, and quite another to actually figure out how to use them for teaching purposes. While there are organizations that do a good job bridging that gulf (the technology curricular specialists like Laura Taylor in Indiana or Marci Hull at SLA in Philadelphia), I quickly came to see how separate the two worlds are.

This has been confusing to Linux and OSS advocates for years. In a world without marketing budgets, they have been accustomed to being able to slowly turn the tide on proprietary software through a personal and grass-roots "conversion" process where success depends on discussing the virtues of OSS and working individually with folks who then become part of the "team." So, of course, these evangelists have typically gone straight to the teachers--those poor, overworked, and really-without-decision-making-influence teachers--thinking that the teachers would understand the virtues of OSS, would start using it, and then schools would adopt it in a widespread movement of educational liberation. Little have the evangelists realized how separated those teachers actually are from being able to have an impact on the corporate-like decision-making on educational technology.

Until I understood this division, it doesn't make sense to me that schools wouldn't immediately adopt OSS. The fundamental principles of the Free and Open Source Software movements (I'll link to Wikipedia to spare the tempting history lesson) are in such harmony with the ideals of education that one would imagine an wonderful synergy as students and teachers learn the values of sharing, collaboration, and intellectual freedom inherent in the use of OSS. Schools would immediately save thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on software licensing fees, could put old computers to reuse, could build high-powered computing clusters, and could have students learning and helping to build many of the most prominent software programs of the new millennium through open code in an apprenticeship model. Indeed, the vocational opportunities alone would be so seriously and significantly better were there such an adoption by schools of OSS that one can only come to the conclusion that pedagogy does not drive technology adoption in most schools, it is rather the marketing and selling of technology that drives technology adoption.

My understanding why schools find it so hard to change actually comes out of watching the successful adoption of certain OSS programs. No matter when we've held a conference session in the last three years on the Open Source e-learning program Moodle (even if it's the least session of the last day, when most people have already cut out to catch flights or make it home that day) we are always "standing room only." It's pretty amazing. Moodle has done more for raising awareness of OSS than any other program that I know. It wasn't until this year's K12 Open Minds Conference in Indiana, when a world-wide panel of Open Source experts was gathered for a pre-conference brainstorm session, that it suddenly became clear to our group that the adoption of Moodle by schools actually demonstrates a pattern for Open Source adoption in education (and likely everywhere else) that had not been clearly articulated before: by and large, OSS programs are adopted by schools when they are "non-displacing," that is, when the OSS program is not displacing or replacing another program. One might remark that Moodle is displacing proprietary competitors (Blackboard, for instance), but most schools looking at Moodle can't even consider the cost of Blackboard, so in effect, Moodle is adopted because it is not replacing or competing with any another program.

This lesson is significant, and it's not exclusive to schools by any means. When a software program has been installed and in use, and when training programs have been held, templates built, lesson plans made, and routines established, it would take a HUGE increase in benefit to switch from one program to another. As long as OSS programs merely duplicate existing programs, no matter how much money might be saved, or how much "freedom" and collaboration encouraged, it really doesn't make sense from an administrative standpoint to switch programs. While there may be some notable exceptions (I'm thinking of Randy Orwin at Bainbridge Island School District, who made an agreement with the teachers that if they would switch to the OSS Office program OpenOffice.org, he would use the savings in licensing to run professional development workshops in the summer), they are exceptions. For most people, the cost of making the switch would seem to outweigh the benefits--again, I believe, because the pedagogy is not the driving factor.

For Open Source folks, this means that while we might be thinking that the adoption of Moodle and other OSS programs in schools reflects a pedagogical drive, it most likely reflects a market condition. And if my over-simplification of the dynamics of educational technology has any truth to it, it helps to explain the history of computer adoption in schools and give us an understanding of why it is that the computer has not actually transformed education--because the implementing of computer technology is largely driven by practical, and not pedagogical, concerns. In fact, it now seems quite understandable that most folks look at the money that has been spent on computers in schools and would say that we have been "oversold" on technology (hat nod to Larry Cuban) at the expense of other important academic or extra-curricular programs. The computer, most of my neighbors would say, has not transformed education, nor do they expect it to at this point. And while this may not appear to be great news for educational technology or for Open Source, I am actually very optimistic.

Here's why: In an interesting twist, once OSS does find its way into education through providing a non-displacing functionality, it often brings with it changes in pedagogy. In my experience, teachers in school who are using Moodle largely report a change in their teaching styles because of the collaborative and constructivist elements that are "baked into" Moodle as a part of its Open Source heritage. One of our European guests at the Indiana conference indicated that in his experience it takes three or four years after implementation of OSS programs for educators to even begin to understand what "Open Source" actually means and why it is beneficial--but they do begin to understand.

Web 2.0 technologies also have a collaborative revolution "baked into" them, and because their use is so dramatically different than traditional uses of the computer, they are almost all "non-displacing." I don't believe their adoption will be constrained in the same way that OSS has. Even the programs that have strong legacies of traditional functionality--like collaborative documents--are still so different than what we are used to using in schools that I don't believe they will face same practical hurdles to adoption that OSS programs have faced. Of course, they have their own battles to fight--mostly on the safety and liability issues--but they represent such a radical culture shift in the creation of content that I don't believe it will be possible for schools to ignore the transformations that are taking place in how we learn, collaborate, and connect on the web right now. These technologies will be brought into education, and they will bring with them in their wake the pedagogical pedigree and heritage of the Free and Open Source software movement which helped to build them--a culture of contribution, with amazing new opportunities for teaching and learning.

It's the Technology, Stupid...

(Cross-posted from http://www.techlearning.com)

OK, I don't even let my own kids use the word "stupid" around the house (if my 9-year old says that someone used the "s"-word, she means "stupid"), but for those of us who remember the 1992 presidential campaign, the phrase reminds us of the importance of focusing on what really matters.

For the last year or two, I've been in an internal dilemma over the importance of technology versus pedagogy, and I think I've just reached a breaking point. There is just no question in my mind now that we are witnessing the initial phases of a social, cultural, and scientific change that will rival--and likely eclipse--the advent of the printing press. And it is not because of the pedagogy. While this change confirms some core beliefs that many of us have with regard to teaching and learning, and reopens the door to implementing them, the cause of this dramatic change is technological, specifically the read/write Web (or Web 2.0). It is the use of the Web as a contributor as much as a consumer of information.

Last week I was in Denver, attending a KnowledgeWorks Foundation small-group brainstorm "Re-imagining Teaching for the Future." Through a series of exercises intended to construct scenarios about future forces that would affect the roles of teachers, we tried to imagine what teaching and learning will be like in 10 - 15 years. I suggested that the depth of integration of technology into formal education would be a significant factor in teachers' roles, but was told that in this particular kind of scenario building, that technology is almost never considered a critical force, because it can be assumed it will be adopted.

I beg to differ. I'm not sure we can make that assumption. Mike Huffman from Indiana calculated that his state had spent a billion dollars on computer technology over ten years, with the less-that-stunning result that each student had access to a computer for 35 minutes a week. Using a bottom-line approach to computing, with the goal of actual classroom and curricular integration, Mike and his colleague Laura Taylor have been helping to provide low-cost immersive computing in Indiana--but I get the feeling they still fight every day to keep their program. Our inability in our own small worlds to see the larger picture of dramatic change taking place because of the Internet and the read/write Web threatens to keep us on a path of continuing to see computers as an accessory in the classroom. I'm personally not convinced that schools are ready to adopt the computer as the new learning medium. They should, however, and the longer it takes us to recognize this important reality, the more we will wonder why we didn't act sooner.

I'm unsuccessfully trying to remind myself to be patient. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the blog (see CelebrateBlogging.com). It's actually the 10th anniversary of the word "weblog," as there have been forms of communication that were blog-like that preceded that day in 1997 when Jorn Barger coined the word. However, I think we can all agree that the blog has only recently burst upon our collective consciousness, and many of the other Web 2.0 tools can only be categorized as being in their infancy. But for anyone participating in Twitter, or Ning Networks, or any of a hundred other social technologies that create dialog and conversation, there is an amazing sense that we are in the middle of something of huge human significance. Ten years may not be that long, but if we have to go through ten more years of debating the value of computers in education, we're in trouble.

Yesterday I interviewed Lindsea (16), Sean (16), and Kevin (17), three of the youth bloggers who have started Students 2.0 (see David Jakes recent post). Sean was in Scotland, Lindsea in Hawaii, and Kevin in Illinois--all on Skype. I've posted the 25 minute interview on my EdTechLive.com site (along with a previous one by "Arthus" that generated quite a comment firestorm at InfiniteThinking.org), and it's well worth the listen; but here I'm fascinated by the role of technology, in this case, in promoting student voices and their perspective on education.

From Sean: "What's happened over the past few years, and in society, with technology and the web becoming a lot more important, I'd say that the stuff I'm doing at home [rather than at school] is right now a bit more relevant, in terms of the skills I will need later in life.... At the stage at which we are at school, I would say that we are not dumb, we've matured a bit, and I think we should have some form of say in what's happening... "

From Kevin: "It's an interesting model, the way school continues to operate, as opposed to the infinitely more learning that we can do outside of the classroom... I think that technology is a very important part of education today, and because of that the shift from the traditional student-teacher model is creating a whole bunch of new possibilities. The web is not the only method by which that will happen, but it is a very important one as well... At the core of everything else, all the technology usage, it's all about creating learners, not just students who are able to interpret the facts that the teachers just preach to them in the classroom... There are 300 - 400 teachers in my school district, maybe only a a handful, I can probably count on one hand, who actually read blogs, let alone write them." -Kevin, 17 years old, Illinois, USA

(Lindsea had less to say because she had to leave the interview early to get to class. She was on a world-wide Skype interview from her computer at school, cool as a cucumber, with all of the noise of a school campus in the background.)

Kids like Kevin and Lindsea and Sean are flying metaphorical jet planes overhead, while we're largely using computers in schools as the equivalent of earth-bound tricycles. And then we're wondering why the computer hasn't transformed or improved education. As Connie Weber has written about an encounter with another teacher in an amazing series of notes about the evolution of her homeroom class, "I got the feeling she thinks 'computers' are a 'subject' and that there should be a lesson on 'computer use' with a beginning, a middle, and an end, then perhaps a test on topic coverage. Oh dear." (Connie's candid notes about her journey into a new paradigm of teaching that started with a social network for her class are on my must-read list for anyone interested in the future of education and learning.)

For some reason that my wife has never understood, I saved every paper I wrote in high school and college. They are still in a box in my attic. "Why?" my wife keeps asking. In my heart, I think I know why. Because I had something significant to say, and I could never bear to throw them away because I never really felt that what I had to say was heard. (Chalk one up to profound insights while blogging.) Most of them only had one other reader than me: my teacher at the time. When our youth write today, their audience can be so much broader and so much more real. It may not be a huge audience, but even if it's a few others scattered around the country or the globe, their writing is much more about communicating effectively with others than mine was. As content producers as well as consumers, their relationship with information is so much richer than mine ever was at their age. I don't want my children to be attic-box writers. I want them passionately, actively engaged in learning and communicating--like they are more and more in their use of the Web, which takes place largely outside of any formal educational setting.

Do I feel shy about advocating increased use of technology in education because of curricular, administrative, teaching, safety, and financial impediments to adoption? Yes, a little. But when I re-frame the context, and ask if I am willing to devote my passion and energy to a complete rethinking of education in light of the impending read/write renaissance brought about by the Internet, it's an unqualified yes. Bring on the revolution.

The Solution to Information Overload

Edward Abbey is quoted as having said, “The best cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”

In this world of blogs, wikis, social networking, RSS, and Twitter, I'd like to appropriate the phrasing and say that: the answer to information or content overload is... to create more content.

Why is that? Because in the act of creation, our relationship with information changes. In becoming a producer as well as a consumer, we start to ride the beast instead of just being dragged along by it.

There is no stopping information. The explosion we have seen will pale in comparison, I believe, to what is coming. And being part of its creation will give us both meaning and context.

Celebrating Educational Blogging

On December 17th, 2007 (according to Wikipedia) the phrase "weblog" will celebrate its 10th birthday.

A growing body of educators believe that blogging, as one of the great entry points into the "read/write" web (or "Web 2.0"), is having a transformative impact on education and learning, and that we are at the start of a new cultural and scientific renaissance that will be defined by the participatory, contributive, and collaborative nature of the Web.

Please share your ideas, stories, support, or celebration for the blog in education at http://www.CelebrateBlogging.com, or add your voice here below:




To add your comments, click on the "record" or "type" buttons. (Don't worry--you can practice, erase, or re-record during the process. Clicking the record button does not lock you in!) If you want to leave a video message, you can do so using the buttons with the camera icon. To use a telephone to call in your message, click on the button with the phone icon. To "doodle" on the map, click on the "doodler" (circle surrounded by smaller circles) that shows up once you start recording!

To link directly to the Celebrate Blogging "VoiceThread," you can use the URL http://voicethread.com/share/33484

To put the Celebrate Blogging VoiceThread on your site or blog (large version), use the following embed code:
<object width="800" height="600"><param name="movie" value="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=33484"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=33484" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="800" height="600"></embed></object>

To put the Celebrate Blogging VoiceThread on your site or blog (smaller version), use the following embed code:
<object width="480" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=33484"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=33484" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="480" height="360"></embed></object>

To put the Celebrate Blogging VoiceThread on MySpace:
<embed src="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=33484" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="800" height="600"></embed>

Google Announces Open Source Contest for High School Students

You're going to have to excuse me for gushing, but Google continues to win my loyalty because of their just plain willingness to work on good things. There hasn't been this much commitment to a "way" of being since two other guys built a company out of a Bay Area garage.

Yesterday Google announce their "Highly Open Participation Contest," a follow-on to their amazing "Summer of Code" program for college students--but this time for high school or "pre-university" students. From their announcement on the Google Code blog they described their "new effort to get pre-university students involved in all aspects of open source development, from fixing bugs to writing documentation and doing user experience research:"

While we're very excited about many aspects of the contest, the best part is that everyone can participate. Contestants must meet the eligibility requirements, but anyone interested in helping out can simply suggest a task to be included in the contest. Our contestants have a chance to win t-shirts, cash prizes, and a visit the Googleplex for a day of technical talks, delicious food and a photo with our very own Stan T. Rex.

Want to learn more? Check out the contest FAQs and tell your favorite pre-college students to pick a task or two to complete. You can always visit our discussion group to get help or share your thoughts.

I've been talking about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in K12 schools for a few years now, and it has been disappointing to me that so few of the individuals or companies committed to FOSS or benefiting from it seemed to be interested in helping promote its use for educational purposes in K-12 schools. I'll frequently ask my audiences of educational technologists why Apache, MySQL, PHP, and/or Python--all current building blocks of the Web, and which can be obtained for free and run on older computers--aren't being taught in schools. You'd be amazed at the answers, from the understandable "they don't have a marketing or support budget" to the fascinating "if we knew how to use them we'd be working for a Silicon Valley company" (not sure that's very representative, but it has been said). Given the choice to either teach "Free" programs that don't require high-end hardware (and that are likely to lead to actual employment if wanted), or to teach expensive, proprietary programs that require faster computers (and that don't often build employable skills), I'm always surprised at how little FOSS is taught in schools.

It's also interesting to note that many of the Free and Open Source programmers I've talked with in my EdTechLive audio interview series got started programming in their early teens. I don't think that's unusual, and I think we often forget how significantly engaged a young person can be. So, some major kudos to Google for starting this program. Now, the next step will be to see if we can get the students to come and present at next year's K12 Open Minds conference!

Classroom 2.0 and the 2007 Edublog Awards

The 2007 Edublog Award finalists have been announced, and the list (with descriptions) can be found here. As we might have hoped, Classroom 2.0 is one of the finalists in the category of "best educational use of a social networking service." :) The list of all the nominees is well worth reviewing.

The final awards are tabulated from the voting which anyone can do by clicking through the individual categories. The link for voting for social networking is here. Because the winner is tabulated from the votes, I almost feel sheepish encouraging voting for CR 2.0, since the other sites are most worthy, but don't have nearly the membership that we do.

On the other hand, CR 2.0 exists to help introduce the tools of Web 2.0 and social networking to educators, and winning would be a good way to continue the exposure to the tremendous resource of all those who contribute here. So, I say, vote!

"Kindled" a Headache, That's What...

Just the inability to keep all of the thoughts in my head as I read about Amazon's new Kindle book reader is giving me a headache.... Yes, I think Kindle might just kindle a revolution.

I get all the positives, including the brilliant wireless thing. And I understand the shortcomings. I don't really care about any of that, or the current state of the product. It's that I have this gut feeling (like when I first started using an iPhone) of the incredible potential of this device to be part of the dramatic transformation of our experience with the written word. An experience that I think it going to change in some incredible ways.

Imagine making notes on a passage in an electronic book, and having those notes available to others--including the author, who can respond and make real-time updates to the material. Imagine being able to join in an engaged dialog with community of concurrent readers in a forum, while you are actually reading a book. Imagine being able to drill down through hyperlinks to resources and references in real time, and being able to add your own and to see those of other readers.

I know that none of this is actually a part of the Kindle, but I can see it coming. I can see our experience of reading turning from a relatively passive act into an active collaborative experience. I'm not quite sure how we'll get there from here, but I believe the end result will be so dramatic that it will inevitably draw us to it. Like it's part of our human destiny.

Thinking of an adoption path, I'll tell you what I'd be willing to buy right away that might get us there quicker: a similar device with Google Reader on it. I'm not sure how I feel about spending $400 to then have to pay for each book I download, but I'd come darn close to spending that much to have handy, small, long-battery-life, wireless access to my aggregated feeds (which are free!) and would be great to be able to read no matter where I was. (Speaking of which, why isn't there a standardized way way to see and respond to comments so that this functionality could be added to our aggregators?) Add a few bells and whistles--including Kindle's SD slot to bring over audio content for listening--and I've got a brand new learning device I'd keep with me all the time.

A Great Customer Experience with Eye-Fi Card

Eye-Fi announced their SD wireless card recently, and I just knew I was going to have to buy one.  My love affair with the iPhone is to some degree related to the easy ability to take a quality photo and directly send it to Flickr.  The Eye-Fi promised even more--used with your regular digital camera, this 2GB SD card will automatically send your photos to the online photo sharing service of your choice through any accessible wi-fi connection.

So, it's actually even better than that.  You know it's a good sign when you open up a package and there is a candy inside.  No kidding.

And the customer experience starts out with some really snazzy packaging that is even hard to describe.  The box work like a pop-up book, and when you pull on the tab to reveal the very nice glossy, folded instruction book, a drawer with the SD card and it's USB adapter pop out the other side.  Not only are the instructions easy and clear, but the whole look and feel is very, very professional.  For some reason, with a new product and a new product concept, I expected a little of the "still in manufacturing stages" feel.  This packaging rivals something Apple would do.

Set up is a piece of cake.  Mac or Windows users just plug the USB adapter with the SD card into your computer, and a small software program is downloaded that takes you through selecting your local wireless connection(s) and selecting the online storage system you want to automatically upload your photos to.  (You pre-determine the privacy and other settings for the online service.)  Since my home wireless network is MAC-address protected, I knew Eye-Fi wouldn't be able to make the connection right off the bat--which it couldn't, but then immediately produced a pop-up message giving me the MAC address for me to enter into my wireless router configuration. 

They've clearly thought a lot about the user interface and interaction, which becomes clear when you turn off the camera before a photo can be fully transfered.  If you got to your history screen at this point, it shows you the percentage of the photo that did make it, and let's you know that the next time your camera is turned on and in range, the upload will finish.  And that small program you load for configuration does some other magic:  you can also define a directory on your computers local drive where the photos will be stored as well as, or in place of, being stored online.  I had to think about this before I could figure out how it was done, since there is not necessarily a wireless connection between the Eye-Fi and the computer you use.  What happens is that the SD card sends the photo to an intermediary server at Eye-Fi, which then transfers it to your online service.  At the same time, the Eye-Fi program on your computer petitions that server for any new photos on some regular basis, and then downloads them to the directory you have established. 

So, in practical terms, here is what happens.  You take a picture with your digital camera, and as soon as you are in range of an identified wi-fi connection, your photo appears in your online service and on the PC of your choice.  Amazing.  Aside from saving all that time manually transferring photos, I can see this being a fantastic way to create a running update for others at a conference or while on vacation.

Great Computer Program for Immigrant Families

This is Larry Ferlazzo. He and I met yesterday to talk about the fascinating, and effective, program he has overseen at Luther Burbank High School where they have provided computers and Internet access to almost 50 immigrant families. It just so turned out that the Sacramento Bee has profiled his program this morning:

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/489709.html (requires free registration).

Larry's program is amazing, and largely centers of an agreement by the family members to use the computer for a certain number of hours to access some of the 8,000 sites he has organized for the learning of English. The results, he says, are measurable and significant, and because of this he expects the program to continue to get recognition and grow. (Larry is the grand prize winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award for Reading and Technology. See http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=193401813)

Since Larry's program is solely web-based, he and I brainstormed the opportunity to duplicate the results without some of the same expenses that his district has to incur because of their contracting procedures. We guessed that comparable success could be achieved for about 1/4 the cost by using refurbished computers and Linux/Firefox--and at the same time building a small jobs and recycling program. Talk about a win-win-win for a city. Now, this is a project I could really get excited about.

Way to go, Larry!

EdubloggerCon 2008: The Collaborative Conferences

Last year's EduBloggerCon in Atlanta, the all-day meet-up of educational bloggers, was a really fun event. EduBloggerCon and the NECC "Bloggers Cafe" were watershed events in some ways--the physical gathering of educational bloggers and the real-time conference collaborating and communication helped to raise expectations about ed tech conference participation. Whether they led, mirrored, or followed (maybe a little of each) the dynamic changes in networked learning that are taking place in the world of Web 2.0 for educators, they definitely generated an excitement about gathering and learning together.

So it is great fun to announce that we'll be having EduBloggerCon meetings in both Palm Springs (California) and San Antonio (Texas) in 2008, with the great and appreciated support of CUE and NECC. CUE, in fact, is sponsoring a whole series of Web 2.0-style additions to their conference (including a cool social network) which I'll be posting about shortly--and EduBlogger Con "West" will be Wednesday, March 4th, 2008, in the Palm Springs Convention Center in Palm Springs, California. NECC is also graciously hosting again, and the mothership EduBloggerCon 2008 will be Saturday, June 28, 2008 in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. Both events will, of course, be free, and maybe we'll even get a sponsor who'd be willing to swing for lunch (anyone?).

The wiki pages at www.EduBloggerCon.com for both events will be up shortly, and we'll follow the pattern of letting anyone propose discussions they want to facilitate, and others indicating their interest levels in those discussions. And we'll build in ample time for informal discussions. While we've called this an "unconference" before, I think it's really better identified as a "collaborative conference," and hope that you will consider joining us!

Big News from Ning: Ad-Free Student Networks

I've been working with Ning as an educational consultant for a couple of months now, and run their Ning for Educators network. I really like both their model of "creating your own social network," and their responsiveness to the education community. While the big public news for Ning this week is their participation in and support of Google's Open Social platform (will have to save talking about that for another day), yesterday they made a quiet decision which will greatly benefit the educational community: to provide ad-free student networks to K-12 educators. (Update: see new notes and procedures below.)

Ning has been a great example of the how Web 2.0 applications can be free to use, supported by the ubuiquitous Google ad network. There are several upgrade options, the primary one being the ability to run an ad-free network, or to host your own ads, for $19.95 a month. While this is a reasonable cost, most educators exploring the (great) uses of social networking in education have a hard time jumping through the administrative hoops to get this approved, and up to now have only been able to experiment with Ning by using the ad-supported version.

Yesterday, in a flurry of email exchanges, Ning's Gina Bianchini and Athena Von Oech, Flat Classroom superstars Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay, and I worked out the details of a trial program to remove the ad component from any existing or newly-created K-12 student-centered networks. If we can show them ad-free networks are something educators really want (that won't be hard!), they will continue the program and create a more automated, stream-lined process--but in the meantime, here is what you can do: (no longer current, skip to below)

1. Create your student network, if you don't already have one
2. Go to http://help.ning.com/?page_id=27
3. Use the subject line: "Ad Removal Request for grades 7 - 12 Education Network"
4. Put in your network ID at the beginning of the "Describe your issue" box, then just give a one-sentence description of your network usage. For example, you could put:
   "flatclassroomproject.ning.com - a global collaborative project founded by Vicki Davis (Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay (Qatar Academy, Qatar) in 2006 to use Web 2.0 tools to facilitate communication, interaction and collaboration between students and teachers from all participating classrooms."
5. Email me at steve@hargadon.com if your network isn't ad-free within 72 hours (let's just say three *work* days!). [This is an update as of 1/18/08.]
   
6. Join the Ning in Education community to get help, hints, and tips for using Ning in educational settings
   
7. Consider thanking Ning by placing a "Ning in Education" badge on your frontpage by following the link on the right side of that network that says "Get a Ning in Education Badge!" You can then add the HTML code into a text box on your network.
   

Huge thanks to Ning, Vicki, and Julie!

UPDATE 11/1/07 6:00 pm:

Ning has had to modify this program for the time being because of COPPA concerns. For the time being, Ning is not COPPA-compliant so it is intended for people ages 13 and up, and this ad-free trial program will only be for networks geared toward students between the ages of 13 and 18 (grades 7 - 12).

I've pored over COPPA, and am trying to decide the status of private networks, with no ads, where teachers create login accounts for student use, and that don't specifically ask for "personal" data. It would seem they might be in compliance. Any thoughts?

Also to note: while this program is a trial, and Ning may or may not decide to make it a permanent offer, Ning has assured me that any networks which qualify and are converted to ad-free will stay ad free. :)

Update 9/16/08:

Ning has upgraded their online help system, and so the instructions for requesting an ad-free educational network have changed:

1. Please sign in to the Ning "Help Centre" first: http://help.ning.com/cgi-bin/ning.cfg/php/enduser/ning_login.php. This will also allow you to see the status of your "ticket" or request. You can submit a ticket without signing it (use the "skip" link next to the "sign in" link), but you won't be able to track the progress of your request.
2. Click the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page.
3. The "Ask Our Team a Question" form then appears.
4. In the first field (“I have a question about”) select “a network that I have created.”
5. A new field with a pull down menu will appear (“I specifically want to know”) and you should choose “General Question.”
6. A window will appear where you need to choose a specific topic. Please choose “other” at the end of the list.
7. You may skip the "I'm Feeling" field if you'd like.
8. In the "Network URL" field please give the network address of the educational network you are asking Ning to make ad-free.
9. In the message portion of the ticket, please specifically write that you are requesting an add-free network for education.
10. Click the send button!
11. Join the Ning in Education community to get help, hints, and tips for using Ning in educational settings.
12. Consider thanking Ning by placing a "Ning in Education" badge on your frontpage by following the link on the right side of that network that says "Get a Ning in Education Badge!" You can then add the HTML code into a text box on your network.
13. If your network isn't ad-free within three working days, please check the status of your help request at the same web address under "View Tickets."

Update 9/2/09:

See this post from Ning: http://blog.ning.com/2009/08/back-in-the-classroom-and-signed-in-too.html

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Update and Verizon Mobile Broadband

It's hard to describe how valuable the broadband service I have from Verizon has been to me.  When I was in Indiana two weeks ago for the K-12 Open Minds Conference, it literally saved me from the lack of wireless in my hotel room.  I would guess I use the card for some amount of time every day.

So I was very disappointed to find that after I upgraded my Toshiba Portege laptop to Ubuntu 7.10, my wireless connection would hang up immediately after connecting.  I kept getting a "USB disconnect" that immediately hung up the connection.  I had previously followed Tina Gasperson's directions on setting up the EVDO card pictured above within Linux, but in my searching the web found that Ubuntu 7.10 reconfigured how USB is handled, and apparently the PCMCIA EVDO card is accessed through the USB settings.

But in trying the setup outlined here, which was stated specifically not to work with Ubuntu 7.10 (but that someone later noted had worked for them), I was back online again.  Even better, these directions from the Ubuntu Forums are much easier to automate, allowing me to create a menu item to connect, and so I'm actually glad I had to solve the issue.  As an aside, I did a speed test with the card today from my house, where Verizon reception has always been poor to middling, and I was at 400+kb down and 100kb up.  Not bad for anywhere access.

Classroom 2.0 Explanation Video

Darren Draper, the technology specialist in Utah's Jordan School District, and the creator of the super-viral Pay Attention video, interviewed me last week about Classroom 2.0 social network. Hopefully, it's a good introduction to the network and the whole idea of social networking in education.

A 14-year-old Talks Educational Technology

"Arthus" is the web name of a 14-year-old student in Vermont who has recently become actively involved in the online dialog about educational technology. I find his voice an interesting--maybe a critically important--addition to the discussion. To me, Arthus is not representative of most 14-year-olds, but is representative of the kind of independent, engaged, proactive, and self-directed learner who will thrive in the flattened and connected world of the Internet.

Now the big question: will the use of Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies do more than just highlight intellectually mature youth, and actually help to promote, encourage, and support this learning style? If so, are we ready for it? Some of what he says is going to be very hard to hear for teachers, and will feel threatening--maybe especially because of its accuracy. It's one thing to hear a teacher say some of these things, it's quite another to hear them from a freshman in high school. How will the learning environment of 9th grade, for example, have to change when you have a classroom full of youth this intellectually independent?

Notes:

• Arthus started by seeing someone with a blog, and then starting his own. Was a technical interest, then moved to the subject of education. Started at age 11, HTML websites at 12, PHP at 13.
  
• Really likes Twitter.
• He thinks that schools teach students to "fear technology" and to really only use it for limited things and not for deeper conversations.
• He doesn't feel that he is any danger in the web. The only precaution he takes is the pseudonym. Has never had anything weird happen to him on the web.
• His school has a good number of computers, and is relatively well-funded, and even though they buy new computers every couple of years, the teachers don't engage with them or use them actively in the classroom. Would really like to see his school go to a 1:1 laptop program.
• Outside of school he spends "quite a few hours" a day on the computer. He is not a gamer, though.
• He feels that his life is in balance. He does school clubs. He feels comfortable turning off the computer to do other things. Believes that not using games (a "strict" rule he made for himself) has helped him not become "addicted." (Pretty self-disciplined!) Feels that one of the most important things is to have a "set task" when you get on the computer.
• He was the one who decided to use a different name online to protect his privacy, but his mom is glad he did. Even though his mom doesn't personally use technology very much, she is very understanding of his interests.
• Twitter is the "realization" of his network, since you can see what everyone is thinking and doing. You can also ask questions--almost like a "better Google." Twitter is not distracting to him. He feels he can ignore if he needs to, and he also purposely limits the number of people that he is going to follow. He's been blogging for a year, but once he got on Twitter it was amazing how interactive things became.
  
• Doesn't like MySpace (interface is "shoddy"). Likes Facebook. Can easily eat up 30 - 60 minutes a day on Facebook. Uses Google Docs (formal things) and Zoho Notebook (planning). Uses Del.icio.us for social bookmarking. Hasn't used wikis very much. Uses Feedburner for tracking. Uses Quizlet.
• Is considering doing a student-run session at the SLA EduCon.
  
• Most of the people he knows who are older just use email and search, don't do any of the "pro-sumer" aspects of web. But same could be said of his own generation--many use social networking, but not other aspects.
• He's interested in education because he is in the education system right now. Feels that when students come to school their (technology) "tentacles" are cut off. He knows that there is bad stuff out there, but the problem is that we are fearing the technology instead of the content.
• If teachers are worried about the use of laptops in class for things that aren't related to class, then maybe teachers should be thinking about why students wouldn't be paying attention. Students should have an option of whether they want to pay attention. It's not a given that students will pay attention if you are not talking about something they care about. This whole technology is really good at bringing out the flaws that might be in the system.
• The current learning system--one task, one person teaching--will just not be relevant in the future. And it's not reflective of what college or work life are like. The education system owes it to students to prepare them for that world. We shouldn't necessarily be teaching the tools, but teaching the thought processes that go into them. The teachers owe it to themselves and their students to be learning these new Web technologies.
  
• If he had to pick one technology for an educator to start learning, it would be Twitter. It is the easiest one to use, and is so powerful. Also, if he had one message for his high school teachers for the next four years: they really need to stop being so disconnected from the technology. It's not about learning the knowledge, but the thinking.
  
• He has a cell phone, but he doesn't text. Doesn't have a text plan, so it would be expensive. He doesn't watch TV, but watches some NBC shows online. He has an iPod video, but he's never bought a video--the screen is to small. He has 3,965 songs on his iPod--would be twelve straight days to listen to all of them. He listens to his iPod constantly, all day long, whenever he can. He doesn't feel that having the earphones in stops him from socializing. He values face-to-face speaking a lot.
  
• He does worry about youth using technologies for "stupid" purposes: YouTube videos that shouldn't be public, that you wouldn't want a college administrator looking at. Has never seen an example of cyber-bullying. His computers at home are not filtered, and he runs the "networks" in his home.

Arthus blogs at http://myfla.ws/blog.

(It is important to note that I spoke with Arthus's mother prior to conducting the interview to make sure she was comfortable with this level of exposure. )

Listen to the the Interview in MP3 format
Listen to the Interview in Vorbis OGG format

Subscribe to this AudioCast:

Replacing a Notebook Screen

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by SteveHargadon

Yes, you are seeing correctly. Super-glue and duct tape--part of my late-night project to take the good LCD screen out of a non-working laptop and replace a broken screen on a working machine. All things considered, I did pretty well. What was really scary was having both machines disassembled, and all of the screws sitting out...

However, when all was said and done, the repaired laptop works. I am pretty sure that I broke a wire that will need to be repaired (part of the wireless etup), and I must have tweaked the LCD-to-motherboard connector because there are a series of small horizontal lines across the bottom of the screen. But they are nothing compared to the huge chunk of screen I didn't used to be able to see after I DROPPED the computer some time ago.

It was actually surprisingly easy to replace the LCD, once I was brave enough to try. The hard part was disassembling the rest of the notebook in order to disconnect the wiring!

My Favorite Site for Family Movie Reviews for Parents

Family movie reviews for parents -- Now Playing In Theaters

I just wanted to give a plug for a website I've used for several years now that reviews movies and grades them based on violence, sexual content, language, and drugs/alcohol portrayal.  While our kids are constantly trying to find reasons why a low grade at Parent Previews isn't really reflective of the value of a particular movie, I have so come to trust the reviewers' perspective that the kids have learned that they are fighting a losing battle. 

Once known as "Grading the Movies," the site will, I'm confident, be the source of much discussion when our children are grown--about how Dad always had to check the reviews before watching a movie.  At least I hope that when the kids are grown that we'll have those kind of discussions about parenting as they travel their own roads.  What they particularly hate right now is my parenting-by-guilt method:  "Oh, I'm sure you'll make the right decision about what's appropriate to do..."  We'll see if they don't see the virtue in that approach when they are older!

My personal standard is that I am not likely to enjoy a movie that they give lower than a "B" to, and when I'm feeling particularly careful of my time and media consumption (more and more the case), I try not to watch anything that's less than an "A." 

Nancy Willard's Voice of Reason

photo.jpg

I read Nancy's latest book, Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens, on a flight this past week, partly because it's been sitting on my shelf for way too long, and partly because I knew I would be speaking a few days later to youth at a regional church meeting about technology in their lives (those are my notes typed up acting as a bookmark).  It is a great book on the Internet for parents, and don't miss the good material that she provdes at her related website, www.cskcst.com, that you can download and distribute for teaching.

My audio interview with Nancy last year is here:  MP3

Doing the Gutsy Thing

Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu

Started the upgrade on my Toshiba laptop this morning to the newest version of Ubuntu, 7.10, known as Gutsy Gibbon.  So far, it's been as easy as "System" > "Administration" > "Update Manager."  It's interesting that while the web browser has replaced the operating system as my "most critical" platform, I am for some reason very excited to see what Ubuntu has done with this release.  I must say I've been really, really happy with version 7.04, and am using Ubuntu almost exclusively right now.  I do miss webcam/DV support (probably possible, but certainly not out of the box), and am hoping Ubuntu will keep moving forward in ways the support Web 2.0-related technologies.

200 Students Help Create Video on Education, Model Collaboration

Michael Wesch - Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology - Kansas State University

Michael Wesch is the creator of the significant and viral  "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" video.  This past week he posted two new videos to the KSU Mediated Cultures blog.  "Information R/evolution" seems to be his own work and "explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information."  It's comparably compelling to "Machine."

But it's the second video that was really interesting to me.  It's called "A Vision of Students Today," and was created by Professor Wesch and 200 students enrolled in his "ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" at Kansas State University this past spring.  He writes:

"It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in. We created a Google Document to facilitate the brainstorming exercise, which began with the following instructions:

“'… the basic idea is to create a 3 minute video highlighting the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. We already know some things from previous research (and if you know of any interesting statistics, please list them along with the source). Others we will need to find out by doing a class survey. Please add whatever you want to know or present.'

"Over the course of the next week, 367 edits were made to the document. Students wrote the script, and made suggestions for survey questions to ask the entire class. The survey was administered the following week.

"I then took all of the information from the survey and the Google Document and organized it into the final script portrayed in the video which was all filmed in one 75 minute class period."

Wow.  I love the modeling of collaboration inherent in the project.   Both embedded below.

Open Minds, Open Source, and Success in Indiana

Mike Huffman, kicking of the K-12 Open Minds Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Last week, 300+ educators (maybe 350?) gathered in international hot-spot Indianapolis for the first K-12 Open Minds Conference, focused on the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS or OSS) in K-12 schools. The brainchild of Mike Huffman and Laura Taylor, this conference was actually a bolder move than it might sound--and maybe will be looked upon as the "shot heard 'round the world" in starting to really solidify the compelling financial, technological, and pedagogical reasons for using OSS in schools.


I arrived a day early to facilitate an international round-table discussion on the development of a road-map for implementing OSS in schools. Extensive resources on the conversation of that day are available on the wiki, where Jim Gerry added a huge contribution to the day by taking great notes, and Scott Swanson took photos of everyone to help us remember the day. Scott also provided an invaluable service to the conference as a whole by acting as the unofficial photographer: see http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/k12openminds07.

Those sessions at the conference that were recorded have been posted in a "podcast" section of the wiki, both in .mp3 and .ogg format. Since I wanted to get them up quickly, we could still use some help in identifying the speakers and the session topics. It was literally impossible to choose between the many, many compelling sessions at the conference, so hopefully the recordings will help folks like me who wanted to go to them all.

A list of my personal "take-aways" are below. Hopefully this is just the start of a continued dialog.


Personal "Take-aways"

• I need to start developing a talk on "why Open Source Software is so important to education." One of the fascinating themes of the conference for me was the degree to which OSS advocates are really wearing two hat. Engaged and passionate, they themselves are examples of the true learning and accomplishment that comes from the collaboration allowed by the Internet, and they have a fundamental belief in "constructivist" learning and the ability of technology to help facilitate or open the door that that kind of learning. Without even discussing OSS, they wear the hat of caring about education, and about the role of computing in schools, at a time when twenty years of computers in the classroom not really changing educational outcomes is leading many others to question the value of computers in schools at all. A natural corollary of the first hat is their ability to see the value, both educationally and financially, of using OSS in that context. This OSS advocacy is a second hat. Wearing both, OSS advocates, like the adopters of Web 2.0 in education (only just slightly geekier), are passionate about the opportunities for positive change in an educational world that seems to be somewhat adrift and resistant to modifying itself based on the enormous cultural shifts we are seeing elsewhere that the Internet has brought.
• There is a huge need to be able to share successful practices. Unlike commercial or proprietary software, where a sales force and support team interact/sell/support, most OSS projects have only passionate users to try to communicate the value of the the software. Both formal and informal mechnisms are really needed. Whatever studies around the world there are that verify the value of OSS in education need to be aggregated (and sometimes translated) so that administrators can study them and point to them when making significant IT decisions. While "advocacy" of OSS on an informal level is still very much needed, practical successes need to be measured and documented for formal decision-making, and this will be a good role for the roadmap team.
• We don't involve students in their own education as much as we should, and while the buzzwords around "engaged and passionate learning" indicate the need for this, it's really in OSS that we can see a model for the truly productive and essential involvement of students in a community of practice. OSS models "apprenticeship" learning and contribution. OSS has 21st-century skills "baked in."
  
• We need to be much more attuned to how technology decisions are made in schools. We need to "Be Like Mike," looking at the Indiana model for selling the solution: "Indiana has spent a billion dollars over 10 years, and the average student spends 35 minutes a week on a computer. In order for technology to be transformational, we need to create affordable and scalable models for computing." Of course, the answer to affordable and scalable is substantially going to come from OSS, the pedagogical benefits of which will also become apparent. But if there is general agreement that it takes 4 - 5 years for the understanding of the value of "freedom" and OSS to come, then leading with the message of "freedom" will be significantly less effective than leading with the message of affordability and scalability.
• We need to be clear that there is a difference between the acquisition cost benefit of OSS and support/maintenance costs. Without support, maintenance, and training, OSS will not actually succeed in K12, and if we try to sell OSS as completely free, we may actually do more harm than good. We need to be clear on the costs, and the importance of, support, maintenance, and training.
  
• Hopefully, OSS will also usher in a change in how commercial vendors deal with schools. As was said at the conference, commercial software and hardware vendors "still think they are in charge." As the model for providing value in school computing improves, so will the services offered from the commercial side.
• Related: Everybody is looking for solutions. Teachers are looking for tools that will help them to get their job done easier or better. Same with administrators. "Freedom" may be great and philosophically compelling, but if we're not solving problems, we won't be given the chance to show what else OSS offers.
  
• There is huge value in "killer" apps, for the reason above. These were called "non-intrusive" at the conference, but another phase that better captures the idea is "non-displacing" applications. These are applications like Moodle that can be adopted and are immediately helpful, but don't require leaving another technology behind, or fighting a paid sales force. Moodle does have competition, but the cost difference between Moodle and Blackboard is so dramatic that they might as well be different kinds of products. Content management systems are in the same boat: Joomla, Mambo, and now Drupal don't really have cost-effective competitors, and so can be adopted with little or no resistance.
  
• Governmental legislation regarding the need for open standards and open document format has had a real impact where it exists, and lobbying for such should be an active part of our efforts.
• The practical skills relating to job employment from being trained in OSS should be promoted more widely. Students who learn Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL, etc. really do have immediate career paths if they want them.
• Even though we may live in different countries with somewhat different political/cultural/economic situations, there is still a large degree to which the hurdles to OSS implementation are very similar, and it is important that we find ways to work together and share information with advocates doing work in other countries.

Running Linux on My Laptop

Since I knew I was going to the K12 Open Minds Conference in Indiana last week, I thought I'd better get my laptop running Linux full time before I found myself embarassed by using Windows at some inauspicious moment.  I have a Toshiba Portege tablet, and while I have been set up with Ubuntu for dual booting for some time, there have been a couple of reasons that I have kept firing up Windows most of the time.  Primarily, it has been the inability of Ubuntu to recognize my microphone... And my now almost total dependence on Skype has meant that without microphone capability, I just couldn't make Ubuntu a regular part of my day.

So, imagine my delight when I booted into Unbuntu a couple of weeks ago, allowed the system to update itself, and found the microphone working.  Hurrah!  Emboldened by this good news, and with Skype working well, I then checked on my next critical application:  Flock.  (There is something of a theme here--the applications are so critical, that they are driving the choice of operating system.)  Flock is a web browser based on Firefox, but with some very handy media functionality built in.  While I've been a faithful Firefox user for a LONG time, I'm finding Flock indispensible for the ability to easily pull in photos from my Flickr stream, to drag and hold photos or images into the media clippings sidebar, and to post new photos to Flickr from just by dragging them into the photo uploader.  Flock also seems to accomodate almost every good Firefox add-on that I like and have become dependent on (my Verizon minutes alert, session manager, Twitbin /Twitterfox, and Diigo).  So when I was able to get Flock running in Ubuntu, I knew I had it made.  I spend 95% of my time in my web browser.

But the coup-de-grace was getting my Verizon broadband card working.  Wow.  Huge thanks to Tina Gasperson and others who have posted how to do this on the web.

I've been operating almost 100% in Unbuntu since that time, making the conference a much better experience, and also just my day-to-day computing.  Booting up Ubuntu takes just about exactly 60 seconds, from start to productivity.  My Windows XP machine, unfortunately, takes 6 or 7 minutes to really get going.  (I'm not even going to mention the Windows automatic reboots after security updates, since they really tick me off... oh, I guess I just did...)  I spent some of the plane rides reading through the above Ubuntu Hacks book, and was able to implement about a dozen useful tips, and save four or five more for when I want to be really bold.  My next steps are to tackle the tablet computing--I needed help in Indiana to actually take out the pen from its holder and to see that Ubuntu already recognized it (sheepish smile), but need to be able to rotate the screen--and then hook up my DV camera or webcam to be able to "ustream."  

Thanks, Mark Shuttleworth.

Blogged with Flock

Kate and I Get Some Media Time

My daughter Kate and I were interviewed for a story on homework and technology that appeared some weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal. Picked up by a news outfit that syndicates stories for other stations, a film crew (OK, just one guy and a camera) came to our house and filmed us for the story.

We had almost forgotten about it until yesterday, when I was sent a link for the story to the left, which also includes the final video. Thankfully, Don Knezek of ISTE gets more screentime than I do.

Wonder if anyone outside of Central Texas will run it...

You Look Good Peru

Adrian Velasquez posted this photo on Classroom 2.0.  There's not a lot of information there about Adrian, other than his affiliation with Markham College, a private school in Lima, Peru.  And there's no information about these kids.  But the picture says it all--or, at least, I'm guessing at what it says, but there is no guessing about the contagious smiles on these boys' faces.  Some other kids, somewhere in Peru or the United States or who-knows-where, through a video connection, are making the world a smaller place. 

Mr. Watson, come here!

After watching Will Richardson speak live from Prince Edward Island this past Saturday, I did what any aspiring geek would do--I tried to duplicate the technology. I notice that the broadcast was hosted by ustream.tv, and like any good Web 2.0 service, I could get a free account and start broadcasting.

My mind was spinning with the possibilities, and what I really wanted to do was to see if I could produce higher-that-webcam quality in a broadcast. My DV camcorder, a Canon ZR830, doesn't have a webcam mode, but Orangeware's WebCamDV promises to convert any DV camera into one. I downloaded the free trial (10 minutes of use before having to reset by rebooting your computer--ouch!), and got video right away. The audio was harder--maybe because I was too excited to think clearly about it. But after a couple of hours of idiocy, I finally figured out that I needed to put a cable from the DV camera directly into my laptop. Part of the difficulty, if I'm going to not beat myself up too much, was that there was some conflict with Skype video that kept locking up my machine, and the frustration of that made the obvious harder to see.

I've posted a couple of test clips at http://ustream.tv/channel/stevehargadons-show. Don't worry, no "lifecasting" for me. Maybe folks want to follow a young lady all through her day, but nobody's going to go gaga over the life adventures of a 46-year-old father of four. I am intrigued by the possibilities, though. To be able to cheaply (for me, since I already owned a sub-$300 camera, it was just the $20 for the software) broadcast and record good-quality video seems to open a lot of doors. (The sound on a DV camera is likely of higher quality as well.) And I'm thinking that the higher quality of DV cameras over your standard webcams could also make for some more interesting video conferences between classrooms, all you educators.

One Day Left for NECC Proposals - Call for Open Source!

The NECC call for proposals closes tomorrow, October 3rd, and I'm just making sure that the Free and Open Source Software folks who would be interested in presenting in San Antonio get those proposals in!

Dealing with TMI

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by SteveHargadon

Too much information. My kids call it "511" when someone tells too much of a story (411 +). I'm way past 511, and have been closing in on 911 with this information overload, desperately needing help. Every day I find more audio, pdf, and rss content than I know how to deal with.

Part of the difficulty is the need I feel to store, hoard, save, print, and process. (Did I include "create?" ) My old habits come from the pre-Internet world I grew up in. (That's partly why the iPhone is such an amazing paradigm shift--always on Net means you don't have to store the .mp3 or video to listen to/watch it later...)

So Twitter for me has been just one more list of things to read, and a new source of worry that I might "miss" something. So I just gave it up. Went cold turkey. I stopped looking at Twitter. Turned my back on the cutting edge. But today, in one of those moments of serendipity, looking at my extra LCD monitor, and reading about Twittercamp again in the context of the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai, I took a few minutes (OK, an hour) and set up the monitor for extended desktop viewing and put Twittercamp on the secondary monitor.

Wow. What a difference. Twitter feeds there, just as many as before, interesting but not compulsively interruptive. Twittercamp has new items do a slow "burst" onto the screen, so you know something new has come up, and can look over to the right spot when you want. But there is something more going on.

The old tweets just go away. Because Twittercamp is highly visual, an old tweet going away is somehow natural. Not like looking at Twitter in other forms. The posts are also placed randomly on the screen, which adds to the effect of the information being transient. As if to say, "this is possibly good information to have, but perishable." Somehow, when the tweets are off the Twittercamp screen, I don't feel that I need to have seen every one.

I can imagine having a large screen on the wall, at home or work, just giving glimpses of the lives of those in our separate spheres. Add their latest video and still images, some news feeds, and I begin to see a vision of where this technology may lead.

UPDATE: Need to mention that running on Windows, Twittercamp has had some troubles--something happens and it stops showing updates, and you have to restart the program. Maybe restart a couple of times. And I can think of one huge improvement right away: some light color coding to show how recent posts are. That would be an amazing improvement.

SECOND UPDATE: When having trouble with Twittercamp, I tried another Twitter display program (Twitteroo) and found that it, too, was not picking up feeds. So some of what I may have attributed to Twittercamp may actually be Twitter-related. More serendipity: when I had Twitteroo and Twittercamp both open, I loved hearing the Twitteroo sound announcing new tweets.

Conference 2.0

I just created a "Conference 2.0" page of ideas that I (and others) have had for bringing the tools of Web 2.0 to ed tech conferences. It all started for me with EduBloggerCon in Atlanta, and I know these ideas have been spreading through many others. Some of these ideas I have made formal proposals to do for different shows, where having someone with experience would be helpful, but I don't consider the ideas "mine" in any way. It's a fun list to look at, and hopefully we can have some fun adding to and refining the ideas. The page is at: http://edtechlive.wikispaces.com/Conference+2.0.

Panel Discussions at CUE and NECC

There has been such a positive response to the idea of setting up panel discussions for the CUE and NECC ed tech shows that I thought I'd better do some organizing.

We're currently working on two different panel topics for each of those shows. I've created a way for you to indicate your interest in participating in either or both. First, what the panels will be:

1. "Classroom 2.0: The Use of Web 2.0 and Collaborative Technologies in the Classroom." Nine of us did a 90-minute panel on this topic for the Office 2.0 show in San Francisco, and much of the fun was establishing as quickly as we could a collaborative environment with the audience. We provided the audience an online survey for the topics to be discussed, and then followed their preferences, as well as providing a mechanism for asking questions throughout (the group was small enough, as it turned out, to just have them raise their hands...). Sylvia Martinez has submitted a proposal to CUE to hold a panel discussion on this topic at their annual conference, and I am submitting one to NECC.

2. "Social Networking in Education." The use of social networking tools (Ning, Imbee, etc.) for classroom and professional development is a fascinating topic, and with the growth of the Classroom 2.0 social network, and many others, also seems to be worth focusing on. I've submitted a proposal to CUE for a panel on this as well, and will do the same for NECC.

Rather than try to keep track of information about all of you, I've set up two pages on my EdTechLive wiki where you can put in your name and information--not just for these shows, but to show your availability potentially for other shows as well. There isn't any way that all who are interested are going to be able to participate in the panels at NECC and CUE, but there are lots of other shows as well--as many have let me know! Also, I'm asking both CUE and NECC if they will provide a "Classroom 2.0" meeting area, like the Bloggers' Cafe at NECC last year, and there will surely be lots of fun organizing to do for those areas if we get them.

The page for potential panelist information for "Classroom 2.0" (Web 2.0 tools) is http://edtechlive.wikispaces.com/Classroom+20+Panel.

The page for potential panelist information for "Social Networking in Education" is http://edtechlive.wikispaces.com/Social+Network+Panel.

Please go to either or both and promote yourself. (You'll have to join the wiki to be able to edit it.) Looking forward to collaborations ahead!

CUE.org's Open Source Pavilion - Call for Presenters

OK, so the annual CUE.org conference is not until March 0f 2008, but we have to get potential presenters for the Open Source track to submit their presentation proposals by September 16th!

Here's the submission URL: http://169.199.1.209/fmi/iwp/cgi?-db=Speakers&-loadframes

This is always a fun show, and hope those with Free and Open Source software expertise will consider submitting to present.

K-12 Open Source Conference October 9 - 11, 2007

The first K-12 Open Minds conference is going to be held October 9 - 11, 2007, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The kick-off reception is Tuesday, the 9th, with the regular conference sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, the 10th & 11th.

For me, this is the must-attend event of the year relating to Free and Open Source Software in K-12 education. There are more tracks and topics that I already want to see than I will have time to attend. There are currently over 55 planned conference sessions, covering a the use of Linux and Open Source use in classroom, teaching, technical, and leadership aspects.

The individual registration fee is $100, or $89 each for groups of three or more. Register on the website or call Anthony Yanez, Registration Coordinator, at 800.940.6039, extension 1348.

Holding the conference in Indianapolis has two distinct advantages. The first is that nice hotel rooms are available for under $100/night at the conference location (Sheraton) if you book before the 19th of September. Considering that the last conference I went to, the hotel cost for one night was more than this conference, and three days of hotel, all combined, makes this the bargain of the year.

The second benefit is that the conference is being organized by Mike Huffman and Laura Taylor, whose rich credentials in the area of actual implementation of Free and Open Source Software in K-12 education are really unparalleled in the United States. See my interview with them, and an audio recording of their session at NECC 2007, on my EdTechLive website.

Mike is also preparing blog tags for the sessions, and I'll post on that as soon as we have that information. I hope to see a lot of you there. Wednesday night is free, and it would be fun to have dinner and socialize.