Issues like world hunger and the world’s energy crisis can simply appear too big to tackle for most individuals, but there are ways we can demonstrate that the collective action of individuals can make a difference.

My family and I participated in the very successful Earth Hour in Christchurch on Saturday evening – despite meaning that I missed watching the Blues vs Bulls game live on TV We spent an enjoyable hour as a family playing Scrabble by the light of two candles. It was my kids who were particularly keen for us to do this, having been exposed to advertising about the event at school and in the media, so while we played Scrabble, we also discussed in detail the significance of the Earth Hour event. I’m a fan of Social Action outcomes in terms of what we do in education – even if they take the form of demonstrators or symbolic events such as Earth Hour – hey, 12.8% saving in the city’s electricity use for one hour has to provide some indication of what can be achieved on a longer term basis.

Back to the Scrabble game and the focus on vocabulary and word meaning – made me interested when I came across an online vocabulary building activity called Free Rice. The site has two goals; 1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free, and 2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. For each word you get right the site sponsors will donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

This is a great activity site – with 55 levels and the ability to select the level you start at and remember this for another occasion. You even have the ability to listen to the word before selecting its meaning from a list of four options. And of course, using the site provides a great opportunity to highlight the issues of world hunger and what can be done about it.

I’ve been looking for something like htm2pdf for ages! It’s a wonderfully easy to use web app that allows you to create a pdf document from an html page. All it takes is simply paste the URL of the page you want into a text box and push the “convert to pdf” button. Another way is to simply paste the actual html into a second text box and click ‘convert’.

I’ve played around with it by entering the URL of my blog page. The result was impressive. After waiting a few moments for the conversion to take place I was greeted with a clickable “download the pdf” link which allowed me to quickly download the PDF document to my desktop and open it.

Predictably it didn’t capture the elements on my blog that are generated elsewhere – eg the RockYou, YouTube and Quintura Search elements – but everything else came out fine. even the hypertext links are active in the pdf document that is generated, making it especially useful for working with pages from places like Wikipedia for instance – or any other reference or information page that you might want to look at offline.

I can see myself making good use of this tool.

In the
NZ Herald today is an article about a survey released in Australia today which tells a story of the 21st century nuclear family as one whose children are media-rich; who have multiple communications devices in the home; who value the internet and are striking a comfortable balance in their children’s use of media.

The report is described as an in-depth study of children’s use of electronic media and the way parents mediate that use. It includes an up-to-date review of the academic research literature on the long-term influence of media on children and families.

The research considered a range of children’s leisure activities and investigated how the internet, free-to-air and subscription television, radio, mobile phones and games fit into the lives of Australian young people and families.

The report includes analysis of:

• detailed information from over 1000 children (aged eight to 17 years) about the time they spend on leisure activities, including electronic media

• an inventory of media equipment in 750 homes and
• a questionnaire to 750 parents/guardians examining the attitudes and behaviours that families adopt to mediate the use of electronic media by children.

There is no information about how representative the samples are of Australian society – for instance, to what extent rural and indigenous communities are involved?

Headlines:

• Children (8-18) spend an hour and 15 minutes online every day, and more than 42 per cent of all children say they have posted their own content online on social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace.

• The tv set plays as important a role as ever in the average home, and its influence is increasing.
• In 1995, just 8 per cent of children had a television in their bedroom. This year that figure jumped to one in five, and half of those have their own internet connection. In Britain, 70 per cent children have a TV in their bedroom. In the US, the figure is 75 per cent.

Besides the fascinating profile that is created of today’s young people and their exposure to media and digital communications ( eg family homes with 3 or more TVs, computers (98%), broadband internet (76%), 3 or more mobile phones etc) the report explores parents’ views on their children’s media use and strategies they employ to manage this use.

There’s also a great review of the literature looking at the impact and implications of various types of media, including TV, film, video, games, and mobile phones etc. which will be of interest to anyone pursuing research in this area.

A part of the report that particularly interested me 9in the wake of a discussion I got drawn into at a school recently) comes towards the end, and explores the consumer socialisation of children through exposure to these various forms of media, and the influences of media on children’s health. The latter section explores the relationship between media and obesity and physical (in)activity, nutrition, substance use, eating disorders, sexual behaviour and suicide.

The conclusion of this final section is divided. The report concludes that there is a wealth of literature supporting the view that media content and use may influence the way young people perceive their environment, their bodies, their relationships, and various risk taking behaviours. But it also concludes that media has the potential to enhance young people’s health and behaviour, having the potential to promote physical activity through intensive mass media campaigns and pro-recovery eating disorder websites for instance. The report also identifies a number of areas in which more robust evidence is still needed.

Definitely worth a read for those contemplating research in this area, or who are simply interested in reading an evidence-based perspective on what our kids are doing on the computer (and other forms of media).

Follow these links to download the report overview(PDF, 248 Kb) or the full report (PDF, 3.8Mb) In addition, you can view a slideshow summary of the report.

In the past I’ve blogged about various innovations in the area of search tools, including Quintura,, the semantic search engine which I’ve embedded in my blog. SearchMe is an exciting new player in the visual search engine world which uses a highly graphical interface to present search results – in a style that looks remarkably like how the album covers are portrayed in my iTunes library when I go hunting for an album to play.

The video introduction above explains how SearchMe shows search results as big pictures of the actual web pages. And it offers more than simply providing results for the search term you enter. Besides the initial inquiry in visual search, there is also a feature called category suggest, which helps you refine your search, and another called list view, which provides short summaries of the content of each page – a little like the conventional search engines you’re used to. The video below provides even more explanation of these features and how they work.

This is yet more evidence of how the graphics are going to feature more in the way we interact with our screens in the future. I’ve had a bit of a play around with this and think it’s pretty cool – i could get very used to this! And there’s more in the development pipeline according to the developers!

Brilliant comment from Miguel Guhlin on Al Upton’s blog which I just have to refer to here. Writing with just a modicum of hyperbole, Miguel illustrates the tensions that I referred to in my previous blog entry, of a system that is resistant to the very essence of change that is impacting on it from every quarter, and where the pedagogy of assessment continues to drive the pedagogy of instruction!

Al, as a school district administrator myself, but also, as a citizen of the United States, I have to confess that I’m a bit grateful your blog has been shut down and Australian children denied the opportunity to engage in global collaobrations and learning. Here’s why:

In the United States, blogs are distractions to the real job of educators to improve student achievement on accountability measures. Blogs, as tools for online publishing, engage students with access to an authentic audience–that sometimes, let’s be honest, can be TOO authentic if you get what I mean–and may result in divergent learning that is, to be frank, unsuitable to preparing children for yesterday’s workforce. We want children who are literate, but lack that attitude that would hurt their careers and survival in our workforce…it is our goal to establish (and we’ve done an excellent job aside from your blogging efforts) a, what Paulo Friere calls, “domesticating” educational experience.

Secondly, you’ve no doubt read of books like Wikinomics, The World is Flat, and A Whole New Mind…these are books that speak to the interconnectedness of world affairs, peer productions–companies working in tandem across the globe to create a new product marketed to millions on the web–necessary in the future. I’m honestly grateful that Australians will be barred from this world, prevented from joining peer producers in the world. To be honest, in the United States, there’s been a bit of concern that you Australians (not to mention New Zealanders) have been engaging too rapidly in this new virtual world.

It’s a relief to know that you’ll be “dummed down” to join the United States in a slower realization of these truths. Some argue that we need to distinguish between using technology as a way to empower students, facilitate communication/collaboration at a distance rather than using technology to domesticate our students, helping them achieve basic skills that won’t get them much farther anyways. But you see, in this competitive, global economy, disempowering YOUR children may allow mine to do well.

Al, take a hit for the opposite team. Rejoice that my students will whip your’s when it comes to working online, and that you won’t have distractions when drilling students in basic skills.

With appreciation for the lack of leadership in your part of the world,
Miguel Guhlin Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net
U.S. School District Administrator

Less than a week since I blogged about Jabiz Raisdana being asked to resign from his position in a school because of a posting on his blog, the Twitterverse has been alive again with news of yet another teacher whose class blog has been closed down amid fears that content posted on it may place students at risk. This time its someone closer to home (Australia in fact) and someone who is also on my Twitter list – so the new came first hand.

Al Upton is an innovative teacher based in South Australia who has been using blogs with his students for a couple of years now. His “Mini Legends” as he calls them (and his blog) use a blog to write about what they’re up to and communicate with others as a regular part of their classroom work. I met Al at the CEGSA conference in Adelaide in 2006 where I presented a keynote speech, and was present when Al was named CEGSA Educator Of The Year in recognition for the creative work he does with his students.

So what made the Department of Education and Children’s Services in South Australia decide to close his blog down? Seems there was concern over the possibility that some of what appeared on his class blog may have led to students in his class being able to be identified – thus placing them at risk. suffice to say that the comments have been flying fast and furious all weekend – both in the comments left on his blog, people writing their own view of events on their own blogs (see the entry by Al’s good friend http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2008/03/15/in-support-of-al-and-the-minilegends/), and of course, via Twitter!

Now I’m not wanting to re-visit the saga in this blog (you can get a much better idea of what is happening by reading the trail of comments left on Al’s blog) – suffice to say that the actions of DECS hasn’t exactly been widely praised – which is exactly the issue that concerns me.

Al has capably demonstrated over the past two years that his primary concern in all he does is his students. this includes his efforts to liberate their minds and creativity through the programmes he provides for them in his classroom (and online), and in his attention to details that affect their privacy and safety when working in these environments – as demonstrated by the rules and guidelines he’s thoughtfully put in place. He has contributed significantly to the development of effective practices in this area, and has been an inspriation to many others, as illustrated in this comment on his blog:

I am really saddened by what’s happened and offer my support to you all. It was the miniLegends that inspired me and my class 2 years ago to start blogging, and the support and encouragement that you offered me Al is well remembered and appreciated. Keep your spirits up and know that everyone in the blogosphere is standing with you – you are inspirational, committed and thoroughly professional in all you have done, are doing and will continue to do in the future.

Despite this, there appears to have been no collegial discussion to discuss the concerns raised, no professional discourse to understand the intent of the blog or to discover what procedures exist to govern and guide student use of it – nothing. Just an out of the blue announcement that:

This blog has been disabled in compliance with DECS wishes (Department of Education and Children’s Services – South Australia)

Surely Al deserves better than this? Surely all educators deserve better than this? Or do we have to be satisfied that it’s OK for those in authority in the system to act in ways that contradict the very codes of conduct that people such as Al so dutifully attempt to introduce to his students and have them observe in the way they work together?

Sorry – but I just don’t buy it.
Jane pointed me to Chitch.at, described as an educational network where teachers can share real course content, make free class pages, and develop interactive online assignments. Here’s a video which explains more about it.

Now the concept of a ‘lightweight’, flexible way to create, post and share course content sounds appealing – but the underlying design points to a pedagogy that I have problems with. Notice the section that begins… “The Web is great – in theory!”, and goes on to argue that while online environments such as blogs and wikis capture our (and our students’) imaginations, they are difficult to ‘teach’ because we can’t easily assign tasks, collect submissions or effectively grade student work etc. In other words (their words) these social web applications don’t “fit” the traditional classroom.

All of this sounds like a great justification for why we might want an online environment like Chitch.at- but hang on… if these applications are (as they claim) so good at developing critical thinking, engaging student interest and creating a sense of wonder etc, shouldn’t this suggest that we ought to be looking to change the nature of the “traditional classroom”??

The focus here is entirely on a pedagogy of setting tasks for students to complete – presumably tasks that essentially invite students to “guess what’s in the teacher’s head” since the implication is that there’s a specific response on which they’re then graded! A clear case of the pedagogy of assessment driving the pedagogy of instruction.

In 1915 John Dewey wrote in his “Constructivist Pedagogy” that effective learning occurs when…

• Student autonomy and initiative accepted and encouraged

• Teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses
• Higher level thinking is encouraged
• Students engage in dialogue with teacher and each other
• Students engaged in experiences that challenge hypotheses
• Class uses raw data primary sources, physical and interactive materials
• Knowledge and ideas emerge only from a situation in which learners have to draw them out of experiences that have meaning and importance to them

In my experience these are exactly the sorts of learning experiences that many of these emerging social web applications enable and encourage. Have we really not learned anything in the past 90-odd years??

1800 – less than 3% of the world’s population lived in cities
1900 – 150 million people lived in the world’s cities
2000 – more than half of the people on earth live in cities
2050 – predicted to be more than two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities

Here’s a great project (and resource) that is sure to appeal to teachers and students working in the geography, economics or general ‘futures’ area. The Flash-based intro along makes for a useful resource, posing questions and presenting trends and statistics about the growth of cities around the world.

The mission of 19.20.21 is a multi-year, multimedia initiative to collect, organize and better understand population’s effect regarding urban and business planning and its impact on consumers around the world. This 5+ year initiative aims to deliver results via 5 channels; web (including mobile), television (broadcast and cable), print (magazines, books and atlases), exhibits and seminars (virtual and on-site).

The 19.20.21 project will provide a road-map for understanding the world ahead. The five year study will encompass all aspects of the phenomenon of supercities, and be a valuable, entertaining, comparative and statistical analysis of the world’s great cities of today and tomorrow.

Interesting read on the Technology Review with their list of 10 emerging technologies which they predict will have a significant impact on how we live our lives in the future. I was fascinated by the entry about surprise modelling which combines data mining and machine learning to help people do a better job of anticipating and coping with unusual events. The whole idea of how we can harness the collective power of information that we now have the ability to collect and process with such speed has interested me for a while, and the example in the article about solving traffic problems is a useful illustration of the principle at work. Another example if this is Reality Mining in which data from cell phones is used to learn more about human behaviour. It’ll be interesting to see where this one goes, given the concerns about privacy and the storage of personal information as illustrated here in NZ by the recent announcements by the leading mobile service providers that they’ll no longer store text messages that are sent and received across their networks.
Technology Review have been publishing their predictions on emerging technologies now for a number of years, and you can find links to previous predictions at the bottom of the article – worth browsing these also to consider (a) the accuracy of these predictions, and (b) the pace of change that is occurring!

My Twitterific has been running hot in the past few minutes as news about Jabiz Raisdana, otherwise known as Intrepid Teacher, spreads through the blogosphere. The story is a fascinating commentary on the times we live in. Raisdana, a teacher of 8th grade English and humanities classes has been sacked by his school after a member of the community took objection to some material he had posted on his personal blog. Raisdana explains in his latest post:

Due to a lapse in my judgment regarding material posted on my personal blog, my school has asked me to resign. I want you, as the readers of this blog, to know that I am agreeing to this decision without reservation, and I understand the steps taken by the school to protect its reputation.

Now I don’t want to explore the ins and outs of why this happened in this post – what I am fascinated by is the post that Raisdana made to his students in his class blog and, more significantly, the feedback and comments he received from his students and other teachers. Raisdana is obviously active in the online world – he has several blogs operating, has accounts with skype, twitter etc and contributes to online photo collections etc. More significantly, it would appear that he has been successful in using these tools within his classroom teaching, using them to engage his students in powerful learning experiences. The following examples of comments from his students in response to his Good-bye post illustrate the impact of this…

• Language arts was our favorite class. It was really the only class we had to really think.

• I will continue posting on my blog regularly. You won’t be able to read my posts, but they will be inspired by you.
• Now the blog is like one of my life. I love to write on that.
• I just wanted you to know that I enjoyed every second of Humanities..and that’s basically because you were there teaching us. It was new, fun and at the same time..educational.
• You made Language Arts class more fun, and more interesting. We didnt sit there and read text books, or memorize vocabulary… you taught us about life.
• I know I’m the quiet kid who never says much, and thats just the way I am right now. But, you’ve got me thinking. You have us all thinking. We won’t forget you, Mr. Raisdana.
• When I first saw you I thought that you were some loony computer guy that was inspired about how cool programs are on the computer, but now I look at you as a man who didn’t care about grades but on how we could succeed throughout life, a man who encourages growing awareness on all the world, someone who knows that everyone is ignorant including himself but tries his very best to find out more, a person that strives for cooperation, not competition, and last but not least a man that knows exactly who he wants to influence people.
• I can’t believe this. Just as we were getting the feel of our blogs, the whole thing came to a screeching halt….You are one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, and I will always remember you. I’ve learned more in the one semester you taught me than I ever have before. I appreciate everything. A lot. Thanks again, and I’m going to miss you a lot.
• I’m proud to have been your student and I always boast about how good a teacher you were.

These are just a few of the comments – it’s worth a read of them all! Seems to me that we could do with a few more Jabiz Raisdanas in our classrooms. In my job I am constantly seeking to encourage and enthuse teachers to do exactly what this young man has been doing – let’s hope this story helps inspire others as they read the testimony of the students, and not (as I fear it may) be used by the naysayers as evidence of the perils of getting involved in the online world!

As Raisdana notes in his personal blog, there are many lessons to be learned here about things such as online identities, teachers as role models, institutionalized education, etc. I’m sure they’ll all get a good airing in future blog entries – but lets for the moment savour those comments from the students, and consider what they have to tell us about the efforts of a passionate and dedicated teacher who incorporates the use of online technologies in a way that is enriching and empowering!