A novel idea from e-instruction in the US, an online competition that asks students and teachers to collaboration on a nationwide Google Maps mashup by posting their vision of the role of technology in education in 250 words of less to a specially set up website. The incentives mean that I can imagine there'll be no shortage of people submitting their ideas. While this is blatantly an advertising stunt (presumably to publicise the amalgamation of e-instruction and interwrite learning), the simplicity of the task and the use of Google Maps to represent the answers means that it will be interesting to revisit this site in a month's time to read what has been submitted for a sample of the "vox pop" on what teachers say are the benefits of a technology-empowered classroom.
Unfortunately for NZ schools the contest is only available to schools in the US, however an email from the organisers advises me that there will be one opened up to NZ and Australia as well later in the year.
The uptake of web-based tools and applications in the Web2.0 world prompts a question in my mind from time to time - "where is all the information stored, and who has access to it?"
I thought about this again when I read Sue Water's latest post in which she has published the results of a Twitter poll she conducted by asking her Twitter followers to name their favourite 3 Web2.0 applications (apart from Twitter, del.icio.us and Frirefox.)
I'm very interested to note the extent to which Google applications emerged in the favourites list from her poll. I'm a big fan and user of many of these myself, but recently have become aware of of Google's reputation of being "hostile" towards users privacy.
This was brought home to me further recently a recent article in the Globe and Mail titled Patriot Act Haunts Google which highlights that the Google on-line services (Docs, Sites etc) are subject to the "USA Patriot" Act (in fact an acronym that stands for " Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) which could make the use of the sites they consider (a) a threat to academic freedom, or (b) in breach of Canada's privacy laws - depending on what data is put there.
Certainly food for thought, I suspect we'll see more debate on this emerging in the next few months.
The weekend is about to begin, the weather forecast isn't that great and daylight saving is about to end, signaling the end of summer - but a ray of sunshine entered my world when I found I've been designated one of this year's "Global Six" by the George Lucas Educational Foundation's Edutopia, who, each year, select twelve US and six global educators who they consider are making a difference in education.
I feel very humbled and very privileged to be selected as a part of this group, each of whose stories on the site make for inspirational reading! In my case I've been credited for a lot that has actually been achieved by my colleagues in CORE, so I see this as a collective recognition - thanks Edutopia.
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.
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?
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!
This month's debate proposition is: "The house believes that social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom."
Our expert debaters are two leaders in education and technology, and will square off for three rounds of debate:
CON - Michael Bugeja, Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. The author of 21 books whose research is often cited by the New York Times, Dr. Bugeja was among the first to analyze the use of social networks (Facebook & Second Life) before their use by students and educators was widespread and well-understood.
PRO - Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching Scotland, the education agency responsible for curriculum development, and a member of the Channel 4 Media Advisory Board. He writes about social media and learning for the Guardian and the BBC, speaks internationally and consults for organizations including the British Council, the RSA, General Teaching Council of Scotland, RM and Scottish Enterprise, advising on how social media can be harnessed for to improve learning. He blogs at http://edu.blogs.com
Judith Krug, Directory, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association (ALA)
Ann Flynn, Director, Education Technology, National School Board Association (NSBA)
Nancy Willard, Executive Director, The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
Follow the Debates on Facebook
The Economist has launched a Facebook group for followers of the debate. If you're already a Facebook member, feel free to join the group where you'll find syndicated content and be able to interact directly with members of The Economist community, including some of the previous guest participants.
Here's a short debate schedule:
Tuesday, January 15 - Opening statements & floor opens to comments from public
Wednesday, January 16 - Guest Participant, Parry Aftab, WiredSafety.org
Thursday, January 17 - Rebuttals
Monday, January 21 - Guest Participant, Judith Krug, American Library Association
Tuesday, January 22 - Guest Participant, Ann Flynn, National School Boards Association
Wednesday, January 23 - Closing statements
Thursday, January 24 - Guest Participant, Nancy Willard, Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
Nigel posted this video on my Facebook Funwall recently, and I've been pondering its usefulness for education. Four things occur to me:
It provides a very useful framework for engaging students with thinking about complex issues and reconciling multiple points of view. I've long been a fan of the scenario-planning methodologies, and this framework uses some of this thinking (although I'm guessing is origins are more in the economic modelling and decision making domain).
It provides a great vehicle for encouraging group work by providing the four perspectives that could be explored by different groups for instance. it provides an opportunity to us the ideas promoted by DeBono with his thinking hats to encourage students to explore ideas from a perspective that may not be their own, or the one they'd naturally identify with.
It provides a good model for how students could present the efforts of their individual or group research into topical issues - both in terms of the framework itself, and in terms of the video as a way of sharing it. I also got to thinking how effective it would be to create the quadrants in a web environment and add hyperlinks from each statement to supporting evidence etc.
It's a ready-made learning object for use with a class thinking about climate change! Students could be encouraged to add their own perspectives to each of the quadrants, debate what the presenter has already added, seek the evidence to support their statements etc.
Some food for thought here, and I'm sure this could be a starting point for lots of teachers to explore other ways of using such a framework for 'unpacking' complex issues and working towards identifying solutions or acceptable outcomes - whether these be big issues such as global warming, or deciding on what foods should be served in the school tuck shop etc.
Show how are you using technology in the classroom!
How would you show off what you are doing with ICT in the classroom? Here's an intriguing idea that I came across earlier this week when I read an invitation from Interwrite Learning, in conjunction with TeacherTube, to enter a video competition to creatively show how you are using (or would like to use) technology in the classroom. It's open to residents of the US, New Zealand and Australia - the only caveat on each entry is that it must include reference to the sponsor of the competition (see guidelines).
While I'm not considering entering, my interest in this site will be in viewing the entries that are made. Seems to me that the prizes being offered are substantial enough to attract the attention of many teachers, so I'm expecting to see a number of entries submitted. Although the guidelines stipulate the video must be a song parody , the criteria focuses attention on how technology (ICT) is used in the classroom, so it will be interesting to see how this is interpreted.
I've just been reading an eSchool News report on a 'Digital Incubator' project that gives seed money to college students for creating innovative applications. It begins:
Among the new digital tools and applications that students will be using on college campuses this fall are a mysterious, mobile-phone-based game of espionage; an online communal ranking system that can help in group decision-making; a first-of-its-kind MP3 visualizer that uses song lyrics to dynamically generate music videos; an online and mobile-phone-based community that lets members record and collaborate on rap music; and an interactive, advice-based wiki for helping students discuss difficult subjects. - And what's most remarkable about these applications is they're all student-created.
A joint initiative of Cisco Systems and mtvU, the digital incubator exists to identify new technologies and support innovative student programs that help the company learn how customers are using the web to create digital media.
It's great to see this sort of support coming for student created work, and the recognition it gives to the possibility of new teaching and learning approaches and environments. The five winners of the award announced on 5 September can be accessed via the digital incubator website, and are well worth exploring. They are:
Casablanca - a new style of mobile game that blends alliance and betrayal with social networking. Using text messages and email, two teams vie for control of the city by building or infiltrating social networks.
How do I say this? - a community based site that invites users to help each other to address the things in life that seem impossible to say.
Osiris - a music visualizer based on the lyrics of a song
RapHappy - an online and mobile-phone-based hip-hop community that enables members to easily record, collaborate on, search, and listen to freestyle or written raps, without any need for software or file uploading.
Selectricity - advanced voting technology for everyday decisions.
The 2006 winners can also be found on the digital incubator website and a worth a look - I found College2.0 intriguing - an interactive, choose your own adventure video based on (American) College life.
Initiatives like this go a long way to encouraging our young innovators and 'imagineers' to pursue their dreams - and I applaud them. I'm working at the moment with someone in NZ who I'd rate in this sort of category - unfortunately the options for him aren't so alluring, and his idea, as innovative and forward thinking as I believe it is, may well end up being just that, an idea, due to the lack of this sort of support.
I've just spent the past few days in Melbourne, working with the Department of Education and groups from schools who are doing some exciting stuff in the area of integrating ICT into learning and teaching.
A hot topic in part of our discussion was internet safety - spurred in part by the concerns around the development of The Ultranet - described as "an intuitive student-centred electronic learning environment that supports high quality learning and teaching, connects students, teachers and parents and enables efficient knowledge transfer.???" The vision for this environment is that it will include various Web2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and podcasting technologies - all within a 'protected' environment (ie closed off from the open internet).
This led to discussions around the potential dangers of social software environments - and the announcement while I've been here by Prime Minister John Howard has of a $189 million program to improve internet safety. The money will be spent on filtering and blocking solutions to "protect" innocent children and families from the nasties of the web.
In another press release I've read since being here is an announcement:YouTube banned in Australian Schools. Such responses to the very real dangers of the internet are based on what some refer to as "moral fear" - by which they justify the banning and blocking of access in the name of safety and protectionism.
But is this really the answer? In a strangely paradoxical situation, in the same paper that I read about the banning of YouTube, I read about the Australian PMannouncing a gap-year Army program on YouTube (watch it here) So where does the PM expect his intended audience (senior secondary students) to view the clip from since they're banned from doing so at school?
Meanwhile, in the USA I read of a Senate bill to promote web safety which will require the FTC to carry out a nationwide public-awareness campaign on internet safety for children. The response to this bill appears to have the support of those promoting the "digital faith" approach, with US ed-tech advocates agreeing the current legislation seems to make more sense and marks a more level-headed approach to internet safety.
"We now see a bill that asks schools to take their proper role in teaching safe and responsible use of the internet, rather than trying to block emerging communication and social-networking systems with great potential for positively engaging students and improving learning," said Don Knezek, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education.
"One of a school's primary functions is to ensure safety and build responsible citizens, and trying to block every threatening activity that goes on in society is not a formula for effective education."
Knezek applauded the bill's efforts to increase web-safety education and cited New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's recent request that teachers begin internet-safety training.
"That's exactly the kind of approach we hope to see happen, rather than prohibiting modern communication structures and tools," he said.
I came across some material on YouTube that supports this educative approach that I used in my presentation in Australia - including the one below titled "Cyber-bullying - Talent Show:
It'll be interesting to see how these two perspectives on how we deal with issues of internet safety and cyber-bullying in the future play out. Certainly we can find politicians, policy developers, parents and teachers on both sides of the debate - and in the middle are our students, who, even if they find this access blocked in schools, will face the decision of what to view and how to respond etc. when they access the web from home. So - even if blocking and filtering software is being contemplated, we owe it to our students to also address the issue of personal responsibility around their use of the internet.
The topic of Cyber-bullying was identified as one of CORE's Ten Trends for 2007 at the beginning of the year, and it certainly has been in the news! It's one of those topics that generates strong feelings in people - particularly those affected by the bullies and bullying. Here are just a few perspectives I came across during a troll through some news feeds this morning:
The Oregonian reports that in Oregon, USA, legislators are drafting a bill requiring schools to come up with ways to address cyberbullying that happens on campus, near campus, on school buses or at school-related activities. The articles quotes legislators saying "it's an epidemic", and "student safety was becoming an issue". Little surprise then that the legislation is described by them as "treading on the side of 'better safe than sorry'".
More thoughts on this problem are outlined in one of the latest in the annual series of monographs about issues facing K-12 leaders in education technology from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). Each monograph includes case studies and insights from experts on how to implement emerging technology programs in schools, and on how to deal effectively with potential crises. in its article about the monographs eSchoolNews quotes:
One monograph, titled "Safety and Learning in the Era of Social Networking," explores potential problems for users of social-networking sites on the internet. Such sites might have great educational potential, the monograph notes, but students might think--erroneously--that they are posting information about their interests, activities, and other personal details solely for their friends.
The monograph says students need to understand that their postings are usually accessible by anyone who uses the internet. It cautions that online social networking can create virtual bookmarks that could come back to haunt today's young people later on, such as when they are in college or in a job.
Seems like some sensible advice - unfortunately access to the full document is available to members only, or by payment of a small fee, so I haven't yet read the full thing!
The third thing I came across is reference on CNet News Blog to a kid-safe plug-in for the Firefox web browser described as follows:
The software, called Glubble (for global bubble), is essentially a white list, or collection of pre-approved sites, for the Web browser. By downloading the Firefox plug-in, parents can control their kids' experience online by choosing which sites they can visit and with whom they can chat. Designed for children under 12, the browser extension filters out all other sites, and maintains personalized preferences for parents and individual children. It even offers a version of Google that searches only the pre-approved sites.
Seems like a useful thing to consider, although probably more suited to the younger age groups where such protections might be considered while the learners are developing the ability to discriminate and make decisions for themselves. Once they're a little older (and net savvy) kids will begin to feel the constraints of such measures - and besides, they can always choose to launch MS Explorer and side-step the Firefox plug-in! :-)
Just as I was beginning to think that I'm getting used to the Internet and the various ways that I've found to integrate it into the things I do in my life I read that researchers at several universities are working to design a new internet to replace the current global network.
The argument goes that the originally designed internet is well past it's used-by date, with all sorts of "tack-ons' having been added over the past couple of decades to address things such as security, performance, mobility etc., and that these things are now making the current internet cumbersome and in danger of falling over, particularly as we move towards much faster internet speeds and a more mobile internet.
In the article on eSchoolNews, Larry Peterson, chairman of computer science at Princeton and head of the planning group for the NSF's GENI is quoted as saying, "Rather than create workarounds each time, clean-slate researchers want to redesign the system to easily accommodate any future technologies."
Wow - I guess we'll have to wait and see where this one goes, although indications are that it won't be something that happens in a hurry - with those involved recognising that the internet has now become mission critical to so many in business, government, education etc - it would create mahem to do anything too suddenly.
The article did start me thinking however. What do you do when a system, designed and built to meet the requirements of a previous era, becomes so burdened through the repeated addition of "tack-ons" designed to make it cope with the emerging demands of the changing environment it operates in? Is a clean slate indeed the best solution?
The whole scenario sounds familiar - take for instance our education system. Trouble is, we're up against the same things this group of internet researchers will find - entrenched sets of beliefs and behaviours, all sorts of established use and dependencies, and a general relectance to change from something that is familiar.
Seems we inevitably get back to the "evolution" vs "revolution" arguments. Meantime, another generation of young people get poorly served by what we offer.....
More from Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak at the launch of the International Smart School Conference 2007 being held in Kuala Lumpur as I write.
In his opening address to the conference the Deputy PM has called for a review of non-ICT promoting curriculum, saying
"We can equip our schools and train teachers with ICT. But at the end of the day, if the curriculum is still examination focused, and geared towards memorisation and reproduction of facts and figures, our objectives will not be met
Gone are the days for rote learning or spoon feeding in classrooms, of regurgitating textbook chapters to fill up pages of examination answer books.
The emphasis in today's learning culture must be on thinking, the use of the mind to find solutions to emerging problems. Students must be taught the means through which they can maximise their creativity and capacity for innovation,"
Our work with teachers here in Perak is entirely in line with these sentiments, and so we are encouraged to hear this sort of challenge. It has for a number of years been the focus of our programmes back in New Zealand, and we are definitely seeing the results in classrooms there.
Not surprisingly the report shows that the uptake of blogs continues to escalate at an explosive pace, but there are signs also that the "blogosphere" is maturing, with some definite patterns of use establishing in what the data reveals. Some indications of this growth include:
The blogosphere is now 70 million weblogs wide
About 120,000 new weblogs are created each day, or...
1.5 million posts per day
1.4 new blogs are created every second
17 posts are made every second
Robin's post is the place to head for a fuller summary of what the report says, but a couple of things did stand out for me.
The first relates to the internationalisation of blogs - and the language they are written in. According to the Technorati stats for this year, the Japanese are now the world's greatest blogging nation (based on langauge of blogs). Of the top four languages for blogging, Japanese retakes the top spot from the last report, with 37% (up from 33%) of the posts followed closely by English at 36% (down from 39%). Next after these two front-running languages is Chinese which comes in third at 8% (down from 10% in 2006, and fourth is Italian at 3% (up from 2% last year).
The other thing that caught my eye is the data indicating a rapid rise in the use of Tagging. The report noted that 35% of all February 2007 posts used tags. As Silfy states; "we???re seeing explosive growth in the tags index. People are clicking on tags, people are using tags, Google features tagged media in its results pages.. Is this the sign we've been looking for to confirm the establishment of folksonomies as a legitimate contender for how we organise and mange information>
Read the full State of the Live Web report by David Silfy in its original version with additional graphs and stats here: The State of the Live Web, April 2007
There are also links to the previous year's Technorati reports at the bottom of Robin Good's post - these provide very useful reading to make comparisons and discover where the trends are.
A fascinating article in the Manchester Evening News caught my eye - titled Don't text kids out of school, teachers told. Seems that some teachers who have been making use of emerging technologies such as cell phones and some social networking software to communicate with their students out of school hours are facing complaints from parents and some even facing court action! Now, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) is warning that sending cyber messages is leaving teachers exposed to malicious accusations against them.
While there's a cautionary tale here about the need for discretion about who and where teachers choose to share personal details, and what sorts of messages and comments they may make, I'd certainly hope that a few isolated incidents won't quench the exploration of how these tools can be used to bridge the gap between home and school, and contribute positively to supporting students learning when and where they want to.
I've just listened to an interesting programme on Radio New Zealand's "Insight" programme titled "Business and Broadband". I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in the current situation regarding New Zealand's broadband connectivity.
Compared with other countries in the world, New Zealand is definitely behind the eight-ball in terms of the bandwidth available to us. This is exacerbated in rural areas where weather conditions, electric fences and simple geography make the issue of connectivity even more of a problem. As a result, the ability of New Zealand businesses to participate in what Thomas Friedman calls the 'flat world' is becoming increasingly limited.
There are some developments that provide a sense of light at the end of the tunnel, in particular, the development of urban fibre networks in several major centres supported by funding from the Broadband Challenge, and the development of the KAREN network, providing a !0Gb high speed backbone across the whole if New Zealand.
Yesterday was World Math day, and to celebrate, students from more than 94 countries around the world participated in a massive online event aimed at setting a record of record of 10 million questions correctly answered! That record was set in just 17 hours!. My son sat at his computer to join the fun with just three and a half hours to go, and the total just passed the 35 million mark as he participated in his first challenge!
At some times in the challenge there have been over 10,000 students online competing at the same time! The Hall of Fame is a miscellany of countries from Portugal to Cyprus, Kazakhstan to Bermuda, the Mariana Islands to New Zealand! One young New Zealander (from Newlands Intermediate) was in 4th place when we looked.
While I wouldn't normally find this sort of "drill and practice" activity something to get too excited about, it was interesting to watch the reaction of my nine year old and his six year old sister as they participated in each challenge, where the challenge involved both speed and accuracy. My son, who has had a Mathletics account for just a couple of weeks, was really engaged at a number of levels;
trying to better his previous effort,
maintaining his accuracy score,
competing against others in terms of accuracy and speed in each challenge,
knowing he was contributing to the overall total of correct answers, and
noting the countries that each of his challengers came from in each challenge
It was also fascinating to listen to the dialogue between him and his younger sister as each problem appeared on the screen, with one reading the problem as the other looked at the keyboard to type in the answer.
This may not have been the epitome of constructivist or inquiry-based learning, but it did reinforce for me that we ought not dismiss too quickly the motivation that comes for some students through some carefully constructed competition!
An interesting article in this morning's New York Times titled Social Networking's Next Phase to my attention. It makes the announcement that next week Cisco Systems plans to announce that it is buying the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social networking site.
According to the article, the deal will give Cisco the technology to help large corporate clients create services resembling MySpace or YouTube to bring their customers together online. The article continues:
The new social networking players, which include Cisco and a multitude of start-ups like Ning, the latest venture of the Netscape co-creator Marc Andreessen, say that social networks will soon be as ubiquitous as regular Web sites. They are aiming to create tools to let ordinary people, large companies and even presidential candidates create social Web sites tailored for their own customers, friends, fans and employees.
The rest of the article expands on what is driving this next phase of social networking, and what it may look like.
I find it fascinating for a couple of reasons, firstly, I've been impressed with Cisco's ability to read such trends in the past. Theirs was one of the first papers on learning objects that I came across back in 2000, and although these original concepts have been developed further since then, the foundations were laid.
Secondly, I signed up for an account with Ning when it was first released - then did little with it until the team from Ning announced just a few weeks ago that they'd totally re-vamped the site. Since then I've been looking with interest at the new functionality that has been introduced, and the subtle ways in which the community building capabilities it provides differ from the more established social networking sites mentioned above. I haven't yet got to the stage of creating my own social networking community, but have certainly enjoyed visiting others.
Clicking on this logo will take you to a list of ten trends that we've identified as being particularly important in 2007. The aim is to create some dialogue around some of the things that are happening in the NZ context regarding the use of ICT in education. The emphasis is on looking at the bigger picture, rather than the things absorb our time every day at the "coal face".
I will be using these ten trends as the focus of my Spotlight at the Learning@School conference this week, and would love to see plenty of contributions being made in the comments section at the end of each "Trend".
Each month or so the CORE staff are going to expand one of the themes with further links and references to prompt a deeper level of participation and discussion. We're sure to have missed some that people think are important, or included some that others think aren't - all of which should make the discussion fuller and richer!
Is John Key's appearance on YouTube somebodies not so bright one off idea, or is it a signal that they want to play in the ecology of the web?
This is the question asked by Paul Reynolds today on his blog where he muses far more eloquently that I can on the actions of hte national Party and it's leader, John Keys, to post a series of short diary entries on YouTube.
Paul's blog entry complements the interview he did on National Radio where he was asked whether he thought this was a good idea.
Paul's response is well worth a read, for two reasons:
he raises the question about whether the act of posting items on YouTube is seen simply as another channel for "getting their message out there", or whether the politicians involved are consciously preparing themselves to become participants in the "ecology of Web2.0", which may involve their material being taken and used in a variety of other forms and contexts for example.
Paul goes on to challenge the politicians with a range of questions at the policy and strategic level, imploring them to reveal their position on a whole range of issues such as life-long learning, digital content, and broadband access - all of which require support from the highest level if we are to succeed in offering world class digital learning pathways and opportunities for all of our citizens.
Thanks Paul for your provocative entry - let's hope we see some response!
A novel idea from e-instruction in the US, an online competition that asks students and teachers to collaboration on a nationwide Google Maps mashup by posting their vision of the role of technology in education in 250 words of less to a specially set up website. The incentives mean that I can imagine there'll be no shortage of people submitting their ideas. While this is blatantly an advertising stunt (presumably to publicise the amalgamation of e-instruction and interwrite learning), the simplicity of the task and the use of Google Maps to represent the answers means that it will be interesting to revisit this site in a month's time to read what has been submitted for a sample of the "vox pop" on what teachers say are the benefits of a technology-empowered classroom.
