Digital Bridge: Bringing it all together... Finally

Over the past few years, the issue of the 'Digital Divide' has bothered me. I knew that teaching students how use technology as a tool to increase their awareness and take their learning to new places was something I wanted every student to have the chance to experience. The 'Digital Divide' took on many forms, economic, social, gender based or on municipal infrastructure. While most of the United States had the ability to access the Internet with a broadband connection starting in the late 1990's, it hasn't been since the last year or so that we have seen that most students we teach have access to computers in the home and have that computer connected to the Internet. A recent Wired Magazine article states that there has been significant progress in the issues surrounding the 'Digital Divide,' but that there are still issues that prevent many students from accessing the Internet from home. Internationally, there have been several programs that have addressed this issue for students in third world countries, the most notable being the $100 laptop program from MIT's media lab and its director, Nicholas Negroponte. (Negroponte Speech at 2006 TED Conference - approx. 18 Minutes)

In our area the issues in providing access to computers, software and Internet access for our students has been mostly economic. Students unable to purchase computers, software or get themselves to the local Public Library (All San Mateo County Public Libraries have free Wi-fi access.) to use a computer, were left out of the online world.

If they could get a computer in their home, either buying a cheap computer or getting a free computer from a friend or neighbor, the issues of software to use on the computer and access to the Internet still remained. As part of the Global Communications grant, we were able to pick up about 35 or so computers from ROP that we can 'give' to students to take home. One part of the 'Digital Divide' has been bridged... But the issue of software and Internet access still remain, or do they?

Over the past two and a half years, there has been an explosion of 'free' software out on the Internet, which allows students to download software onto their computer that is compatible with most, if not all of the software applications we use on campus. (Microsoft Office, etc.) Many of these applications are categorized as Web 2.0 tools. A fellow educational technology specialist in Texas listed many of these applications on one of his blog posts. I mentioned to him a few that he left off of his list and he blogged it again giving me credit... (I'm getting spammed to teachers in Texas and around the country... isn't the blogging thing a little cool?)


There have been a few 'municipal wi-fi projects' that have launched in the past two years, most notably the Google Network in Mountain View, the Earthlink Network in San Francisco. Events over the last few weeks have made it possible for all students to be able to access the Internet if they live anywhere in San Mateo or Santa Clara Counties or in the cities of Fremont and Newark. Joint Ventures Silicon Valley has just created a partnership with Cisco Systems and a few other companies to cover all of these cities in an open wireless network. This will allow anyone with a laptop in an open area within the city limits of these towns to access the Internet for free. There will also be adapters available to bring this access into your home. Now, the access is ad supported and will be slow in some locations at some times during the day, but it is the complete bridging of the 'Digital Divide' for the students we teach.

I am just psyched that we will have the ability to give every student we teach access to a computer, a wealth of applications and to the Internet. I can't wait to pull it all together. If you know of a student that does not have a computer and needs access to one, please let me know!

Web 2.0 - School 2.0: Getting Jazzed about what is going on!

First of all... Thanks for the great response to the latest blog entry. I received several responses from teachers and administrators (one Assistant Principal and one Principal) around the district and I feel like there are quite a few opportunities for teachers to collaborate that go beyond what we have seen in previous years.

Here's a little of what I think can and will happen... I heard from a few of the District librarians that they felt they wanted to move forward in integrating technologies into what they do on a daily basis. I suggested to them that they create their own 'District Library' wiki, where they could post all of the materials that are common to all of the Libraries in the District and then use their own school library sites as the place where they could talk about the special collections and events happening at their own Library. I defintely want to pursue this project with them and will be asking to come to their next council meeting. (I'll have a separate post on Libraries in the next few days!) Educational Uses of Wiki's


A second potential collaboration happened when I received an e-mail from a teacher at Mills, who had been doing some things on the 'Read/Write Web' with PB wiki, a free online wiki tool. I took a look at what the teacher had posted and found there were quite a few links to pages that other teachers might find useful. I used PB Wiki with my Computer Systems Design class last year when they did their 'Build Your Own Computer' project, the culminating activity of the class. PB Wiki is a cool tool, but I found something a little better, called Wetpaint. I also heard from a teacher at San Mateo in the same discipline, who wanted to get started with some of these tools, but didn't know where to start. I e-mailed back and said that I would be more than happy to come by and help set up some tools to publish out on the web, but I also sent the links to the pages that the teacher from Mills had sent me. This is the true collaboration that Tim Berners-Lee envisioned when he developed what we call the 'World Wide Web' in 1989.

I went over to Mills this week and met with the science teacher to set up a Wetpaint wiki. When I arrived, he already had his site running and had plenty of ideas on how to use this with his classes, including how the students would add to the site. Now, I will work with the teacher at San Mateo in either setting up their own wiki, or becoming a contributor to the wiki at Mills. Result: Instant visualization of what the teacher at San Mateo wanted see and a potential collaboration of teachers in the same discipline from different schools. Anyone else want to help out???

So, my offer still stands...

If you want to start a wiki or a blog, send an e-mail and I will help... I am only teaching periods 1 and 2, therefore, if you have a prep period after the early morning, I can definitely come by and help you get going. E-mail me and we'll get started.

New School Year - New Tech Skills

Well... The first week of school left very little time to get to doing any else but getting the school year rolling. For the most part, the opening of school was pretty uneventful, but there are always those one or two things that pop up that need to be attended to before you can really get the year moving. With a few exceptions, all of the new district teachers were able to access district technology resources on the first day of school. On a personal note, I am feeling invigorated as this year begins (my 19th in the SMUHSD), because I can see that there are enough resources that are free and accessible to teachers that can really make a big difference in teaching and learning.

At Capuchino, we started our new Global Communications course. This course embodies the skills of the read/write web and connects with the student's English and Health/Social Science course. All of the members of the Global Communications learning team met Thursday during the collaboration time to set up communication paths (wikis, online calendars, etc.) and to identify projects where the courses will have significant collaboration. I was really impressed with the energy and the flow of the meeting and felt we are really on the right track with what we are doing.

So, what are we doing? We are all about kids having skills, transferrable skills.

How are we going to achieve this in a way that kids will learn the skills and have fun at the same time? This is how I presented it to them. I want each one of them to become an expert in something. I really don't care what it is (as long as it is appropriate), but they have to have an interest in it and be passionate about it. The example I gave them was about a fictional punk band called the 'JellyRolls.' I want them to find everything they can read about the 'JellyRolls.' I want them to search the Internet, using search engines, like Google. I also want them to search blogs, using Technorati. I want them to subscribe RSS feeds about the 'JellyRolls' using a newsreader like 'Bloglines' or 'Rollyo.' I want them to use a news feeder to get the latest articles about the 'JellyRolls' latest concert and the reviews of the performance. I want them to bookmark pages on the Internet about the 'JellyRolls' using a tool like del.icio.us or Furl. And finally I want them to take the information they have collected and write about the 'JellyRolls' on a blog they have created. As they publish their blog using Blogger or some other blogging tool, they will undoubtedly come into to contact with other fans of the 'JellyRolls' and a dialogue will take place. This will increase their 'circle of influence' outside of their school or even their hometown, but will make them a 'player' in the global information society.

Do you think these skills will be transferrable into every class we teach?

As the District Technology Coordinator, I want to do what ever I can to encourage you to begin to tap into the enormous resources that are available to you and your students on the Internet and the site communication tools we have.(School Loop and Edline) The best part of all of this is that you don't have to write a grant to find funding for a project or get some special technology to make all of this work, its all available to you with any computer connected to the district network.

So, to encourage you to take part in the unfolding of the new resources available to you, I am going to make the following deal.

1) If you want to start a blog or Wiki with your class, I will come down and help you set it all up and even work with one of your classes to begin the process.

2) If you or your students start a blog or a wiki, I'll subscribe and read it religiously. I'll be the Edublog version of 'Tom' on 'myspace.'

3) I can come to your school site and work with a small group of teachers to help develop a wiki to create online resources for your classes. We can do this with several different wiki or blogging tools.

Is anyone going to take me up on my offer? Call or write me an e-mail if you are even the least bit interested....

PEW Internet and Life: What are people doing on the Internet?

The primary mission of this blog is to promote awareness as to what is going on with technology and how it relates to the process of teaching and learning. Most teachers use the Internet to read and send e-mail, do a 'Google' search on a subject for class or use the information on a particular web page for their class. Technology has changed drastically over the past 5 years, the Internet has become a two way communication tool, using message boards, chat rooms, blogs and social networking sites. Many people have a general idea what a blog is and about the 'blogosphere,' but many don't have a good idea of what is really going on in the blogosphere! What is going on right now is the explosion of two way communication on the Internet, using social networking sites, tagging sites, peer production news, etc. Now, I know what you are thinking. There has been instant messaging, chat rooms, message boards, etc. all over the Internet for several years now, what do you mean there is an explosion going on now? The explosion that is going on now is that everyone and anyone can have an Internet presence and create, re-mix and draw new connections to anything they want. Because all of the content is accessible and easy to search and filter, anyone can become a content creator and have their ideas available for anyone to access.

Why am I telling you all of this now? Well, a study was recently released about how people use the Internet and what they use it for. The results will probably not surprize you, but should make you think, how can I use this level of interest to engage my students?

The PEW Internet and Life Project is a group that studies what people are doing on the Internet, which tools they are using and makes some predictions as to what people may be doing in the future. Recently, the group released a study about blogging; who is writing and who is reading this content and how it is effecting the social landscape of the world.

The full report from PEW Internet is here: Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers, but the summary of the report is below.

- Blogging is brining new voices to the online world.

- Contrary to the impression created by the press attention on political blogging, just 11% of bloggers say they focus mainly on government or politics.

- The blogging population is young, evenly split between women and men, and racially diverse.

- 54% of all bloggers are between 18-29, yet they only account for 24% of the population online.
Hispanics account for only 11% of the online population, yet they account for 19% of all the bloggers.

- Relatively small groups of bloggers view blogging as a public endeavor.

- The main reasons for keeping a blog are creative expression and sharing personal experiences.
Blogging is usually the first foray into authorship; bloggers blog to express themselves creatively and share personal experiences.

- Sixty-two percent of bloggers did not have a personal website before launching their blog and 54% of bloggers had not published their writing or media creations anywhere else, either online or offline.

- Three in four bloggers (77%) told us that expressing themselves creatively was a reason that they blog.

- Only one-third of bloggers see blogging as a form of journalism. Yet many check facts and cite original sources.

- Bloggers are avid consumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general.

- In February 2004, approximately 17% of Internet users said they had read a blog, since that time the number of Internet users that read blogs has risen to 39%, accounting for approximately 57 million adults in the United States.

- Bloggers will bring in media from other sources and remix the content they find online to create their own artistic creation.

- Bloggers are major consumers of political news and about half prefer sources without a particular political viewpoint.

- Bloggers prefer political news, and news in general, without a particular political viewpoint.

- Bloggers often utilize community and readership-enhancing features available on their blogs.

- Blogs gain attention, if only at a personal level. Nearly 60% of bloggers had been noticed by others, either through comments posted on their blog or by exchanging links to other sites. Blog writers are also enthusiastic blog readers.

Source: Lenhart, Amanda and Susannah Fox. Bloggers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, July 19, 2006.

What does all of this mean for education and the use of technology in education? Lots of good stuff. If you look at some of these things, you start saying to yourself, "This is what I want my students to do." So, now I would ask you... what are you going to do with this information and how are you going to integrate it into your teaching repertoire?

Some great first steps:
1) Go back and read some of the previous posts on this blog and look at what interests you and how you can modify, remix or tweak it and use it right away.

2) Create your own 'Bloglines' account, subscribe to a few blogs and read them periodically and find ways to integrate the material you find there into your classes.

3) Take a look at the Capuchino Online Learning Community (OLC) site to get ideas on how to integrate technology into your classes.

4) Talk to the Technology Coordinator at your school or send an e-mail to Kyle Brumbaugh or Dominic Bigue to get more ideas about how to integrate technology into your classes. Start small and work up as you develop more skill.

DOPA... I couldn't come up with a better word to describe the U.S. Congress

Some of you have been hearing about the DOPA or Deleting Online Predators Act that has been making its way through the House of Representatives and is now in Committee in the U.S. Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Ted Stevens the Senator from the state of Alaska that has called the Internet, " a series of tubes." What DOPA does is forces all schools to implement filtering software to keep students from accessing all types of social networking and chat room sites from school or public library computers. Within the last year there isn't a school in the country that hasn't has its share of problems with 'myspace' or other social networking and chat room sites, but to completely filter these sites from all schools is not only impossible, but is not in the best interest of education and our students. At the same time schools are just learning how to integrate these types of sites into the classroom for an educational benefit.

As schools and public libraries have implemented 'filtering' software to keep users from accessing certain sites, particularly pornographic and social networking sites, there has been a flood of 'proxy servers' that have sprung up that allow the users to bypass any of the filtering software that may be in place on the network and allow users to access these sites. It is also short sided to think that students will not access these types of sites when at home or at a friends home without the adult supervision that is available at school or the library.

Some, may not agree with the analogy I am going to make here, but I think it is applicable in this setting. Underage drinking, premarital sex and other issues have been around for many, many years, but any efforts to curtail teenagers from engaging in these activities has been unsuccessful. In response, we have integrated curriculum into our schools to teach students the dangers of teenage drinking, unprotected pre-marital sex and how to best protect themselves if they do engage in these behaviors. I would suggest that we do the same thing with social networking and chat room sites. We need to educate students how to use these tools in appropriate ways integrated into the educational process. This is exactly what we are doing with the new Global Communications curriculum at Capuchino. Educational Security expert, Larry Magid, expressed these concerns in a recent column on CBS's web site.

In the interim, I would suggest that you become more informed about how to appropriately use social networking sites in your class. A good first start is to use the message boards that are part of the School Loop system. Another way to get started is to create your own Bloglines account and subscribe to a few blogs (maybe this one!) and start to see what kind of information is available on a daily basis. If you want to learn more about how to do this, keep an eye out on this blog or send me an e-mail.

I would also encourage you to send the members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and e-mail, expressing your concern over DOPA.

TED Conference - A view from the BIG thinkers!

Each year the biggest 'thinkers' in the world converge on Monterey, California to share what they believe will be the biggest issues society and mankind will face in the coming years. This is the conference where Al Gore outlined his newest Global Warming theories to the world. This is the 'TED Conference.' (Technology, Entertainment, Design)

So, you are asking yourself, why is he writing about this? What does this have to do with education and technology integration? Well, there were two speakers at the TED conference this year who spoke about issues that relate directly to the use of technology in schools. While these speakers didn't outline solutions to the issues surrounding tech integration or the newest gadgets available to us, what they did do is discuss how education as a whole is changing and how technology has advanced and its relation to society.

Sir Kenneth Robinson is the author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative" and is a leading educational scholar in Great Britain. The video on the TED Conference site is about 15 minutes in length and outlines some of the issues schools and education in general must face in the next 5-10 years. In the short video he lists three themes that will effect education and the educational process. First there is 'evidence of human creativity.' Second, everyone has an interest in education, but no one really knows where it is going and therefore cannot plan for the next educational structure. And third, all children have a capacity for innovation and education.

A few of the points Robinson makes are especially important to remind ourselves of when integrating technology into our teaching repertoire. The first thing to remember is that the 9th graders that enter the SMUHSD this year will graduate from high school in 2010 and if they work until the current retirement age, they will retire in 2055. In the next 30 years, more people will graduate from our educational systems than have graduated in the entirety of the previous history of our educational system. And finally, we need to have a new conception of 'Human Ecology.' Our current educational system has 'stripmined' human minds for the commodity to be successful in an industrial economy. In the future, this won't work!

The second video on the TED Conference site that I would encourage you to take a look at is the presentation from David Pogue. Pogue, is the New York Times technology columnist. Pogue's talk surrounds the idea that the amount of technology around us in our lives has expanded drastically since the inception of the personal computer in the early 1980's. Early on there was a command line interface that only allowed those who had a significant amount of technological expertise use a computer. As time as gone on, the number people using computers and the number of possible user options has increased greatly. With all this increased usage and options, computers by and large have not really become easier to use. Pogue speaks to the average technology user's woes: too many options, confusing user interfaces and the lack of support from technology companies.

Please spend a few minutes and take a look at the TED Conference site and the Robinson talk and Pogue presentation.

If you have any comments, please feel free to add them to the blog post.

Will's Big Shifts: Why are they important to the educational process

I just finished reading Will Richardson's book: "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms." My goal in reading the book was to find a book that the teachers in our new Global Communications program could use as a reference when they are starting to build content for their classes and how to work collaboratively with the other teachers in the program and the students they will be teaching. The first part of the book was what I suspected, it had a lot of great information on content creation and how to use some of the ancillary tools of the 'Read/Write Web.' The strength of the book is in the last 15 pages. When Will perfectly describes 10 'Big Shifts' that will occur in education over the next few years and how the educational dynamic will change.

What are these 'Big Shifts' and how will they change the educational process?

1. Open Content: Open content means that all of the resources on the Internet are availble to students. In the past, in depth access to resources was limited to having access to a library or other repository of information. Typically, students needed another individual to assist them in this search (Librarian). This is no longer the case.
   
2. Many, many teachers, and 24/7 Learning: Students learn from many different sources, not just teachers. They learn by reading different authors or 'editors' on the Internet based on their own interests. As teachers we become facilitators of the available content, not the sole source of it.
   
3. The Social, Collaborative Construction of Meaningful Knowledge: The Internet is a social system, it was designed that way when Tim Berners-Lee envisioned it, but it has taken the last 17 years for that vision to be truly realized. Look at the use of cell phones on campus and the number of 'myspace' accounts and you have enough proof that the Internet is a 'social system.' Our job is to bring the innate, social structure of the Internet into our classrooms and beyond, by teaching students to use the tools available to them in socially acceptable and ethical ways. Once this happens, students will use the tools to collaborate and innovate with their peers and beyond.
   
4. Teaching Is Conversation, not Lecture: What are the strengths of study groups? To me the strength of study groups was the ability to have a conversation about the course content to assist me in constructing the content in my own way. Lecture constructs the content in one way, conversation allows each individual to construct the content in their own way.
   
5. Know 'Where' Learning: For several years I have been telling my students that the most valuable commodity in our society is information. It isn't possessing information that is important, it is the ability to find and access that information and put it to use quickly and effectively that holds the most value in our society.
   
6. Readers Are No Longer Just Readers: Students are quick to question their peers, but less willing to question something they read on the Internet. Part of what we should be teaching is the ability to constructively question the material they read from all sources and the skills to validate everything they read.
   
7. The Web as Notebook: Blogging, wikis, message boards, collaborative video tools (YouTube), still picture tools (Flickr), podcasting, online slideshows (YouRock). The list goes on and on, teachers and students need to be ready to embrace these tools and use them to become effective communicators. (ESLR reference here!)
   
8. Writing Is No Longer Limited to Text: Writing takes on many different forms, whether that be in a blog, a wiki, a podcast, a video, an audio file, an annotated slideshow, etc. The forms of student and teacher content creation are limitless. The best part of this is that many of the ways students can create content and post their work on the Internet are free. Blogger, PBWiki, Wetpaint, YouTube, RockYou, etc. This may be the beginnings of School 2.0, a play on the Web 2.0 theme that the Internet is now a tw0-way communication tool. The synthesis of this is articulated in the Educause article, "Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning?"
   
9. Mastery Is The Product, Not the Test: What is the greater measurement of mastery? Scoring 70%+ on a standardized test or applying the material learned in class in some useful way. There have been many educational models that have emphasized application of skill to real-world situations, but many have not had the chance to be fully realized because of bureaucratic roadblocks put in place by the local and state boards of education. One of these models is the 'Rigor / Relevance Framework' set forth by William Daggett.
   
10. Contribution, Not Competition, as the Ultimate Goal: Cooperative learning, project based learning and many other collaborative educational strategies have been making the rounds through the educational circles for several years now with mixed success. Why? There are always issues surrounding assessment of individual student work in a cooperative / collaborative setting. Some students have difficulties working with others that may / may not be part of their peer group and therefore work to their ability. A new framework for cooperative learning using technology is attempting to work through some of these issues. This is part of what we need to teach students is the ability to work with others from any ethnic or socio-economic group and find the talents in each individual and work to those strengths. This is exactly what the read/write web allows students to do. Students can do this with peers they share the same classroom with, but they can do it as easily with students that are several contenents away. This is the strength of the read/write web, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0, because it allows students to expand their circle of influence and it makes time and location no longer relevant.
    

Many of these issues will become more and more relevant as time goes on and it is our duty to seek out many of these tools to assist us in preparing our students for the cooperative and collaborative world they will live in the future. Just think, the students that are entering high school this fall, if they work until the present retirement age of 65, will retire in 2055. Do you think they will need some of the skills I have just outlined?