Of Books, Blogs, and Teaching 2.0
Two seemingly disparate articles came my way this week and got me thinking (again) about the nature of Teaching 2.0. (I have been defining Teaching 2.0 as the shift in pedagogy brought about by participatory Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, social networks, etc.)
The first is a story from the Daily Herald in Provo, Utah. Ron Hammond, a professor at Utah Valley State College, is leading a protest against the exorbitant and rising price of textbooks for college students by not requiring any for his classes. Instead, he assigns journal articles and original research available from online sources or libraries. In addition to saving significant amounts of money for his students, Hammond has found that engaging students with original research teaches students powerful research skills that will help them in their careers. [Read the article here.]
I have not required textbooks for my university classes for the past four years. The impetus was not necessarily to protest against the cost of textbooks–although my students were very happy about not having to purchase any. Rather, it was an effort to provide current information to students in a format that was easily accessible and extensible. My reading lists vary from semester to semester as I constantly locate new and more current sources of information relevant to my topics. They are also responsible for finding some of their own sources. In a field in which information becomes obsolete almost weekly, it’s an advantage to students to be exposed to current information and also to learn the skills for locating it on their own. I’d urge all educators to critically examine the texts that they use to determine if they are really necessary for their classes. It’s very liberating to be free of the tyranny of the textbook.
The second article deals with what has become–for me, at least–a major alternative to the textbook. By most calculations, I came late to blogging. As of this writing, blogging is officially 10 years old–an eternity in computer years. I have been actively involved for about three years as an author, and for a few more as a consumer. It’s as an author, though, that the power of the medium has come into such sharp focus and why I have come to believe that blogging is such a critical tool for our students, both K-12 and post-secondary.
21Classes (as of this writing still in beta but available for use) is offering a unique take on blogging with students. 21Classes is both a blogging portal and hosting service aimed at getting students to blog. Because it offers a variety of blog management tools (e.g., reviewing entries, control over student content, making some content private, etc.) it seems targeted at K-12 students whose posts may need review prior to publishing. However, it would also be appropriate for post-secondary students, particularly as an introduction to students who may not be familiar with blogging or to those who have some privacy concerns.
21Classes is a free service at it’s basic level, which includes advertising. For about $9.00 per month, you get no ads, more storage space, and the ability to create 100 separate student accounts rather than just 50.
So–not only do we have some sound pedagogical (and economic) reasons for looking beyond textbooks, we have some easy tools to let us get started with some powerful supplements.
I want my university students to blog for a number of reasons:
- To reflect on their studies
- To develop and enhance writing skills
- To share articles and their own insights with others
- To create placed-based projects documenting Alaska’s far-flung communities
- To keep up with what their peers (and former teachers) are writing and thinking about
- To provide us at the university insight into current K-12 classrooms and issues
There’s just no reason not to anymore.
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Free Online Videos, Part Two
Following up on my earlier post, here are some additional sites that offer free videos (and some podcasts) appropriate for education.
Video Sites
The Internet Archive
Self-referenced as “universal access to human knowledge,” the Internet Archve provides access to public domain video, music, audio, and text, all searchable by topic. The Moving Images archive contains over 75,000 videos on every imaginable topic and includes full-length movies, old TV commercials, “educational” films from the 50’s (remember fallout shelters?), newsreels, and videos uploaded by the public. Fascinating…
The Open Video Project
From the site: “The purpose of the Open Video Project is to collect and make available a repository of digitized video content for the digital video, multimedia retrieval, digital library, and other research communities.” An excellent collection of videos with an effective search engine.
Mathematics Videos from NYU
This site offers free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials, and videos on a wide variety of math topics from general mathematics, physics, statistics, number theory, and more.
JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments)
An excellent collection of biology experiments and demonstrations, published monthly. These are fairly complex experiments appropriate for high school and post-secondary students.
Podcasts and Videos
Note: To view podcasts, you’ll need to have iTunes installed on your PC. (It’s already on your Mac.) Many podcasts are audio-only.
iTunes U
Apple’s iTunes store for education offers a huge variety of podcasts from over a dozen universities, all of which are freely available for download through iTunes.
OpenCulture
OpenCulture offers more than 75 university courses which may be viewed without cost. Courses include topics as diverse as art, foreign languages, science, business, and law. Most classes linked from this site are from Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT with a smattering from UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and others.
RECAP Podcasts for Educators, Schools, and Colleges
Over 4000 podcasts from more than 400 channels, including a video podcast channel with some excellent videos. The site also offers some helpful tech hints and other e-learning resources.
Online Education Database
OEDb offers 236 open courseware collections, podcasts, and videos. Scroll around the site for some excellent in-depth link sets on a variety of topics.
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The Network is the Computer
When I started my investigation of Web 2.0 technologies as a part of the teaching and learning process, I was reminded of the incredible prescience of John Gage, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems. In 1984, he uttered a phrase that became Sun’s mantra: “The network is the computer.” To put that date into perspective, 1984 was the year that the first mass-market computer with a graphical interface (the Macintosh) was released. It would still be more than ten years before a graphical web browser (Mosaic) would make it’s first appearance. Networks were the province of universities and defense institutions. What was Gage thinking about?
Now, with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies and ubiquitous wifi access, it’s very clear what Gage meant. For the activities that most of us do most of the time, the network to which we have access is far more important than the device through which that access is realized. Online, we can write (and store and collaborate on) documents, build spreadsheets, store and share our photos, maintain collections of bookmarks, develop and deliver presentations, publish our own work, read the news and correspond with others with just about any device that can access a wireless network. For this kind of work, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using Mac, Windows, or some flavor of Linux–you just need a web browser. Increasingly, it doesn’t even require a computer in the connotative sense of the term–phones, pocket PCs, and even game devices can perform most of these functions.
Web 2.0 technologies have caused a major shift in my thinking about the web. In the “old days,” I saw the web as a book with a very good index. It was exciting to be able to quickly locate up to date information, but, like all books, the information there was static and one-way. I was an observer and not a participant.
Now, I see the web as a notebook–a place not only to locate information but also to store it. share it, and even participate in it’s creation and dissemination. Tools like JetEye and Google Notebook let me keep (and share) notes as I do my online research. I can add my knowledge or observations to wikis, comment on blogs, access pictures from my former students, attend meetings, and subscribe to a huge variety of interesting information via RSS. My access device might be my laptop, but it might also be my PDA or cell phone. As these devices increasingly converge in terms of functionality, it’s not difficult to image a single device–devoid of much on the way of local storage or operating system–that will do it all. Then, the network will truly be the computer.
As educators, we need to think about how we view the functionality of the web as a tool for our students. It’s common practice in K-12 education to do a “web quest”–essentially, a guided tour through some pre-selected web sites in an effort to answer some assigned questions. It’s the 21st century equivalent of “read the chapter and answer the questions” that we all suffered through in school. Many teachers think that, because students are asked to use the web to find the answers, they are “integrating technology into the classroom.” This is the “book” view of the web that I alluded to earlier. The problem is that, for most of our students, this approach is SO twentieth century. They’ve advanced way past this in their own uses of the web (think about FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr, etc.) and in their expectations of how the web should work for them. To them, the web is an interactive medium, and they are used to being participants.
We need to take a careful look at how we are using web tools with our K-12 and post-secondary students. Are we still asking them to read the chapter and answer the questions?
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Copyright and Plagiarism on the Web
Anyone writing a blog (or posting any materials on the web) should be aware of how copyright law applies to them. This is particularly important in an age when mashups and remixes of existing materials are not only commonplace but are accepted forms of expression.
Students (and their teachers) need to be keenly aware of the copyright laws as they apply to the work that their students produce. The following sources are particularly helpful in that regard and should be required reading for all educators.
10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained
An excellent resource for students, as the myths are explained in the form of responses to comments that students might make–e.g., “If I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation,” or “If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me.”
Copyright Explained: I May Copy It, Right?
A very thorough treatment of copyright laws and rights. Topics include what is prohibited, what is NOT prohibited, what to do about plagiarism, and others. The article concludes with an excellent set of links to related articles and resources.
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The End of School As We Know It?
This blog entry about a radical education experiment in Wales caught my attention. Here’s a quote from Graham Atwell’s Wale’s-Wide Web blog:
“Knowsley Council in Merseyside, has abolished the use of the word school
to describe secondary education in the borough. It is taking the
dramatic step of closing all of its eleven existing secondary schools
by 2009. As part of a £150m government-backed rebuilding programme,
they will reopen as seven state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, learning
centres.”
Here is the link to the entire article that appeared in The Independent.
Other than these links, there doesn’t appear to be much information about this program. Does anyone have any additional information?
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Did You Know? Videos
The following video–Did You Know 2.0?— is required watching for ALL educators:
This is an official update to the original “Shift Happens” video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com — Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE.
There also is a longer, somewhat updated version available here.
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Do eSchools Work?
I spend a lot of time promoting and defending ubiquitous technology models in my role as an instructor. In doing so, I’m careful to focus on the pedagogy of successful programs rather than on the technology itself. Recent school history is replete with examples of schools spending money on technology but ignoring professional development–a pitiful combination that usually results in huge expenditures, underutilized technology, frustrated teachers, a resentful public, and test scores more or less the same as they have always been.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Planned systems based on a clear, shared vision, teacher and community buy-in, strategic partnerships, and professional development can deliver stunning results in student achievement and professional commitment. There are many studies that confirm the efficacy of ubiquitous computing models from elementary through secondary schools all over the US. As educators, we are often called on to provide evidence that e-schools can work. Finding this evidence can be a time-consuming task, but thanks to an article in the June 2007 print issue of eSchool News, educators and advocates of technology in schools can get a leg up on the process.
In today’s entry I am going to summarize the issue’s links to studies and resources regarding the success of eSchools. The full story has additional reporting that is worth reading. Subscriptions to eSchool News are free to most educators. It’s probably the only print publication I regularly read from cover to cover.
The Evidence
“Although technology has largely had a positive impact on education so far, more dedication to research and implementation is needed for technology to realize its full potential as a teaching and learning tool.”
Small Arkansas program receives national recognition for technology excellence.
Shared Leadership Makes an IMPACT in North Carolina
Teacher Development is a Key to Tech Success
Online Field Trips Boost Reading Scores
Video on Demand Boosts Students’ Math Scores
Studies Validate Laptop Programs in US, Canada
eSchool News Story | Read the Reports: One Two
Missouri’s Ed Tech Program is Raising Student Achievement
Study: Technology Boosts Student Performance
Strong media Centers Boost Students’ Test Scores
ETS Study Shows Computers Can Help..or Hurt…Learning
Study Links Technology to Student Achievement: Comprehensive Research Documents Learning Gains
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