LightintheWoods

Today, I met with the Centre for Academic Technologies at the University of Regina. The topic of discussion was possibilities for, and the potential of, mobile tools and learning. In preparation for this discussion I prepared this wiki on Mobile Tools. You will find links to stories, possible tools, ideas around teaching & learning, strengths/opportunities & weaknesses/barriers to consider and a selection of related links. In the end we agreed on the importance of remaining current on these technologies and attempting to ensure that courses are designed with possibilities for mobile tools in mind.

Hopefully in the near the future we will see these tools integrated into courses as they are needed and not because mobile seems to be the latest & greatest trend or flashy gizmo. My feeling is that some students are already self equipped with devices that have the potential to expand upon their access to content and overall learning experience. It was evident that his area is ripe for experimentation and innovation, as we generated far more questions than answers. We are continually looking for models of success and ideas of sound pedagogical application, please share if you have any stories of mobile technologies and learning.

There is much more on this topic that I want to unpack and think about. As tools advance, barriers to efficient use of the tools will decrease and learners will continue to find ways to utilize the mini computers that we carry.

I have a related post on MP3 players from January that has more thoughts on possibilities for tools.

Some twitter folks may of followed bits of this scenario if they had been on twitter at all yesterday. If not, try to follow along. Here is how it started…

In that third tweet, I shouldn’t have used the typical teacher talk to refer to the classroom conversation as a ‘lesson’. For this post I will save you the details about the ‘conversation’/'learning experience’/'time together’, but I suspect bits and pieces will come out as I share my perspective.

Anyway, this tweet triggered a few replies. Through the early evening, we threw a few tweets back and forth. Eventually, I picked up a short conversation with @mindelei (that is the only name I know know her by.) As a brand new teacher, I like following and tweeting with Mindelei, because she is a pre-service teacher and writes well. We shared meaningful discussion and questioning on teaching about the ‘idea of cool’.

I claimed that it is important to discuss ‘cool’ with students. That everyone has their own unique sense of ‘cool’. Referring to the students, I tweeted about coolness as part of one’s ’self’. Everyone is cool in some way. I tweeted about modeling ‘cool’ and that students are shown many examples when we teach about hero’s, share best practices and point out ‘cool’ acts.

I wrote that, too often ‘cool’ equates with ‘popular’ and that is false. Coolness is not about social hierarchy at all. It is about strong values/morals/ethics, neat interests, talents, being real. To me it is about being calm, collected and with ‘it’. Again, this is my perception of the concept, if you don’t agree please share. I know this is not the general perception of cool.

Mindelei and I ended up seeing eye-to-eye, I think, and we concluded that the debate we were having was moot as it was hinging on semantics. I have invited her to follow this blog post to discuss further, if she wants.

Whoohoo, success. Learning is awesome! Thanks for making the connection between us Twitter! That is what these social tools are about.

But wait… it is not over.

I came across another recent follower that had a perspective to share. Unfortunately, he was critical of our discussion and tweeted without the @thekyleguy pre-fix to notify me of his issue with the discussion. I was taken back by these public tweets as they insulted my character and incited some further reflection. After a hike to clear my mind, I decided that blogging this to wider forum would create a learning experience. Bringing this issue to light here, ignites the topic of practicing digital citizenship and courtesy. I will share this followers’ perspective and subsequent questions that I am left with.

(Update: Chad admitted he may of mis-understood the discussion tweets and apologized through direct message this morning. I have accepted his apology but feel as though this scenario raises too many valuable topics that do not get discussed enough.)

I have copied & pasted a screenshot of Chad’s tweets from last night. Start with the tweet at the bottom.

Please, keep in mind these tweets on their own are out of context. We don’t know which which part of the discussion @cbrannon started reading my tweets. I want to learn more from this. We need to discuss further. As a sub, I want to learn about being a ‘real’ teacher. Assist me with these issues so I can carry myself better when I enter the classroom and the staffroom.

Often twitter is described as a large virtual staffroom where teachers from all over the world gather to share resources and talk. The problem here is that these patronizing tweets were shouted without direction to the whole staffroom, rather than being whispered about privately as they would likely be in a real staffroom. I come to the virtual staffroom to reflect upon and to question teaching practice and pedagogy, both my own and that of others whom I learn from.

I welcome criticism and questioning of my idea’s and thoughts, in fact I am always calling for honesty and feedback. Usually, I defend my stance or learn from the questioning perspective. In this instance, I don’t feel as though I need to defend myself against Chad’s tweets because we have determined that he mis-understood the discussion. I am, however, interested in the definition of ‘real’ teacher, the manner with which this issue has been raised, and thoughts on discussing the idea of ‘cool’ with students.

<INSERT THEME MUSIC>

Readers, I now pose the hard questions to you.

Is being ‘cool’ important to students?

Should ‘real’ teachers and students talk about the ‘idea of cool’?

Why hasn’t @cbrannon heard ‘real’ teachers talking about it?

Do you talk to kids about being cool, about bringing out their passions?

Isn’t this opportunity for authentic learning experiences?

Are substitutes, ‘real teachers’?

What is your idea of ‘cool’?

and on a personal note, do I come off as an “expert without experience”?

*You can follow all of my twitter conversations in my archive.

As I scanned twitter tonight, I watched as Guy Kawasaki aka. @guykawasaki, the man behind Alltop & Truemors, blew off a request for a website review.

Typical, right?

Who can blame the man, he probably gets spammed with these type of requests all the time. But, I followed this request by @ashvala, who turned out to be a 13 year old, grade 9 student from Bangalore. His site looks sharp and is well designed.

After reading Ashvala’s Bio, I decided to use twitter persuasion to convince Guy Kawasaki to give it a glance. Within a minute he did and tweeted back feedback to the young “techie who loves gadgets and enjoys reviewing them.”

In the end Ashvala received a little feedback & a pat on the back from one of the biggest names on the web. Happy ending to a short story.

This is another demonstration of the power of twitter to connect people. On twitter people become a little more equal. Kudos to Guy for stepping up.

Do they know how marketers watch?

In an effort to make website privacy policies kid friendly, The Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Blog shared this neat story out of Ontario. Val Steeves (University of Ottawa) and Jacquelyn Burkell and Anca Micheti (University of Western Ontario) researched students abilities/willingness to read & comprehend online text. Now the they have come together to draft child friendly privacy policy consents for websites.

Their guidelines provide advice on word choice and phrasing (avoid double negatives; keep sentences simple and paragraphs short); information structure (arrange information in a logical order; start paragraphs with topic sentences); and design consideration (use 12-14 font size and typefaces designed for the web or preferred by kids; leave enough white space).

Turns out that a simpler version of privacy policy is coming to websites near you. I hope they continue collaborating with students and youth nation wide on this issue. I wonder how Canadian classrooms could get together to create this policy together? It will be interesting to see what comes of this initiative. I think this is another movement for the childs voice. Might make it easier for adults too
More from Val Steeves

How children’s sites see your kids as marketing goldmines

My apologies to Lee Lefever and CommonCraft for the play on words.

I posted this in the discussion forum of the Digital Internship Project

I was naive in thinking that all Grade 6’s would have email. Turns out only about 60% do. The division I am in has it in their policy that students in grade 4 and over should have email addresses but this is slow in it’s implementation. As a result, I have been contemplating how to get them all addresses and decided to send them all home with the assignment of emailing me if they could. Perhaps I should of created them all gmail accounts? I think that I will create accounts for different applications in the future.

(One mistake in the situation above is that I gave them my teacher gmail account rather than my division email. I am going to ensure that all further correspondence takes place through my school account.)

But I digress, a couple days later a mother has written a note in an agenda stating that “her daughter is too young to have email.” uhoh, road bump. I have this floating in my head all day trying to think about solutions, when another student asks if it’s ok to use his Dad’s email account. a-ha solution.

This is just a minor situation and I have only had brief contact with a couple parents. But tonight I am going to compose a note to go home introducing the blog. And hopefully once my students start blogging we’ll have the parents in for a show and tell. I will talk briefly about blogging and rationale, but I also want to ensure parents of their child’s safety.

I am looking for suggestions and stories of experience from each of you reading this. What would put in a letter to go home? What would show or say to parents? Of course everyone’s situation is a bit different, but this is a major issue to be addressed.

I am so new it is hard to totally visualize my future classes. There is a game of foosball jostling within my cranium. Weighing pro’s and con’s of different approaches and ideas and tools.

Going into my internship (Aug-Dec) I have been thinking about how to start. How am I going to infuse web 2.0 tools and technology into my students learning? Throughout this course we have been shown a lot and introduced to wide array of individuals. I’ve built a network of like minded individuals, classmates, new acquaintances and mostly folks I have never met. My interaction within my network of educators will continue to introduce new ideas, philosophies and guide my thinking. This network has became my base, it stabilizes me and focuses my ramblings. It will continue to guide continued learning and development. My participation is the greatest professional development course I have ever taken.

I am now conscious of my own digital citizenship. By developing my students awareness of their own digital citizenship, their real citizenship will be positively influenced. Our world is revolving around technology with little chance of slowing, our students need to be exposed to it. It is important that students understand that their online self is a direct reflection of them self and they have to be responsible for their own web use and safety. With digital citizeship an underlying theme of everything we do online, students will learn to identify and compare poor examples.

I intend to reach curricular goals, objectives and outcomes through the inclusion of technology. Technology use will just be part of my teaching, not just some special 40 minutes where we play games. I will be able to open the window to the world for my students. I will show them different places, how to analyze the world at a higher level, we will write for audiences that reach far and wide. I want to ensure that learning is meaningful, relevant and happens throughout students lives, not just in the classroom. Technology will aid my ability to do this.

I look forward to working through the future challenges of the ‘digital divide’, policy making, digital citizenship and whatever else is slung our way. I am going to commit myself to my students and their learning. I will learn when to guide and when to step back to let their brains pump. There will be stumbling blocks and I will get lots wrong, but I will reflect and strive for improvement. Technology will be part of my personal teaching arsenal of strengths, along with my appreciation of the natural world, my enthusiasm for learning.

I will be a facilitator, a soundboard, a mediator , a mentor, an editor, a leader, a planner, molder, a guide, a learner. I will provide my students with opportunities to think, to reason, to explore, to learn.

Interning will give me an opportunity to focus on the inclusion of technology within learning experiences. I am lucky to be starting my career with these and new tools, rather then trying to make the transition down the road. Not exactly sure what is going to happen in a year when I get my own class but I will be ready to dirty. I feel like I will be able to make the learning real. My students will be connected and exposed to high levels of thought and expertise, more than I could ever offer them alone. When I look in the crystal ball, I see myself with a little more experience and know how, maybe with some battle wounds but definitely with a smile on my face.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16152133@N00/455286001 - This fellow has some amazing photo’s

I twit. Just started, it was fine at first. Just me, by myself, just twittering away, no followers or leaders. I posted it on my blog as a cool tool and thought ‘groovy, another line of communication.’ There I was floating in the 140 characters. Why did I start? Don’t know, just heard about it, thought it would be neat to try. Now it is one of my most useful resources, it connects me to a network of individuals who lead and guide me (sometimes with 5 or 6 posts a day) through the web. To those 18 I follow, thank you. It is one of my most valuable tools, along with RSS and Del.icio.us and it is all because of the network. It takes a lot less time than reading or writing full out blog post and it challenges the writer’s ability to be concise as well as write for a more specific audience of followers.

As I was going through my reader, I found a post by Alja Sulčič that inspired my reflections. Alja wrote these true words,

“Many are wondering at what makes people Tweet, but as with most Web 2.0 phenomena you can’t really know/understand what it is all about until you give it a try (and I mean really give it a try by actively participating!).”There are so many tools in the web 2 world that it is easy to be intimidated by them. I like exploring, always have, and now exploring is a skill that is becoming a valuable tool. Through my leaders tweets, my access to tools, resources, and neat idea’s has exploded. So I urge you, try this one out. But use caution it too has addictive properties.

add me and let us learn together.

I see lots of classroom possibilities for communication on collaborative projects. Perhaps, a series of project updates for the class to keep everyone on the same page and connected. or comparing weather with a group of grade two classrooms around the world. I am definitely going try this out at some capacity. Does anybody know of any classroom stories of it’s use?

photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/victorrocha/1004588330/

Three weeks left then internship, grade 5/6. I am pumped. But also a tad nervous… So many questions. I am starting out with Phys ed and hopefully by the end of the first week I will be using lab times to get started on student blogging and introducing various tools. But I don’t really know how I am going to begin and I am looking for advice. I know that my implementation of technology will snowball and develop over time but I want to be prepared so I can guide successful usage.

This idea came to me from David Jakes via twitter, he asked the question of which video to show on the first days of school - the answers came in as Did you know? Pay Attention and Sir Ken Robinson. or maybe The machine is us/ing us But what else do we need to do to start.

I believe I need to begin with a strong focus on digital citizenship. So I will probably also show Think BeforeYou Post and introduce why how real life and digital life is one in the same.

But how else can we prepare our students over the first couple weeks. What are the best choices for setting up student blogs? Do I get them google accounts right off the bat? That way we can use google docs, blogger, reader. How about use RSS? What particular routines or rules will be useful for class management?

I am looking for answers from all you teachers out there. Please help.

Copyright law seems incredibly outdated. These days you can get movies, songs, books; pretty much any creative material for free via the web. Friends of mine download via BitTorrent, some choose to pay for songs through iTunes. Even the latest Harry Potter book was available on Scribd days after it’s release (Thanks to Will Richardson for pointing this out on his blog) I have never really been into downloading these type of media, it just seemed to complex and a little bit wrong. But it is getting increasingly easier and more frequent and my personal opinions are changing. Recently, I discovered online TV, it streams the TV shows I am interested in directly onto my computer. The quality is not the greatest, but it beats paying $70 for the latest season on Lost or Heroes, plus no commercials. As great as this is, I still have anixeity about it, am I stealing? Will these great shows stop being made if we all stop paying?

I justify it by paying my SaskTel Max service charges which entitle me to these shows for regular scheduled programming, but most often I can not be available for the regular scheduled programming. However, I do not subscribe to HBO, and they have the best shows and I admittedly have checked them out for free via the web. Should I go to jail? Who thinks this is stealing?

A friend of mine passed on this reasoning that he had heard from his priest. The priest, an avid downloader, said “If your neighbor was continually throwing whole, unwrapped chocolate bars over your fence would it be wrong to eat them? No. So why would it be wrong to take advantage of products sent to us through satellites and phone cords?” What a justification eh, and from a priest no less! If only it was that simple, the owners of this creative material are not simply throwing it over the fence, but others are grabbing it from them, like candy from a baby, and throwing it to us. It can be argued that creators of this material need to improve their avenues and methods or delivery to the public, but we, the public also need to demonstrate online morale by not taking advantage of these tools.

So the questions I leave you with are these. How do we develop this morale with our students when they see their friends and family downloading thousands of songs or the latest movie? How do we demonstrate proper use of technology without infringing on the ownership and hardwork of others?

All of this is making me feel a little…