I’ve been discussing the possibility of moving our school to Google Apps instead of Firstclass for some time now. The benefits are a no brainer for the IT side of things. No server work, lots of space (6 gigs), and it’s free. There are also plenty of benefits from the academic side of things. Teachers and students can share documents, calendars, and sites. I don’t want to write about the features of Google Apps. Go here for more features with Google Apps for Education. I am most interested with how teachers will respond to change with such a critical technology such as email. More specifically, I am very interested in trying to create a community that is excited by new technology and inspired by the possibility of better communication and interaction.

Last week Ewan McIntosh wrote an excellent post about community-building. It inspired me to look at my own practices as an educational technology advocate. What are the best practices for building a community of teachers willing to learn and improve on their current teaching methods? Ewan is certainly right that finding grass-roots initiatives and supporting those will foster change and improvement. The bottom-up resulting in a top-down approach seems to be a good system. Also, identifying faculty willing to change and evaluate projects/curriculum is one of the biggest challenges as a technology integrator.

I also think planting the seeds for a grassroots bottom-up approach is important. So when thinking about changing to Google Apps, I know that I need an “ambassador” of change in each academic department. This worked very well for our change to Moodle. We first had a trial period, in which the early adopters took to it quickly and loved it. I also did a little bit of “selling” to Faculty that I thought would be interested. This gave a strong base of people comfortable with Moodle before implementing it school wide. The Faculty room was then full of “ambassadors” for Moodle and were very helpful to others. I’m hoping that the same can happen with Google Apps. Of course it helps when the technology is great to begin with, much like Moodle and Google Apps!

I was extremely happy to see students blog discussions continue after the class is over and grades finished. Watching my students blog activity really reinforced the fact that students need an outlet for discussing current events. Learning is a life long activity that we as teachers should try to facilitate if possible. With the Internet now acting as a life resume that everyone seems to be checking now, shouldn’t we as educators help them build that portfolio?

Integrating blogging into the curriculum can be a serious challenge. What is the appropriate use of blogs in the classroom? Should student papers be blogged instead of turned in? Maybe English essays should be blogged and commented on by students for the “first draft” in which they receive feedback from other students and teachers. Some teachers would argue that students need teacher feedback rather than student feedback due to the quality of feedback (or lack thereof) that students would supply. I tend to think that the more eyes that look at something, the better.

Is it ethical for students to be asked to publicly post work? Provided you allow them to use a pseudonym, it seems like an ethical practice. I would like to see more examples of actual classwork completed online in a K-12 setting. Please comment if you have great examples.

Talking to Jeff Lebow of World Bridges at dinner on Thursday sparked a great discussion on how to get students discussing current events. The Internet is an obvious great resource for an Inquiry based process of students form questions for research, evaluate online sources, create content, discuss and taking action on an current issue. The challenge for educators is to facilitate that process. For my masters project, I developed http://trackcurrentevents.org to help facilitate this process. While I think Tracker is a great resource, there are so many web 2.0 options out there that can do so much more.

One site that I see a lot of potential is http://voicethread.com/. Voicethread allows people to upload pictures, video, and documents and then have a community easily comment on each of the items. If I had all the time in the world I would go back to developing Tracker to include more web 2.0 elements like voicethread uses.

My thoughts on an ideal website for current events? A mashup of voicethread, digg, newsvine, twitter and tracker. The overall idea is that people login and can either create or participate in a tracker based on a current issue. Anyone can submit a news article, picture, video or document to a tracker, and based on votes the article gets moved up the queue of the tracker. For each item in the tracker, a voicethread like discussion takes place. An option to only follow comments within your own network would allow people to narrow their audience in a popular tracker.

This is just an abstract of what I would like to see created someday. I programmed and tested http://trackcurrentevents.org in grad school when I worked for a grant project that paid me to produce my masters project. It was some of my favorite work I’ve ever done. I would love an opportunity to go back to development, testing and presenting the project. My ideal “day job” would have me working only 2 or 3 days a week. Jeff, you have a great thing going at World Bridges! Keep it up!

A common topic that has come up in every session I’ve attended is copyright issues. I myself am guilty myself of letting students get away with too much in regards to using images that students googled. While the students do cite the sources, they do not always have permission to use them. A great way to get around copyright is to begin using http://creativecommons.org.

The creative commons search feature allows students to find material that is not copyright protected. We should be teaching students about creative commons to help students understand copyright.

Fair use is being stretched beyond what it’s original intent. The United States Copyright Office clearly states, “There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.” So, unless you have students find and contact the source for every singe image (which is a nightmare), creative commons is your solution.

Email was the tipping point for technology. It was the golden child that brought asynchronous discussion to the masses. Email became wildly popular, and was even romanticized with You’ve Got Mail. People began talking about it’s “instant” communication ability. A decade later, it no longer seems like the freeing application it once was. Some might call if “golden handcuffs” of current technology.

Arvind Grover recently began campaigning against it’s current use in education. Is it possible to get rid of email entirely? To me it’s like trying to get rid of the post office. It would require an entire shift in practices of a whole lot of people.

What can we do to improve communication? The question actually might be better phrased as, “what can we do to prevent miscommunication?” I think a basic re-education of communication tools is needed. Below is a basic outline for communication priority:

1. Asynchronous communication (email, discussion boards, facebook wallposts, etc) are considered low priority. Response time is considerably less than other forms of communication.
2. Synchronous distance communication (phone, video conference, skype, etc.) Slightly higher priority, needed immediate feedback, but immediate action not always required.
3. Synchronous face-to-face (a meeting). Hight priority. Action is needed ASAP, or according to timeline.

I am curious to find out other peoples vision of life without email, or a reformed email world. Has email actually improved our production? Is it a better communication tool?

Notes from this session can be found at:

http://neit.wikispaces.com/digital_citizenship

 

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I can’t wait to get up to Mohonk for the unconference. I just started my blog, so this is a great opportunity to get some content up! Below is a picture of me leaving school until next monday!

Technology changes fast. “Current” changes from year to year. Patterns do emerge and as a result change the playing field. Although, I always ask myself what is appropriate for education and what is going to help the educational process? If you find something to be complicating a lesson to the point that students no longer learn, I have to question the use of that technology. The appropriate use of technology (not the AUP some might be thinking about) is the technology that is right technology for that particular teacher. This appropriate use can differ greatly from person to person.

So how do we find the appropriate technology for each teacher? A needs analysis is the first step. The simplest solution is always the best. Find the technology that will help fulfill the teachers need. The next step is pushing the teacher slightly past their comfort zone without making them give up. That is the greatest challenge of an educational technologist.

This blog will explore technologies that might push your teachers, or will make them love you for finding the simplest solution.