Steve Hargadon

PBS Impresses Me

2008-07-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

I had a fascinating couple of days at PBS at the end of last week.

Kim Smith, who's the new Education vice-president for PBS, has asked me to do some consulting for them as part of their launching a new teacher network: PBS Teachers Connect. PBS Teachers Connect is "an online community of teachers exchanging ideas, resources and instructional strategies on the integration of digital media and technology," and I'd gotten to know Kim from their consideration of Ning as the platform for this new program. As it turned out, PBS was going to need some customization and integration that Ning couldn't provide--but they still wanted me to provide some help from my experiences with community-building in a social networking environment for education (Classroom 2.0). And part of that help was an invitation to their annual PBS Teacher Advisory Group (TAG) meeting in Washington, DC.

I left the experience very impressed with the people who work at PBS, their sincere desire to help educators, and the quality of the brainstorming that took place. In fact, if the education organization at PBS can bring to their new online teacher community the same level of engaged dialog that was present over the two days in our physical meeting, I believe they will continue to make a real difference to educators and education.

Early in day one Rob Lippincott, PBS's Senior Vice President for Education, quoted from the "Remarks of President Lyndon B. Johnson Upon Signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967," which I quote below. Wow. It's not hard to see in these words the noble desire by the PBS education leadership team right now:

I believe the time has come to stake another claim in the name of all the people, stake a claim based upon the combined resources of communications. I believe the time has come to enlist the computer and the satellite, as well as television and radio, and to enlist them in the cause of education.

If we are up to the obligations of the next century and if we are to be proud of the next century as we are of the past two centuries, we have got to quit talking so much about what has happened in the past two centuries and start talking about what is going to happen in the next century beginning in 1976.

So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge--not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and storing information that the individual can use.

Think of the lives that this would change:--the student in a small college could tap the resources of a great university.

Was that ever prescient?!

Some additional highlights and notes from the meeting:

Rob, Kim, Jenny--are you blogging? Your voices are needed... :)
John Boland, the Chief Content Officer at PBS, said that for the last six weeks the PBS site has had more visitors than any other network website. That really surprised me, especially because of the streaming content some of the other networks are offering, which I would assume really drives traffic to them. I'd be very interested in understanding why this is happening.
Rob Lippincott spoke early on in one of the few "formal" presentations. Here are some notes from that talk:

73 million people a week "visit" PBS in some way.
204,000 came to PBS Teachers last month (http://www.pbs.org/teachers/). They are happy with the growth, but feel it could be more.
PBS TeacherLine (http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/)--they also very happy with this program. 10,000/year teachers complete a course.
Satisfaction with use of video in classroom is stubbornly low--and teachers generally don't assign or recommend outside viewing.
PBS makes great television, but he feels they need to also make the right kind of video resources. If they can find out from educators how they using it, they can rethink how they produce it.
The ultimate goal is actually improving student achievement or engagement. How do they bring the power and value of media to bring engagement and achievement? What kind of content to teachers really want?

It was pretty clear early on that there is an inherent tension in the PBS desire to create Web resources for educators--a tension that they recognize, and to their great credit, are trying to figure out. On the one side, PBS produces highest-quality video media, and they want to make that available to educators. But on the other side, the "Collaborative Web" or "Web 2.0" thrives through user creation and participation, however, which is not always highest-quality and is often not fully in the control of the platform provider. (I keep coming back to the story in Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody about how the pro-anorexia girls on the teen-girls' website ultimately ended up closing down the site.) How does a trusted brand like PBS keep that trust through high quality, but still take advantage of the engagement enabled by participation? Luckily for me (by design?), during the two days I was seated at the table with Jenny Bradbury, the Content Manager for PK-12 Education, who really "groks" this dilemma. From my perspective, PBS's trusted brand gives them the opportunity to move slowly (slowly by "Internet Time") and carefully, knowing that they have a commitment to finding ways to push the boundaries where possible. In the Internet Culture we're also learning, I think, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater--while I do look at slashdot for news, I usually have a more profound learning experience when reading a story from the Wall Street Journal. There is a real role for trusted content, and it is different than user-generated content.
Speaking of time, Rob Lippincott made reference in a comment to what I consider to be the second inherent tension/dilemma expressed in the meeting: that of feeling that PBS may already be a little late to the Web 2.0 party, but not wanting to rush so that they do things right. For me, there is another option to both the content and time dilemmas, which is for PBS just to provide the quality content, and by creating some open access to that content, allowing others to build the collaborative or participative structures that promote more interaction without compromising PBS. I think that the ability to embed PBS-branded content would allow for discussion and participation to take place in many more creative venues than PBS is in a position to actually explore, without ever eroding their quality or trust. As the founder of several Ning networks that would benefit from educators being able to showcase PBS content within the context of professional development discussions, I see great opportunities; I imagine PBS sees a mess of complex licensing issues for any existing content. :( I'm intrigued with the ability that Diigo has, though, to build community discussions around content without requiring that it be transferred in any way. I wonder if there is something there?
Kim Smith laid out some goals for PBS in education and specifically with PBS Teachers Connect. They are looking toward having 200,000 online teacher-members. Interestingly enough, this seems to highlight a third tension that was evident in the juxtaposition of Kim mentioning this goal, and then me talking about the relative loss of community feeling now that Classroom 2.0 is over 9,000 members. While "groups" within a social network can help this, ultimately size might be another argument for PBS to provide the content and let others organize around it in existing or new networks.
I was given a chance early on in the meeting to describe Classroom 2.0, to talk about what factors seem to have helped that particular niche network to gain such traction. I think the growth of Classroom 2.0 may, to some degree, reflect my own "inclusive" nature, and sincere desires to help beginners feel comfortable coming into the Web 2.0 world. I talked about how one of my first jobs out of college was being a tour manager for Stanford's Alumni Association, and how four years of managing travel groups did leave me with some defined beliefs in how to help a group function well. I'm intrigued to see that these lessons often seem to carry over into the virtual world. I think one of the biggest lessons from those physical groups was the importance of treating each individual with respect, and consistently working to create and environment of positive interactions. I also remember how profoundly important it was for the tour leader to have a balanced sense of the overall mission/experience, and to put small setbacks or events into a larger perspective. I not only "managed expectations" before experiences, I also often needed to provide context for evaluating what was taking place. I'm going to have to think some more about this, because even in just writing these thoughts down now I can see some more connections that will have to wait for a future post!
I also talked about the managing of problematic individual members in a community, and there definitely is a need for balance between treating individuals with respect and respecting the group as a whole. Clearly, in an open public environment, it is important that a social network manager quickly cut off members who are destructive to the group as a whole. That's easy on an education network when somebody comes on trying to sell something commercial and unrelated, but what about when it's a teacher whose personal style grates on others? Or it's a former teacher who now works for a commercial company, and where the line between contribution and salesmanship get blurry? That's fuzzy enough for Classroom 2.0 that I imagine it being even harder for PBS.
We also talked, albeit briefly, about the "live" events we've been holding with Classroom 2.0. These events are intended to really help at a grass-roots level, where teachers can come together and provide professional development to each other around Web 2.0. PBS has 355 stations around the country, and there are many great programs already being pursued locally by those stations to help educators. Some kind of PBS Teacher Academy makes a lot of sense, and could be done both locally and nationally.
As the tools of the Web become more integrated into PBS's own management programs, I can see a wonderful synergy continuing to grow between these local stations in their educational (and other) offerings. I was so excited by the idea that I wanted to go sit in a corner somewhere and just create a Ning network for this purpose! Hire me to do this, I told Jenny!
One constituency was noticeably absent from many of the discussions: students. It wasn't until we were in a brainstorming session about what local stations could do to promote the PBS educational Web resources that started to hear ideas about involving students (for example, having local stations do training on media production and licensing). I didn't think of this at the time, but a PBS for Students program (academy?) would make a ton of sense in this area, as well as maybe helping to address the current gap PBS feels in their programming and services for the middle to high-school audience. They have young viewers and old viewers, but not those in-between.
The idea of a PBS bus that would travel the country came up several times--sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously. I have to say, it really stuck with me. Especially since it would be a way to tie the local stations to offering some kind of training or publicity associated with the arrival of the bus in an area, and could potentially tie in with the local ed tech conferences found in most states.
Jenny Bradbury and also had a great discussion around how you recognize or reward high participation in a social networking or collaborative content site. I definitely find myself leaning toward *not* rewarding, as I feel the participation and peer recognition are what really drive contribution--and that formal recognition can change that dynamic in a "punished by rewards" way.

All in all, two of the most interesting days I've spent in a long while. Kudos to PBS, the education team, and the educators who came and contributed to the advisory group meeting.

["P-head" pipe-cleaner creation by Sara Reibman--wow! Photos of "P-head" and the group courtesy of Amos, an intern at PBS. Thanks, Sara and Amos!]

NECC 2008 Wrap-up Show Links

2008-07-05T10:49:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who made this a very interesting and productive show/meeting/webcast! We had 60+ in the discussion through at least the first hour, and I thought it was, again, a great example of the community at work. I couldn't post this as a comment to the previous blog post because the URLs weren't coming through with hot links.

As Gailene pointed out in the NECC2008 network, here's the link to the NECC 2008 Ning group for this wrap-up discussion: http://www.necc2008.org/group/necc2008wrapup

Here's a link to the recorded Elluminate session (audio and screen/video): https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2008-07-05.0648.M.589A53B224FA53960BB34088144B52.vcr

And the link to the agenda, notes, links, and chat log: http://www.classroom20wiki.com/NECC+2008+Wrapup+and+Review

The last page should be really helpful if folks will continue to add comments and links there. As well, NECC 2008 forum discussion (or here) could serve as an additional place for your thoughts: http://www.necc2008.org/forum/topic/show?id=1997968%3ATopic%3A32749

NECC Wrap-up Show--Live, Saturday, July 5th, 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern / 3pm GMT

2008-07-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I'm going to take at least one whole day this next week to focus just on NECC: I'll try to read through all the blog posts, watch as much recorded footage as I can, find podcasts and download them, and look for all the links to cool Web 2.0 applications.

Then I realize that I might not be the only one looking to do this, so if we used our Classroom 2.0 Web Week in Review show scheduled for tomorrow, we could probably collaborate to make a great list of all the resources available.

So we'll be having an NECC wrap-up and review show tomorrow morning--while memories are still fresh! EduBloggerCon, NECC Unplugged, the Bloggers' Cafe, and all the rest. The best links, leads, streams, podcasts, vlogs, and blogs. What you loved, what you didn't. We'll try and document all in a special 90-minute show.

Details at http://www.classroom20wiki.com/live+conversations/, or log in directly for the show at https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=1101&password=M.8DAFD346DA4B268DC185FED8466556

The Success of Social Networking in Education

2008-06-26T14:30:00.001-07:00

Classroom 2.0 just hit 9,000 members today. While I know that as a percentage of the population of educators that's a drop in the bucket, Classroom 2.0 is a social network that just addresses the use of Web 2.0 in education--growing, but still narrow, slice of the pie. And to have 9,000 people signed up there is way more than I ever thought there would be.

Ning in Education, another educational social network I run, just reached 1,800 members. It's a niche network as well that's growing quickly and exceeding my expectations. And the NECC 2008 Ning network has seen a flurry of activity in the last few days, almost 1,300 strong today, and really showing the value of a social network for an educational conference.

I will admit to a small amount of personal gratification in watching this happen and having been a part of it.

NECC Breaking New Ground and Remote Participation

2008-06-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Part I:

Imitation--especially with permission--is the sincerest form of flattery. Last year I stayed up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning building a blog post that listed all of the NECC speakers, their sessions, blog tags for each of them, and links to search feeds on those blog tags. The post went over so well that my blog hits went through the roof. This year the conference added this as a feature on their main site, and their new page, pretty much a duplicate of mine from last year (should be, since I helped them!) is now live at http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/program/blog_tag_index.php

It's not only a good resource for blogging and following up afterwards, but it's also a super-easy page for finding speakers and when they are speaking. Do check out!

Part II:

I've created a wiki at http://www.necclive.com (forwards to http://necclive.wikispaces.com) for the listing of live-streamed sessions at NECC, as well as live chat sessions. This should allow those who are not able to attend NECC in person to be able to remotely follow some of the what takes place. (I'll know this was needed if NECC absorbs it as well next year!)

I'm looking for a volunteer (volunteers?) who would be willing to receive emails with session information and populate the wiki. Because it's hard to have multiple people editing a wiki page at the same time, and because I expect much of the streaming information to occur just before sessions start, I think we'll lock the pages just before NECC starts and only have our volunteer(s) doing updating. (If you know in advance you are going to try to stream or have create a chat session, you can add that now.) Please let me know if you'd like to help in this way.

It is very important that those who are considering streaming 1) read the NECC Code of Conduct for Video and Audio Recording, and 2) plan on low-bandwidth or independent broadband methods for streaming. I also think it's important that we express appreciation to NECC for bravely experimenting in this and other areas.

There is also a page on the http://www.necclive.com wiki for adding links to recordings or chat logs afterwards. This is an alphabetical table list of all speakers and their sessions.

There will hopefully also be live content at EduBloggerCon and NECC Unplugged, and you should refer to those specific web pages for links.

NECC Sessions for the Classroom 2.0 Crowd

2008-06-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

For those who might be attending (or wanting to attend) NECC in San Antonio in a couple of weeks, be sure to check out some of the following activities:

1. EduBloggerCon 2008. The Saturday just before the conference, in the conference center. A whole day of "unconferencing" with educational bloggers. Subtitled "Classroom 2.0 LIVE in San Antonio." No cost to attend, just sign up at the wiki and come with wireless ready. If you can't make it in person, watch the wiki, as both back-channel chatting and streaming video of the whole day are almost guaranteed with this crowd.

2. NECC "Unplugged." Three days of collaborative fun in the NECC lounges, centering on the Bloggers' Cafe. Come and give the talk you always wished you could give at NECC. Or do a speed demo. I'll be talking about Ning, of course! While we don't know if the bandwidth will allow streaming video the whole time, it will be tried! Watch the wiki up and look for links to live interaction.

3. Come to the Classroom 2.0 Birds of a Feather session!
Tuesday, 7/1/2008, 4:45pm–5:45pm; HGCC 217 A

4. I'll be presenting in some other sessions:

An Introduction to Open Source Software and Open Technologies
Tuesday, 7/1/2008, 3:30pm–4:30pm; HGCC 217 A

Classroom 2.0: Exploring the Potential of Web 2.0
Steve Hargadon (moderating), with Vicki Davis, Lucy Gray, Karen Greenwood Henke, Rushton Hurley and Leigh Zeitz

Free, Open Source, and Web 2.0 Software for the Classroom
Birds-of-a-Feather
Monday, 6/30/2008, 4:45pm–5:45pm; HGCC 217 A

Social Networking in Education
Steve Hargadon (moderating), with Steve Dembo, Darren Draper, James Klein, Michael McVey and Dennis O'Connor
Tuesday, 7/1/2008, 2:00pm–3:00pm; HGCC 217 A

5. For a full list of Open Source Software sessions, see my blog post at: http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/06/free-and-open-source-software-sessions.html

Free and Open Source Software Sessions at NECC

2008-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

NECC is the largest educational technology conference in North America, and it attracts 12,000+ participants. For the fourth year I'll be running an "Open Source Pavilion" there with 40+ computers running Linux, and with a speaker series that's now a part of the main program.

If you're going to be at NECC, we'd love any volunteer efforts in the Pavilion. (We could really use some machines right now for the playground area to demo different FLOSS programs.) Here is the schedule of Open Source sessions at NECC. If there is no location given, it is in the Open Source Pavilion--otherwise, the room location is after the title.

Monday, June 30

8:30-9:30am
Wonderful World of Wikis
Vicki Davis
Adam Frey

Enterprise-Scale Linux Thin Client Deployment: Roll Out for Success—HGCC 102 B
James Kinney

Open Minds, Open Education, and a View of Open Culture—HGCC 103 A
David Thornburg

Moodle Magic: Tricks for Enhanced Course Design—Grand Hyatt Lone Star Ballroom B
Michele D. Moore
Kathie Robeson

10:00-10:45am
Web 2.0 Skills in the Safety of Your Classroom!
George Luginbil

11:00am-12:00pm 3D Modeling and Animation Using Blender
Stephen Crampton

Mooovin' To Moodle—Grand Hyatt Lone Star Ballroom D
McPherson, Bowen and Tynes

12:30-1:30pm
Using Moodle to Teach Teachers about Web 2.0 Tools
Liz Farmer

2:00-3:00pm
MySpace, Your Space: Effective Social Networking Using Open Source
Jim Klein

3:30-4:30pm
Moodle: Hear It from a Sixth Grade Teacher's Perspective!
Chris Craft

Moodle-Powered Learning in an Enhanced K-12 Classroom—HGCC 214 C/D
Mark McCal
Charles Ackerman

4:45-6:15pm
Birds of a Feather: Free, Open Source, and Web 2.0 Software for the Classroom
Steve Hargadon

Birds of a Feather: A Meeting of Moodlers—Grand Hyatt Lone Star Ballroom B
Michelle Moore
Jonathan Moore

Tuesday, July 1

10:00-10:45am
Web 2.0 Skills in the Safety of Your Classroom!
George Luginbil

11:00am-12pm
Moodle Magic—Make It Happen: Exploration of E-Learning Implementation
Laurie Korte

Student Voice, Teacher Voice: Podcasting with Audacity—Grand Hyatt Lone Star Ballroom A
Arelene Anderson
Sharon Wagner

12:30-1:30pm
Open Source Software for Developing and Differentiating Digital Curriculum
James Sweet
Sharnel Jackson

2:00-3:00pm
Social Networking in Education Panel
Steve Hargadon

3:30-4:30pm
Introduction to Open Source Software and Open Technologies
Steve Hargadon

Why Linux, Why You, and Why Now? — HGCC 001 A
David Thornburg

4:45-5:45pm
Birds of a Feather: Classroom 2.0
Steve Hargadon

Wednesday, July 2

8:30-9:30am
Computer Programming for Everybody: Teaching Programming with Python
Vernon Cedar

9:45-10:15am
Report from Indiana and K-12 Open Minds Conference
Huffman & Taylor

10:30-11:30am
Use Your Noodle—Learn Moodle! An Open Source Learning Management System
Michelle Moore
Kathie Robeson

12:00-1:00pm
Free Open Source Content ManagementSystems: Powerful, Collaborative School Web Sites
Tim Frichtel

Python for Fun Introductory Programming—HGCC 102 B
Michelle Hutton

1:30-2:30pm
Share My What?! Exploring Open Educational Resources and Web 2.0
Lorraine Trawick
Amanda Hefner

Hope to see some of you there!

Ideas for a "Future of Education" Project?

2008-06-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Because of my recent blog post on "Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education" (here and here) I have had the phrase "future of education" in my mind over the last couple of months. I was surprised to find that I was able to register the domains FutureofEducation.net and .org, as both just happened to be expiring when I looked for them. I was then was able to obtain FutureofEducation.com the next week, so it seemed like some divine destiny was at work.

I've been wondering what to do with the domain that would make a difference, and am opening this up for your ideas or feedback. Of course, I could start another Ning network with the name (or even convert the School 2.0 Ning site to FutureofEducation.com) but I have a feeling that there's a larger opportunity here.

What would you do with FutureofEducation.com? I'm looking for your brainstorm ideas. Without knowing what or how, I have a vision of FutureofEducation.com helping to spark a larger dialog on the transformations taking place in learning and education. Maybe it could be a directory of open educational resources coming out of the read/write Web. Maybe it could be a multi-blogging platform to encourage discussions of both technology and pedagogy. Maybe it could be the foundation for a conference or conferences on education--or even the means of facilitating local "Lyceum"-like discussions on education. Maybe it could be a repository for student projects providing visions of education. Could it somehow be all of the above?

Got any ideas?

Our Youth Need Old Crows

2008-06-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sarah Hanawald tipped me to this wise poem, the full text of which I ultimately found from Google Answers.

ABOUT CROWS
by John Ciardi

The old crow is getting slow;
the young crow is not.
Of what the young crow does not know,
the old crow knows a lot.

At knowing things, the old crow is still
the young crow’s master.
What does the old crow not know?
How to go faster.

The young crow flies above, below, and rings
around the slow old crow.
What does the fast young crow not know?
WHERE TO GO.”

The Proactive Learner

2008-06-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

I often talk about how physically unsuited I would have been for the world 150 years ago, and how lucky I am to live today because of our current medical knowledge. I look at the original Microsoft gang at the left, and really wonder how many periods of history would have so favored and benefited the nerd?

I'm convinced that different periods of time favor different physical, intellectual, emotional, or social characteristics. I've also become increasingly convinced that we are moving into an era which will overwhelmingly favor the proactive learner--the individual who seeks out information, tests theories, develops passions, ask questions, joins groups, becomes a part of larger discussions, and acts. It's hard for me to imagine that the quiet, conforming, waiting-for-instructions student or employee will have the opportunities in the future that were previously rewarded to those character traits when I was growing up. I don't think it's a stretch to say that being quiet, conforming, and waiting-for-instructions really identified the model student and worker in most people's eyes for the last half of the 20th century.

But as I look around at the complexity of our current world, at the sheer volume of both material and opportunity, at the amazing entrepreneurial environment the academic and business worlds will operate in, it becomes increasingly clear to me that the character traits of being proactive learners and contributors are going to be essential to our students. Of course, they will need help turning creativity into craft (thanks to Karen Greenwood Henke for that thought), and coaching in how to use independence to create competence, but above all, they will need to be proactive.

How do we help our students develop these skills? The classic, and profound, rule of all influence: we have to model those skills ourselves.

A First Look at "Disrupting Class" by Clayton Christensen

2008-06-02T17:52:00.001-07:00

It took me all of about three minutes to decide to order Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, and Curtis W. Johnson. Computers, education, and change? How fast can I get it?

But the review I read in Education Week, "Online Education Cast as ‘Disruptive Innovation’", which so intrigued me, may have gotten the main idea of the book wrong.

The caveat I need to give is that I've only read the beginning and ending portions of the book (when I'm truly engaged in a book why read it in order?!). However, there's enough meat in what I did read to do a short overview here, and to try and explain where the authors are headed and why it the message has been unique to me.

From my reading, the disruptive innovation is not online education, but the increasing expectation that our children/students will have a customized educational experience. This makes a lot of sense to me, since having watched the ed tech world for some years now, it's hard to imagine a "technology" (even one as compelling as online education) motivating educators or parents to dramatic change. There are just too many practical daily concerns to make it believable that the unfulfilled promise of computing would "disrupt" our current system. On the other hand, a shift from the industrial model of schooling to one that is more responsive to our individual children does seem like an unstoppable force, since increasing parents' expectations for the education of their own children carries huge motivation and power (the authors' claim that in many school districts already over a third of their spending is on special education students [p. 34].)

Professor Christensen is the lead author, and he acknowledges that he is not an "expert" in education, although he has a lot of practice in it (he's a professor at Harvard Business School). However that may be, he was asked to look at the problems of education through the "lens" of his body of theory about how organizational cultures react to "disruptive" change--with the hope that this study might help to frame why schools have struggled and how to solve their problems (p. v).

In beginning to discuss disruptive innovation theory, the authors break with some expectations and praise public schooling: "[A]s we will show, contrary to widespread perception, on average, public schools have a steady record of improving on the metrics by which they are judged, just like other organizations we've studied" (p. 44). But even with this positive record, there is a specific kind of innovation which almost always "trips up well-managed, improving" organizations and which defies "the abilities of even the most capable executives in the world's best companies" (p. 44-45). They believe public schools are going to experience this, since:

...two significant disruptions of this sort have swept through the U.S. public schools, marked by the Nation at Risk report and the No Child Left Behind Act. Assigning schools new jobs for which they were not built--and therefore are not necessarily doing--has meant that schools don't look as good in light of the new requirements. But given how difficult it is to negotiate these disruptive currents, as we show in the pages that follow, the schools have done remarkably well--which provides some hope that they may be able to switch to a student-centric learning mode, too, through a disruptive implementation of computer-based learning. (p. 45)

So, if I'm reading this correctly, the disruption is the switch to expectations for student-centric learning, and that online learning (or the computer) becomes the solution--not the original disruption. The use of the word "disruptive" for the implementation of the solution has me a little confused as to what the disruption is, but I'm going to leave that for now. Chapter 2 has more detail on the model of disruptive innovation, but for our purposes I want to go back to the introductory chapter.

The introduction to the book tries to define what the problems in the U.S. public school system really are, and it gave me a new framework for trying to understand the philosophical tension in my own mind (and the nation's?) between authoritative and constructivist education. The authors start with a summary of four commonly-held aspirations for our schools:

1. Maximize human potential.
2. Facilitate a vibrant, participative democracy in which we have an informed electorate...
3. Hone the skills, capabilities, and attitudes that will help our economy...
4. Nurture the understanding that people can see things differently--and that those differences merit respect...
(p. 1)

Acknowledging that we are not doing well in these areas, the authors then propose seven common theories for the lack of school improvement--and then refute each as the root cause. and even all as the main dynamic.

"[S]chools are underfunded." However: "The U.S. public education system spends more per student than all but a few countries, and yet, on average, its student often perform at or below the level of those in other economically advanced countries" (p. 2).
"[T]here aren't enough computers in the classroom." However: "If the addition of computers to classrooms were a cure, there would be evidence of it by now" (p. 3)
Students and their parents are to blame. However: this is a serious factor (especially in the light of the increases in minority-background students, who have historically performed least well), but there are enough exceptions to believe "[t]here has to be a better answer" (p. 4).
"The U.S. teaching model is simply broken." However: we often make mistakes when imagining how our teaching model is compared with other countries (see the fascinating exercise the reader goes through on p. 4 here).
"[T]he teacher unions must be the problem." However: "Like all explanations, this may be true to a degree, but as the definitive explanation, it doesn't hold up."
All of the above are "conspiring collectively to constrain" the U.S. However: Of course, they state. "[A]ll these issues are at work in other nations' schools as well--and yet the evidence is that many of them obtain better results than do those in the United States" (p. 5).
Finally, the "way we measure schools' performance is fundamentally flawed." However: Of course, as well, but not the root cause. "Today a stunning proportion of the people in [the] offices and cubicles of [Silicon Valley] are Israeli, Indian, and Chinese. Those educated in the U.S. schools are losing share--and it's not because the United States is uniquely unable to measure true academic achievement. The United States has kept its technological edge in the world not because its public schools are sending the best potential technologists to U.S. colleges. The United States is clinging to its advantage because it has continued to be a magnet for the best talent in the world" (p. 6).

If, the authors now ask, all of the above "do not explain the problem, what is the reason for the educational woes? ...If other countries have these same factors at work in their schools, why is it that so many of their students outperform U.S. students?" (p. 6) Basically, they say, it comes down to motivation. "Unless students (and teachers, for that matter) are motivated, they will reject the rigor of any learning task and abandon it before achieving success" (p. 7).

So, when there is high "extrinsic" motivation, as is the case in societies and families that are depending on education to raise themselves from poverty, the system of education is not as important as the end result. Standardized, factory-style learning works just fine in that setting because the end goal is more important than the journey to those folks. But without extrinsic motivation, as is arguably the case for the United States, the job of schools is much harder since educators must appeal to the "intrinsic" motivation of students--and intrinsic motivation clashes with standardized learning. A dependence on intrinsic motivation means that we can no longer ignore different learning needs and styles, and the customization in learning they bring is the disruptive force we are starting to feel, and that seems will be answered by the use of "student-centric technology."

There's obviously much more to this book than I have started to explore (and maybe I'm wrong in my interpretation of its message), but hopefully this gives you a starting point for considering to read it. I'm going to keep plowing away!

Ning as the New Ebay

2008-06-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

I've been following the Ning blog lately, where they are increasingly profiling different Ning networks. (Full disclosure for our anonymous friend: I do consulting work for Ning!)

I'm struck by something lately. In a "long tail" world of increasingly varied interests, and where organizing groups has become "ridiculously easy," I sense a huge opportunity for the entrepreneurial individual. Creating and running a successful Ning Network around a topic now potentially places someone in a position to make a career of that role--or, at least, to springboard from there.

In fact, historically, I would argue that this might be an incredibly unique period of time in the history of business and social movements, where armed just with passion, authenticity, a proactive mindset, and time (notice the lack of financial prerequisites), the pioneering man or woman or youth can stake a kind of virtual claim and oversee the development of a topic area. It sure seems like Ning is the magic ingredient. At last count, 275,000 social networks. Wow.

Indiana Is the Place to Be

2008-06-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

The 2008 K-12 Open Minds Conference is now scheduled for September 25 - 27 at the downtown Marriott in Indianapolis, Indiana. The sponsorship prospectus is beginning to be emailed out, and the registration website should be on line later this week.

To register interest in attending the conference, you can go to www.k12openminds.com. This site will ultimately remain as the conference wiki, but the permanent site will be www.k12openminds.org. If you or your organization is interested in being a sponsor or exhibitor at K-12 Open Minds, please contact me.

OK, so the logo is a little "busy." We're working on it! :)

Here are excerpts from the sponsorship prospectus:

Introduction

Schools around the United States and the world are discovering the the benefits of Open-Source Software. In Indiana alone, over 125,000 students use Open-Source Software every day. Not only does Open Source save money, it allows schools to extend the benefits of technology more broadly, affording a better education to students.

On September 25 - 27, 2008, the second annual International K-12 Open Minds Conference will be held at the downtown Marriott in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Organizing Committee:

Donna Benjamin, Education Spokesperson for Open Source Industry Australia
Cathy Blitzer, Indiana Department of Education
Kim Brand, President, FileEngine, Inc.
Emily Garaffo, Indiana Department of Education
Forrest Gaston, Consultant, Central Indiana Education Service Center (CIESC)
Jim Gerry, Illinois Math and Science Institute
Steve Hargadon, Project Director, CoSN K-12 Open Technologies Initiative
Jim Hirsch, CIO, Plano Independent School District
Tom Hoffman, SchoolTool
Daniel Howard, President and CEO, Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
Mike Huffman, Indiana Department of Education
Jim Klein, Director of Information Services and Technology, Saugus-Union School District (California)
Kevin McGuire, Director of Information Technology and Media Services, Michigan City Area Schools
Steve Midgley, CTO, Tuckapilla, LLC
Dr. Kathryn Moyle, Associate Professor, University of Canberra
Randy Orwin, Director of Technology, Bainbridge Island School District - Washington State
Bryant Patten, Executive Director, The National Center for Open Source and Education (NCOSE)
Benoit St-Andre, Education Services Director, Revolution Linux
Scott Swanson, Strategic Technology Coordinator, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Laura Taylor, Indiana Department of Education
Dr. David Thornburg, Executive Director, The Thornburg Center
David Trask, FOSSed

History The first-ever K-12 Open Minds conference was held in October of 2007 in Indianapolis. Largely organized by the Indiana Department of Education, with support from Indiana University, the conference drew 342 attendees, with more than 70 speakers in over 100 sessions. The keynote speakers were Dr. David Thornburg (futurist and noted author), Dr. David Cavallo (Director of the Future of Learning Group at the MIT Media Laboratory), and Benjamin Mako Hill (Board Member, Free Software Foundation, Advisor to OLPC project, MIT Media Labs researcher, member of the Ubuntu Community Council).

Sponsors included Asus, Dell, Educational Collaborators, ENA, HP, ImpariSystems, Intel, Matrix Integration, Novell, R Cubed Technologies, SAFARI Montage, Stoneware, Inc., and Tandberg.

A significant one-day pre-conference was held with 35 U.S. and International Open Source advocates and "thinkers" who worked to share and help each other develop "roadmaps" for the introduction and use of Open Source Software in educational systems. Representatives came from Canada, Spain (2), France (2), Norway (2), and Germany.

This Year's Conference

Focus: K-12 Open Minds will be the definitive event in North America for advocacy and learning around Open Source Software and Open Technologies in K-12 education. The conference focus is on the three critical areas for the adoption and use of Open Technologies: Leadership, Teaching and Learning, and Technical. The conference should both attract existing decision-makers as well as to help develop leaders from within the educator community.

Attendance: Attendance estimates for this year are 400 - 500 participants. The success of last year's conference and the addition of a more robust planning process would indicate the likelihood of increased participation at this year's event. Holding the conference in Indiana will increase the potential for continued support because of the State's pioneering efforts in the Open Source arena. The earlier Fall date is to accommodate the ability for schools to use their 2008 budget funds. We estimate that the conference registration fee will be under $200, which makes it a very good conference value.

Sponsors: Sponsoring organizations will be treated as partners, and starting in June a monthly Sponsor Advisory Committee will be convened over the telephone. Sponsors will be asked to consider using their internal and promotional resources to promote the conference. With this spirit in mind, we would also ask each organization to make recommendations for speakers and presenters, from within their organizations or without. One thing sponsors should note is that we are considering hosting a pre-conference "Vendor Event," giving direct access to teachers, technicians, and administrators in an Open Source environment to talk about what they want and need. A school visit could be included. Your opinions on this kind of an activity would be collected via the Sponsor Advisory Committee conference calls or through direct correspondence with any of the organizing committee members listed above.

Speakers: Keynote speaker availability is being solicited currently. Dr. David Thornburg has already agreed to speak as a keynote speaker. Keynote suggestions are welcomed and encouraged.

Organization: The actual conference organization and logistics are being managed by the non-profit National Center for Open Source and Education, www.ncose.org.

International Participation: As was the case last year, there will be a concerted effort to involve the international community in a significant way, including a one-day pre-conference brainstorm or "roadmap" session. A portion of sponsorship dollars will be used to facilitate participation by representatives in countries where Open Source Software is having a noticeable impact on education, and there are also additional opportunities to contribute to that fund. In addition to the countries represented last year, we are anxious to make similar invitations to individuals in Portugal, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines, South Africa, and Australia.

Student Participation: There will be a push this year to increase the level of student participation at the conference, and even the hope of convening a student committee for oversight of a showcase area, a student keynote, and student presentations. A small portion of sponsorship dollars will go toward this effort as detailed below, but with some dedicated sponsorship student involvement could be enhanced.

Awards: This year K-12 Open Minds will be making some awards to recognize leadership and accomplishment in the use of Open Source Software in K-12 education.

Promotion: Promotion of the conference last year was largely by word of mouth and some active blogging efforts. This year's promotional efforts will include:

Proactive use of media contacts to generate publicity
Wider efforts to involve the educational and Open Source blogging communities
Promotion to past attendees
K-12 Open Minds will also be a sponsor of the Open Source Pavilion at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), distributing promotional materials and giving promotional talks

Sponsors are encouraged to take advantage of and help contribute to both of pre- and post-conference publicity. Effort will be made to audio or video record every session where the speaker(s) agree to do so. Recordings will be posted on the conference website so that they can be used as resources at a later date. A social network for the conference is planned as well, which should allow for continuing dialog and contact after the event.

The Future of Work (and Education)

2008-06-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

This commoncraft video on social media, by using the analogy of ice cream production, does a great job of demonstrating an outcome of Web 2.0 that I increasingly see as inevitable (and positive): a significantly more entrepreneurial world where business, interest, and passion can intersect on idea and projects in the "long tail."

Because many traditional barriers to product or service creation and marketing have been obliterated by the web, and the cost of failure has largely been reduced as well, specialty and niche businesses are likely to explode. I believe that a cornucopia of businesses (and social movements) will provide opportunities for amazingly varied work and careers, and that traditional businesses will also have to gravitate toward a more "engaged" relationship with their customers.

The impact on education seems clear. Students who learn to be self-motivated, highly-engaged, and proactive will thrive in the new world. The same "long tail" effect, when applied to educational opportunities, means that students will be able not only to study from a much broader range of topics than we've traditionally offered in "brick and mortar" schooling, but they will likely be able to actually participate in original work and research in a field of their choosing well before even applying to college.

Making a Ning Dashboard

2008-05-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am an unabashed Ning lover, and have several Ning networks I have either started or joined that I consider to be great resources for personal learning--including my own Classroom 2.0 and the network I run for Ning, Ning in Education.

As part of the larger trend I keep feeling--the growing "tidal wave of information"--I often find that it is hard to keep track of the many discussions taking place in these networks. It's not just a tidal wave of information, it's a tidal wave of good information. Part of what I have known that I needed to do was to find a way to better watch or track the many conversations taking place across multiple Ning networks, and I've wished for some kind of control panel or "dashboard" for doing so.

Well, in our way-too-early Saturday morning Web 2.0 Week in Review broadcast this weekend, Michael Staton did a short overview of RSS feeds and how useful they are, and demonstrated by showing how they can populate portal pages in Pageflakes and netvibes. I've been a pretty consistent user of the main iGoogle customizable page(s), and a couple of times had tried to bring my feeds into that page, but it never felt that productive to me. I'd just skipped over Pageflakes and netvibes, thinking that my Google Reader accomplished all that I wanted for my feeds. Michael made the point that in using a page or portal, watching your RSS feeds becomes more like reading a newspaper than reading your email--you can miss the newspaper for a few days and not feel the need to go back and read the days you missed, but unread email stores up and must be read.

Ding!

Here I'd been waiting for Ning to come up with some kind of dashboard solution, and all the while the ability to create one had been right under my nose and I didn't realize it. I think we might all agree that this is a very Web 2.0 feeling: hundreds of programs with thousands of mash-up possibilities, and suddenly we discover something that we think must have been an obvious combination, but required we be thinking in the right way to see it.

So I've spent a few hours on this holiday weekend working on a good solution here. One that you should now be able to copy in a matter of minutes. I'm pretty happy with the result, and a week of playing with it will tell me more.

My primary requirements were:

The ability to utilize a separate tab or page for each Ning network I want to track;
The ability to easily copy the tab or page layout of one to set up others, so I don't have to start from scratch for each network;
The ability for others to see or copy the pages, making it a usable model of an easily-customizable solution for other Ning users.

I tried iGoogle, Pageflakes, and netvibes. My final solution is in Pageflakes. You can see (and copy) the results at:

Classroom 2.0 page: http://www.pageflakes.com/NingDashboard/3363844
Ning in Education page: http://www.pageflakes.com/NingDashboard/23040964
NECC 2008 page: http://www.pageflakes.com/NingDashboard/23041109

All three are essentially the same, and you can take any one, modify it to your liking, then make it "public" and copy it for each network you want to track. In a short period time, you can have a tab for every Ning network you want to track. If you know what you're doing, 5 minutes tops. If you have to learn (like me), might take a half hour to get it all done. (And I assume we will will be tweaking for weeks/months/years to come.)

Each of the three tabs or pages linked above has the same layout that I set up, but which you can change. On the left is the list of all forum posts and replies. (Ning's regular RSS feeds for forums is either a feed of all new posts, or of all replies to a particular post, but if you want all the forum posts and replies, you can use the following feed URL and substitute your network name: " http://[YOURNETWORKNAME].ning.com/forum/topic/list?feed=yes&sort=mostRecent&xn_auth=no".) For the middle column I have the standard blog posts feed ("http://[YOURNETWORKNAME].ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?xn_auth=no), and for the right hand column the photo and video feeds. I don't need to give these to you, really, because you can go to any of the three above pages and just click on the "copy" link at top right and it will copy this page and its settings to your own Pageflakes account. All you then have to do is to edit each "widget" by changing jsut the network name in the RSS feed URL, and within about 45 seconds you'll have a page to track a Ning network. After I figured this out I set up five pages in just a few minutes, including one for the Ning Creator Network and one for the Ning Developer Network.

For those with custom domain names, you can put either the custom domain address into the feed URL, or the name in the original name.ning.com address. I use the latter since they both work and since it makes copying one page to another for a new network super easy.

Enjoy!

For those who want to drill down on this topic even more, here are some other notes.

netvibes: I liked the graphics and colors way better than either Pageflakes or iGoogle. But I couldn't share page sets making it easy for others to copy. Maybe I missed something? I also couldn't change the name/url of my "universe" page when I figured out what was going on. I loved the defaul action of using the internal reader when you click on a link, and that it shows the item as read. Pageflakes allows you to configure to use the internal reader, but doesn't seem to show what items you have read or not.

iGoogle: Some of the RSS reader widgets I tried didn't like Ning feeds for some reason, and while you can share individual widgets, that wasn't anywhere near as appealing as sharing a full page template for someone else to use. I would have loved a better integration with Google Reader functionality, and would love to be able to use the Reader keyboard shortcuts on my iGoogle page. I'm still going to use the Reader widget on iGoogle for my other non-Ning feeds. I found it very hard to get the RSS URLs for Reader folders, and even when I ad them, the RSS widgets couldn't handle it.

Unplugging Conferences

2008-05-14T10:45:00.001-07:00

There are times when technological innovations can fundamentally alter our practices or culture. This is not to say that we aren't sometimes so enamored with technology that we attempt to use it to solve human or social issues in impractical ways, but other times we actually create tools that have the power to re-create us, and I believe that is the case with the effect of the read/write Web.

For the last few years there has been an increased trend in the ed-tech arena to explore the use the collaborative tools of the Internet to change the nature of conferences or workshops. First on my radar were David Warlick's informal and loosely-scheduled gatherings of educational bloggers at conferences where he was speaking, which he called "edublogercons." These gave rise to last year's first all-day and now formally titled "EduBloggerCon" in Atlanta before NECC 2007, Chris Lehman's EduCon 2.0 in Philadelphia, a host of smaller gatherings at local ed tech conferences, my own Classroom 2.0 "LIVE" workshops, the online "OpenPD" sessions of Darren Draper and Robin Ellis, and this June's EduBloggerCon '08 and NECC "Unplugged." Trying to avoid the U.S.-centric model of all-good-things-invented-here, similar events in the UK called TeachMeets have been being held, and there are surely others. Going outside of the boundaries of educational technology, Open Conferences,Unconferences , Bar Camps, Foo Camps, and a host of other collaboratively organized events (see links below) are mirroring the the openness and self-organization opportunities not created by, but significantly strengthened and enhanced by the Internet and the Web.

This should not be surprising, and is eloquently described by Clay Shirky in his profound book, Here Comes Everybody:

A revolution in human affairs is a pretty grandiose thing to attribute to a ragtag bunch of tools like e-mail and mobile phones.... [These technologies] are manifestations of a more fundamental shift. We now have communications that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities, and we are witnessing the rise of new ways of coordinating action that take advantage of that change.... [T]he core idea is [that] we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations....

By making it easier for groups to self-assemble and for individuals to contribute to group effort without requiring formal management (and its attendant overhead), these tools have radically altered the old limits on the size, sophistication, and scope of unsupervised effort...

For most of modern life, our strong talents and desires for group effort have been filtered through relatively rigid institutional structures because of the complexity of managing groups. We haven't had all the groups we've wanted, we've simply had all the groups we could afford. (pp. 20 - 21)

I would argue that we are not only now capable of organizing, publicizing, and holding group activities without the traditional overhead associated with larger institutions--as Mr.Shirky states--but we also now have a set of Web tools that substantively create new ways of interacting in those group activities which redefine our productive capabilities. Some are listed below, and I'm hopeful that this post will elicit comments from others who have other methods or experiences which can become a part of the larger body of practice we can all draw from when looking at holding these kind of events.

I'm also listing a set of links that I've been keeping up at www.conference20.com, a wiki I set up to document these ideas. I'd like to invite, as well, those who are interested in using NECC Unplugged as a venue for exploring the benefits of a collaboratively-built schedule of sessions during a traditional conference, to join me on in a working web-conference meeting on Thursday, June 5th, 2008, starting at 4pm PDT / 7pm EDT / 11pm GMT. Links to the Elluminate session will be posted at http://www.classroom20wiki.com/live+conversations for the call. NECC Unplugged offers a host of opportunities, as its generous sponsorship and promotion by NECC's organizers will give it unique reach. Preliminary planning includes offering time for speed or "lightening" demos, facilitated discussions, group meet-ups, informal mentoring, ad-hoc panels, daily wrap-ups, and even a chance for attendees to give an abbreviated version of sessions they either wanted to give at NECC but were not formally accepted (the " Salon de Refuses"), or to speak on topics that weren't prominent or current when presentation submissions were due months ago. While my efforts will be focused in the Bloggers Cafe area, there will be six physical "lounge" areas for these activities. NECC Unplugged, it seems to me, holds the potential to become akin to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, a great addition to an existing and more formal event.

One element to these meetings that intrigues me, and which I'm still trying to quantify, is the ability for an engaged and devoted group to succeed in producing from their own experiences material and learning which not only meet what a single expert might bring, but often exceed traditional expertise. Darren Draper and I have been struggling to find a easy phrase for this, what he calls "Hargadon's Law," but which surely has been expressed somewhere else by someone more eloquent. It's the literal equivalent of 1 + 1 = 3, which does not invalidate the value of an expert, but which demonstrates or draws out the wisdom of a group, showing it to be significantly more powerful than typically manifest in more traditional teaching environments. Again, arguably not founded on the technologies of the Web, but enhanced and focused, perhaps, by using them.

Ideas for enhancing or creating self-organized meetings:

1. Use a wiki to organize the event. Or rather, use a wiki to let others help in organizing an event. You can even transfer the responsibilities for topics and organization to those who are attending! Ask them to sign themselves up on an "I'm attending" page. Make a blank agenda and let them fill it in. Granted, there is a little training or hand-holding that has to take place to teach others how to use a wiki, but return in collaborative effort from your group results in a huge net savings of time.

2. Ask your attendees to volunteer to promote the event, to facilitate sessions, to give speed demos (under 5 minutes) of successful tools or strategies, and to actively participate in whatever session they are in. Let them use the wiki to schedule themselves in to open slots you've created. You can also encourage the use of the "law of two feet:" if you're not giving or getting enough from a session, find or create another one.

3. Encourage independent discussions. Typically frowned upon in a formal conference, encourage participants to seek each other out for one-on-one mentoring, even skipping scheduled sessions to do so if they aren't interested in what's on the agenda. Consider building in as much informal time as formal time. There's nothing more tiring, and unproductive, for me than to have to rush from session to session at a conference, only to collapse at the end, to get home to all my catch-up work, and to not have the time to really go through my notes and drill down on items of significance. There's a temptation to schedule every minute because the organizers don't want to look as though they haven't done a good job! Don't be afraid of longer break times.

4. Be willing to change, reschedule, and reformulate on the fly. With a "living" wiki agenda, getting participants used to checking the wiki for upcoming sessions or activities allows you to make good changes when you need to.

5. Bring in special guests through video-conferencing tools. Skype video-conferencing deserves a post of its own. Some of my favorite times during an event have been during the lunch break when I've "trolled" the edublogosphere for short Skype conversations. Last week at a workshop in Phoenix, I sent out a twitter message and soon had our group talking with David Jakes , Chris Lehman, Dean Shareski, and Leigh Zeitz . We also interviewed a group of students from a high school technology leadership class, and I must say that the student interview panels I have done remotely are almost always a real highlight of a workshop or conference.

6. Use the wiki as a repository for all notes, brainstorms, links, photos, etc. The wiki then becomes a living extension of the meeting, a collective resource that is richer than our individual memories or perceptions, and which can be used as the basis for future events.

7. Encourage blogging, select blog tags, then use Technorati or Google Blog Search to feed into your event wiki the posts written about the event.

8. Take digital photos of the attendees and add them to the wiki or shared document you've created. Better yet, ask them to do so. You'll be amazed at how much more readable and memorable notes are when you can see the pictures of those who were there. You can ask attendees to tag their photos uniformly, so that they can either be viewed at outside storage services like Flickr, or easily embedded through widgets on your wiki.

9. Record sessions by audio or video, then post them for those who were not able to attend. Good audio recorders are now really easy to find at most office-supply stores. With a good webcam and free services like Ustream.tv and Mogulus.com, you can also video-stream meetings live for remote viewers or participants, and record them as well.

10. Start a social network or group for meetings or workshops. Ning.com is really good for this (full disclosure: I do consulting work for Ning). A social network with a good discussion forum allows you to transfer some of the discussions to the online forums instead of needing to take place in the actual meetings, or to keep discussions going well after a physical meeting is done. Lots of important discussions happen better over time when they can be addressed "asynchronously" and without rush that having to be resolved in the allotted time on an agenda can bring. Look at the Cue Community as a good example of this, or check out the brand new NECC 2008 community network.

11. Allow, or even promote, "back-channel chatting." You can use a standard IM or chat-client, including Skype.com, or a web-based service like Chatzy.com. Not only do most programs allow you to save the chat for later review, but they also can promote valuable ideas, thoughts, and questions from the quieter participants who might not normally jump into a discussion.

12. Remember electrical power and network needs. An event which encourages laptops to be open and in use at all times needs to have have lots of extension cords, power strips, and good Internet access. Don't forget to check the filtering that might be in place as well in case it will block you from your critical Internet resources.

13. Have fun!

Resources:

Steve Hargadon, "Evaluating the Classroom 2.0 Workshop in SF"
Will Richardson, "The Ultimate Conference Attendee"
Steve Hargadon, Conference 2.0 (in response to Will Richardson post)
Sylvia Martinez, Conferences Must Change with the Times
Sylvia Martinez, Conference 2.0 - Changing How Sessions Are Selected
Steve Dickie, MACUL's Gorilla Sessions 08
Fortune Magazine, Welcome to Conference 2.0
Lucie deLaBruere, Conference 2.0
Julie Lindsay, Conference 2.0: The Global Stage Awaits
Paula Thornton, Conference 2.0
Stephanie Sandifer, Conference 2.0 Resources
George Siemens, Peter Tittenberger, and Terry Anderson, Conference Connections: Rewiring the Circuit
Chris Lehman, Conference 2.0 -- NECC, Reflections and Moving Forward
Wikipedia on BarCamps
Wikipedia on Open Space Technology
Wikipedia on Open Conferences
Wikipedia on Unconferences
Julius Solaris, 20 resources for a smooth BarCamp
CNNMoney.com, Why "unconferences" are fun conferences
Ewan McIntosh's 10 Top Tips for Unplanning the Perfect Unconference

Footnote (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Unplugged):

"Unplugged refers to rock musicians primarily known for playing electric amplified instruments (usually the electric guitar & electric bass) performing live using primarily acoustic instruments.

"The word became incorporated into the title of a popular MTV series that began in the 1989/1990 US TV season, MTV Unplugged, on which musicians performed acoustic or "unplugged" versions of their familiar repertoire. Many of these performances were subsequently released as albums, often featuring the title Unplugged."

It's Here! It's Here! NECC's Community Network Is Live.

2008-05-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

The NECC community network is now live at www.NECC2008 .org.

Built on Ning (of course!) by yours truly, I stayed up late one night after the kids were in bed to figure out how to match the exact colors in the Ning network to the actual NECC 2008 official site. (Hint: I used GIMP--also of course--to identify the exact color values of an imported version of the conference logo, then played with the NIng appearance settings. See how to modify a Ning header here.)

On the network site, you can:

Document and share your NECC experience by posting videos and photos
Interact with conference speakers
Create your own profile and find like-minded colleagues
Discuss and review conference sessions
Start or contribute to a forum discussion
Create a group for your school or organization

I uploaded my NECC photos from the past two years, mostly from the Open Source Pavilion and last year's first EduBloggerCon, just by making a link to Flickr and uploading those sets. 5 minutes tops. For some reason I can't find photos of 2005 in Philadelphia, the first year I was part of the Open Source Pavilion (maybe I didn't take them in between the back-breaking work of bringing in and out 30+ full-sized Dell PCs and monitors!). Speaking of "sweating for the Open Source cause," if you want to help volunteer at this year's Open Source Pavilion, email me directly at steve@hargadon.com.

For other Ning conference sites you might check out CUE's Community at http://community.cue.org or Jeff Utecht's Learning 2.008 Shanghai Conference site.

ALSO: Don't forget to check out the EduBloggerCon 08 & Classroom 2.0 Mee tup, being held on Saturday, June 28, hosted by NECC.

And still to come: more details on NECC "Unplugged," the three-day unconference being held in the lounge areas--a conference within a conference.

Firefox Add-ons, Flickr, and $39 Make a Digital Photo "Frame"

2008-05-13T11:33:00.001-07:00

Like many others, I am sure, I shelled out some money at Christmas time on digital photo frames as family gifts. Given the growing library of digital photos our family has on Flickr (up to 13,000 now), it seemed like the digital photo frame was the perfect way to share some of those photos with grandparents. I was stingy enough to resist the sophisticated ones that can update the photos over the web, but still felt like I had spent a lot of money...

Last night, by accident, I discovered another method for producing the same effect--potentially with the added benefit of keeping the television occupied with something worthwhile. Our DVD player had broken, and as you can tell from the archaic TV set we still use, I'm a little frugal in this area. So I went to our local Circuit City and found a PHilips DVD player on sale for $39. As I'm trying to convince my wife and daughter that my frugality doesn't always mean loss of functionality, I read from the box that the player will display not only DVD movies, but a number of other media formats, including JPEG photos on CDs.

"Oh," I think.

Remembering the 670 photos I downloaded from Flickr and put on an SD card for the grandparents to use in their digital photo frames, I burn those images to a CD, stick them into the DVD player, and discover that there is a slide-show functionality that displays all the images and loops at the end. And if it looks pretty darn good on my old picture-tube TV, it would probably look great on one of those higher-end displays I steer my family away from every time we are at Sam's Club or Costco.

Here's the recipe for anyone using Flickr to easily download hundreds (thousands?) of photos and make your own digitial picture frame for $39. :)

Start with Firefox
Use the "set" feature in Flickr to create a new set just for the pictures you want to see.
Install the greasemonkey add-on (requires a restart of Firefox)
Install the DownThemAll! add-on (love this one--great for backing up all of your Google Docs as well; also requires a restart of Firefox)
Install the greasemonkey script "Flickr - Link Original Image"
View your set in Flickr, right-click and choose "Download them all," select only the images checkbox, and download all your photos into a single directory
Burn the photos to a CD, then have some fun!

Flat Classrooms Workshop, July 8 & 9 in St. Louis

2008-05-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis are the teachers behind the Flat Classroom Project and the recipients of all kinds of accolades, including being profiled in the latest edition of The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This summer Julie and Vicki are holding their first-ever live workshop on Flat Classrooms in St. Louis, Missouri, July 8 & 9.

Those who follow the Flat Classroom Project know that Julie lives and teaches in Qatar, and this workshop is only possible because she will be in the United States for NECC. It's an extremely rare opportunity to learn from Julie and Vicki. (I'm helping them manage the logistics of the workshop, and will be there to give tutorials on Ning and Wikispaces.)

Space is limited. More information on the official website and Julie's blog.

FLV (Flash Video) is the New MP3

2008-04-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

OK, let's pretend that the YouTube and Google Video terms of service allowed you to download their flash video. That it was OK to use a program like DownloadHelper to quickly download videos that you wanted to watch away from your computer. And that you could quickly and easily put them on a player like the Archos 650+ and take them with you to watch on the train or plane or automobile. Or at the gym while on the treadmill. Or while waiting at the DMV.

You could watch Barak Obama's speech on race. You could watch Frontline's Growing Up Online. You could watch Professor Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture." YouTube and Google video suddenly become serious educational places. I can watch a 3 - 5 minute funny video sitting at my desk looking at my computer, but for a one- or two-hour video, I want to take it with me somewhere comfortable. Or plug it into my television.

Think of the incredible repository of video that exists but is as-of-yet unavailable, which will suddenly be freed for personal viewing. Just look at Hulu and the old video they are digging up--that's just scratching the surface.

Won't it be amazing when we can (legally) download this video content and take it with us, like we do MP3 files? The day will soon come. I don't know how the licensing will work out, but the personal educational benefit is so compelling that we'll figure it out. We really need to.