Random thoughts

I have spent the week helping our new teachers get ready to begin the school year. I always feel like I am bombarding them with information and they begin to look dazed! Anyway that is much the same way I am feeling right now. I have been looking at the Diigo forums I belong to, trying to keep up with all of the blogs I subscribe to and look at any websites I feel might be useful for my teachers. In the meantime we are learning to use Drupal in our district (OMG) that was a tremendous learning curve! I am working hard to stay ahead of the game and am supposed to find the time to put together a proposal for a workshop on Squeak. I love technology and I am always one of those people who say that I love the wealth of information that is now available to me but I am truly overwhelmed! I just don't know how everyone keeps up. I was looking at a website that featured Web 2.0 tools and it was astounding!!!! For those of you who are curious here is the site Go2Web2.0.net I know many of you have already see this but I go back everynow and again and look and am always amazed. The first time I saw this site I could not believe how much was happening and I was just learning about it! Then I went to NECC this summer and was just blown away. Like always I feel that the people there are early adopters and there is this huge number of people who would have been totally lost in the mix. That said however, it is a sign of what is to come, and it is truly beyond my comprehension. I saw so many people who were doing so many exciting things and discussing the things to come! I am flabergasted right now. I just feel so lost in this world of technology and I hope that someday I will catch up! In the meantime, I remain humble and try to add my small words to the wealth of words out there!

I read an interesting article today about Social Networking and Communities. The comments were as interesting as the article itself. It discusses the fallacies of creating a "community" for marketing or brand loyalty. I really found the view that all of these people are out there creating community when in reality no community exists, it is a group of users or customers who have no other interest in common and not real interest in interacting with each other. Communities share interests, goals, passions, issues and they connect with each other, at least that is my take on it. I do belong to a social network that I feel is a community, we all have common goals and we support and help each other. Yes it is all online but the passion we share for the topic joins us into an online community. Is this going to be the same as the community you belong to in your family, school or neighborhood? No, it is a different animal but it is a community none the less.

We belong to communities of towns or neighborhoods, we don't necessarily share a passion or goal. In fact, often we are at odds with our goals but that does not take away from the idea that it is a community. I looked up community in Wikipedia, and what I took from that is that community has a common ties, a neighborhood or town is tied by the location in which they live. This would make a marketing ploy of trying to claim a community of users or customers false. These are people who want a product but they have no ties to one another. But other instances of online social networking would lead to communities, no matter how closely knit. Facebook in fact is a community with a wide variety of communities within it.
The blog was Marketing Conversation New Marketing and Social Media by Abraham Harrison LLC and the particular article was The fallacy of community . It is particularly relevant to educators who jump on a band wagon without always having a clear idea of what they are doing or why they are doing it. Like all groups or communities (yes we are a community, we share ties) we want to be "with it", we want the latest and greatest. But we have to be careful that we don't put the wagon before the horse. Community is already there, we don't necessarily need to create it. But we do need to be careful how we bandy words and ideas around or they become trite and useless.

These are just my thoughts, read the article and let me know what you think.

Things I learned about Second Life

I know that a lot of people are skeptical about this as a useful feature of the web, at least as far as education goes. And I will admit to some of that myself, but I do think a part of that is the newness of it and my age. It is hard to just accept this "world" as a place to do business or to be educated but what I saw a NECC really did influence my thinking some!

First I spent quite a long time talking to a gentleman from Indiana University in Pennsylvania, he is a docent for Second Life and is used to taking newbies like myself around the world. I had already created an identity and avatar but really had trouble figuring out how to get around. He definitely helped me with that and also to understand how a University uses a product like this. He had introduced it to the University Staff some time ago and gradually they began to see the potential. They have created Islands to help students explore ideas and concepts they learn in the classroom. As an example they have an island devoted to archeological digs and the instructors create simulations of actual digs they have participated in. The students can them explore the digs and learn more about what was found and also how it is preserved. He explained that many museums and universities have a presence and teachers can explore them with their students. While students under 18 cannot create an identity a teacher can use a projector to take the students into the island they want them to see.

I met another woman who had a book club. She had one in SL for adults and university students but also had created one in Teen Second Life. That I have not explored yet but what a great idea!

After talking to many of these people I began to see potential for this kind of web feature, letting students explore and create virtual worlds that represent the different areas they learn about would be very engaging. I can see students exploring Jamestown and becoming a character in that world.

Anyway these are a few of my thoughts about Second Life.

The Wisdom of the Crowd

I think of all the concepts that we are hearing about because of Web 2.0 this one is the hardest for us to grasp. Letting go of the idea that we need an expert, someone who is an authority who can tell us what is right and correct and knowing that we are all experts in some ways is very difficult for many people. We thoroughly distrust Wikipedia, it cannot be correct or good if all these people can edit it. While it is true that there can be false information there, the group (internet users) is so vested in its accuracy that the crowd can police and become the expert. Collectively they contribute their expertise and wisdom to create a resource that goes well beyond what a commercial interest can give us. That is a stretch. What will we be doing next? How can this possible be accurate?! But it is for the most part! That is what is so amazing about the wisdom of the crowd. We all hold some knowledge and a site like Wikipedia lets everyone share that knowledge. I could post about places I have lived and be fairly accurate and if I am not, there are always others out there editing and correcting my work. That is amazing! By harnessing the wisdom and the expertise of the crowd Wikipedia has been able to host information about things that are so new they won't be seen in a traditional dictionary for years, if ever. Some of them will be gone before they can make it, but they exist on Wikipedia. Obscure information that only a few know can be found there, someone thought to post it.

Add to this the desire on the part of many people to participate and create and you have a huge resource available free of cost. We all want to be heard and noted, now we can be. I can write my little blog about my thoughts on this and anything else and I can be heard. I can go into Wikipedia and add whatever little area I know about. I can become an "Expert" for myself and anyone else who wants to read what I have to say. What will they think of next!!!

After hearing his keynote I am now reading James Surowiecki's book, The Wisdom of the Crowd. I was very interested in his ideas and it is a very readable book. I have only started and am about 1/3 of the way through but I can see where many of his ideas might apply even in an educational setting. His sections on decision making in cooporate America really resonate, I can see them in action even in education. This is a book I highly recommend.

NECC is over!

What a great event. If you get a chance to go then go! I had a wonderful time and met a number of great people. The contacts were great. I went to a workshop for Squeak and Scratch, I did not know much about Scratch but now I think I could begin to show children how to use it. It was great fun. Squeak and Scratch are programs for Object Oriented Programming, students can draw their own objects and then program their movement. What a great tool for thinking and problem solving. It is so hard to remember all of the things I saw and write them here. I met with several vendors, the things they are producing for schools are phenomenal and expensive. I would love to get all of them. I especially liked the Mimio device to turn any white board into an interactive smart board. It was not too cheap but it was not as expensive as the full blown white boards.

All in all it was a great experience. I was glad I went and I plan on breaking things down so I can tell you all more about each thing I found most interesting. Stay tuned!!!

Tuesday Afternoon

I saw so many great things today that I cannot begin to talk about all of it. I am going to try and remember and write it into a document this evening so I can blog about it for you guys.

1st I went to the keynote this morning, it was so exciting. Lester Holt from the Today show was interviewing 2 teachers who have been collaborating with teachers and classes all over the world. They have done some really amazing things with their students. They found they were losing their delight in teaching and feeling like they were ready to retire or pursue something else. They began to explore technology and the ability to collaborate with other people. At first they did a community project but gradually expanded to a much greater idea. They have worked with schools in Japan, Sierra Leone, the United States, in fact all over the world. Their excitement was evident. Here are some links to the sites they are using:

iearn.org

My Hero

Taking it Global

Zero Footprint

Anyway for now look this stuff over, it was a great keynote!

It is Tuesday morning and I am taking a few minutes to write this before the keynote. Yesterday was great, I met so many great people. The sessions are full so quickly that it was really hard to get into the ones I wanted, so I went to the playgrounds for Second Life and Open Source. They were great, I really enjoyed hearing how SL is being used by high school and university people and learned a little bit about navigating and using the world. It was so very cool!!!

I talked to a few people from Indiana where they are actually using Open Source in a big way and that was also awesome. I got several people's cards so we have a few resources as we explore this. I did find that most of them are using Open Office as their primary productivity software and there is a new version I am planning on downloading so I can get to know it. There is a conference for Open Source in September in Indiana that would be good to go to!

I then explored the vendors, saw the Power School interface for teachers and parents. It has changed a good deal since we first looked at it and it was a really great upgrade. I can see teachers being able to make the shift from eClass to Power Teacher. The parent portal was a really nice interface also.

I looked at a interactive white board solution that I liked a great deal. Of course there was a lot of flash and dazzle that made it very cool. But if you had to go that direction it was an inexpensive alternative. I also looked at BrainPop Jr. very interactive and easy to use. With a projector and an interactive white board it would be a really good tool for primary grades. We can't buy everything but this was really nice.

I also saw people from Library of Congress, I have seen the site and looked at it but I did not realize everything you could so. They have local universities involved in teaching schools how to use the LOC and primary source documents. DePaul University is one and they will come out for free and do training for your teachers. This is definitely something that our Social Studies people need to look at. They do quite a bit and have curriculum materials already available on their site. I did get a CD to help demonstrate some of this.

Okay, enough for now, there was so much going on and so much to see it is really hard to express it all.

1st days at NECC

Hi all, I just arrived at the Convention hall and already found out I left my phone at my brothers house. Not real sure how I am going to call him to let him know I am ready to come home. Oh well, worse things have happened. There are a ton of people here, I feel really lost. This building is absolutely huge and so finding my way around is going to be quite a trick. I plan on wandering around today so that I get a feel for where I am and by tomorrow can get to where I need to go! This should be fun! It is not nearly as hot as I thought it was going to be and in fact the convention hall is definitely a little cold!! I am registered and got my bag, I am waiting for the keynote speaker later. Will add more later.

Okay, this place is huge and there are so many people here! If you don't get to a session early it is definitely full, especially the web 2.0 and open source stuff. I am getting ready to go to the Open Source Playground, that should be fun.

The keynote speaker last night was talking about the power of the crowd. Really good speaker and interesting topic. I found it interesting how accurate the crowd could be. He cited several examples of instances where this is true. I am going to grab his book before I leave.

I listened to a talk about Virtual simulations using hand helds this morning that was interesting. It was presented by Chris Dede, a Harvard professor and one of the graduate students. They created a virtual simulation that used hand-helds and actually worked in the real environment. Middle school and high school students followed a path to find an answer to the problem of aliens crashing outside their school. They had to decide why the aliens were here, what their purpose was. They used math skills and data gathering to arrive at a conclusion. It is still a University study but very interesting. He had a lot to say about how 1 - 1 computing would take place in schools and his opinion was that cell phones could possible be the route that would end up being most populat. With the technology available to project screens onto walls the small screens are no longer a problem. His thoughts were really interesting!

Bye for now, I will add more later!

Off to NECC

I leave for San Antonio Saturday and I am hoping to learn a lot. I am going to take a laptop with me using open source software. I have edubuntu loaded for the operating system, I am going to be using FireFox as my Internet browser and I am using Google Docs for my production software. I am also going to blog about the whole experience, what I see, who I talk to and so on. I will also post pictures that I take around the city.