Learning Aloud

We ordered a 5 pack of the new version of iLife as soon as we could. There was a sticker from FedEX on my door when I got home tonight and I was anxious enough to experiment with the software that I drove out to the delivery center to rescue our software from the truck.

Here is what I hope. The efficiency with which students can generate multimedia products plays a signficant role in whether some and probably many teachers will involve their students in such projects. I hope iWeb (the web authoring, blogging, etc.) program that is part of the new iLife will be easy enough to use and impressive enough that it meets teacher expectations for efficiency and student expectations for “cool.” The comment about “cool” many annoy some – I happen to think we are all motivated by the opportunity to generate something we know to be attractive. The comment about the need for efficiency is simply a recognition of the reality of life in classrooms.

My experiences are not yet extensive enough to generate a strong endorsement and I would like to see what students can do with this product, but after an hour or so of experimentation, I am willing to say the product is worth a look.

A demo web site hosted on .Mac.

When I listened to Job’s presentation explaining new Apple strategies, an issue that concerned me was the connection between software and .Mac (this probably sounds like my typical Microsoft complaint). The price for iLife seems reasonable, but I would guess many would balk at the $100 annual fee for a .Mac account. To me, the software would have extra value if it could author resources to be delivered by any server. This is the case – here is the same demo web material as available from my own G3 (an old machine for non-Mac people).

Here are some things that do concern me (again I have not had the chance to explore a great deal). iWeb creates impressive looking content by using templates. A user can create new entry points (text, images), but is encouraged to drag images, video into designated locations and enter text in designated boxes. As long as the focus is on authoring and not web design, this is probably OK. The finished product looks great partly because of the sophistication of the template. Translate sophistication as consists of many components, complicated, etc.

My concern is that simple is sometimes valuable. For example, when I work on my own web content, I often do so incrementally. I might create a new page and link this page to the home page. To alter my actual site, I upload the new page and also the altered home page. My changes are simple enough I can remember what has to be uploaded OR I can use the publish option of my authoring program (GoLive or Dreamweaver) to identify the new pieces and take care of the upload for me. I am guessing this type of complexity is not an issue when using iWeb with .Mac. I do wonder about creating more complicated sites and then trying to figure out what should sent to a personal or school server. You really wouldn’t want to resend the entire site each time a small adjustment was made to the web site or a new blog entry was created. There are software tools for comparing the resources at two locations and uploading only those files that are different. However, this is now becoming more complicated than I would like.

So, I like this product and it meets my criteria for simplicity when connected to a .Mac account. This is not a bad solution for some folks. I will have to explore a little more before I decide what I think about the opportunities for using this system with a school server.

Some issues seem to keep resurfacing. The topic of whether students should now spend time learning what they can “learn to access” may be one such topic. I see this issue surfacing in a variety of ways. Cindy recently directed me to a link focused on “legalized cheating“. This article combined a discussion of ways students had discovered to cheat and alternative assessment approaches some educators have implemented to allow students to access such resources. In some ways, the suggested approaches would be similar to an “open book” exam and would be nothing new. From a different perspective, the opportunities being described are somewhat different than “open book” in that these approaches encourage students to take personal responsibility for locating the resources they would use to respond to course assignments.

You know this reminds me of? Do you think the minds behind “Who wants to be a millionaire” don’t know that some “phone a friend” contacts are attempting to use Google? Does it matter? Perhaps an Internet search should be a new life line? Why not just give the contestant say 20 seconds to use the Internet? Anyway …

This topic brings to mind a previous post in which I suggest that it is important to think carefully about this topic and to listen carefully to what individuals are advocating. When educators used to generate open book exams, I assume they created different kind of evaluation tasks. It would not make sense to evaluate understanding of terminology by allowing students to look up definitions in the text. While I automatically use Google to answer all kinds of simple questions that come up, I also see the value in knowing (meaning in my own memory) some things. For example, my professional conversations, even my teaching, requires that I know specialized vocabulary, relevant research from my field, etc. There is nothing wrong with admitting that I cannot remember a study, a name, etc. and searching for that information within a professional context, but a complete lack of internal knowledge would be a great liability.

So – I am for learning to “find information” and I am for “knowing” some things. I think we must just think more clearly about when each is appropriate.

Flickr has been actively promoted on several of the education blogs we follow (e.g., Ed-Tech Insider, Education/Technology) and we use the site ourselves. As a consequence, Cindy has added a Flickr activity to the course she teaches for future teachers. However, as she spent more time exploring Flickr policies, she has discovered that there are 18+ groups and nudity is not banned. It is no surprise that you can find pretty much anything you can imagine on the web and Flickr was certainly not developed to focus on the K-12 audience or educational applications. However, schools tend to actively screen material that is considered inappropriate for students. What is the sense of promoting activities many teachers will be unable to implement? Do schools block Flickr?

When learning that I had a blog and taking a look, a vendor (my term for those folks who sell stuff) described my site as “mature”. I think this was a compliment (Note: I am working on not reacting to any reference to my age.) and I think the message was – “you have been doing this for some time”.

I am attempting to embrace the idea of “maturity” and consider what might be done to take advantage of this condition/state. I describe this site as an attempt to “learn aloud.” What this implies to me is that I “externalize” some of the experiences I have so a) I have a record I can find and explore when potentially useful and b) others have a resource they can explore if they are interested.

I have thought the “search” feature of the WordPress blog software would do, but I have noted that some of the big time blogs categorize posts. The opportunity to label entries did not appeal to me previously because there was not that much content here to work with. I have since reconsidered. Here is the scheme I am now considering –

• General – a catch-all category for things that do not fit elsewhere
• Ed practice – comments on activities and strategies
• Research/policy – comments on research findings or policy satements.
• New software – comments on Internet or CPU-based applications
• Rants – well, you know – “complaints” – hopefully done with a little humor to take the edge off

The blog software I use allows me to go back in time and categorize previous posts. This is not a high priority for me, but I will spend a little time just to see what the results look like.

A significant proportion of my posts lately might be categorized under the heading of Web 2.0 and examples. Rather than attempt to piece together my comments, you might consider a very nice integration (designated as a white paper) provided by mercurytide. This post offers a summary and links viewers to exemplary downloads.

Is the read/write web moving toward extinction? Lawrence Lessig argues the negative position from his unique legal perspective. His focus typically involves commercial moves to block creative repurposing of content. The example in this article is kids being asked to desist from creating music videos by adding their own art to commercial music. To tell the truth, I can see the position of the music companies – if I can access a music video and I can strip the music why should I not anticipate that the people who invested to produce the music would not object. I assume this is the concern. Should the companies be concerned? I can’t say – the work to create these products would seem to limit how many are actually available, but perhaps the concern is that such student activities will spawn related ventures and where will the line be drawn?

I think the real threat, if threat can be considered the correct word, is that of commercial resources – e.g., blogs, podcasts from CNN, New York Times, etc. Those individuals hoping to “have a voice” and “participate in the dialog” will likely receive less attention. I am not sure this would bother me. I am still of the opinion that we produce content because we value the experience and, if we feel the need, we find ways to generate our own audience – perhaps by interacting with others who value the social experience as much as accessing the content provided by commercial “experts”.

While I write here about educational applications of technology, I typically do not have the opportunity to teach a course specifically focused on this topic. This situation is different this semester and I am likely to spin off a few blog posts as a consequence of my preparatory reading.

I like to spend a little time at the beginning of my course to address the question of “what is it like out there.” The core idea is that we should not be willing to settle for our own perceptions but should be willing to explore a little in hopes of gaining a broader perspective. What is typical? What are the extremes? I try to come up with some quantitative representations (i.e., statistics) and the perspectives of some “advocates” to help students and I create personal understanding.

I assume my students will be a little confused. While I am past the stage of assuming the research will provide me a clear picture of anything, I must admit I am also finding it difficult to “pull things together.” Here is an example. Students in my class and others they take within our program read some papers by those who describe a “Net Gen” (for example a recent edutopia piece by Marc Prensky) basically suggesting that the experiences of “today’s students” have been quite different than our own and as a consequence these students will be frustrated by our reliance on traditional educational experiences. Extreme change is necessary.

I also assigned the recent Educause 2005 study of Students and Information Technology. This massive study of 18,000 college freshmen and seniors from 63 institutions collected survey data on student reaction to their experiences with technology on campus.

One might expect a survey of present college students to demonstrate the frustration that concerns those who are warning the rest of us about the Net generation. I invite you to read these perspectives for yourself. I read the college student data to indicate that “these students pick up many technology skills from their course experiences – students are more technologically sophisticated when they leave college than when they enter”, and students prefer “a moderate amount of technology in their courses.” Students value the communication options a course CMS makes available and like to look up their grades. I must say – I find their collective “expectations” disappointing.

I am interested in many of the same things that fascinate other technologists. Games and experiential environments are cool. Learning by doing makes sense. Flexible, anytime learning experiences seem worth exploring.

There is no doubt they use cell phones and IM as a “natural” form of communication and enjoy video games. However, what are the consequences of such preferences for desired learning experiences? I am not convinced today’s students are way ahead of the rest of us AND are demanding change. Maybe they should be, but what data make this point in a convincing fashion?