Generation YES Blog

An announcement from HASTAC.org:

DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING COMPETITION 2008

The second HASTAC/MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open! The focus is participatory learning. Participatory Learning includes the many ways that learners (of any age) use new technologies to participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another’s projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together. Full information at: www.dmlcompetition.net

Awards will be made in two categories:

• Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards will support projects that demonstrate new modes of participatory learning, in which people take part in virtual communities, share ideas, comment on one another’s projects, and advance goals together. Successful projects will promote participatory learning in a variety of environments: through the creation of new digital tools, modification of existing ones, or use of digital media in some other novel way. Submissions will be accepted from applicants in Canada, People’s Republic of China, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, countries in which HASTAC or MacArthur have significant experience. Winners will receive between $30,000 and $250,000.
• Young Innovator Awards are designed to encourage young people aged 18-25 to think boldly about “what comes next” in participatory learning and to contribute to making it happen. Winners will receive funding to do an internship with a sponsor organization to help bring their most visionary ideas from the “garage” stage to implementation. For this competition cycle, submissions will only be accepted from applicants in the United States. Winners will receive between $5,000 and $30,000.

Application Deadline: October 15, 2008

I often hear tech-loving educators say that for teachers to really start using technology in their classroom, the teacher has to first have an experience with technology that is personal and meaningful. Often these educators have had a transformative experience themselves in which some aspect of technology, like blogging or Second Life, provided a professional re-awakening.

Because their own professional flame was rekindled in this way, they assume that all other teachers must have a similar experience to follow in that path. To me, however, professional development that requires a personal transformative experience seems unscalable.

Sylvia

OK, my turn. Obsession over Twitter, a microblogging tool that’s a favorite of millions thousands hundreds of edu-tech-bloggers, is running rampant over at Will Richardson’s blog Weblogg-ed - What I Hate About Twitter.

Will is ambivalent about his own reaction to Twitter, and the 103 (and counting) comments range from agreeing, explaining, dismissing, and accepting various theories about what Twitter is and should be.

In my experience, Twitter is a nice place to hang out with people. Sort of like Second Life without bumping into things. A lot like a lunch room. Twitter is simple to use and gives you 140 characters to say something, anything. You see everything your “friends” say, and you can choose your friends based on any criteria you like. So loose groups of people tend to form who have similar interests.

On Twitter, the flow of tidbits is fast and completely random. Depending on when you show up, you hear about mundane details of people’s lives, work highlights, baseball color commentary, requests for help, and more than a few musings on educational technology. Not surprisingly, when you get a bunch of people who live, work and sometimes breathe education and technology, the conversation trends that way.

On Will’s blog, the conversation about Twitter is fascinating. People love Twitter, hate Twitter, can’t stand the cacophony, want it to be neater and more organized, accept Twitter for what it is, and much much more.

But my thoughts are going elsewhere today. I’m thinking about Twitter as a human laboratory — as a metaphor for learning. Twitter is what it is. How people react to it is a mirror of how they manage their own experience and their own needs.

Imagine if we let children manage their own learning like this?

How many kids get the chance to express their needs in their learning process. Clay Burrell says, “I tend to jump in, swim around like a fish in a wine barrel, then flop out to dry up for a few days or weeks. Then jump back in again. I love the playfulness, the sharing, the relationships.”

Is there every a time we let students “swim around” in learning and then have a chance to reflect, to think, to catch their mental breath?

Nate Stearns says, “Twitter doesn’t work for me, but I know that’s more about me than anything else. I like longer bits to digest” Do we ever give children this choice?

Jarred says, “I often feel a need to “keep up” with the high-frequency tweeters out there…“ How many students are paralyzed by the competitive nature of many classroom activities?

From Christian Long, “The more we seek to create Twitterquette, the more the organic joy of it all becomes watered down so that only a small group of like-minded souls are willing to hang out.” From kindergarten on, school becomes increasingly structured and less joyful. In the end, only certain kinds of students thrive in this environment. We label these like-minded souls “successful” and denigrate the wandering souls with punishment, ever-more boring and structured courses with even less chance to find what might spark a love of learning.

You could read every single comment and create parallels about how most school experiences are so different than what we expect for our own learning.

Hopefully, you’ve realized by this time that I’m NOT advocating Twitter for the classroom, or even Twitter as a necessary part of an educator’s professional development. Far from it. Nor am I advocating that learning should all be freeform and lacking a guiding hand.

Some students can take the always-on, highly organized and structured nature of the classroom - but many can’t. What can we learn from Twitter to allow a more natural, unstructured mix of learning and socializing that might actually feel soothing to some students?

The “feeling” of Twitter may actually be what many educators hope to encourage in an inquiry-driven, project-based classroom. The thrill of getting an unexpected answer to your exact question. The ability to choose when to jump in and when to hang back.The excitement of an intellectual gauntlet thrown down and picked up. Watching experts do battle and learning that there are words to express your own inner thoughts in a more intellectual, accomplished way. Watching people verbally implode and thinking, “I won’t do that!” Socializing in a group and celebrating the common goofy humanness of all different kinds of people.

Educators who create climates of possibility in a classroom sometimes make it look easy, but it’s far more tricky than it looks to guide groups of students in goal-oriented, academic tasks while still allowing them to drive their own learning. I talk to teachers all the time who have been tweaking project assignments for years, subtly changing minor details of timing, instruction, environment and tools to increase the level of student agency while also increasing the quality of student work. It’s difficult, painstaking, rewarding work.

What might Twitter teach us about creating these learning environments?

• The rewards of serendipity
• Making it simple to participate, contribute, or watch
• The importance of socializing
• Choice
• Freeing up time constraints
• Questioning whether imposed rules increase or limit participation

Your thoughts?

Sylvia

Yesterday’s news brought a new Web 2.0 related announcement. Micro-blogging favorite Twitter has purchased Summize, a Twitter search engine.

Twitter has become the new tool of the day for many edu-bloggers (like me). It’s great for keeping up with personal networks, keeping track of people at conferences, and just chatting. There have been a few educators interested in the educational potential, but mostly, it’s been a tool for sharing and socializing. Twitter is also a favorite of many marketing social networking gurus, some who have amassed tens of thousands of followers. Like the early days of Google when it broke out of the pack of dozens of popular search engines, Twitter seems to be at the tipping point of widespread use.

Many other Web 2.0 applications have sprung up in the fertile Twitter ground, dedicated to providing a better user interface, connections to other tools, or better search and conversation tracking. Summize was one of them.

Yesterday, Twitter bought Summize, and now the Summize search can be found at the subdomain search.twitter.com. The speculation is that the purchase was made in Twitter stock, plus jobs for the five Summize employees at Twitter. All this for two companies that make zero revenue!

But somebody believes that Twitter is worth something - they’ve been funded with 15 million dollars of venture capital. That’s not a gift, somebody is expecting them to return that 15 million with much more on top. Other venture capitalists have invested 1 million dollars in Summize.

So Twitter believes that Summize is worth money. And the VCs that own a piece of Summize most likely believe that their million dollar investment is now going to pay off big time.

So what’s the education angle here?
For educators, Web 2.0 apps offer some amazing features for collaborating, communicating, access to data, photos, audio, video, and more. But the main reason it appeals is the price - free. For many schools scrambling to balance the budget, free overrides all other features. Educators find out about these apps the same way everyone else does - buzz and early adopters. The more people flock to these sites, the greater the chance they might break out of the pack and become the darling of the moment. And that’s how they attract venture capital, which allows them to stay in business, expand, and gain more customers. Buzz is the business of these Web 2.0 companies, even more important than the products they make. If the buzz is big enough, they might hit the Google jackpot and make millions.

So you have to ask yourself, is “buzz” plus “free” driving educational practice and planning? Are you building a future on this premise? Are educators walking into a trap set out to attract any and all users, just so venture capitalists can make a return on investment?

Sure, you could argue that we’ll just use these tools as long as they’re around, and then move on to whatever the new new thing is. But by then, how much of your current technology plans will have shifted to relying on things being free? If you have sold Web 2.0 to your colleagues, principal, and superintendent as the way of the future, what happens when these companies finish their speculative games, take their money and go home?

So while you might not care about Twitter, this particular bit of Web 2.0 business news is just the tip of the iceberg for the coming consolidation.

We all know that day is coming, when the companies that don’t get enough buzz to attract money will shut down their free services. Once the money in Web 2.0 settles out everything will change. The VCs will find a hot thing to invest in. A few lucky little companies will get bought or turn into big companies, and that monetize word will have real meaning. The rest will go away.

It’s not a matter of if, but when. Are you ready?

Sylvia

Well, in what may be the understatement of the year, this has been a busy couple of months! The intrepid Generation YES staff has been working on two major projects with a deadline to have both of them done for NECC this month in San Antonio. NECC is a great place to show off new stuff, and we have a lot to show this year!

I blogged about TechYES Science (Announcing TechYES Science) last week, our latest addition to the TechYES - Student Technology Literacy Certification family.

But now the REALLY big news. The exemplary GenYES model is undergoing a major update to make it easier to use and even more aligned with the needs of 21st century learning communities. If you haven’t heard of GenYES (!) — GenYES students learn technology skills and apply those skills to real life issues — teaching teachers technology, building classroom resources, and doing tech support.

GenYES 2.0 is a proven way to help K-12 schools leverage students’ tech-savvy passion to integrate technology in every classroom. Empowered GenYES students inspire teachers to use technology and provide help when and where they need it.

• All resources online for ease of use
• New student-powered online help desk for the whole school
• New student project tools and teacher class management tools
• New blog and wiki tools
• Activity guides, project starters, and 20+ units of curriculum teach technology skills, multimedia, media literacy, audio, video, Web 2.0 tools, level 1 tech support, and more. Advanced units cover student leadership, community service, careers and more advanced tech support.
• Student certificates
• GenYES students learn collaboration skills, project planning, teaching, mentoring and troubleshooting skills.
• Club or class; upper elementary, middle and high school.

Read more about GenYES 2.0 online or in this downloadable flyer (PDF).

Note: There is a really big change to the way GenYES 2.0 is priced. For the first time, there are NO RENEWAL FEES - GenYES 2.0 is a one-time only site license. This is a pretty big change for us, and I plan to blog about why we’ve made this decision.

Another note: GenYES 2.0 includes all the resources from our Generation TECH student tech support program, which is being retired and integrated into GenYES 2.0. We kept hearing from customers that they wanted students to learn to collaborate with teachers on technology integration projects AND do tech support. So we finally figured out how to incorporate all of these in one easy to use tool.

OK, one more note: For GenYES 2.0, we’ve invented a Web 2.0 application we call the GenYES Technology Assistance Project (TAP) Manager. The TAP manager acts a bit like a help desk combined with a student-friendly project management tool. Any teacher in a GenYES school can request help or tech support by clicking a link. The GenYES teacher acts as a traffic manager, assigning TAPs to GenYES students. And like Facebook and other Web 2.0 tools, the web application gives GenYES students and their teacher a running report of what’s going on in their learning community as they work on their projects.

If you are coming to NECC, come by our booth (7148) and we’d be happy to give you a demo. Soon after NECC, we’ll have an online demo available.

Sylvia

The National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) will be in San Antonio, Texas in less than two weeks, June 28 - July 3, 2008. Sponsored by ISTE, this is the “big” national conference of the year for technology in education.

Every year, we plan our booth with a fun theme (fun = cheap!) and this year our theme is “Go Green.” We ran a contest for our schools to share student-made videos about their school’s green efforts, we have a new booth that’s lighter (takes less energy to ship,) and we’ll be doing what we can to reuse and recycle!

Generation YES will be in booth 7148 in the exhibit hall, with GenYES teachers and students from Texas and Kansas on hand. We will also be participating in several events and panels. Be sure to stop by and say “HOWDY!”

FREE STUFF! We will be handing out samples of our new TechYES Science Student Guide. (I talked a bit about this new product and our STEM initiatives in a previous post.) TechYES Science guides students to a technology literacy certification through science projects. Come by and get one!

Events (link to NECC schedule)
Bridging the Digital Divide in Texas
Dennis Harper, with Trina Davis, Susanna Garza and Martha Peet
Monday, 6/30/2008, 12:30pm-1:30pm

Student-Centered Laptop Integration into the Classroom
Ron Canuel, Eastern Townships School Board (Canada) with Susan Einhorn, Sylvia Martinez, Scott Parker and Gary Stager
Monday, 6/30/2008, 2:00pm-3:00pm

Assessing Student Technology Literacy
Agnes Zaorski, Eatontown Public Schools with Cathy Higgins, Ashanti Jefferson and Sylvia Martinez
Tuesday, 7/1/2008, 3:30pm-4:30pm

Transforming Technology Projects from Good to Great
Melinda Kolk, Tech4Learning, Inc. with Sylvia Martinez, Peter Reynolds, Adam Smith and Gary Stager
Wednesday, 7/2/2008, 12:00pm-1:00pm

Constructivist Celebration - Sunday, June 28. Join colleagues in a day-long celebration of creativity, computing & constructivist learning. Sponsored by the Constructivist Consortium. (Sorry, this event is sold out!)

I’ll also be at the EdubloggerCon pre-NECC event on Saturday. This should be a fun, informal event and a perfect (free!) way to meet virtual friends and like-minded educators. It’s not just for bloggers, by the way, it’s for all tech-loving educators interested in new applications, online projects, collaboration, and Web 2.0. Hope to see Twitter-friends and Classroom 2.0′rs there!

Sylvia

There’s been a lot of chatter lately among some edubloggers about their feeling that educators who blog have formed a community akin to an invitation-only cocktail party, that some “elites” deliberately exclude or insult newcomers, and that there should be rules to follow when blogging, Twittering, or participating in the various social networks that support educators as they experiment with new tech tools. I’m not even going to try to link to examples of this, it’s just fuel on the fire.

I’m no expert here, but my spidey sense tells me there’s something else going on. I think it’s “passion fatigue.”

Educators who felt their professional selves rekindled by technology, especially Web 2.0 technology jumped into communicating this passion to others. As time goes on, though, it gets harder to maintain that heightened sense of mission, especially when you just don’t see anything changing around you. Or worse, you start to see the enormity of turning the massive institution called school in any direction, much less the one you want. You start to wonder if your life’s work is all just so much spitting into the wind.

It’s so much easier to pick on little things, point fingers, proclaim rules, and jump into fights you wouldn’t tolerate in real life. It’s the virtual equivalent of library shushing. I’ve done it, I admit it, I’ve poked my nose in where it doesn’t belong and made comments that I shouldn’t have. Maybe I shouldn’t even say this, since someone is going to think that I’m complaining about them. But honestly, I’m not. Blog however you want. Comment however you want. Twitter, don’t Twitter, really, I’m not your mother.

I aspire to be both optimistic and realistic, do my best, and not give in to trivialities. Some days that happens. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” I hope that spirit carries me forward.

Sylvia

This just in from Google - Google Docs will have an offline mode very soon. The rollout of all the features is happening over the next few weeks, but soon it will mean that you can edit your Google docs when you do not have an Internet connection. This is a long awaited feature for many users!

To keep up with all the new Google Docs offerings, be sure to subscribe to the Google Docs blog and the new Google Channel on YouTube. There are many videos from Google explaining features of the various Google tools, but also videos uploaded by users (including many teachers).

Here’s how Google Docs offline works:

Sylvia

Kern Kelley’s students in Maine have created a web-enabled comic book style help guide for the Google Doc applications they are using. Kern blogs at The Tech Curve, and I’ve written about Kern and his students before, they are very involved in student-centered ways to use technology.

Direct link to: Overview of the Google Online Applications

This is a terrific project for students, and useful for a school! Since you create it yourself, students can add customized details about your server and network, remind readers about the Acceptable Use Policies, and make suggestions for using these tools.

I’ve blogged about student-created video help guides before, and all the reasons that these are terrific projects for students. These comic-book creations are another idea to accomplish the same goals!

The online PDF viewer is called Issuu (pronounce “issue”). It’s a new, free Web 2.0 application. You upload a PDF and it converts it to a very slick looking viewer. There are tools to share these through email or embed them in a blog, Facebook site, or other ways. It’s new, so take care in its use with students. The user agreement does say you have to be 18 to upload. I didn’t see anything “bad” in the PDFs that are shared on the home page, but you never know.

Sylvia

When you work with schools across the nation, you soon realize that February and March are never going to be your own again. These are the months where many states schedule their state educational technology conferences. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been to Texas (TCEA), Washington (NCCE), Washington DC (CoSN) and of course, my home state of California (CUE).

If I could have cloned myself, I could have gone to Florida (FETC), Illinois (IL-TCE), Arizona (MEC), Michigan (MACUL), New Jersey (NJECC) and probably more I’m forgetting. (I can’t even bring myself to find all the full names and links to these terrific conferences! Bad blogger!)

These conferences give technology-using educators a chance to reflect and recharge, hear inspiring speakers and talk to colleagues from near and far. This year, more than ever, I met folks who previously have only been virtual avatars, Twitter buddies, or names on blogs. The opportunities to use Web 2.0 tools and social networks to build a Personal Learning Network has changed many educator’s lives, and brought new spark to a traditionally isolated profession.

I believe conferences must change as well, or risk being a relic of the past.

At CUE, I participated in a day long “unconference” event called EdubloggerCon West run by Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 (a social network for educators.) Instead of submitting session ideas months in advance, and a faceless committee deciding which sessions are presented, the attendees shaped the day to our own needs. A wiki was used to plan the event. People signed up, and added their ideas to another page for ideas about what to talk about.

At the event, the first item on the agenda was to decide what the day would become. Imagine that, the attendees shaped their own day of learning to their personal needs!

Someone volunteered to edit the wiki, and an agenda emerged on the fly. Some people wanted to talk about technology and language development. Some people wanted to talk about project-based learning. Concepts got merged and people stepped forward to offer new ideas. There were some mini-sessions (5 minutes!) on various tools. At the end of the day, the wiki stood as both a record of what happened, and links to the tools and ideas we talked about.

It was an interesting day, both for the learning taking place and the concept that conferences could change and adapt to new technology that allows more personalized learning. It felt like a mash-up of the best conference sessions you’ve ever been to, combined with the most interesting conversations you tend to have when committed, passionate educators gather after-hours.

While this exact format might not work for thousands of attendees, there are certainly elements that can be adapted and experimented with. Conferences as we know them today are going to change as technology and culture change — or become obsolete.

Steve is getting to be pretty good at structuring these events. It’s an interesting combination of leadership, experimentation on the bleeding edge of technology, herding cats, and stepping back gracefully to allow others to share the spotlight. It’s one of those skills that looks magically effortless when it’s done right, but isn’t. Sort of teaching.

These days, change happens quickly, even for those who feel ready for it. In fact, the name EdubloggerCon seemed cutting edge a year or two ago, but now it’s too focused on one tool in a universe of possibilities. It’s really about changing education for the modern world.

Congratulations to CUE and executive director Mike Lawrence for allowing this experiment to take place and not being afraid of the future.

If you are attending the National Educational Computer Conference (NECC) in San Antonio in June, there is a similar event being held two days before NECC starts. More information here.

Sylvia