Well, last week both of my graduate classes enrolled in Introduction to Computers in Education experienced an “aha” moment that I feel compelled to share. For a while now I have shown my students a video of Kathy Cassidy that I found on YouTube, recorded by Dean Shareski. I liked it because it portrayed a teacher who began a lifelong quest of making learning exciting and meaningful for her students. Kathy began small and slowly, but continually progressed, challenging both herself and her students. That is what I am continually suggesting that my students do when the feel overwhelmed by so many new possibilities that technologies afford. They are overwhelmed. Where does one begin? Kathy’s story is one that helps paint a doable picture.

So, after talking about developing one’s personal learning network, I thought that it would be important to find an experience that pulled many things that we had read about, discussed, and tinkered with. Since my own virtual network has grown so much over the past few years, and since Kathy Cassidy and I were mutual followers on Twitter and members of some of the same professional learning networks, I thought that I would “tweet” her and see if she would be willing to talk to my classes about her experiences. Kathy was quite willing and

made herself available to my classes in spite of the 2 hour time difference between Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and Rochester, NY. Via email and Twitter, we arranged everything, including the logistics of using Skype for this purpose.

Kathy sent on ahead a list of Internet links representing online learning opportunities that she and her students had embarked on so that my students could pull them up as she was talking about them. Although there were other possible technology setups that we could have used, we kept it simple. Surprisingly, many of my students had never used Skype before and some had never even heard of it. So it was also a great way to demonstrate this free and powerful tool.

The time came and the conversation began. Kathy spoke for a while and then opened it up to some questions. My students seemed particularly concerned with issues of equity, access, time, and safety. Kathy was able to offer her perspective on all of those. Below are some questions that were asked that include Kathy’s response.

But the final question seemed to pull everything together. It was a question seeking advice on how to enhance one’s knowledge about all of this beyond the classroom. This led to a follow-up question about one’s learning network and the importance of a virtual learning network… many of the ideas that we had been discussing and students had been wrestling with.

It was fun to watch the gears turn and the eyes light up in the students as they heard Kathy share her perspective on the importance of her own personal learning community in her own professional life. I think at that point many students became suddenly more responsive to the ideas that had been tossed around in class. Some students blogged about finally giving Twitter a try and being energized at how teachers were using these tools in real ways with their students. Others blogged about the “aha” moment of seeing how technology does not have to be an “extra”, but an integral part of curriculum and learning.

But for me, it was powerful for the students to see how this entire discussion with Kathy was facilitated because of our personal learning networks and virtual communication tools. It opened up the door to vast possibilities for my students that they had not even considered. Their perceptions of the purpose and use of these tools is so tainted by the mainstream media in how it represents their purpose and function in society… for trivial, silly, and sometimes dark purposes. They need many positive models of how new cultural tools can be used in powerful ways, both personally/professionally, and with students in the classroom.

I am thankful that my own professional learning networks have opened up the doors for such opportunities and relationships. My hope and goal is that my students find and experience doors that they never knew existed and begin to go through them and experience those opportunities they never knew they could.

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Technical Notes: an external DV camera was used so that I could zoom in on students who had questions and so that Kathy could see them well. an external omni-directional microphone (Blue Snowball) on a boom mic stand was used so that Kathy could hear my students when they asked questions. Kathy used Call Recorder to record the Skype chat. Kathy Cassidy’s first grade blog Read the blogs of my students Follow Kathy Cassidy on Twitter @kathycassidy Follow me on Twitter

- Special Thanks to Kathy Cassidy for sharing her time and experience with us!

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What it facilitates is a single window in which one can view live video and participate in the conversation with whoever is conducting the live blog. Of course, uStream itself has a live commenting feature if enabled, so I am not sure what the advantage would be here yet, but if you have any thoughts, let me know. On first pass, it does enable the live blogger to be in charge of what is blogged and who’s comments get posted. That can be a great advantage, as I find many times while trying to participate in commenting within uStream that there is a great deal of “noise” and distracting, disjunct conversation. Coveritlive has a number of great producer and panelist features to help manage discussions going on.

Here is another review of these features.

So, what do I think about this chat tool? Well, it couldn’t be easier to set up. All you need to do is give your chat a name and the service generates a URL that you can share. There are no other settings or configurations. That’s it. Those who have the URL can join and specify their name or handle when they enter the chat. So, for ease of use, I would give it a 10. However, I do have some concerns after exploring a few things. First of all, once you title your chat, it remains even after you finish the chat. You have no way do modify it or delete it. If you called it something like I did (TechTalk), someone can easily find it by experimenting with chat titles. Although the entire chat may not be retrievable if it was a long one, much of it remains and is visible. This alone makes me think twice about how I would use it. My advice would be to title your chat with random letters, numbers, dashes and underscores (like sjdkl_16_tjl-9) so that those fishing could not stuble across it if privacy was somewhat of a concern.

Give it a try. It is a quick way to set up a local software-free, browser-based, OS independent chat. But, if security or privacy is a concern, name it wisely. And remember, if it is on-line, it is not private!

- IEP Open Lab

- SMART Boards for Beginners (X3)

- Social Emotional Learning Building Team Training

- Best Children’s Literature in the Classroom

- Adult CPR

- First Aid for Coaches

- Music: the Orff Express

- Web Portal Pages

- ESOL Inservice

- Para Support Group

- Implementing the District Lesson Plan Format (That sounds invigorating!)

- IEP Open Lab

- Excel Basics

- Mandarin Training Report Tool

- Building a Caring School Climate through Service Learning

- the Art of VideoStreaming

- Motivating hart to Reach, Uninterested, and Disruptive Students

- Building Circles of Support for Autistic students

- What Talented Readers Need

- Introduction to Computer Animation Basics (Art teachers only)

All of these topics have merit, of course. They are all important. But most are discipline specific and don’t have a wider audience appeal or relevancy. There are few general sessions that could benefit any and all teachers. But what I want to stress is that there are NO sessions dealing with Web 2.0 or any of its related technologies and certainly nothing on empowering teachers to connect, learn, contribute, participate… in larger communities of practice. So, do teachers know they can participate in such new forms of learning networks? Well, they are not learning about the possibilities in our district. So, I think Will Richardson’s estimate…

“But I would still venture to guess that 75% (maybe more) of educators in this country still don’t know that they can have this network.”

…is probably on target.

For those many teachers who can’t seem to make these after-school PD sessions for some very valid reasons (children, other jobs, other commitments or responsibilities, nothing relevant offered, no follow-up support,…), new on-line learning/networking opportunities would seem to make a great deal of sense. Do we just need to sit back and be patient in this regard? Will it come in good time… or too late?

But, I think that this type of professional development is so valuable in our busy lives. Many teachers can’t seem to find the time for professional development. Both asynchronous and in this case, synchronous (UStream, TalkShoe, Elluminate…), opportunities have really grown over the last few years. They have helped me out tremendously. However, so far, they have not really taken off in the more “scholarly” educational conference venus like SITE, AERA, NCTE, NCTM, CUE and the like. Granted, some do have a few webcast sessions, but little to no opportunity to “participate”. Of course, things like membership and dues play more of a role here, but how long are we these “fences” to professional development going to stay up in this web 2.0, connected, collaborative world? How much do such fences contribute to NOT attending?

Finally, those not involved in these current conversations are probably not even aware of these types of opportunities. After all, I only found out about them from reading a few select blog posts and from a few tweets that came in on folks that I follow. What about those folks who don’t have developing borderless 2.0 networks? All the more reason to hop on board, I’d say. Teachers NEED to know about these opportunities with such limitations on time, finances, and schedule.

And, just as I am writing this, Will Richardson tweeted a new post that fits like a glove here! My point exactly. No RSS? No Twitter? No Network? Then, you are most likely not to be in the “know”. Will writes:

“But I would still venture to guess that 75% (maybe more) of educators in this country still don’t know that they can have a network….The passionate learning network of which I am a part is an amazing and important part of my life. The fact that most teachers still have no idea that is possible is distressing on one hand, motivating on the other.”

I couldn’t agree more. Teachers need time to talk, share, network,… and that time is often not going to be during the school day when their students are there. But, sadly, I think, as Will writes, that most are not really aware other options. My graduate students are not aware of such options and are so excited to be learning about them in class… one class in their entire degree program. Hopefully I can get some of them to explore these “kitchen conferences” and realize that their professional world and lifeline is not contained in the walls of their school or classroom.

“You want to use these tools to keep up on others, in a good way, of course, and to let them keep up on you,” said Professor Carl, whose research focuses on social media. “But their perception is it’s surveillance.” One of the main reasons people embrace social media — Facebook, for instance — is to create identities for themselves and control other people’s perceptions of them.”

And then…

“Maybe Twitter isn’t the right tool for that job,” he said. “The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.”

Isn’t it interesting how this new communication tool that so many adults are using is not considered all that useful with kids… that they are more concerned with “creating identities for themselves and control other people’s perceptions of them”, as happens on Facebook and MySpace. But here’s my question: kids to love to IM and text. They thrive on social networking. One would think, in combination with social networking services, that a tool like Twitter would be “phat“. Huh!

In this new age of information glut/data smog, the importance of being information literate has grown exponentially. How do we reconcile this generation’s desire to “control other people’s perception of them”? Seem’s natural, for sure. But is the digital realm blurring the line between fact and fiction in a way that we must better address in education? Are students more accepting of blurred realities? And, if so, how does this impact one’s ability to value the truth and seek it out?

The result, Postman writes, is that “Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world.” He goes on to write:

“What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of ‘being informed’ by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation… misleading, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”

and…

“In presenting news to us packaged as vaudeville, television induces other media to do the same, so that the total information environment begins to mirror television.”

So, this all got me to thinking about our “digital natives” and us, those adults who have embraced new ways of expression and communication. I think that in this new world of data smog, info glut, and info garbage, it has become even more critical than ever to help our students learn deeply, to see information transformed into knowledge that is deeply connected, grounded, and complete. I am not so sure that the emphasis on multi-tasking, mashups, remixes, and the like qualifies here. Expressive, it is. But, are we becoming satisfied with shallow learning wrapped up in impressive packaging? Our national obsession over testing has certainly railroaded any movement toward depth over breadth. However, I think more than ever before, we must help our students become well-informed, be highly skilled at navigating through the data smog, and produce learning artifacts that demonstrate a deep understanding and mastery of knowledge. We have more tools than ever to gain a broader cultural understanding of ourselves and of the world – past and present. Lets not let these tools trivialize it. Lets help students focus on a task and exhaust it. Lets not, as Postman writes, “let the information environment mirror television.” Is a college-level course taught on YouTube or a course taught over the cell phone head in this direction? Yeah… the digital natives love this stuff. And as a tech geek, I think it is all quite amazing. Does something of value get lost along the way? Are we heading in the direction of learning as a mirror of television?

What do you think?

1. We admitted we were powerless over the amount of information—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

So, what is that power? How does one tame the beast in us that feels like we must be connected to a hundred zillion other folks using every possible tool out there – that we can’t miss one blog post, article, tweet, wiki update, ning contact, e-mail, IM, Skype call, UStream broadcast, slideshow, video…. for fear of being “left behind”… Alone. Uninformed. Ignorant. Does your RSS reader make you feel ashamed for not giving it the attention it deserves? Can you not look it in the eye and say “I love you.”?

Where is the time for deep reflection, peace, quiet,… Has your insatiable “need” for connectivity and information robbed you of something quite valuable? Are you unable or unwilling to unplug when necessary? Or, if you do unplug, do you feel the beast gnawing at you?

Do you dare silence the twittering birds? Or, is the tradeoff worth it. Has the world changed in such a way that we are required now to live this way?

Please share either your “Power” or your need to find that “Power”. Perhaps we can help each other here.

1. A student might use a pencil to poke out the eye of another student.
2. A student might write a dirty word or, worse yet, a threatening note to another student, with a pencil.
3. One student might have a mechanical pencil, making those with wooden ones feel bad.
4. The pencil might get stolen.
5. Pencils break and need repairing all the time.
6. Kids who have pencils might doodle instead of working on their assignments or listening to the teacher.

Now, again, I understand the rationale behind this argument, but let’s compare:

1. Only psychopathic students would gouge out another’s eye… with anything. However, teachers have been known to be violent pencil wielders. Imagine what they could be capable of with an iPod in their hands!

2. A written insult or profanity is seen only by the one who holds the written note. We all fully understand the far-reaching implications of digital bullying!

3. One simply cannot compare pencil-envy with things of high value that create classes of students and do create envy (high-fashion clothing, shoes, and yes… electronics!)

4. In fact, pencils do get stolen all the time. I have rarely seen a student fall to pieces over it. However, if it were a $250 pencil, I could see why that could happen.

5. Pencils break. So you sharpen them again. The “repair” is done in seconds. Electronics break and are repaired with greater cost, time, and learning interruption/disruption.

6. I would much rather have a student doodle with his or her pencil than be consumed with the vast array of on-line distraction. And, most other classmates don’t usually get distracted by one student’s doodling. Not so with a laptop or other electronic device.

So, if we are to present a compelling rationale for issues surrounding freedom to learn and teaching/learning innovation, we at least need to bring valid and sound arguments to the table. To do otherwise only serves to make light of real and pressing concerns of many stakeholders. If a pencil is the equivalent of any other learning device, then I say, let’s stick with the pencils. They are cheaper, easily replaceable, quite reliable, disposable, efficient, highly portable, facilitate collaboration and sharing of information, they have excellent battery life – heck, they don’t even have lead in them anymore, making them environmentally friendly to boot!

But, if there is a significant difference here (and I would agree that there is), then we had better not be making such silly comparisons. Folks might just want to settle for the pencil, then.

Note:
Freyer’s blog post is otherwise right on the mark.