The Village Green

eSchool News is reporting that a recent Pew Internet study revealed a link between writing attitudes, habits, amounts, and blogging. I’m not surprised by the results, but what I’d really like to know is if the act of blogging instills a positive writing value, or if those kids that already have a positive writing value are they just more likely to make use of a modern means of publishing their writing by blogging.

Top News - Blogging helps encourage teen writing

CNET News is reporting that Cuba is allowing individuals to buy home computers. While we might find this a little odd, think of your home, and how different it might be if you were not allowed to own a computer, or (also recently allowed in Cuba) couldn’t purchase a cell phone. I think it is important for everyone to be included in the on-going conversation that is the Internet, and am glad to see that a close neighbor will finally get a better chance to be included. If any voice is to have value in the conversation, then ultimately all voices must have the opportunity to be heard.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9935007-7.html 

I love animated movies, and especially those from Pixar. So I was very interested when a note came up in my RSS reader about a Brad Bird interview. In the excerpts of the interview presented by GigaOM, many of them apply well to education and thinking about the classroom in new ways. I see innovation as a good way to describe what I believe about education. Here are a couple of samples.

Lesson Four: Innovation Doesn’t happen in a VacuumThe Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team?Brad Bird: I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person… I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together…

Seems like a great description for setting up group work. It also sounds like a view of assessment that is counter to the current classroom norm. Instead of papers graded in isolation, everyone is grading everyone because the point of the learning is to do the best with the task at hand. Of course that also means we need to rethink the task.

Lesson Six: Dont Try To “Protect your success”The Quarterly: Engagement, morale—what else is critical for stimulating innovative thinking?Brad Bird: The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. … “You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

I’ve tried to describe this before and don’t think I’ve done it justice, but too often education is stuck thinking about doing the job the way we’ve already done it instead of trying to make the impossible possible.There are also examples of lessons from the interview that have no easy corollary to the classroom. Lesson Eight is ‘Get Rid of Weak Links’ which refers to removing passive-aggressive people from the team. When we work with students in public education, you can’t just fire a student from your room.Check out the interview excerpts and the whole interview if you have time. Also, think about how focusing on innovation informs the practice of teaching, of how together, you and your students can be the smartest person in the world.http://gigaom.com/2008/04/17/pixars-brad-bird-on-fostering-innovation/

Or rather, spam’s birthday. A lot seems to happen at the end of April and the first part of May. The BBC is reporting that the first spam was sent out 30 years ago this weekend. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 30 years before the last spam is sent out!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spam reaches 30-year anniversary

Interesting contrast between a Wired Blog Network post with video of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine and a CNET News post about the world of technology in the year 2050. For the numbers people reading this post, that’s a difference of 201 years on the same day.

Exclusive Video: Babbage’s Mechanical Calculator Comes to Life | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Imagining the tech world in 2050 | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

If you are looking for award winning educational software, ComputED Learning Center has announced their 14th annual Best Educational Software Awards.

ComputED Gazette’s 2008 BESSIE Awards

Who knew that today, May 1, is also the birthday of the first BASIC program? Wired News I guess. I also didn’t know that BASIC is actually an acronym for Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. And all this time I thought it was basic because it was simple!

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/dayintech_0501 

Bryan Alexander, also known as Infocult Information, Culture, Policy, Education, has posted an interesting article about a phenomenon of inserting fiction into Wikipedia. Of course, fiction where it is least expected is a time honored tradition, with many examples of journalists or biographers who later admitted they invented the details in their writing. Then there was Jorge Luis Borges who is said to have written reviews of books that didn’t exist. One can only wonder what encyclopedias would be like if authors had the ability to insert elements of fiction into the articles.

http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2008/04/wikipedia-art.html 

Sir Tim Berners-Lee actually had more to say about the Web on its 15th birthday. The BBC has an expanded version of his comments about his teenager linked below.

The experience of international collaboration continues. Also the spirit that really we have only started to explore the possibilities of [the web], that continues. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7371660.stm 

The World Wide Web turned 15 today! In honor of the event, the BBC has put up short responses from 10 of the Web’s brightest in which they provide their views on where we go from here. Worth the read.

 Let me first say that I am extremely optimistic. - SIR TIM BERNERS LEE

Where do I think the Web is headed? I think the Web is already finding its way into many more devices and providing many more services. Devices that are location aware begin to create social networks of devices, and not just people, although the people networks will continue to be the most visible. What will people-independent networks do? I don’t know, but I hope they take good care of us! Where do you think the Web is heading?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7373717.stm 

Liliputing has put together a fairly comprehensive list of low-cost ultraportable laptops. There are several on the list I’ve never heard of, but for some reason doesn’t include the XO although it is mentioned in the reviews of other laptops. The whole site is a terrific resource for anyone looking for more information about small inexpensive laptops.

http://www.liliputing.com/2008/04/over-past-six-months-or-so-asus-everex_24.html 

I know this is a bit old fashioned, but I believe that the best way to learn technology is to take control of the technology by learning a programming language. This can be as simple as setting up a macro in a spread sheet, or hand-coding the HTML code for a web page. Programming can also be simple enough for students and teachers and be fun at the same time. Clarence Fisher has posted a nice review of several education-focused programming environments on his Remote Access blog.  Lego Mindstorms, Alice, Phun, and Scratch. Take a look and challenge yourself to learn one! Or two!

http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2008/04/simple-programm.html 

Stephanie Sandifer, on LeaderTalk and Change Agency, posted a nice article on what to do once the realization has been made that something must change in education in response to the shift in the world around us that has already taken place. She does a nice job of moving the discussion from tools (what to buy) to people. Stephanie identifies everyone on campus, teacher, administrators, etc. as learners, and I agree with the assertion:

If we are serious about changing our learning environments so that our students leave fully prepared for life and work in a globally connected and collaborative environment, then we are definitely going to be moving the cheese of many people in our organizations — it won’t be easy and we can’t wait for all of the state and federal policies and mandates to catch up before we take action.

Stephanie goes on to point out that traditional methods of distributing change in educational systems, such as committees and pilot programs, are just too slow. She calls on the early adopters to virally spread change. While this is effective among the early adopter set, I don’t think this approach will impact those in the later (and larger) adopter groups. Unfortunately, I don’t have a suggestion for a better way to spread change, especially in educational institutions.

Stephanie does a great job of identifying roadblocks, such as tolerance toward technophobic attitudes and sufficient infrastructure. Some of these same elements I’ve written about in the ocassional ‘Necessary Ingredients’ series. On a side note, the post is nicely annotated with helpful links. Link to the article below:

http://www.ed421.com/?p=453 

By way of a post by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch, bloggers and others who regularly post to the Internet may sign up for complimentary access to the Encyclopedia Britannica. If they accept your submission, you can link directly to specific articles for your audience to read. This should allow annotation similar to what can be done with Wikipedia. I signed up and will let you know how it goes if I get access.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/18/encyclopedia-britannica-now-free-for-bloggers/ 

Wes Fryer has posted a pair of terrific articles on his Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog related to Internet safety.  The first includes a video from Google and Common Sense Media that states most of the issues around Internet safety quite well.  The second is a nice collection of tips everyone can/should follow to avoid identity theft.  I’m not sure which is more likely, cyber bullying, or ID theft, but neither one sounds like much fun!

Safety - http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/04/10/a-common-sense-approach-to-internet-safety/

ID Theft - http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/04/10/tips-for-avoiding-identity-theft/