The Village Green

2118 – RSS Connecting ideas and knowledge – Will Richardson – 6/20/07
Points to his PDF article on weblogg-ed.com – RSS Guide. RSS – real simple syndication. This is similar to subscribing to a magazine or newspaper for web pages. In the digital world, these RSS subscriptions are free. An RSS subscription comes from a content producers RSS feed. RSS feeds are common for blogs, wikis, photo sharing, etc. The good news is you can be more efficient keeping track information online, the bad news is you can easily get overwhelmed collecting feeds.

Starts with Google Reader as an RSS new aggregator. Collections are organized in folders. New posts are indicated by bold and the number of new items. RSS works best when we self-organize. Google Reader lets you star, share, email, mark as read, or edit tags that describe the post. Will’s reading has changed. He’s no longer reading every word. Quick scanning lets him organize information for later detailed reading or discarding. Uses Performancing to assist with the blog proess. http://performancing.com/
And http://performancing.com/performancing-firefox/performancing-firefox-1-1-delicious-technorati-release

How do you collect feeds? I find most of them from other feeds to which I subscribe. Will checks frequency, authorship, number of incoming links, etc. You can also search by keywords. Check frequently visited we sites for a feed link. You can also now download your Google reader content using Google Gears. Sometimes it is as simple as the traditional link with RSS added. For example www.nytimes.com/rss provides a list of all the RSS feeds they provide. You can also unsubscribe. In Google News, you can specify a topic and a source to generate an RSS feed. This is important. http://blogsearch.google.com/ and technorati can be used to search for blogs.

Social bookmarking. The web2.0 directive includes sharing the good stuff. Del.icio.us. He looked a little bit at IBM who has implemented social tools big time. Tags are really important. Again, we’re organizing ourselves, where folks create the taxonomy – naow called folksonomy. David Weinberger, “Everything is Miscellaneous” http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Miscellaneous-Power-Digital-Disorder/dp/0805080430
David Weinbergers blog: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/
Will walked through the steps of saving a bookmark on smartmobs, adding tags (use a unique tag for easy reference by your students) and save the link. This tag includes an RSS feed. You can even subscribe to a network from del.icio.us.

Will also used flickr to demonstrate tagged photos. Example: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/darfur You can also subscribe to YouTube tags for video.

Starter pages, pageflakes, netvibes, can be built with RSS feeds, but shared with others. These are already familiar to me and are included in my presentation notes for my session on Thursday.

RSS to javascript, www.rss-to-javascript.com lets you create a javascript that can be pasted into any web page.
There is also an RSS calendar (http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/ ?), librarything is another cool inclusion, http://www.librarything.com/.

Teachers can monitor their student published work through RSS, or you could set up a system that requires approval. Best is probably up front education where everyone knows that what is published needs to be appropriate. Parents, teachers, students, all need to understand that they are publishing publicly and objectives and expectations were clearly understood.

It is important to avoid the ‘echo-chamber’ to only subscribe to feeds that affirm what you believe.

TIE 2007 This may be a little rough. My apologies for any errors in spelling or grammar. I’ll try to come back in and clean it up a bit.

6-19-07
Keynote – Will Richardson
Started off with a presentation of CPS (student clicker systems) with information about the integration of technology and data collection. Looks like the clicker systems are close to reaching a tipping point in use in schools.

Will Richardson is presenting at the TIE conference. He starts off by saying he sees things through 3 lenses, as a teacher, as a parent, and as a blogger. Will mentions a couple of points from Karl Fisch’s (http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/) ‘Did You Know’ presentation.

Politics is beginning to use social tools. These new tools allow for us to connect in ways we couldn’t before. Citizen journalists are transforming journalism. Many online new sources allow for direct commenting by readership. Model for music has to change in the environment where most of the music online is shared. People are contributing, in conversations, to the opinions about everything.

Everything is changing except education. We just don’t move very quickly. Our kids are changing as long as they have access. 1 in 3 in Philadelphia have never been on the Internet. Kids are posting their own movies and pictures, and we’re all downloading them.

Standardized testing isn’t going away. The world is getting more transparent. The future will bring always on networks from everywhere. Our (education’s) response is to restrict access. Will blogs because he is engaged in interesting conversations. Blogging allows anyone to participate in those conversations. The conversation is global in scope. How do these technologies change teaching and learning.

The difference: the last 6 years involved 95% engaged learning through the blog conversation. The previous formal education through Masters and beyond didn’t add as much to his learning because he was probably only learning at 15% engagement. Examples:

• www.fanfiction.net. Student publishing and audience reading. Mostly these are adolescents because they want to, not because it has anything to do with school.
• While we usually think of myspace as a place to block, there is a lot of learning going on there. Meg Cabbot, the author of Princess Diaries has a myspace where her readers can write directly to the author.
• Nata Village blog – blog about life in a world ravaged by AIDS. Even villagers from Nata Village have been able to comment on this blog.
• What holds us back? Lack of knowledge and fear. How many of us are smarter than a fifth grader? Text message to 46645 with define:term. The ‘Google’ term definition is phoned back to you.
• MIT Courseware is also available online and can be taken for free. Kids in Nigeria are able to access this.
• Wikipedia – our kids are using it. It shouldn’t be used in isolation. We need to show them how to use it, and how to be effective with the information they get there. Not only can the info be edited, but that editing history can be reviewed, and the back-story conversations can also be reviewed. Kids are also getting the idea that they can also contribute
• Collaboration example of online document with 4 IM windows open editing collaboratively due that afternoon. Kids can’t be just readers and writers, they also need to be editors. Martinlutherking.org is a site that should raise red flags for kids, but they also need to know what to do in response. They need to be able to edit.
• Hypertext reading and writing is a different set of skill sets. NYTimes “Scan this book” Literacy is changing. Knowledge and information is changing.
• If you have an Internet connection, you are no longer the smartest person in the room. Connect up to them and learn from those smarter people. EX: Secret Life of Bees. The students’ blogs were first on Google. They connected to the author who responded with a 2300+ word response.
• Pulitzer prize winning author mentored one of Will’s journalism students.
• Polar blog connected to 6 classrooms. Kids wouldn’t let the teachers take the blogs down after the project was over because they had more learning to do.
• Flat classroom project connected to a classroom in Cambodia.

Kids need environments that let them go beyond our limitations. What we assign also has to change. Kids have no investment in the work we give them. Ex: Radio Willow Web podcast. We have to get away from worksheets and getting them to a world wide audience.

Wrapped up with a student produced video called ‘Parents’. Makes a great point about buckling up. Became an LA public service announcement. We need to connect them to a transparent, collaborative, connected world. Simply digitizing the old analog work isn’t enough. The conversation has moved from classrooms to professional/personal practice. It is incumbent upon us to embrace this for ourselves, to inform our own learning practice. Find learning transformed for ourselves.

Three questions:
1. Who do you learn from? Are they all in physical space?
2. How are you building your networks?
3. How are you modeling your learning for your students?

Today is “Stop Cyberbullying Day.” The Learning Is Messy blog has collected their public service announcements in support of the message of the day. This post chronicles the development of the videos and is well worth reading. The videos are well worth watching and may help spark classroom discussions on the topic.

http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=230

Can you be too connected? Twitter is a new service that seems to combine the instant feel of instant messaging, with status updates, quick blogs, and even Google Earth locations all in a small package. Do you really need everyone to know what you are up to in minute-by-minute detail? I’m not sure about this one, but it is generating a lot of buzz. For more information, try this post from Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Edcuation.

http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2007/03/twitter_some_we.html

Will Richardson has an interesting post titled: The Steep “Unlearning Curve”, in which he explores some of the concepts we must find a way to let go of or move beyond in order to embrace new ways of teaching and learning. I was especially struck by the following: “When we can share our work with wide audiences, we need to unlearn the idea that student writing and projects are simply ways to assess what they know.” Richardson includes a list of 10 items to unlearn, and invites his readers to add their own suggestions.

http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/the-steep-unlearning-curve/

This article, “INTERNET RESOURCES - Using technology in teaching and learning: Resources to help you navigate a digital world” by Bryan Alexander, appearing in the February 2007 edition of the C&RL News (Association of Colleges & Research Libraries), takes a brief look at the state of technology in education. The article also includes an interesting collection of current web resources and trends. Bryan Alexander is the blog author for Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education.

http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2007/february07/techteachlearn.htm

This is an interesting post from Christian Long, the author of think:lab. It is a 10 point manifesto, written from the perspective of a student, about the current state of mind of a 21st century student stuck in a 19th century educational system. Well worth reading to gain perspective, but Christian also challenges us to create our own manifestos.

http://thinklab.typepad.com/think_lab/2007/01/the_future_of_l.html

Chris Lehmann explores some of the educational roots of School 2.0. The following quote gives you an insight into the tenor of this first of a two part post:
“School 2.0 believes deeply in the old Dewey quote: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” ”

http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/747-Some-Thoughts-About-School-2.0-Part-1.html

Ever wonder where new words or new meanings for old words get their start? Well, here’s a new one: blink. A blink is a ‘web log link’ or ‘blog link’. Kathy Schrock does a great job of introducing us to the new term.

http://kathyschrock.net/blog/2006/12/technology-definition-for-blink.html

Interested in seeing award winning educational blogs? Check out this year’s Edublog Award winners! Categories range from audio/visual, individual, group, to library, teacher, and more.
http://www.incsub.org/awards/

There is an interesting post on Weblogg-ed. It is a short piece about the tragic loss of a student and the online response from her friends. The post quickly moves from personal to a poignant message about the state of affairs in our classrooms, and offers an opportunity to create a bridge, which is quoted below.
“We’re totally missing the point if we think we can wave the spectre of danger in front of them (danger of pedophiles, danger of future embarrassment, danger of _________) and expect them just to stop. Whether we like it or not, these are important and meaningful places to a large number of our kids. It’s not our role to control them because the reality is we can’t do that. It’s our role to educate them. And to do that, we have to be willing to learn from them first.”

The entire post can be found here:
http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/01/17#a4516