Remote Access

Global Lives - Unit One

I'm beginning my school year with a study on current societies. This means globalization and global trends such as urbanization and the development of nations. This is quite abstract for kids who are barely into grade seven and eight so I've spent a few days searching for resources I can use to bridge this gap to make this more real for students. These are some of the things I plan on doing and using in the first few weeks of school.

1.) Playing Simcity - I love Simcity and so do students. It helps students to realize the difficult realities of managing a population and attempting to put conditions into place that allow a society to grow. It also allows students to see the complex relationships that evolve between various factors such as taxation, education, public safety, etc. It is often like a "peek behind the curtain" for kids who have never taken the time in the past to consider many of these details.

2.) Start off the year's readings with a shared iGoogle tab - I keep a tab with just a few blogs on it that I want kids to read. These are what I call "required reading" and often stand in as our textbook. I've only chosen a few as I don't want to overwhelm kids with information. Currently sitting on this tab for the beginning of the school year are the Nata Village blog, Worldchanging.com, Jan Chipchase's Future Perfect, Afrigadget, and Dvice. I've chosen all of these blogs for their currency, their global outlook and their interest. As well, Each student in my class will subscribe to the feed from at least one country and one topic of their own choice from globalvoicesonline.

4.) Google Earth - Considering how people live in different parts of the world is much more possible with this great tool. In the past I've had students locate and look through specific cities in different parts of the world. I've wanted them to compare North American and European cities contrasted against those in Asia and Africa. With Google Earth students are able to look at specific things such as types of housing, the layout of the streets and other factors such as natural features nearby.

5.) Web Exploration - Over the last few days I've searched down a few websites that I want my kids to spend some time with. Among them are:

- Hungry Planet and Material World - Two sites built on books by Peter Menzies of the same names. In Hungry Planet, Menzies has collected photos of families around the world with all  of their food for a week. A great way to look at amounts of food available and what their diet actually consists of. Similarly, Material World has pictures of families with all of their possessions. Almost scary to contrast households in different parts of the world.

- Climates of the World - Basic climate data from around the world.

- Nation Master - A great source of data from around the world. Everything from the number of McDonalds restaurants to things like GDP. An interesting way to contrast different factors around the world

- Earth Album - A mash up of flickr and Google maps.

6.) Blogging - All of this playing and reading will lead us to reflection and writing. On the very first day of school, students will have a space of their own.

This is the beginning of my year. How are you starting yours?

Tags: classroom, globalization, unit, peter menzies, simcity, material world, hungry planet, nata village, jan chipchase, dvice, afrigadget, worldchanging, future perfect

Classroom Set Up

I'm notoriously bad for changing the setup of my classroom. I'm never satisfied until there are actually kids sitting in the chairs. School here starts September 3rd and I've been in my room for most of this week cleaning and organizing. I can never seem to do anything else until I get this done. I think classroom organization is important. How we organize our space speaks to the things we want to happen there and also to the possibilities. Organizing kids in rows allows one type of pedagogy and learning to best take place. Organizing in groups and tables allows different things to happen. 

 These two views are from the door of my room. I've inherited an eclectic set of tables and desks so I make due with what I've got. 

This is the little back corner of my room that I work very hard to preserve. It has my couch, my two desktops and a table that kids can move to if they need to work with someone who may not sitting close to them. I also use this table a lot to work with small groups of kids or to conference with individuals.

 I don't have a desk. Everything I need is on my laptop (or in the small filing cabinet if I don't have a digital copy).  All of my teaching "stuff" (staples, markers, whatever else) are in the cabinet behind my chair. 

I love technology but I love books too! I've got just over 250 novels in my classroom. Up in the corner is a selection of age appropriate picture books of all kinds: poetry, fiction and non fiction. Closer to the camera are magazines I subscribe to at home (Wired and Sky and Telescope). I bring in my back issues for the kids to read. I point out articles from them both that I think the kids would be interested in. They are usually a hot item. I also have a lot of maps that the kids can read. I have old maps of the area, canoeing maps, maps from different cities I've traveled to, etc. Again, a lot of kids find them interesting.

 My ten eee pcs (OK, only nine right now while one of them is out being reimaged. I asked my division geeks to hack the linux os and put phun and audacity onto one of them so I  could reimage the rest of them). These machines sit on a side counter and come and go throughout the day. Kids use them for almost everything. While I'm not certain how many students I'll have yet in my classroom (somewhere in the range of 21 - 24), between these ten, my two desktops and whatever other machines kids from home, I should have about one computer for approximately every 1.5 kids. Pretty good odds.

There are a few more pictures in the full set if you're interested.

Tags: classroom, school, eee pcs, asus

Boing Boing TV World

I'm a big fan of Boing Boing.

It's a great blog that always seems to mix the right combination of serious, humourous and sometimes just unbelievable content.

As well as the blog, they expanded out some time ago into Boing Boing TV. While some of the content may not be useful (or appropriate) for school use, you can often find tech or interview gems on the site that are good resources.

But just today I found Boing Boing TV World. A series of videos shot by the world traveling blog editors, these short films could be used many different ways in class. Good quality footage of everyday life and living in different parts of the world. While only four short videos so far, it looks like a resource worth watching.

Tags: BoingBoing TV world, classroom, video

Learning 2.008 Conference Trailer

About four weeks until the Learning 2.008 conference begins in Shanghai!

I'll find myself among some august company, the lone teacher among the invited speakers.

The ning is warming up, the chatter is beginning and even more importantly, people are connecting.

Great YouTube trailer on the conference posted today; enjoy.

Tags: Learning2.008, David Gran

Digital Footprints

When I first started blogging, a few people who had been at it before me told me to check on Technorati occasionally to see what people were writing about me. At first I did it a few times, feeling like it was something that I needed to sneak. Something on the edge of improper as if this act were tied far too closely to my ego to be considered healthy. Over time however, I realized how essential an act like this is if you're working online.

Tracking your digital footprint is something we should all be doing. It's also something that we should be teaching our students to do. Students who are a bit older and who have spent some time putting content online might be very surprised to find things from their past still accessible that they haven't seen for a few years. This would be a good learning experience for them to consider as they head off to college and begin thinking of interviewing for jobs.

Tracking my digital footprint has become an essential part of what I do online. Here's a few things I've learned:

1.) Google yourself regularly. Google your own name and the name of your blog. Using Google, you can also set up Google alerts for your name and your blog so that when something is written about you, the alert sends you an email. I regularly receive email from companies who make "Remote Access" software products asking about the name of my blog and how I use it. I've actually had one of them tell me that people aren't really searching for my blog when they find me, they are searching for their product. While probably true sometimes, I still was slightly insulted by the lady who told me this. This goes back to the idea that Google had become so important in our society that it is not really a search engine, it is a reputation management engine. Reputation = accreditation online.

2.) Search technorati regularly for both your name and the name of your blog. This is great to see what people are writing about you. It gives you a chance to respond to posts people write and also it keeps your finger on the pulse of any ongoing conversations. I'll admit that sometimes I don't really understand technorati and have some doubts about the validity of their ranking system. Last night checking out my blog, I had a ranking of below 60 000; far below my usual. This morning, I was up around 38 000. While this ranking is lower than my usual, this doesn't really concern me, I'm more interested in the information I can garner about conversations than rankings.

3.) I watched Ewan McIntosh this summer with his own personal search engine. Ewan uses his RSS reader and technorati to subscribe to all of the possible spellings and misspellings of his name and his blog to catch any possible conversations. He also subscribes to feeds searching for conversations about projects he is involved in, keeping him directly in line with whatever is begin written about him or the things he is involved with.

4.) Track twitter. Although summize has been bought out by twitter itself, it is still a good place to search. I learned Ewan's lesson on twitter. Although I use the name "glassbeed," many people type in responses meant for me as "glassbead." (Yes I know it's misspelled. The name itself and the meaning behind them are a separate story).

5.) I also check my feedburner stats and the stats on my blog that I get from Typepad closely. This gives me more information about how people are getting to this blog, how long are they are staying here, what they are actually reading and where they are from. These are important ways to check up on your audience. Where are people from? What are they reading on your blog?

Essential basic skills for us and for our students as well.

Tags: digitalfootprint, technorati, ewan mcintosh, summize, twitter

When the Exception is the Rule

I'm sure you might have seen one or two kids in your classroom over the past few years like this.

I'm talking about those who are going into grade seven (for example) and who actually score directly at a grade seven level on a standardized test of some kind.

But of course these kids may be at the "correct" standardized level on their math scores (or even a portion of their math score), but they may be far off when it comes to their spelling, or reading comprehension, or on every other single thing.

Kids aren't standard.

Looking at a classroom filled with kids is looking at a room filled of absolute individuals. Every one of them has their own history, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their own best way of doing things. This basically sets us up with the idea that if every student who is in our space is unique, we need to be doing as much as we can to personalize their educational experience. This means everything from the forms of representation available to them, to the information that they have access to.

Mass customization.

This is the way that most business is conducted online. From Dell and threadless to neighborhoodies and Timbuk2. Beginning with a standard framework of some kind (a t-shirt, a messenger bag, etc.) each of these companies allows their customers to customize their experience in ways that fit them best and in ways they are most interested in. I may think you've wasted your money buying a terribly ugly shirt, but as long as you're pleased with it, that is what counts.

How does this play out in our classrooms?  How can we customize the experience for each of the learners we work with and still remain sane? A lot of it revolves around the tools we use. Personal publishing platforms (with the emphasis on "personal") for blogging (or podcasting, or flickring) allowing students choices in how they represent themselves and their learning. RSS allows us to help our students work with an information pipe that may be different for each one of them. This makes them (once they reach a certain age of course) responsible for a large portion of their learning.

In a classroom such as this, the exception becomes the rule.

Tags: classroom, education, learning, RSS, threadless, timbuk2, neighborhoodies

Signals from the Future

I've spent some time lately thinking about this set of concepts called Aurora from Adaptive Path. Based on a consultancy gig from Mozilla, they have worked out some ideas about the future of the web browser.

While you can watch all four short videos on their site, I'll embed one of them here so you get the idea:

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

I've written several posts this year about OS and literacy. About how changing the design of the user interface and changing the user experience can have dramatic effects on our concept of computing, on how we use the information that is available to us and on what it means to be literate.

On the Aurora blog they host this picture that shows how over the last ten years, the browser has not changed very much:

All of these are obviously similar and we really have the mode of working online that we do today in large part because of this type of set up. Aurora is an attempt to structure our experiences differently, a different interface challenging our model of use and our concept of computing.

What does this mean for classrooms?

This continues to show us that our model of literacy and of computing will change and be challenged. In a fascinating TED Talk, Jeff Han, the inventor and designer of a touch screen interface that the Microsoft Surface and the iPhone is based on stated that he was disappointed to see that with the OLPC project, millions of kids around the world will be introduced to computing with a standard sort of point and click interface. While I don't have one, I am a supporter of OLPC but I do see his point. We are so locked into a click and drag sort of OS model that we have difficulty imagining any other way to interact with our machines and more importantly, with our information. Our concept of literacy is under constant evolution and has been throughout history. We sometimes are surprised by this, but technology has always effected the skills and aptitudes needed to be considered literate in different societies.

What is something to consider here is that for the firs time in history, corporations may have great influence on our literacy. The prevalence of both Windows and Apple's OS means that the design teams from these corporations will have great influence on the skills that we need to access and comprehend information. A concern?

Tags: adaptivepath, mozilla, aurora, design, literacy, apple, windows, os, classrooms

I Don't Care About Scale

One thing I've realized lately is that I really don't care about the scale of projects. This summer I've run into numbers of teachers and corporations who have been touting the numbers of teachers, students and classrooms taking part in their projects.

This may be a wrong headed approach, but here's my thought anyway: I don't want people to do what I do, or for that matter, to do what anyone else does. I want them to be their own innovator and to design their own innovation. This doesn't mean reinventing the wheel each time, or that we cannot learn from what each other has done, or is doing. But it bothers me to see people interested in only replicating what others are doing. This is a path to failure.

Your own classroom, school, or community needs its own type of innovation, not that of someone else.

In my place for example, every single one of the kids in my classroom had highspeed internet access at home during the last school year and this year I fully expect the same thing. Innovations in my place are not about connectivity, they are about putting this power to work. About teaching kids to use their home and school connections in new ways. About helping them to see the internet as a rich space where they can do much more than download music and play games.

Yet scale seems to be everywhere. We have teachers almost "selling" their projects as THE WAY to connect with others on a global scale. We have people who seem to have THE ANSWER. Well, in truth, there is no answer. We've learned in math class that there are many possible routes to a solution and we need to remember that as we begin ramping up for the upcoming school year. Maybe its the DIY edupunk that lives inside of me, but I really don't want to follow the footsteps of anyone. I certainly learn a lot from many people who are far smarter than I am, but I take their things and adjust them, tweak them, make them fit my place and my situation. This isn't a slam against communities of learners or groups working together. This doesn't mean that the best path is that of the lone wolf striking off on your own. The network effect is one of the most valuable innovations we have seen in education in a long time. But lets think about leveraging the network for each of us, in ways that fit our own space.

Small communities doing things they need to do to succeed in their own place. This in my mind is the path to successful change and innovation.

Tags: classroom, planning, scale

Unfollowing

I love twitter and the other, outside of blogging ways that I've managed to connect with people over the last year or so. Although I've deliberately stayed out of Facebook to avoid the whole "should I be friends with my students?" debate, I've still managed to get to know a number of people very well.

But lately, sometimes, with some people, it has been just too much information.

Let me clarify this. In the education community, we seem to deport ourselves fairly well. As Jen once said (and I completely paraphrase from a months old memory) (and who, btw, I miss terribly from twitter since she has deleted her account) "the education community is PG rated, family focussed, fun, and reliable." While we do sometimes turn into an echo chamber, we are generally respectful of each other, professional and appropriate.

Not so all communities.

I have in the past six months or so worked hard to expand my network of bloggers and twits to include people working and learning in other spaces. I often have started with blogs and then expanded to include these people on twitter. I now regularly read a lot of marketing blogs, design blogs and people from a wide variety of fields.

But lately I've been unsubscribing from a number of twitter accounts because I just can't read the rants and the garbage that people sometimes see fit to publish. Now before I get killed with comments, know that I understand that we are all adults and that online is sometimes our space to be a little more free with ourselves, but I find it interesting how some people seem to have one professional side of themselves they may choose to show on their blogs, and another, completely different side on a service like twitter. It really gets interesting when through the magic of widgets, their professional looking and sounding blogs are filled with f-bombs dropping from the sky of their twitter accounts brought into their sidebar.

I subscribe to a number of blogs I don't agree with, so it's not the opinions that bother me. I think we all need to read things that we don't necessarily agree with; it expands us. What does bother me is the unprofessional spewing that seems to populate the accounts of some people. So before I lose their stream completely, I've decided to lose the personal side of the conversation. Lose the twitter feed and stick with the blog.

It's an interesting split.

Tags: tiwtter, education, professional

And We're Back

I'm about five weeks into summer holidays and I've written eight blog posts in all that time. That's actually a few more than I thought I had. This number has been bolstered by a few spurts around NECC and BLC. Besides that, I've been spending a whole lot of time offline.

School finished here on June 27th and I got started that day on my travel to San Antonio and NECC. Returning from there, I spent two days at home before heading off to Edmonton Alberta for about a week with my family. Leaving them behind with relatives, I headed off to Boston for five days at BLC. Returning, a few more days there at the Indy races and the off to my sister-in-laws for a few days of fence building. From there I came home, my sister came one day later and now I've just returned from a three night camping trip. My wife has left town for six days so now it's just me and my boys.

We all need time off to recharge and renew. I don't believe in posting a list of interesting sites or pre written posts to keep the subscriber and hit numbers up on my blog. Instead, I believe in getting away. Anything truly important that I've missed in this time will rise back again to the top of the information pile and anything that doesn't; I guess I just missed out.

So now as I get back into my digital life a bit more, thoughts begin to turn and churn towards the upcoming school year. What's new? What's different? What needs to change? What are my goals for the year? How are they different from last?

Tags: homeagain