21apples

Exciting news comes out of a post from Will Richardson asking about a lower education blogger conference in response to the proposed Higher Ed BlogCon. A group of K-12 edubloggers has rallied around the idea, and a website and wiki have been formed. Please consider applying to present at this conference or “attending” (it will be an online conference).

You can also join the Edublogger Community group at upcoming.org. Upcoming.org (a Yahoo! company) provides community event calendaring, with nice RSS feeds and easy integration into your website.

Technorati Tags: college, conference, education, puppy, Shifted Learning, teaching, university, upcoming.org, web, wiki

The New York Times has an article covering Facebook.com use on college campuses. In the article, a senior at George Washington University accuses campus police of snooping out his party by reading Facebook postings, and then showing up to bust the party. The students came up with a creative retaliation: post messages about a “beer blast” party all over Friendster. The police certainly showed up, and found a party with cakes and cookies all covered with the word beer, but no actual beer.

The article also pointed out that the University of New Mexico banned access to Facebook in October. This was startling to me. A university blocking access to a social-networking website? Universities are supposed to be places where students can explore the widest range of thoughts on literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, and yes, websites. It is one thing for a K-12 school to filter, but I can’t believe that higher education specialists came to that decision. The university apparently cited student safety as the rationale behind the decision.

As educators, we must realize that the only safety filtering gives us is personal safety. It provides a legal barrier at best, letting community members know that we do not facilitate student access to these websites. I don’t feel however, that it does anything to reduce use of these websites. The article shows that U. of New Mexico students simply found ways to work around the filters. Did the university actually protect student safety with its actions? Probably not. (note: U. of New Mexico plans to remove the filter next semester)

What can we do to protect student safety? We are educators, let’s use our most powerful tool: education. We must let student learn about the impact of their words, photos and actions. They are accountable, and will be forever. A comment left on Facebook is not the same as a comment passed in the hallway. Online commentary is here to stay forever. We must make this a reality for students, and then turn Facebook and the like into positive communities.

There were some tremendously powerful quotations from university educators. My favorites:

“It’s a fantastic tool for building community,” says Anita Farrington-Brathwaite, assistant dean for freshmen at New York University. “In a school like ours that doesn’t have an enclosed campus, it really gives people a way to find each other and connect.”

Harvard’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, gave kudos to Facebook in the opening lines of his address to freshmen in September, saying he had been browsing the site to get to know everyone. (This is certainly far ahead of where Mr. Summers last was spotted)

As part of freshman orientation at Rollins College in Florida, student coordinators will create Facebook groups for campus organizations like the Rollins Outdoor Club. “We cannot deny the impact of Facebook, but we believe that it’s the responsibility of the institution to find ways to create the most positive communities,” says Roger Casey, dean of faculty. “These communities can be positive or negative.”

“Facebook is part of an evolving dialogue,” he says. “One of the things that’s most fascinating about it is how it illuminates the changing nature of public and private identity. This is new ground on every level. What people in positions of power have to realize is that people my age have a completely different attitude about what is fair game.”—Mr. Stoneman of George Washington

Technorati Tags: article, college, education, net generation, university, web

From Slashdot discussion on Edutainment software

As one of my wisest college professors said when students were grubmling about having to learn formal definitions for a mathematics class, “I don’t know where people get the idea that learning is supposed to be fun. Learning can be fun, but it can also be really tough—even downright miserable. Knowing is fun.”—Copid

This was specifically in response to a British study released which showed that students who “read” books on very animated CD-ROMS retained less than those who “read” the books on more text-driven CD-ROMS. The study to me came off as barely helpful because they were comparing the text-based CD-ROMS to those with content which was distracting and unrelated. Of course distracting and unrelated content will make students less likely to follow the material. Isn’t that obvious?

I love the quote though. I think there can be confusion when teachers see students as “engaged” when they are simply using laptops or other technologies. Teachers must create situations in which students can relish solving problems or wrestle with higher-order topics while utilizing more mechanical methods. Let us be careful of the edutainment trap which ends up using a lot of bells and whistles to create curricularly-shallow (yes I know curricularly is not a word) lessons. It should never be about the technology, but what can be accomplished with the technology. Teachers and administrators should be focused on learning objectives, and not how much time/energy students are willing to spend on laptops.

Technorati Tags: education, teaching

Lego has just announced the new version of MINDSTORMS, the fantastic robotics programming package. The new version is called MINDSTORMS NXT. The main idea is for users to be able to build more interesting robots, more easily. A great article in Wired reviews the development process, and explains how the original MINDSTORMS kit has 70% adult users, and 30% young users. Lego hopes to reverse this trend by making a better user interface and programming language.

The old system will not be compatible with the new system, so all of us in the education market need to get ready for new expenses if we want to try the NXT system. From the pictures, the new brick (robot brain) is very elegant. Gone is the big yellow box, and here is the accessory-friendly, sleek new brick (click image for big close up). New and improved sensors include: ultrasonic (for “seeing”), sound, light, touch, rotation (inbuilt in motors). These open the doors to improved robot performance. One of the best new features is Mac version of the software.

The new brick is USB and Bluetooth compatible which may lead to some really neat interactions with devices like Bluetooth headsets, camera-phones and more. Gone is the difficult-to-use infrared tower that has been the bane of so many student and teacher programmers.

I think the idea of an easier to use Lego robotics kit is a valuable one and a dangerous one. Lego is excellent at building step by step instructions on how to build things (see Ikea for the opposite of good instructions). However, programming and computer science are not about following instructions to build products. Computer science is about problem solving, trial and error, debugging. I would rather see Lego build a better debugging interface than build more guides. Students already have ideas of what to build. We just need to enable them to be able to succeed. None of us as teachers are looking to make our students good instruction manual readers. We want them to be inventors. Since I haven’t seen NXT yet, I won’t comment on how well it facilitates this, but I can only hope it does.

Lego announced a new blog, nxtbot.com which will provide news on consumer electronics. So far, the blog only has 3 posts, but it just started. Add to the RSS readers and let’s see what they have to share.

Lego has also has an exciting developers program which will let 100 lucky people test out the new NXT system early. You will then be eligible for a reduced-priced NXT set when it releases. Throw your name in the hat, I already did (deadline: February 5).

Technorati Tags: computer science, education, hardware, blog, robotics, software, teaching

Today I visited The Little Kingdom preschool in Batinda, Punjab in India. The entire outside of the building is designed to look like a castle. It’s a giant yellow castle, with colorful highlights. Inside, I found a thoughtful, pedagogically-intentional learning space. Preschools are somewhat of a new phenomena in India, and it seems like they are starting out on a great foot. In India, there are government schools and public schools—government schools are like U.S. public schools, and Indian public schools are similar to U.S. private schools, slightly confusing. One interesting difference though, is that the privately-run/owned schools are generally for-profit organizations. Education is a big business in India.

The Little Kingdom school that I toured is one of those for-profit schools, but most interestingly it is a franchise. There is a group out of New Delhi selling franchises in this school. With a franchise purchase, one receives complete curricula and training, furniture schematics, room configuration plans, payrolls structures, administrative procedures, and more. Pretty much everything you need to know to run a school. Follow the manual’s setup section, hire some qualified teachers and you have yourself a school!

Computers are still absent from many, many schools in India. This preschool however, had a computer room. The room interestingly enough was shaped like a helicopter, and the room was in the cockpit. Inside there was an astronaut-themed room setup with computers and printers. The computers were loaded with educational software which can be manipulated with simple mouse movements – needs to be easy for preschoolers!

The school also had its own transporation team. They had a few vans, and some excellent rickshaws for the close-by students. Imagine seeing this pulling up to pick up your preschooler.

Technorati Tags: education

Things are growing so rapidly in India that planned growth is not always possible.

The demand for electricity is so great in Noida (planned city next to Delhi) that there is not always time for nice, pretty wiring. Does this look like any of your server rooms?

I have been encouraging my mother to check her e-mail more often, but it has not been easy to get her to be a regular. Since she has been in India, she has been checking her e-mail much more often. Her sister has e-mail in the house (as does my mother), which makes communication very easy. In the U.S., phones are so convenient and inexpensive, that they are a natural communication tool. Also, no one is more than a few hours off of your time zone. When in India though, people in the U.S. are 10.5 hours behind, so phoning is often a problem, not to mention it is expensive, and often there is a poor connection. So, e-mail becomes a natural choice. My mother has been e- mailing with my father and others in the U.S. and is quickly becoming more comfortable than she was with multiple computers back home in the U.S.

This evening she was replying to an e-mail my father sent, and pulled me over to ask me a question, “Why do dad’s e-mails always have those nice little things on them?”

“Nice little things,” I wondered? She was talking about carats— > (the greater than symbol). So I explained that the some computer programs put carats to show the original message, and then you write your reply above that area. She was shocked and went on to explain that she has been manually typing them at the start of each line because she thinks they look pretty! My brother and I couldn’t help but laugh. Something which we found so functional was something that was aesthetic to her. This little symbol had never really explained itself.

How does one learn what the conventions of e-mail are without really being explained them. One would have to discover when they appeared and when they didn’t. You might think you would discover it without being told, but think about it: the carats never appear when you type a message. So as far as a new user is concerned, carats are not part of your e-mail system. You do sometimes see them on other peoples’ e-mail (when you reply or forward them, or if you are forwarded something), but you can never cause them to appear. Only once you understand the logic can you necessarily see its usage.

This problem makes me think of how young people communicate with my electronically. Often when students e-mail me it looks like this,

“heyz mr g, whas our hw for tonite, i didnt write it down in class and i don wanna get no points off for being late, k? email me back as sooon as u get this. thx!!!!”

While this is a perfectly valid way of communicating with a 13-year old peer, we must make sure students are able to communicate appropriately online. You often see the same type of thing on electronic bulletin boards used for class discussions. My rules for those are to direct students to more formal writing, rather than social writing. There is a place for each, and we must help students understand those lines. How are people teaching appropriate voice online?

A couple of the e-lists I am on (“ISED-L”, “NYCIST”) have been discussing Thomas Friedman’s World Is Flat and its implications for education. I am currently in New Delhi, India for a vacation, and have been overwhelmed with all the evidence supporting the flat-world theory. The last time I was here was 5 years ago. There has been much progress.

To deal with extreme pollution, all public buses (and there are a lot) are run on natural gas now. McDonalds, Subways, Dominos are all over. Middle-class values are spreading like wildfire, and consumerism is everywhere. Cell phones ringtones are the background noise of any city street. Car varieties have increased 5-fold. Government control is out, market freedom is in. One of the most interesting things I have seen are the advertisements. As India enters a period of freer-markets, you can see the market battles emerging. Cell phone plans were so convoluted that no one could figure out which plan was better. It was far more confusing than U.S. plans. But, you can see the evolution as the market is working itself out, and producing more consumer-friendly plans as the competition increases (I am not a free-market economist btw, but I still see much of this). Last time I was here, credit cards could only be used in a handful of places. Today, I can use my AMEX all over. Credit is huge in India now, and is quickly causing Indians to feel like they can spend money, whereas old timers were mainly concerned with saving it.

In the NYC subways, there are adds for Lufthansa everywhere—here there are nearly the same adds, but with an Indian touch. Global marketing only recently included India. It makes me think of Friedman’s support of outsourcing. Bringing American business to India has helped create a middle-class here which is driving a demand for American goods. And there are over a billion people here, huge huge new markets for American companies – Intel Pentium chips are everywhere, Coca-Cola and Pepsi signs are painted across this country from cities to country-sides. Yesterday I went by the Nike shop and passed Nine West too. The change in 5 years is just phenomenal. I can’t even imagine how much business is going to be had here for American companies.

Side note: my cousins go to school in an American school in Mumbai (Bombay). They have a tablet-laptop program beginning in 6th grade. The educational competition is as real as it gets, and probably a little understated in Friedman’s book. He sort of espouses the rote-knowleldge efforts of developing countries like China and India, but may be missing the real efforts here to create higher-order learning institutions. Once that goes into play, the hegemony of the U.S. may be hanging on its amazing infrastructure rather than its amazing intellectual superiority. Once these countries can repair their roads, communications and governance systems (and they have improved greatly in the last 5 years), it will be time for us to get nervous. We as educators must be thinking of ways to lead the pack rather than follow it.

Technorati Tags: future, India, books, U.S.A.

Computers have dramatically come down in price. My desktop computer at home gave out after about 5 years, and since I have a new laptop, I was somewhat reluctant to replace it. But I was browsing a discount web shop and came across a number of desktops computers being sold for $299. The computer that has just died on me was about 9 times that price when I bought it less than 5 years ago. My monitor was still working fine, so I ordered the $299 computer (no monitor included), paid about $40 for shipping, and I had it within a week.

Of course there is a rub – $299 gets you less RAM than you probably want, and small cost-saving measures by the manufacturer. Example: the computer comes with no re-installation CD’s. There is a section of your hard drive partitioned (sectioned off) that has all the reinstallation files in case of a total system software crash. Apparently, this is becoming popular with a number of vendors. The system does let you burn CD’s (7!) or DVD’s (2) with as emergency installation disks. But, they make sure that you understand that you will only be able to burn one copy of the disks. Once that happens, you can never burn another set of disks, so don’t lose that set! I suppose you could try copying those disks for backup. It is amazing to me that a vendor would be so restrictive over software I paid for. First of all, the computer should ship with the CD’s. Secondly, I should be able to create backup CD’s. If I break one, I should be able to burn another copy so as not to be stuck having to buy Windows, again. Come on Compaq , shame on you. Time to get a lot more customer supportive.

I must say that it was nice to have a new desktop, but I did end up order some extra RAM to get the thing a little more decent speed. So bump the cost up to $299 + $40 shipping + $50 of ram. Still, for under $400, not too shabby.

Digital media and electronics have made much in life easier. Traveling however may not be one of those things. Here are the items I am carrying with me to India.

Apple Powerbook G4 laptop with iGo Juice travel AC adapter, Panasonic Lumix digital camera, Apple iPod Mini (no longer in production) mp3 player, Siemens S65 mobile phone, MTG USB 2.0 card reader, SimpleTech USB 2.0 flash drive. Include the chargers and cables, and you have quite a package to carry.

Technorati Tags: hardware, India, travel