On the Edge of the Universe

How Do We Infuse Our Institutions, Networks and Relationships with Trust?

2010-04-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

A previous blog post took a look at Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the future in which he believes a massive network of human and artificial intelligence will infuse the universe with intelligence and order and ultimately control it. The blog post also briefly examined “The Quantum Theory of Trust” developed by leading network theorist, Karen Stephenson. The post concluded with a mention of betrayal -- the opposite of trust (for Stephenson) and how betrayal seems to be endemic in so many of our institutions today (my perception). If Kurzweil’s vision of a future universe infused with both intelligence and order is to be realized, it seems that we need to make sure that trust is the basis of that universe.

One person who has dedicated his life to developing an interpersonal communication process that engenders trust, among other positive values, is Marshall Rosenberg. Rosenberg’s process is called Nonviolent Communication (NVC). At the core of NVC are honest self-expression and empathy. Rosenberg believes that everything we humans do is an attempt to meet our human needs. A central tenet of NVC is that when mutual understanding and compassion exist between two people the needs of both persons are more likely to be met.

NVC posits that if two people communicate in terms that are objective and free from judgment, then greater understanding and compassion are likely products of that communication. NVC self-expression has four components: A. neutral observations; B. expression of feelings; C. expression of needs; and D. making requests.

NVC communication: “I am feeling upset now (B.) because the last time I played with you, you broke my toys.” (A.) “When I play with you my need for respect is not met.” (C.) “Would you be willing to play with someone else?” (D.)

In NVC the listener can show empathy for the speaker by listening carefully and then repeating some of the speaker's words. NVC is motivated by compassion rather than blame, guilt or fear. Its aim is to increase compassion between two people who use it and to create a high quality of connection to self and to the other in the communications. "The ultimate goal of NVC processes is to increase the joy and well-being of everyone."

Wow! How would it be if we started teaching NVC to young school children and by the time they graduated high school they had developed a high level of proficiency in NVC motivated by honesty, compassion and empathy? It seems that we would have concurrently created enormous amounts of trust in our interpersonal communications, institutions and wider networks.

Sources:

· Wikipedia

· The Center for Nonviolent Communication http://www.cnvc.org/

Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust

2010-04-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

In a previous blog, Networks of the Future, I described some of the predictions about the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has made. In his book, “The Singularity is Near,” Kurzweil lays out his vision of how computers will become ever more powerful until a single laptop surpasses all the human brains put together. According to Kurzweil, at a certain level of power and performance the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines further will be to begin converting all of the matter of the universe into massive computers.

Kurzweil believes that the result of this process will be that the entire universe will be made into a giant supercomputer in which AI and humans will form hybrids that will have both supreme intelligence and physical control over the universe. If and when this result materializes, there will in essence be one vast, powerful network that controls the universe.

Humans, who have initiated this process, will, in Kurzweil’s words, have “infused the universe with intelligence and order.” One might well ask, is this the evolutionary imperative of Homo sapiens? If so, the result will be almost unimaginable as seen through our current lens on human behavior. If we as individuals want to help shape this evolutionary vision, we first need to think about what qualities beside intelligence we would like in this all-encompassing network of the future.

Karen Stephenson, a corporate anthropologist and leading social network theorist, has developed what she calls “the quantum theory of trust” in which she posits that trust is the most important quality in networks. According to Stephenson, “A network is a seamless and invisible web of entrusted connections.” Therefore, we need to ask, what is it that makes trust such an important quality of networks?

Stephenson tells us that any organization’s most precious asset is the knowledge and experience of the people in that organization. For her, much of this knowledge is “tacit knowledge” or “the knowledge that people have at their fingertips, at the tips of their brains.” Stephenson offers that this tacit knowledge is not found in computers but rather it “resides entirely within the people of the organization who are connected in invisible “informal” networks.” At the core of Stephenson’s thinking about networks is the belief that, “In organizations, trust is the utility through which tacit knowledge flows.” Thus, trust becomes the critical element because, “organizations with a high level of trust are better able to cultivate and increase collective cognitive capability.”

For Stephenson, the opposite of trust is betrayal, or the breaking of trust. She has written, “You can’t come back from betrayal. It takes you 20 years to build a reputation, it takes two seconds to have it destroyed.” During the last few years, we have only had to look at the headlines to see that betrayal is widespread: the collapse of Enron under its massive fraud; trillions of dollars of public money to bail out Wall Street banks from the toxic securities they had underwritten which were based on fraudulent mortgages or “liar loans”; the betrayal of long-time clients by Bernie Madoff; the betrayal a software engineer felt that led him to fly his small plane into an IRS building in Texas, “What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.” The latest news of betrayal is gushing out of a failed oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the face of such ubiquitous betrayal, an important question remains: How do we remake our government, financial institutions, and other networks so that they are based on trust instead of some short-term value that implodes?

Sources:

* The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil

*Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust by Art Kleiner, http://www.well.com/~art/s%2Bb42002cm.html

* http://www.netform.com/

Using Computers in the Classroom

2010-04-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

As ISB moves to a one-to-one status for the sixth grade class next year, those students will have a powerful tool at their disposal 24/7. It remains to be seen how effectively the sixth grade students as well as the rest of the Middle School students take advantage of the laptops. I have noticed that many students in my seventh grade Humanities class waste a considerable amount of time when they use laptops for in-class assignments. Therefore, I need to develop stricter protocols for students who use laptops during class time.

Some questions come to mind for managing student laptop use in the classroom. For example, how does the teacher know what all the students are doing at a given time? In order to know how students are using their time, the first protocol guideline should be a time limit and a specific goal to accomplish during that time. Too often students appear to be at work on the laptop when in fact they are way off task. There can be a way to check on whether students have met the goal within the time limit. Students can print and hand in what they have accomplished, or they can post their work to GoogleDocs which will make it much easier for the teacher to check on the work.

Another guideline for written work should be the often-used audience and purpose: who are the students writing for and what is the purpose for their writing? Students should be required to go through all of the self-editing, peer- editing and teacher/student-editing steps that they now go through for non-blog writing.

If students are given concrete goals to accomplish within a specific time limit they will make better use of their computer time. A little bit of front loading on the teacher’s part will generate greater student accountability for their own learning.

Networking in the Future

2010-04-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Starting in the school year 2010/2011, ISB students in grade six will each be assigned a laptop that they can use in school and also take home. Students will use these computers for in-class work and, more importantly, to connect to networks of other students, teachers and adults outside the ISB community. Other ISB students who don’t have an assigned laptop will still be able to connect to numerous networks. These ISB students will be a small part of the increasingly expanding system of networks all connected by the Internet. We might ask, “What will the extent of these networks be in the future, and what kind of importance will they have?”

We only have to look at FaceBook today with over 400 million users to understand how quickly networks connected by the Internet will proliferate and expand in terms of number of members and importance to those users. And yet, the FaceBook of today is just a tiny and almost insignificant beginning. For a real understanding of the future power of networks we need to look at some of the predictions of one of the premier inventors and futurists of our time: Ray Kurzweil.

Ray Kurzweil has written several books in which he makes predictions of what the future holds for all of us in terms of the explosion of artificial intelligence and how it will change our lives. His predictions:

· Sometime after 2020 a computer will pass the “Turing Test” which means that in a “blindfold” test a person will not be able to tell if she is talking to a computer or a human. (From “The Singularity is Near.”)

· Not long after 2020, a $1,000 personal computer will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain. (From “The Age of Spiritual Machines.”)

· In 2045 the “Technological Singularity” arrives: $1000 will buy a computer a billion times more intelligent than every human combined. The Technological Singularity means that artificial intelligence will have surpassed humans as the smartest life forms on the planet. (From “The Singularity is Near.”)

Of course we need to keep in mind that each of these computers, which is a billion times more intelligent than the intelligence of all humans together, will be connected to a network of hundreds of millions or even billions of similarly intelligent computers. It’s truly difficult to comprehend the power of the networks of the future. Kurzweil’s story gets even better as the next step is truly mind-boggling:

Kurzweil has written that when the limit to how small transistors can be shrunk is reached, the only way that computers can become more powerful is to increase in size. Sometime post 2045 Kurzweil predicts that, “Artificial Intelligences will convert more and more of the Earth's matter into engineered, computational substrate capable of supporting more A.I.s. until the whole Earth is one, gigantic computer.” (The Singularity is Near)

Waking Up the Universe

The final step in this process is almost unimaginable for us today:

“At this point, the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines any farther is to begin converting all of the matter in the universe into similar massive computers. A.I.s radiate out into space in all directions from the Earth, breaking down whole planets, moons and meteoroids and reassembling them into giant computers. This, in effect, "wakes up" the universe as all the inanimate "dumb" matter (rocks, dust, gases, etc.) is converted into structured matter capable of supporting life (albeit synthetic life).” (The Singularity is Near)

Our students today occupy a small position just at the beginning of this massive, powerful, and intelligent network. The artificial intelligence advances described above will arrive sooner than we might expect since we are used to thinking, as Kurzweil says, “in a linear fashion” and technology advances are speeding up at an exponential rate. It would behoove teachers to help students understand their position at this historical moment so that they can better contribute to and benefit from the AI network.

GOOGLE DOCS

2010-04-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Google Docs is a revolutionary application that lends itself beautifully to promoting student learning both inside and outside the classroom. There are many ways that teachers and students can use Google Docs to facilitate learning. This blog-post will describe three obvious uses.

First, Google Docs can provide a collaborative record of classroom learning. Students and teachers can take notes on the daily activities and learning in their classrooms. Teachers can then monitor and correct the students’ notes so that a correct common understanding is established and agreed upon. This communal record of learning will be invaluable both for students who miss lessons as well as for all students as a study guide.

Second, Google Docs can serve as an active collaborative learning tool. In our 7^th grade Humanities class, Ms. Williams and I have had students choose a country and then do individual research about the food security/insecurity and hunger issues for that country. Then, in groups of four, the students set up a Google Doc and post a comment about their findings. Students then comment on the findings of the other students in their group. When each student uses a different color script for his/her comment, it is easy for the students and teacher to track and monitor each individual’s contribution or lack thereof. This method has generated a lot of discussion and understanding for our Humanities students.

Third, Google Docs is an invaluable tool for the writing process. When writing essays, students can post their first draft, the teacher can make corrections/comments in another color and then students can revise and correct for further teacher review. By using Google Docs for this process, the teacher can work at school or at home and the student can then immediately access the teacher’s comments. Google Docs makes the entire writing process much more efficient for both students and teachers.

In summary, Google Docs offers a platform available 24/7 for sharing individual or collaborative work. Students, teachers, and any and all collaborators are now free from geography and time constraints in having their work available for the widest possible audience. With Google Docs, today’s students are getting an introduction to a technology and real-time collaborative method of sharing work that will certainly be a hallmark of the future.

Final Project

2009-12-11T02:21:00.000-08:00

The Final Project for Steve Guthrie, Robin Ulster, David Healy and Jean Williams can be found at:

http://www.coetail.asia/page/Connections+for+Change

How do you manage the use of technology peripherals with students? What are some things you’ve learned and hope to implement?

2009-12-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

The technology peripherals that we currently use in seventh grade Humanities are Skype and student and teacher blogs. Both are powerful applications for connecting students to learning networks outside the classroom. In addition, I envision that very soon our students will all have their rss reader and their own personal web.

Also, it seems that a device such as the iphone will become the choice of students instead of the laptop. This device will offer students unlimited portability and 24/7 access to the Web. Collaborative work, research, social networking, media sharing, notetaking – all would be available at one’s fingertips and would be backed up by the power of the cloud. In addition, smart objects will become ubiquitous allowing an amazing access to numerous objects and surroundings and their stored data.

Technology advances are making it easier for all of us to connect to collaborative networks. In so doing, productivity gains whether in the classroom or in the workplace should be enormous.

How relevant are the NETS for teachers and administrators for being a good educator today?

2009-12-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

The classroom of tomorrow is already here. In it, students are exploring real-world problems using digital tools and online resources. In many ways, the classrooms of today resemble current global networks. In the classroom and in the outside world, networks of informed and committed people are studying real-world issues and solving authentic problems. Thus, the NETS are highly relevant standards to preparing students for their lives once they leave the classroom and enter the world beyond.

One of the hallmarks of real-world networks is constructing knowledge in collaborative groups. Of course, that is also one of the NETS. In today’s NETS-based classrooms students are provided numerous opportunities to construct their knowledge working collaboratively with others. In fact, the power of many digital tools is that they are tailor made for people working collaboratively.

An important part of working with others in both in the classroom and the real-world is the safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology. Students need to understand copyright laws and fair use standards and follow and respect them in their work just as adults do in the real-world.

Finally, a critical element for members in global learning networks is trust. As network theorist Karen Stephenson has written, “It takes twenty years to build trust and two minutes to destroy it.” Therefore, students really need to learn how to be responsible in their social interactions while working in classroom collaborative groups and online networks. Thus, NETS standards are not only relevant to teachers and administrators, they are a critical element in delivering an education that prepares students for the world that they will enter after the classroom.

What are ways you manage the use of laptops in your classroom and what additional best practice ways might you add?

2009-12-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

One of the easiest ways to manage use of laptops in class is to have students put their lids down when the teacher is talking to them or when they should be doing anything other than working on the laptop. Another tool that we use in grade seven is to assign each student a specific cart and computer to use. This trick allows teachers to easily find out who has not plugged in their laptop when finished with it. A penalty could be given for chronic failure to plug in laptops.

Another useful tool is to offer positive comments to students who are making good use of their laptop. Also, having students use their computer for group research projects and then having students share their results is a good motivator for proper laptop use. Using librarians to teach students to find online resources is a great way to give students more tools that help them in their projects. Finally, having students use Google Docs or Diigo for research and knowledge sharing is another powerful motivator for effective computer use in the classroom.

Whose job is it to teach the NETS and AASL standards to students?

2009-12-07T20:54:00.000-08:00

It seems that the job of teaching NETS and ASSL standards to students falls on the shoulders of the teachers. They are the ones in daily contact with students and they have an understanding of how technology is to be embedded in the respective grade-level curriculums. By teachers, I mean all instructional staff including IA’s.

Everyone would agree that the AASL Standards are desirable for all students to strive for and attain: using the inquiry process; thinking critically; gaining knowledge and understanding; making conclusions; making informed decisions; applying knowledge to new situations and creating new knowledge.

The development of the above skills is desirable in all curricular areas including math, science, PE and the humanities. Therefore, all teachers would be responsible to teach the skills. The job of the tech coaches would be to help teachers implement just-in-time technology applications as needed by students in their inquiry learning.

How can teachers and schools ensure that their students are learning what they need when it comes to technology and information literacy?

2009-12-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

Excellent question – where to start? Let’s start with information literacy. In my opinion, the best way to ensure that our students are learning what they need in terms of information literacy is to offer all students truly differentiated instruction. No one would argue that ISB classrooms are not mixed ability classrooms. Just spend five minutes talking to students and it becomes apparent that each student is different from the others in terms of readiness, experience, interest, intelligences, language, culture and mode of learning.

In the differentiated classroom teachers meet each student where s/he is at in order to ensure that each student maximizes learning. “The differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, to processing or making sense of ideas, and to developing products." Carol Ann Tomlinson

In the differentiated classroom all students would be actively involved in the inquiry process anchored in a concept-based unit and would all be working toward answering the same essential questions and developing the same enduring understandings. The differentiated classroom would offer students both a classroom text set as well as a web-based text set. These text sets would provide each student many avenues to acquiring content that are appropriate in terms of each student’s readiness, experience, intelligence, interest, language background, culture and mode of learning.

In summary, teachers need to ask themselves whether they are meeting each student where s/he is at or are they insisting that students modify themselves to fit the curriculum. If students are provided with a truly differentiated classroom they are more likely to maximize their learning.

Digital Story

2009-10-31T01:36:00.002-07:00

WRITING LEADS FOR YOUR ESSAYS

I. Lead with a question.

If there were a terrible war in your country and you knew that the 30,000 books in your town library were in danger of being burned, would you risk your life to save them? If you answered no, don’t feel badly; few would risk their life to save some books.

This lead is meant to introduce a piece about a book titled, The Librarian of Basra, which is a true story of a librarian in Iraq who risked her life to save the books in her town library.

II. Lead with an interesting fact.

Imagine a composer of music who was so prolific that if you were to copy all of his music by hand it would take you 40 years to finish the job! That composer is Johan Sebastian Bach, a true musical genius if ever there was one.

III. When you finish writing your lead, here are some questions to help you analyze its effectiveness:

Did you learn what the piece is about?

What did the author do that grabbed you?

· What made the lead boring?

· What did the lead make you wonder?

· What details does the lead include?

· How could this lead be improved?

· Which lead would you choose? Explain why.

From: Nonfiction Writing From the Inside Out, by Laura Robb p. 116

See: http://voicethread.com/?#u556664

Reflection on Improving a Past Presentation With Visual Images

2009-10-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

A presentation that I have done in the past is one on the characteristics of a good essay. In this presentation I would use an exemplary essay to explain to students these important characteristics:

* Momentum is built in the opening.

* There is movement and flow throughout.

* It sticks to the topic.

* It brings you back to an earlier point in the essay.

* It leaves you with something memorable.

However, the above procedure is top-heavy with teacher talk and could be vastly better with the addition of just the right video. An idea that I got from Dr. Roger Everett is to use various activities or sports as metaphors for a good essay. Some of these activities/sports are: a roller coaster ride; scuba diving; a small airplane ride; flying a kite; and car racing.

Dr. Everett shows his students a YouTube video of a good roller coaster ride. Coincidently, a good roller coaster ride has exactly the same qualities of a good essay given above. (For the third bullet point substitute the word tracks for the word topic.)

After having the class view the video twice, students in small groups can come up with their own examples of metaphors for good essays and present them to the class. The class can then read and analyze an essay to see if it has the above characteristics. Take a look at a video of a roller coaster ride to see if it demonstrates the characteristics of a good essay.

Final Reflection

2009-10-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

This course has given us the opportunity to discover and experience using many visual tools that can be incorporated into our teaching. Everyone clearly understands the power of using visual images whether they be in advertising, entertainment or the teaching field. We all know from experience that visual images have the power to capture our attention like no text can.

As teachers, we also know that it is important to differentiate the content of our lessons so that they meet the varied interests, learning styles and readiness of our students. Visual images meet the needs of students in ways that text alone cannot. So many of our students have grown up surrounded by movies, DVD’s, and digital games that their brains readily receive and respond to the visual images contained therein.

I have always loved words, reading, and language in general whether it is English, French, Spanish or Arabic. (Sorry, Thai is not there yet.) However, after seeing the Power Point from ISB (Brussels) I was struck by how much more powerful the right text is when accompanied by visuals. Again, I mention the example from the Power Point that sticks in my mind: One picture of a group of students from ISB and the words: Everyone included, Everyone challenged, Everyone succeeds. Anyone who can master the art of melding text and visuals the way David Willows of ISB Brussels has is truly a brilliant communicator.

As teachers become proficient in using visual images in their work with students, and students in turn become more proficient, a really powerful connection to millions of others opens via the Web. This connection or network is ultimately very democratizing because individuals have the means to speak to a vast audience – or as Kevin Kelly says, “The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from the classical notions of monumental authors and authority.” Clay Shirkey, in his book Here Comes Everybody, made a similar observation that through the Web like-minded people now have the chance to organize without belonging to an organization. Lastly, using visual images and the Web is another powerful tool toward what Ray Kurzweil takes to be the evolutionary mandate of our species: infusing the universe with intelligence and order.

FINAL PROJECT REFLECTION

The team 7 final project involved students making a SmartMovie to help them learn 20 geography terms that they would subsequently need to know for the “Create an Island” Project. In the Create an Island Project students are meant to create an island community which involves positioning the island at a latitude and longitude that would support the crops and agriculture to sustain the size of the community - in part determined by the island’s area. Students will also need to place needed landforms on the island and have an understanding of its climate.

The SmartMovies gave students the chance to learn and internalize the vocabulary needed for the Create an Island project. Students used audio, text and images to create their SmartMovies which were placed on the teacher’s blog. Thus, students learned vocabulary and concepts from creating their own movie as well as watching other students’ movies.

We feel that the SmartMovie project was highly successful as it gave students the opportunity to participate in a hands-on project that was shared with other students. Students successfully learned the needed technology skills as well as the geography curricular content.

How could Screencast be used in your classroom/department?

2009-10-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

In our Humanities 7 classroom we recently had the students learning geography and mapping concepts such as: latitude, longitude, locating a city using latitude and longitude, the Prime Meridian, the International Dateline, the tropics, the temperate zones, the eight cardinal points of the compass, the difference between weather and climate, the effect of elevation on temperature and climate.

I think if we were to do this unit again, or a similar one, Screencast would be ideally suited to having the students learn the material in a “Circle of Experts” group and then film themselves so that other students can learn the material. There would be many benefits of having the students become experts in one or two of the topics from the unit and then teach the other students. Also, Screencast would enable a permanent video and audio to be created that could be accessed at any time by the students.

Another application might be to use Screencast in literature circles wherein small groups of students film themselves discussing a book with each student taking different roles: literary luminary, discussion director, word wizard, symbol decoder etc. The possibilities for using Screencast in the classroom are almost endless as the teacher could make Screencasts that would explain assignments or model some aspect of the writing and reading processes.

How has the explosion of web-based video changed the teaching/learning landscape?

2009-10-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

In a piece in the New York Times from November 23, 2008, Kevin Kelly writes, “When technology shifts, it bends the culture.” According to Kelly, a new “distribution-and-display technology is nudging aside the book and catapulting images, especially moving images to the center of the culture.” To make his point, Kelly mentions that there were over 10 billion views of YouTube in September, 2008!

So what is fueling this exploding technology of moving images? Kelly gives us the “great hive-mind of image creation” which has produced an enormous database of visual items for use in video. Flickr alone has three billion photos posted on the site. From these billions of existing images films are created image by image.

Once a film-maker has found the images s/he wants to use in the video, a “screen fluency” is needed to manipulate the individual images. The most proficient creators of video respond to other videos with their own new video using a Web site called Seesmic. The result of all of this video creation by millions of people who make up the hive mind is democratization of expression or as Kelly says, “The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from the classical notions of monumental authors and authority.”

For students and teachers a new vernacular has been created by and for us. In addition to books and writing, we now have an enormously powerful vehicle for communication and expression. Students and teachers have just begun to take advantage of this new technology shift. However, much as our common culture has been bent by video technology, so too will the culture in the classroom bend in ways impossible for us to anticipate.

How can visual imagery support my curricular content?

2009-10-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

In my EAP classes students are often reading two to four grades below the seventh grade reading level. In order to provide students with reading texts that are differentiated for reading readiness, I have students choose from among a wide variety of picture books. With thousands of titles available, it is not too difficult to build a class text set around the various units that we are studying. Such text sets offer students books that meet their different interests, learning profiles as well as reading readiness.

Flickr Okinawa Soba

Visual images are indispensable for giving students the necessary background for many of the books that they read. For example, one popular book that my students read is Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine. This book is a true story about a slave who escaped from his master in the state of Virginia by mailing himself in a box to Pennsylvania. To introduce the book to students, I show them images taken from Creative Commons: an image of two slaves in Africa with chains around their necks, and a map tracing the triangular slave trade route from Europe to Africa, to the Americas and then back to Europe.

http://www.vvgeocivtrenches.com/images/maps/map.slave.trade.jpg

In addition to serving as background to reading texts, students use images, graphs, and charts from the Internet for their blog posts. The result is a richer product that engages students at a deeper level. However, the trick to teaching students to use images is for them to be extremely selective in their choice of images and words.

For me, the most memorable demonstration of the effectiveness of pairing visual images with text was the web page of the International School Brussels. The power of this web page is captured in one frame showing a few students of various ethnicities engaged in some activity. (I forget exactly what.) The impact of this frame comes from the pairing of the image with just six words: Everyone included; Everyone challenged; Everyone succeeds. Wow! Anyone wanting to use images should study this frame! The lesson learned is to be extremely selective and strive for just the right pairing of images and text.

How have the Ed Tech courses to date changed my classroom this year?

2009-10-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

The courses to date have changed my teaching by taking my classroom from primarily paper-based texts to electronic texts sourced from the Internet. A large portion of student reading material is now from texts found on the Internet. In addition, student writing is now done on a computer and then posted to the Internet as opposed to being printed on paper as in the past. This change to an Internet-based classroom has brought numerous benefits to my students.

This year the Team 7 Humanities has the theme of “Connected World” as a common thread running through all of the units. Each student has had to choose one country to research in order to develop a deep understanding of its people, culture, economy and political systems. Students have found current events articles on the Internet and have had to read and analyze the articles and then write a blog making connections to prior learning.

When students write their blogs they are writing for a for a real world audience instead of just for the teacher. As a result, students are aware of a higher standard for written work in terms of content, organization, fluency and conventions. In addition, writing blogs offers students much more feedback to their writing from other students and from the real world audience.

As a teacher who is always striving to have my students improve their reading and writing, the Internet offers an enormous number of reading texts at many different levels. Letting students choose texts matched to their interests, learning profiles and readiness, provides differentiation to student learning.

In summary, I think that the biggest benefit of the educational technology courses to date has been to explode the limits that traditionally confined student learning. Students are no longer restricted to paper texts found in the classroom or library. Likewise, my students now write for a real audience that includes anyone with access to the Internet. My classroom, like thousands of other classrooms today, offers an enormous number of texts directly connected to real world issues for students to study and a vast audience for them to communicate their thinking.

Online Safety

2009-05-13T02:35:00.000-07:00

Who's responsibility is it to teach students to be safe online?

I think that this is an extremely important question because whether or not a student is safe online can make a tremendous difference in his/her life. It would be a shame for a student to pay a severe penalty for a youthful indiscretion in the use of the Internet. Likewise, it would be a tragedy for a student to meet someone through the Internet who harms the student. Indeed, I believe it is the responsibility of schools to teach students about safe online procedures.

The teaching of online safety should be done at all grade levels by means of a course developed by the technology department along with a team of teachers who are tech leaders. Mastery of course skills and knowledge should be required for graduation/promotion to the next division. Online safety is too important of an issue to leave it to classroom teachers operating as private practitioners. This topic demands a well-developed team effort for the well being of our students.

Audio Books

2009-05-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

A significant number of students in EAP classes in the MS are reading at least two grade levels below their grade. The purpose of this project was to provide these students with an audio recording of one of the novels that the whole class reads. The Little Prince, which is read in grade 8 humanities, was the novel chosen. Students participate in literature circle groups and are expected to take the following roles: Discussion Director, Literary Luminary, Word Wizard and Symbol Decoder.

Having an audio recording of the novel helps students better comprehend the novel and also helps them learn the pronunciation of sophisticated vocabulary that they rarely or never hear spoken. As a result, students are better prepared to take an active part in the literature circle discussions.

An audio recording of the entire book was made and posted to Panthernet under Roger Everett’s class resources. EAP students listen to the recording as they read. Other books have also been recorded and posted to Panthernet. The use of audio books is a simple and effective way of using Internet technology to provide a learning tool tailored to each user’s personal needs.

Are we preparing students for a world of mass collaboration?

2009-05-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

The essential questions for this week are excellent. They go right to the heart of what we want our students to be able to do in a world that is globally connected via the Web. It is easy to ask these essential questions but quite another thing to in fact prepare our students for a world of mass collaboration.

So let's begin our search for an answer to the essential questions with a look at just what is meant by “mass collaboration.” Most of us would answer that the premier means of mass collaboration today is via the Internet and the WWW. We only have to do a quick read of Kevin Kelly’s blog The Technium to understand how powerful the Web has become.

In his post, Evidence of an Emerging Superorganism, Kelly describes already achieved advances in global connectivity and networked computing: “In recent years, we've created supercomputers composed of loosely integrated individual computers not centralized in one building, but geographically distributed over continents and designed to be versatile and general purpose. This later supercomputer….is also called cloud computing because the tally of the exact component machines is dynamic and amorphous - like a cloud.”

Kelly notes that Google (surprise) is “hoping to scale up their cloud computer to encompass 10 million processors in 1,000 locations.” Kelly calls the sum of all cloud computers the “One Machine”. Okay, now we’re achieving economies of scale - not to mention a staggering amount of connectivity and computing power. So what else is currently on the horizon? Well, Kelly describes the One Machine as a “megasupercomputer composed of billions of sub computers.” Google’s piece of the One Machine is just that - merely a piece.

In existence today, Kelly’s One Machine is, “a vast machine of extraordinary dimensions. It is comprised of a quadrillion chips, and consumes 5 percent of the planet's electricity.” “Its size is growing close to 66% per year.” Yeow!!! Now we’re getting some significant economies of scale! So, what’s in store for this “One machine”?

What does the future hold for our One Machine friend? Let’s let Kelly have the last word here. “Cloud computers such as Google and Amazon form the learning center for the smart superorganism. Let's call this organ el Googazon, or el Goog for short. El Goog encompasses more than the functions of the company Google and includes all the functions provided by Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft online and other cloud-based services.

El Goog is sucking in the smartest humans on earth to work for it, to help make it smarter. The smarter it gets, the more smart people, and smarter people, want to work for it. El Goog ropes in money. Money is its higher metabolism. It takes the money of investors to create technology that attracts human attention (ads), which in turns creates more money (profits), which attracts more investments. The smarter it makes itself, the more attention and money will flow to it.”

As we can see from the above description of El Goog, the most powerful mass collaboration network is now in existence. What our students need is to get connected to other people in this network and get involved in projects that are real and meaningful to them and that also have an impact on the lives of our global neighbors.

The recent Global Issues Network (GIN) conference at ISB was an excellent example of young people who are collaborating in meaningful projects with other young people around the world - via the Internet. All students can be involved in a project that inspires them. Ryan Hreljac founded the well building project, Ryan’s Wells, when he was six years old. As he said to our ISB students, “Even a six-year old boy can become involved and make an important difference in the lives of other people around the world.” Frankly, it is just this kind of involvement that our students must undertake.

Another example of students collaborating globally is the project-based learning of the Horizon Project, and the World is Flat. Our students already have the technology. We teachers need to connect them to meaningful projects and let them go to work.

What makes the Web so powerful?

2009-04-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

Evidence of a Global Super Organism

By Kevin Kelly

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/10/evidence_of_a_g.php

What makes the web so powerful? The answer to this question lies in the nature of the global super organism that humankind is currently building. Kevin Kelly, a pioneer in describing where humans and technology are headed, gives us a glimpse of what he calls the One Machine in the following excerpt from his blog post, “Evidence of a Super Organism.”

“In recent years, we've created supercomputers composed of loosely integrated individual computers not centralized in one building, but geographically distributed over continents and designed to be versatile and general purpose. This later supercomputer is called grid computing because the computation is served up as a utility to be delivered anywhere on the grid, like electricity. It is also called cloud computing because the tally of the exact component machines is dynamic and amorphous - like a cloud. The actual contours of the grid or cloud can change by the minute as machines come on or off line.

Google probably has the largest cloud computer in operation. According to Jeff Dean one of their infrastructure engineers, Google is hoping to scale up their cloud computer to encompass 10 million processors in 1,000 locations.

Whenever you are online, whenever you click on a link, or create a link, your processor is participating in the yet larger cloud, the cloud of all computer chips online. I call this cloud the One Machine because in many ways it acts as one supermegacomputer.

I define the One Machine as the emerging superorganism of computers. It is a megasupercomputer composed of billions of sub computers. The sub computers can compute individually on their own, and from most perspectives these units are distinct complete pieces of gear. But there is an emerging smartness in their collective that is smarter than any individual computer. We could say learning (or smartness) occurs at the level of the superorganism.

This megasupercomputer is the Cloud of all clouds, the largest possible inclusion of communicating chips. It is a vast machine of extraordinary dimensions. It is comprised of a quadrillion chips, and consumes 5% of the planet's electricity. It is not owned by any one corporation or nation (yet), nor is it really governed by humans at all. Several corporations run the larger sub clouds, and one of them, Google, dominates the user interface to the One Machine at the moment.

The phrase a "global superorganism” suggests the sustained integrity of a living organism, or a defensible and defended boundary, or maybe a sense of self, or even conscious intelligence.

The One Machine consumes electricity to produce structured information. Like other organisms, it is growing. Its size is increasing rapidly, close to 66% per year, which is basically the rate of Moore's Law. Every year it consumes more power, more material, more money, more information, and more of our attention. And each year it produces more structured information, more wealth, and more interest.

Cloud computers such as Google and Amazon form the learning center for the smart superorganism. Let's call this organ el Googazon, or el Goog for short. El Goog encompasses more than the functions of the company Google and includes all the functions provided by Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft online and other cloud-based services.

El Goog and the One Machine offer intelligence without human troubles. In the beginning this intelligence is transhuman rather than non-human intelligence. It is the smartness derived from the wisdom of human crowds, but as it continues to develop this smartness transcends a human type of thinking.

While El Goog is constantly seeking chips to occupy, energy to burn, wires to fill, radio waves to ride, what it wants and needs most is money. So one test of its success is when El Goog becomes our bank. Not only will all data flow through it, but all money as well.”

There are several headlines that one can take from this blog. The one I like best is: “The One Machine is increasing in size at a rate of 66% a year. Every year it consumes more power, more material, more money, more information, and more of our attention. And each year it produces more structured information, more wealth, and more interest.” The One machine is simply the biggest example of Scenius ever. Scenius is a term coined by Brian Eno meaning: “…the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius." Simply put, the web is an exponential explosion of the extreme creativity that people working in groups or scenes can generate.

Copyright laws

2009-04-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

Do we as a global society need to rethink copyright laws?

As teachers, when we observe the tech habits of our students we often find exactly the behavior that Kevin Kelly so aptly describes in his blog post, “Technology Wants to be Free.” www.kk.org/thetechnium/

“The “free” in digital music meant the audience could unbundle it from albums, sample it, create their own playlists, embed it, share it with love, bend it, graph it in colors, twist it, mash it, carry it, squeeze it, and enliven it with new ideas. The free-ization made it liquid and ‘free” to interact with other media. In the context of this freedom, the questionable legality of its free-ness was secondary. It didn’t really matter because music had been liberated by the free, almost made into a new media.”

The apparent joy and ease with which young people transform music and other digital content is a hallmark of their generation. This generation will never be content to simply listen to and view digital content without the urge to transform it into something even more unique and personal. However, the real transformation is not of the digital content itself, but rather of this young generation who have become intrepid creators of new ideas and new media.

Kelly writes that freedom is the key element in unleashing human creativity: “Technology wants to be free, as in free beer, because as it becomes free it also increases freedom. The inherent talents, capabilities and benefits of a technology cannot be released until it is almost free. The drive toward the free unleashes the constraints on each species in the technium, allowing it to interact with as many other species of technology as is possible, engendering new hybrids and deeper ecologies of tools, and permitting human users more choices and freedoms of use. As a technology grows in abundance and cheapness, it is more likely to find its appropriate niche in which it can sustain itself and support other technologies in commodity mode. As technology heads toward the free it unleashes the only lasting thing it can: options and possibilities.”

As I read this paragraph on free technology I was reminded of Ray Kurzweil’s book, the Singularity is Near. One of the headlines that I took from this startling book is Kurzweil’s belief about the “options and possibilities” of humans. Namely, that the purpose of humans is to infuse the universe with intelligence and order. I like to think of this purpose as the evolutionary imperative of Homo sapiens.

So, what does Kurzweil mean by “infusing the universe with intelligence and order?” He means that if we look at the exponential growth curve of computational power (artificial intelligence) we understand that very soon most of the matter and energy on our planet will be devoted to computers (artificial intelligence) and eventually this process will expand to include most of the matter in our solar system and then most of the matter in the universe. As the technology of artificial intelligence “grows in abundance and cheapness it allows its human users even more choices and freedoms of use,” as Kelly reminds us.

When we think of technology within this exponentially expansive Kurzweilian cosmological framework, doesn’t it seem absolutely reptilian to believe that we can confine content, media and technology into little boxes labeled with the name of the original creator along with a caveat telling users not to think of other choices and freedoms of use? As for our students -- let’s make them aware of our evolutionary imperative and its cosmological implications. We must encourage our students to hitch a ride on Halley’s Comet and in Stanley Kunitz’ words, “go roaring down the storm tracks of the Milky Way.”

Is There Privacy Online

2009-03-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

Are you concerned about your private information getting into the wrong hands out there on

the internet? You should be. An article in the New York Times dated March 29, 2009 gives us

all cause for concern.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/29/ghostnet-vast-chinabased-_n_1

According to the article: Researchers at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto have discovered a vast electronic spying operation that has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries. In less than two years the spying operation has infiltrated computers belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and government offices including the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

The spy operation dubbed “GhostNet” by the Toronto researchers uses malware that is able to turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The GhostNet intruders had gained control of the electronic mail server computers of the Dalai Lama’s organization. One recipient of an email from the Dalai Lama’s exile center was arrested upon her return to China and warned not to get involved with the exile center’s activities.

Three of the four control servers used by GhostNet were traced to different provinces in China — Hainan, Guangdong and Sichuan — while the fourth was found to be at a Web-hosting company based in Southern California. Last year, one of the researchers, Nart Villeneuve who is a “white-hat” hacker with “dazzling technical skills” linked the Chinese version of the Skype communications service to a Chinese government operation that was systematically eavesdropping on users’ instant-messaging sessions.

Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson, two researchers from Cambridge, England who helped the Toronto researchers, wrote in their report titled, The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement: “What Chinese spooks did in 2008, Russian crooks will do in 2010 and even low-budget criminals from less developed countries will follow in due course.”

Since sophisticated hackers always seem to be one step ahead of security companies, it appears that none of us is safe from having our computers broken into and data stolen. Maybe the best strategy is to assume that there is no privacy online and that all of our most sensitive personal information and data will eventually be available to anyone and everyone on the net.

Digital Footprints

2009-03-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

A valuable study done by the Pew Foundation distinguishes between an active digital footprint and a passive one.

“The more content we contribute voluntarily to the public or semi-public corners of the Web, the more we are not only findable, but also knowable. The more content we contribute to the public or semi-public corners of the Web, the more we grow our active digital footprint. These are the traces of data we contribute voluntarily, often in specific contexts with specific audiences in mind.”

“There are the data points uploaded to the internet as a matter of course, along with other public records like home sales, court records, and newspaper accounts. Layered on top of these publicly available sources are proprietary databases containing information such as cell phone numbers and political affiliations. This is the passive digital footprint, the one that grows with no deliberate intervention from an individual.”

Source: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency - Pew Internet. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Digital-Footprints.aspx

Whether passive or active, the digital footprint of each of us is growing and as it does, more and more of ourselves is captured forever on the Web. As the social web sites that we use become more personal, we become more and more transparent. The question is: is there a problem with these digital footprints and our ever-increasing transparency?

Kevin Kelly, in his blog, “The Technium,” writes: “The price of total personalization is total transparency. Transparency suggests a more active role, rather than an imposed view. You have to BE transparent. And of course, it is impossible to have total personalization with perfect knowledge.” How much transparency do we want even if we are able to actively manage it as Kelly advises? http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/05/total_personliz.php

“We cannot expect that having large warehouses of data on individuals will be free from unintended consequences, especially when there are incentives to try to build highly detailed models of everyone's lives. The price of total personalization is total surveillance.” Seth Finkelstein, The Guardian, Thursday 15 November, 2007

How many of us are ready to submit to the total surveillance that Mr. Finkelstein believes comes with total personalization?

I believe that schools should not only address the when and where but also the how of teaching students about their digital footprint. I would like to see students take a one-quarter class in learning how to actively manage their digital footprint. This class should include teaching students to install two software applications: Tor and Privoxy.

“Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens.” https://www.torproject.org/

From the Privoxy website: “A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as Privoxy, that clients (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting to web servers directly. The clients then ask the proxy to request objects (web pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf and to forward the data to the clients. It is a "go-between". For details, see Wikipedia's proxy definition.

There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling), efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies to accommodate those needs.

Privoxy is a proxy that is primarily focused on privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from restrictions placed on his activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet, it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.” http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#PROXYMORON

Final Reflection

2009-02-28T22:49:00.000-08:00

I believe that the important learning from my apartheid unit project will come when it is implemented in the classroom. I think that much of the eighth grade humanities learning is, in a sense, “confined” to the classroom. That is, while students read texts, view videos, listen to audio, blog with other students and create wikis with other students, there is no live contact or feedback from people outside our classroom. The work that Julie Lindsay and her colleagues have done serves as a model for creating networks of our students along with other students, teachers and adults from around the world.

Another missing element in our learning is live contact with people who live in the place that the unit is based on. If we are studying apartheid in South Africa, it is highly productive to link up in a learning network with students and teachers from other parts of the world. However, if our learning network contains no one who actually lived in South Africa during apartheid, then a vital element –authenticity - is missing from the learning.

Finally, given the inclusion of the above two elements in our student learning, it is also necessary to include the element of students taking some action based on their learning. This is the major headline in Clay Shirkey’s book, Here Comes Everybody: that networks of informed and committed people working outside of established organizations can effect enormous social change. To have our students create a global learning network using the latest tech tools but without the action piece is narcissistic at best.

Course Reflection

2009-02-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

I really appreciate the chance to have taken this course. Our teachers, Kim Cofino and Jeff Utecht, have done a tremendous job of launching and guiding us on our journey into the future. Such a varied group we are in terms of life experiences and interests!

Personally, this course has allowed me to crystallize my understanding of a cosmological vision that I initially acquired from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s magnum opus, The Phenomenon of Man (1952). In this book, de Chardin envisions the creation of the Noosphere or “collective consciousness” of human beings that is emerging from the interaction of human minds. Way back in the 1940’s, did de Chardin really foresee the creation of the World Wide Web?

One writer has described the Noosphere as “the globe clothing itself with a brain.” Cyber bard, John Perry Barlow, wrote of de Chardin, "Teilhard's work is about creating a consciousness so profound it will make good company for God itself." My favorite quote from de Chardin, “The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

As hauntingly beautiful as de Chardin’s vision of the Noosphere is, Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the future is even more breathtaking. In The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil gives what he understands to be the raison d’etre for Homo sapiens: “to infuse the universe with intelligence and order.” I like to think of this infusion of intelligence as our evolutionary imperative. Kurzweil relates how Homo sapiens will soon utilize most of the matter and energy on our planet in one enormous network of artificial intelligence. He sees this vast network of intelligence expanding to include most of the matter and energy in our solar system and then on to the rest of the universe.

One of the most indelible experiences that I have had was to sit in the night at the top of a dune in the Great Sand Sea in Egypt. There, in absolute silence, perched on the edge of the universe, I caught a glimpse of its incomprehensible immensity and splendor. Just imagine this ineffable vastness infused with a deep intelligence and order!

At times when we question the value of some of our tech tools, it helps to keep the big picture in mind. For me, Clay Shirkey’s book, Here Comes Everybody, illuminates the bridge from the tech tools to the big picture visions of de Chardin and Kurzweil. Here Comes Everybody is a masterly account of how people outside of established organizations have formed networks utilizing cutting-edge technology and accomplished results of great importance. Echoing one of de Chardin’s themes, Shirkey notes that some of these results have been accomplished not for profit but for love. I suspect this is what Kurzweil really means when he writes about infusing the universe with intelligence and order.

If we can believe one of the more startling headlines from Kurzweil’s Singularity is Near, some of us in this course will cross the “first bridge” and go on to live to be 1,000 years old. Long before then, some of us will, to borrow a line from poet Stanley Kunitz, “go roaring down the stormtracks of the Milky Way.”

A special thanks to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Ray Kurzweil for their thrilling cosmological visions, and to Clay Shirkey for putting so many of the pieces in place. Also, a heartfelt thanks to Kim Cofino, Jeff Utecht, Clarence Fisher, Chris Betcher and Julie Lindsay for inspiring us teachers and guiding us on our voyage to the edge of the universe. Finally, all the honor to my colleagues at the International School Bangkok, Thailand for infusing with intelligence and order the minds of so many young people, most of whom will one day go roaring down the stormtracks of the Milky Way.

Collaborative Project

2009-02-28T22:07:00.001-08:00

See Apartheid Unit in the Project Pages

What I have learned

2009-02-26T16:04:00.001-08:00

Messing Around

This article emphasizes the three components of differentiated learning: differentiation for interest, learning profile and for readiness.

Students learning about the new media are learning from and collaborating with others in social exchanges. (learning profile)

Messing around with the new media requires an interest-driven orientation… (interest) Messing around is largely self-directed. (interest)

Youth often seek support from their local friendship network. (learning profile)

We can conclude that messing around thus provides valuable learning that incorporates material that meets each student’s readiness level, interest area and learning profiles.

Connectivism

I like the recap in this article of the three learning theories Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. However, I think the article goes overboard when it states, “These theories do not address learning that occurs outside of people (i.e. learning that is stored and manipulated by technology). They also fail to describe how learning happens within organizations. “

Any teacher knows that students learning within the Constructivist umbrella are learning in groups of two, three and other small configurations. They are also accessing information that is stored in books, magazines, and on the Internet. (technology)

The powerful advantage of Connectivism is that is allows the learner in a network to readily access the knowledge of all the members of the network. When individual networks are connected other networks then the amount of learning available is greatly magnified.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

I love the reformulation of Bloom’s Taxonomy done by Lorin Anderson: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating, Creating. The new terms make the process more readily applicable in the classroom. The digital translations of each of the levels in the taxonomy are also valuable. For example, in the digital arena Creating becomes: designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making, programming, filming, animating, blogging, video blogging, mixing, re-mixing, wiki-ing, publishing, video-casting, podcasting, directing/producing.

Overall, this article is a great summary of how using digital materials can take student learning to the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Here Comes Everybody

2009-02-26T16:02:00.000-08:00

Clay Shirkey

The most important reading that I have done these past few weeks is Clay Shirkey’s, Here Comes Everybody: The power of Organizing Without Organizations.

This book gives real life examples of how groups of people working outside established organizations have accomplished tremendously important goals. Creating an all-volunteer online encyclopedia and bringing down the government of East Germany are two stellar examples.

When learning about new technology applications it is easy to get lost in the excitement of their newness without understanding the big picture. Shirkey’s book lets us understand how networks of people outside organizations have used the latest technology applications.The important point is really what powerful things networked people can do with technological tools. The book is an invaluable big picture look at networks and the technology that facilitates their connectivity and effectiveness.

The World is Spiky

2009-02-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

Many of us are firm believers in networks and in the power of technology to bring us closer to the members of our networks. This belief underlies one of the big ideas of Thomas Friedman’s book, the World is Flat: the exponential technology innovations of the digital revolution have made it possible to do business or otherwise collaborate instantaneously with billions of people around the globe. Moreover, the effect of these technology innovations is to level the global playing field thereby making everyone a player.

In his Atlantic Monthly article (October 2005) urban theorist Richard Florida argues that a more accurate description of our globe would be, “the world is spiky.” Florida has this perception of the world because he evaluates it in terms of the cutting-edge innovation that drives economic production.

In Florida’s world view there are three kinds of places that make up the modern economic landscape: the “tallest peaks” (cities that generate innovation); economic hills (“places that manufacture the world’s established goods, take its calls, and support its innovation engines”) and finally there are what Florida calls the “vast valleys” – “places with little connection to the global economy and few immediate prospects.”

To illustrate his worldview, Florida has generated a map that shows Tokyo, Seoul, New York and San Francisco as spikes in terms of the number of patents registered worldwide. Another map shows the residence of the 1,200 most heavily cited scientists in leading fields. These leading scientific researchers overwhelmingly live in the same handful of US and European cities that are again represented as spikes.

Florida’s point is that, “Innovation remains difficult without a critical mass of financiers, entrepreneurs, and scientists, often nourished by world-class universities and flexible corporations.” He also argues that key cities where innovation flourishes provide the necessary population density and velocity of ideas to drive that innovation. So, if our world is becoming “spikier” as Florida asserts, what does that mean for the hundreds of millions across the globe who live in the “vast valleys?” Can we still put our faith in the notion that exponential technological innovation lifts all boats?

Freedom Unit Sketch

2009-02-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

Standards Met

1. Creativity and Innovation 2. Communication and Collaboration 3. Research and Information Fluency 4. Critical thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making 5. Digital Citizenship

Students will be introduced to the concept of freedom by reading and discussing the book, The Big Box, by Toni Morrison. From the reading and discussion the students will generate an initial class definition of freedom. (This definition will be enlarged and refined as students develop their understanding of the concept of freedom.) The class will have a text set (books, magazines and internet resources) that closely matches the various reading levels, areas of interest, and learning profiles of the students in the class. (differentiated instruction a la Carol Ann Tomlinson)

Students will then spend a few days “wandering and wondering” through the text set. Student findings and learning will periodically be shared with the whole class. (See blogs/videos.) As this process continues, students will be expected to develop a special area of interest within the concept of freedom. Some examples could be freedom fighters, child labor, slavery, economics and freedom. Students will also be expected to complete a project on a particular area of freedom that will include taking action on behalf of a group that is being denied a basic freedom.

Students will blog regularly about their learning and will also respond to a blog written by the group or advocates of the group that they are taking action for. In addition, the class will create an online hypertext resource on the concept of freedom. Students working either alone or with a small group will make a short video (to be posted on YouTube) about their project and the action that they are taking.

Smart Objects

2009-02-26T01:08:00.001-08:00

Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus MIT

Smart objects are objects that have identifiers attached that can track information about the object or person they are tagged with. The use of smart objects in industry and education is now accelerating. Our small group came up with several ideas for the use of smart objects in education.

If each student had information about her interests, learning profile, and readiness to learn (think reading or math levels) attached to a card that was worn at school, that information could be used to personalize or differentiate all of the student’s learning experiences. For example, when the student walked into the library a scanner would pick up the student’s reading level and interest area and guide the student to books that are a good match for her.

As lessons are developed and perfected (think Japanese lesson study) they could be archived and matched to each student’s interests, learning profile and readiness level. (Let’s call this a student differentiation profile.) Eventually, a huge bank of such lessons with differentiated text sets and learning experiences would be available on the internet. Additionally, students could be matched with teachers who fit their differentiation profile. In this way, each student’s entire learning career would be readily accessible, personalized, and fungible.

Perhaps someday our schools will be like an elegant restaurant offering a healthy and delectable smorgasbord for all the diners who intimately know what their current appetites, tastes, allergies, and longings for food are. Let’s see – I’ll have one art project, heavy on the Van Gogh (with a drizzle of Matisse) to go and two social studies units a la Chomsky sunny side up!

Scenius

2009-02-26T00:23:00.000-08:00

Climbing Half Dome, Yosemite

Scenius or “genius of the scene” is a term coined by Brian Eno to suggest the extreme creativity that groups or places can generate from time to time. Eno’s actual definition is, "Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius." Kevin Kelly, in his blog, “The Technium,” writes about some examples of scenius: Building 20 at MIT, Silicon Valley, the lofts in Soho NYC and Burning Man.

One of the more interesting examples of scenius that Kelly describes is Camp 4 at Yosemite. Various climbers with experience in the Alps discovered the sheer faces of Yosemite in the 1930’s and established a permanent camp on the north side of the valley in 1941. As Kelly writes, “Over the next 60 years this scenius would invent most of the modern techniques of rock climbing, and many innovations that would later spill into outdoor skills and gear in general.” At Camp 4 (click here for YouTube video) some of the world’s best climbers lived and climbed together, always pushing themselves to be at the cutting edge of their area of passion.

As teachers, are any of us involved in a scenius? If so, what does it look like? Who are its members and what are its best practices? If we are not involved in a scenius, what would a scenius in our school or division look like? What would the best practices be and what would student learning look like? Is offering the same reading text to all students including those reading at the twelfth grade level and the ESL student at the fourth grade level a best practice? Imagine a school where teachers, students, parents and administrators are all passionately engaged at the cutting edge of learning!

Kelly concludes his blog on scenius,

“When it happens, honor and protect it.”

On the Edge of the Universe I

2009-02-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

On the Edge of the Universe I

Do you occasionally feel enervated by the incessant din of our modern world? If so, come with me to a sanctuary deliciously devoid of the trappings of our time. One caveat - we must first pass through more of the clamor and chaos that inundates our biggest cities.

We take a plane to Cairo, Egypt, a cauldron of some 20 million souls locked in a struggle to secure enough calories for the day and keep a roof over their heads. From there, a van shuttles us north through the lush delta of the Nile, its peasants following the agricultural rhythms laid down in the time of the pharaohs.

Breaking out of the heat and dust, we cruise through the gentle sea breezes of Alexandria, once home to a vibrant community of artists, writers, and long departed Jews, Armenians, and Greeks who fled Egypt after Nasser took the reins of power in 1952.

Tacking west along the Mediterranean, we pass El Alamein, site of a graveyard hosting over 8,000 souls who perished in the Western Desert campaigns of World War II. Then, just after the turquoise waters of Marsa Matruh, we head south into the sahara, Arabic for desert.

Our destination is the Siwa Oasis lying only 30 miles from the Libyan border. An outlier of some 25,000 ethnic Berbers, Siwa is separated from the rest of Egypt by the Western Desert and was connected to the outside world by asphalt road only as recently as 1984. After one night in Siwa we focus on the goal of our trip to this outpost of civilization: the Great Sand Sea.

Home to no one, the Great Sand Sea is a seamless mass of sand, smothering the desolate frontiers of Libya and Egypt. Its parallel dunes begin just three kilometers out of Siwa and spill south for almost 800 kilometers to the bottom of Egypt where they run smack into the Gilf Kebir, a limestone/sandstone plateau rising 1,000 feet and the size of Switzerland.

The dunes of the Great Sand Sea are relentlessly driven by the Hamseen, cousin to the other winds of the Arab and Persian worlds: Haboob; Harmattan; Simoom; Shamal; Sharki; and Sirocco. Following their geological imperative, the billions and billions of sand grains that make up these dunes climb higher and higher on the shoulders of their neighbors drowning everything in their wake. At the Gilf Kebir, the dunes have accomplished the unthinkable, breaching its 1,000 foot-high crest.

Cassandra Vivian, author of The Western Desert of Egypt: An Explorer’s Handbook, has written, “When all life forms have disappeared from the continents, only the sand dunes will remain.” Her advice: “Anyone planning an expedition to the dunes of the Great Sand Sea has to be especially well prepared, as there's not a single water source in 150,000 square miles.”

At the Gilf Kebir, nature parsimoniously bestows only a few centimeters of rain once every 13 years. Just west over the border, the Libyan Desert, the most arid region on Earth, is the site of the highest recorded temperature - a startling 58 degrees C (136 F) recorded south of Tripoli in September 1922.

Having secured two jeeps, each with a driver and guide, our party heads out. Once clear of town, we stop and our guide deflates the tires to 15 psi to help the vehicle float on the deep sand. We approach the first dune and the driver expertly snakes his way up: steady gas, no sudden starts or stops, keep the jeep moving.

When we hit the crest the view is breathtaking: endless dunes soft and sinuous under an impeccable cerulean sky. And something surprising about the air – such a light, fresh, clean fragrance with undertones of salt as if we are at the ocean. However, the most overwhelming element is the silence – deep, absolute and all encompassing. No other place, yet experienced, is bathed in this exquisite silence that seems to shout a mysterious presence.

For a few hours we continue cresting the dunes and fording the tight valleys that lie between them. By now the sun is high overhead burning the sand and we are as parched as the dunes themselves. About ten kilometers into the dunes we stop and make camp. The afternoon sun and heat have been brutal and a question is nagging in the back of the head. What is it about the desert that kept inviting the prophets and holy people of The Book to seek it out? Were they intent on inflicting deprivation and hardship on themselves, or was there something more?

The guides make a small campfire out of the stump of an olive tree that they have lashed to the Jeep roof. Soon a delicious stew of chicken and vegetables is ready. One guide sits on a half empty water jug and taps out different Arab and Berber rhythms – an Elvin Jones of the desert. Night falls, the fire turns to embers and you feel something calling you away from the camp.

Spent from the days adventure, you trudge to the crest of the nearest dune where you squat with your knees under your chin. As you perch on the edge of the universe, a panorama of ineffable beauty thrills you: the heavens are lit with billions and billions of stars, big as bushel baskets. The overpowering silence along with its mysterious presence, now intense and palpable, penetrates you to the core. You reach out your hand and touch the face of God.

Bibliography: Vivian, Cassandra, The Western Desert of Egypt: An Explorer’s Handbook

A special thanks to our guides, Mostafa and Ahmed for their laughter, music, and for taking us safely to the edge of the universe.

Steve Guthrie

Truth and Bias in the Classroom

2009-02-01T05:53:00.000-08:00

Clarence and Chris. Wow! These two teachers are deeply involved in building the genius of the scene. The Skype with them crystallized exactly how human intelligence is advancing in ways that are creating the future - our future and the future of the universe.

Kim and Jeff got all of us off to a solid start. Overall, I think that we learned a lot. Of course, as Kim mentioned in her post-class comments, the differentiation piece is missing and needs to be attended to.

How do we help our students determine truth and bias in the material that they find on the Net? Actually, Chris modeled how we might proceed by giving us his demo of the fictitious news accounts. This point needs to be repeated over and over for our students: Everything that we encounter on the Net must filtered through a well developed critical lens.

What I took away from Clarence:

Globalvoicesonline.org = aggregator site that brings together blogs from all over world. S’S subscribe to a blog from somewhere around the world.

Classroom networks: Some S’S are hubs that are important in spreading ideas.

Blogs flatten the infrastructure in the classroom.

What I took away from Chris: Google for Educators; Google search tools; value of Wikipedia

Chris built understanding, used visuals; very usable information and sites; love the Google search information.

course goals

2009-02-01T04:30:00.000-08:00

As a technology neophyte, my goals for this class are modest. I would like to:

1. Perch on the edge of the Universe. See blog: “On the Edge of the Universe I.”

2. Witness the discovery of fire. See: “On the Edge of the Universe II.” (forthcoming)

3. Participate in our evolutionary imperative. See: “On the Edge of the Universe III.”

4. Hitch a ride on Halley’s Comet and go “roaring down the stormtracks of the Milky Way.” See: “On the Edge of the Universe III.”

5. Better understand how ORDER must necessarily complement artificial intelligence. See: “On the Edge of the Universe IV.”

6. Participate in the genius of the scene. See: Scenius.

7. Finally, better understand how to use the tools found in our technology toolbox: B, D, E, I, G, H, K, L, M, O, R, S, T, W.

Rearrange as: blog; moodle; RSS; Twitter; Wiki and other.

Personal Learning Networks

2009-01-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

From our first reading assignment for this week, three salient collocations caught my eye: connecting technologies; working together; and classrooms built around deep inquiry. With the Singularity (see Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near") and its exponential change quickly approaching our world, I believe that the era of the solitary learner is fast becoming irrelevant.

However, for me the key collocation is "classrooms built around deep inquiry." If our classrooms use the latest "connecting technologies" and all the students "work together," but the "deep inquiry" piece is missing, might the whole process risk being like the farmer using his Mercedes to deliver chaff to market?

Here, I am also reminded of Martin Luther King's words: " I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their of their character." As teachers, should we not concentrate more on the content of our inquiry rather than on the color of our technology?