If It's not Broke .... FIX IT! (The Digital Anthology)

I have finished my digital anthology, but of course this is just a manner of speaking, since one of the advantages of going digital is that, unlike a printed text, it will never be "finished." It is always updatable, which means I may very well add content before I actually start drawing from my new resource.

As you may recall (see A Digital Anthology. . . .), I decided to replace the $50 reader for my AP American Government & Politics class with a free, multi-media resource which could be entirely up-to-date.

I have now found material that corresponds to each chapter in our text (an ebook, by the way). Granted, I have far less material than the traditional readers , but this is not really an issue since I only used about half the reader, anyway.

Please, be my guest and take a peek at a sample of my D.A.

You'll notice that I have tapped a variety of sources for this sample. In addition to text, I have edited a podcast from iTunes U and linked to some excellent PBS videos. I have found the Stanford University podcasts* to be particularly useful for political science, but they are quite long, and I have reviewed fewer of them than I thought I might (I usually listen to them in the car). Additionally, I have also found some outstanding outstanding video for my anthology at New York Times Video, Academic Earth, and The Museum of the Moving Image.

Unsurprisingly, my anthology is still dominated by text sources. Most of these I come across in my daily reading (though family members have forwarded a couple of gems). I have also researched some subjects. For this, I have primarily used our Media Center's subscription to Gale Student Resource Center . Since all my students are licensed to use this resource, it is fairly easy to share articles.

You may wonder why I have only given you a slice of my anthology. Well, it will be sliced off to students in small portions as well. There is no reason to assign from it weeks ahead. After all, something more interesting and pertinent may appear on the scene in the mean time. The anthology fits perfectly into my scheme of the Tinker Toy Curriculum of modules that can be connected then reassembled from semester to semester.

As I've mentioned in this space before, I think anthologies like these could be constructed with ease by members of academic departments, or interdepartmentally for that matter. I would enjoy your reactions to my sample, and welcome links that I might put into my "book."

I'll be making a presentation on the Digital Anthology to the Michigan Association for Media in Education at Grand Traverse Resort on October 23.

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*visit this link and download 30 free songs from iTunes!

Weekend Take-out from the Drive-thru

Recommended Toys and Tools:

* "The Flat Classroom Project is a global collaborative project that joins together middle and senior high school students. . . . .The Project uses Web 2.0 tools to make communication and interaction between students and teachers from all participating classrooms easier. The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman."

*"Ning offers an innovative and easy-to-use technology platform for people to join and create new social networks for their interests and passions and meet new people around the things they care about most about in their life."

*"Advanced Image Search allows users to filter search results by Creative Commons (CC) license. For now, this search only includes CC-licensed images from Flickr, Yahoo's own photo sharing service. The Yahoo Image Search interface actually turns out to be a very nice gateway to the CC-licensed image collection on Flickr, especially because the previews update immediately after you change a filter setting." (Written by Frederic Lardinois).

"bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier. bit.ly can be accessed through our website, bookmarklets and a robust and open API. bit.ly is also integrated into several popular third-party tools such as Tweetdeck."

Scott McLeod offers 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy principals . . . . "These are the TED presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!"

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"Take Out" with generous permission of americanvirus

Ed Tech Leadership & Transparency

I've been holding onto a couple of quotes for several weeks, but they keep coming back to me, because they help to explain why Web 2.0 has changed education far less than other areas of society.

The first quote is from Will Richardson:

Schools . . . have a responsibility to help kids lead transparent lives online in ways that prepare them for the highly complex relationships they will be having in these virtual spaces as adults. But to do that, schools have to get more transparent themselves.

The second quote comes from fellow ADE '09, Scott Elias:

Of the 52 ADEs that were selected this year, there are teachers, school technology coordinators, college professors, and district-level tech folks. But as far as I can tell, I’m the only school administrator. What’s up with that?

We’ve got amazing teachers doing great things in the classroom and we’ve got district people with good intentions. . . .

Building administrators are the vital link in this chain. How can we get more of them thinking about change? How can we expect our teachers to think ahead if so few administrators do?

It is one thing to read about ed tech, cheerlead and cajole. But how many school leaders are willing to change their own habits and and model their new habits for their staffs? Do administrators use Web tools to communicate? Do they network with other educators through Nings? Do they blog? Do they Tweet? If they don't, then regardless of their best intentions, how can they truly lead their staffs to do these same things?

Changing the culture of a school is necessary to truly take advantage of the read and write Web. It's easier to buy the equipment and furniture than it is to change the culture of a school. But teachers pumping PowerPoint through data projectors and students taking notes on laptops is not change. Such change will only occur if the adults, and particularly those at the top, exemplify a zest for learning about and engaging with the new powerful tools which are radically changing the ways people learn and communicate.

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"transparency" Flickr Creative Commons photo by sleepingbear