Flickr Creative Commons Rocks!

This summer I put considerable effort and energy into creating some tools for teachers interested in trying Challenge Based Learning. For example, I created one called "CBL Media Management Do's". Recently, I completed a companion piece about the "don'ts" of media management. But there is a different twist,. On the first one I primarily used screen shots for my demonstration. But for this one, I relied heavily on Flickr Creative Commons photos. Though these pictures were not taken with CBL in mind, I still think that they help illustrate the points I tried to make in the narrative. Do you agree?


------------------------------------------
The movie was created with GarageBand, Yahoo Advanced Image Search, Photo to Movie, Voila, Keynote, and Preview

MHS Board of Trustees Presentation

Tonight I will shift into hyper-drive and give the MHS Board of Trustees a fast motion look as how I have blasted off into Web 2.0 education. It should be fun. I've probably put too much multi-media into my slides.

Here are some of the resources that I have created or have tapped.

Board Slide Presentation: One Teacher's Tech Explosion

Student Interviews: Challenge Based Learning

Baker Animation: The Digital Anthology

Virtual Conferences: Thursday's P.T. Conferences:

Apple Computer: Challenge Based Learning

Next stop, Grand Rapids, for the 2010 MACUL Conference. Come back on Friday for those goodies.

-------------------------------------------
Screen shot from "One Teacher's Tech Explosion" Keynote Presentation

Hail to the Chief!

Since Howard Dean's campaign for president in 2004, I have been fascinated with netroots politics. After dazzling onlookers with his ability to raise funds and organize volunteers online, Dean wiped out. But Barack Obama’s took online campaigning to a new level, and his election has installed the first new media administration the Executive Branch. Consequently, the White House web site has now become a valuable resource to me.


My American Government Students learn that the presidency is several different authorities, responsibilities and symbolic functions wrapped into one. I am using the online resources of the Obama administration to illustrate these roles. First, I downloaded pdfs, podcasts, and videos for this purpose. I have used Apple tools (Preview, GarageBand, iMovie) to create screen captures and clips and then placed them into a multimedia slide presentation. The slide show vividly portrays the president playing out his various functions.

I think the White House site also serves as a perfect example of how social media has become a conduit for vital information. It is clear that organizations large and small are assuming that global consumers/citizens will want to be informed and updated through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and iTunes. Showing this as a key priority of the 21st Century presidency helps to make my case to educators that they are obligated to help students access and evaluate new media.

I’ve created a short QuickTime movie to demonstrate how I will be using the digital presidency as a classroom resource and to enhance my professional development presentations. Please check it out!

"Hail to the Chief" Multimedia Demo

------------------------------------
Demo created with Apple Keynote

Food for Thought

Lots of time to read online this summer. Here are some nuggets from my reading. Food for thought.

NCTE Tries to Define 21st-C Writing--- lol

NCTE is trying to wrap their arms around, and control, informal writing styles that predominate Web 2.0 and are labeling them unacceptable. They state that the new generation are learning from,"extracurricular social co-apprenticeship." A term like this will have a typical 16 year old heading for the hills with their iPhones! :-) This sounds like an organization feeling a loss of control trying to control a social phenomenon. Good luck with that.

If We Could Start Over, What Would We Build?

In the networked learning communities of the future, expert learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn, as they continue to construct new knowledge and develop their own expertise.

Why Do I Hate Paper?

Ideas brought forth in a dynamic environment should not be 'written on paper', in the symbolic sense. In other words, they should not be thought of as singular and final products to be graded and filed away; rather, ideas are always in flux and current to debate and change and this is a good thing, an innovative thing, and cooperative interactive online docs with no fixed 'due date' are more natural to use in this environment of thinking -- that is they are more an extension of this type of thinking -- than a piece of paper kept in one's folder smooshed in the grimy depths of one's bookbag could ever be.

Bobb Boots out Top DPS Executives

Our goal is to transform the central office. . . .We want it to be the center of support, not the center of attention for our schools.

-----------------------------------
"Food for Thought" Flickr photo available with permission by aporter

Self-Stoppers (Anxiety as an Impediment to Change)

I was recently reading Bend without Breaking by Jim Huling. Though directed at a business audience his comments really ring true for schools as well. Some folks bristle at the mention of new technology because they seem to feel that they "must master every aspect immediately." Huling urges us to counter this anxiety by "building a plan for the daily or weekly improvements."

I know teachers who feel enormously pressured to change, and their anxiety seems to paralyze them. Most of what I've learned with tech has come very deliberately. I've become competent with tools like Moodle, Google Docs, and iMovie by using tutorials through Atomic Learning, completing a few modules each day. This gives me the sense that I am making progress. And by focusing on one tool at a time, I feel less overwhelmed.

On a related note, I've often hear the lament that things are changing so fast, that by the time one gets started on something, it will probably be outdated. Well, there is an element of truth to this. Topics that I presented on in January have already drastically changed by July. But rather than paralysis, this calls for learning a "tool set." By playing around at popular sites like iTunes, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and WikiSpaces one can see that A) One can get around one these sites without a computer engineering degree. B) There is considerable transference of competency from one site to another. As I've often remarked, it's easier to jump into the Read/Write Web now than ever before. Despairing that one is hopelessly behind is a pretty lousy excuse for not engaging in the here and now.

-----------------------------------------------------
"Frustrated" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by frekur

Web 2.0 Summer School (or Camp!)

This post is for teachers like me who generally plan some kind of "work" project for the summer, imagining how good it will feel to salt some big something away for the next school year, but vaguely dreading a tedious task. It's easy to imagine that "technology" might be such a project for a teacher who is anxious to bring a meaningful internet activity with his or her classes.

If so, I suggest that you relax, find something limited in scope, and explore areas that may have lifestyle benefits even if they don't work out for school.

I've put together some possibilities that are QRS- quick, rich simple.

* Open a Flickr account and spend a couple of hours collecting photos on a subject of interest. When I began to search for pictures to publish in my Dad's Ann Arbor Memories book, I became absolutely intoxicated with this resource for personal and/or classroom use.

* If you don't have a Google Account, open one. Go to Docs. Then spend a couple of hours uploading a handful of your most heavily used documents. After they are uploaded, "share" them by publishing them as web page. Be sure to check the "automatically republish when changes are made box". Now you have some options. You might want to book mark your documents. Better yet, link them all to a single table of contents which you also publish and bookmark. The publishing feature of Google Docs has probably impacted my work life more than any other tech application (with the exception of web browsers). I think the experience of playing with Doc htmls will open up your eyes to some great info sharing possibilities.

* Record a lecture with Audacity (or better yet, GarageBand). Choose a topic that is tried and true. If it is longer than eight minutes, plan to break it into parts. Audacity is a free download and if your computer has a built-in mic, all you have to do is press the red button on the application and record. Upload the file(s) to Moodle or some other storage site like box.net. When lecture time rolls around next school year, have the students bring headphones to class or listen to the talk as homework. You'll have discovered the joy of podcasting.

* I won't repeat my Why Twitter? post here, but I have a fast track suggestion if you want to jump into Twitter with both feet. Sign up for an account. Decide what kind of information flow you want. Identify a couple of heavily followed Tweeters in that area, and then "follow" who they are following. For example, I do Twitter for Web 2.0 teaching info. The majority of those I follow provide quality tweets on Web 2.0. If you poached my list, you would get the same flow of information to start and then you could tailor it to your interests. (You don't need permission to follow others on Twitter).

* Enjoy learning about religion, history, math, science, literature, etc.? As summer homework, download some courses from Yale, Stanford, Michigan, or Oxford. Put then in your iPod and listen to them while you garden or walk. Where do you get them and how much will this cost? These lectures are free and available by the dozen on any topic at iTunes U.

* Researching a vacation or prepping a new topic? The next time you complete your research try Diigo. Get used to using tags and enjoy the highlighting and sticky notes features. Better yet, see if you can collaborate with a friend or colleague on this project and have the experience of sharing bookmarks, highlights and notes.

* Many of my baby boomer friends have been bemoaning the demise of their daily newspapers. Have you tried setting up an RSS Reader, yet? Most of your favorite newspapers have set up some rss feeds for their columnists and bloggers. (Locally, the Detroit News has been most successful transitioning their writers to blogging). Of course a Reader has the advantage of pulling blogs from sources all over the internet. Once you start, it will be hard to resist the urge to overload. Educational uses? Hey, teachers deserve a few moments of quiet time with their "newspaper" in order to be at their best with their students.


P.S. If you wish to explore more easy to use tools, check out the Web Warriors.
------------------------------
"Summer Relaxation" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Third Eye Studios

Ten by Ten Top Techs

As the end of the school year approaches I've been tempted to make lists of this or that, so why not go all out and make a 10 x 10 list?

My Ten Best Blogs this Semester:

Wrap that Red Herring in Paper

At Long Last...ebook Joy!

A Vast Tinker Toy Playland

Hyperlink Heaven

Techno Topsy-Turvy

Sage Schuste Seduced by Cyberspace?

Tooting Your Horn

To Leap Forward or Hunker Down?

The Digital Natives Aren't that Restless

Teaching Literature Unbound

10 Lessons I've Learned at Age 55

Tweetdeck Top Ten: @bridgers, @cultofmac, @englishcomp, @jackiegerstein, @markwagner, @Milw_Mac_Guy, @ScottElias, @mcleoud, @potsie, @TweetingTigers

10 Necessities of Education Reform by Judy Willis

The 10 Commandments of Power Point. How can people possibly think that reading PowerPoint slides to an audience is an effective way to communicate? This post by David Pierce is a must read for those who use (abuse?) PowerPoint or teach it to others.

My 10 RSS Feeds Knowing that I would just get depressed if I loaded more and more feeds into my Google Reader, I always limit myself to ten. Click here for my current feeds.

My 10 Largest Delicious Tag Bundles: finish, blog, tenthings, google, dadcalx, AP, mhs, 13, technology

10 Reasons to Tweet: The nine I wrote about in Why Twitter? plus this obvious one that I forgot: # 10 Twitter is perfectly suited for mobile communications.

10 Sites I Check Daily

10 apps or sites that I've enjoyed learning to use this year: GarageBand, iMovie, QuickTime Pro, Google Docs, Audacity, WikiSpaces, Google Sites, Twitter, Presentation.

10 Compelling Reasons to Teach with Technology

-----------------------------------------------
"The 'Ten Truck' FDNY' Flickr Creative Commons Photo by stevejonesphoto

Watching that Old School of Red Herrings Swim By

The tech naysayers are once again in season, so it's time grant some Red Herring fishing licenses. Let's hook three more "issues" that are supposed to stop change in its tracks:

"How Can We Be Sure Students Won't Violate Copyright?" This one cracks me up, because I find that some of my teaching colleagues have developed selective sensitivity to copyright. I have a friend who adamantly opposes music sharing ("I buy CDs to support the artist"), yet she photocopies vast volumes of copyrighted academic articles. Since they are for her students, that's ok by her code of copyright. Another friend was fussing to me about possible copyright violations as his students posted media to their wikis. When I questioned him about his own classroom practices, he assured me that the VHS movies he recorded over the years (and still loves dearly to use in class) are OK because they are used for educational purposes. Hmn.

One way to avoid this issue altogether is to urge students to select from the millions and millions of photos, slides, audio files and videos licensed under Creative Commons. You might also encourage them to license their own creations as such. If you are unfamiliar with Creative Commons, click this video link for a brief overview. (I'll be blogging about some great CC sites for audio, next week). Copyright law lags far behind the realities digital technology. In the mean time, the CC provides a convenient way to avoid cognitive dissonance over copyright.

"We still must teach [fill in the blank] because the students will need it in college." This objection is always raised whenever I rail against the traditional "research paper" (see Hyperlink Heaven). But college prep cannot be played as a universal trump card against innovation. Consider a comment posted to my last blog. The author is a senior at the University of Michigan, and recently completed an internship with the New York Times:

At Michigan, the computer labs are constantly being upgraded with the latest software. I'm not saying the technology environment here is perfect, but other students and I have really benefited from professors forcing us to use these tools in projects. In one of my classes, for instance, my professor makes us blog. It's a good exercise for students looking to write for the new web.The fact that we can use a lot of expensive software programs for free (i.e. Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, etc.) also lets students experiment with these new tools.

We would be remiss if we failed to give students training in traditional conventions of academia, but we can't focus solely on showing students the old tricks that please tenured professors (who may be among the last hold outs against change). I think we have to give basic web literacy a much higher priority.

"Students Need to Learn the Basics" When I hear any variation on this assertion, I think, "Well, yeah, your point?" I can grant this point but still insist that we recognize that methods for accessing information and generating communication have changed so convulsively in recent years that a new set of basics is called for in addition to the traditional tool set. The curriculum needs to make way for these skills. What exactly they are is an important question. Fellow ADE, Tom Woodard, offers a very insightful reflection on this very issue in "....Old Skills, New Applications....".

After reading the above, one might reasonably ask where we can find the time to teach the new stuff. This question leads us logically to a greater point: It's time to rethink how school time is structured. Certainly, how and where people work has changed significantly by technology. Correspondingly, how and where we are all learning is shifting at a terrific rate. Yet we somehow assume that tradition schedules and subjects will accommodate this shift. If we wish to create optimal learning experiences for our students we have to reimagine the school day. I'm ready when you are.

Whew! It felt good to get these last two blogs out of my system. I'm looking forward to going in a different direction with my four part "Faculty Lounge" series, starting Thursday.

As always, your comments are valued.

-----------------------------------
There are now over 100 millions Creative Commons photos on Flickr. The "Red Herring" photo on this page was licensed under CC and chosen from 'No Matter" Project.

Staff Development, Part Three

Final of Three Parts

In part one of this commentary I characterized a typical teaching staff by their receptiveness and integration of new technologies: Pathfinders, Jumpstarts, Too Old / Too Lates, and Naysayers. The research I have down bears out this divisions as typical within any organization facing significant change. In part two I presented a proposal for moving from a scattershot approach to staff training to a more structured emersion in order to create a greater number of Pathfinders.

As Theodore Creighton asserts, "For any movement of change to . . . positively impact teaching and learning, a large number of faculty and staff must be involved in the movement." My school has reached this crossroads. In 2009-10 all students in the school will have immediate access to extremely powerful information gathering and networking tools throughout the school day. We have the opportunity to be in the vanguard of educational change. But a recalcitrant staff has the ability to undermine the best attempts at curricular change, marketing campaigns, and even retention of younger more technology savvy staff. I think all but the least resistant could be enlisted in a team effort to provide better resources for the entire school. After a modicum of training we could participate electronically in building these valuable projects without creating special meeting times and schedules. Staff would engage in the same kinds of collaboration experiences we wish to provide our students. And really, if the school is committed to the program, no one should be exempt through special pleading of being "too busy." I suggest that after we have reaseched tipping point of pathfinders (see part two) a set of interdepartmental projects be initiated. The possibilities are limitless:

* Creation of a virtual exhibition space for student performance / exhibitions.

* Create a virtual media center of video and podcast resource material collected from "experts" in the school and neighborhood community.

* Collect virtual museums of hyperlinks/videos/photos on subjects which cross department themes.

* Compile social bookmarks and Dyknow best practices for types of class (e.g., AP) or teaching styles.

* Build a directory of school blogs and blogging resources.

* Create 21st Century research guides and resources.

* Design independent study modules for students with unique interests or needs

* I read with interest "Well Connected Parents" in the 1/30/09. Washington Post. A 21st Century school should be interested in getting ahead of the curve with a social media design which includes parents.

As I reflected in Tinker Toy Playland, educators must deconstruct old concepts of curricular subjects and units. The interdepartmental projects I suggest could advance meaningful dialogue about research, learning styles, and digital literacy as they apply in a world where Everything is Miscellaneous. Craig McLeod takes his IT blog title, from the following quote: "Our intelligence tends to produce technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms" (War: The Lethal Custom). With a relatively small investment in human resources a school could guide its stakeholders toward some to some extraordinary experiences.

----------------------------------

"Bruno e Sandra com seus MacBooks Pro" Creative Commons Flickr Photo by Marco Gomes
Thank you, Theodore Creighton for reviewing the full document from which this post is adapted.

My Friend, Flickr

As noted in At Long Last..., my brother's interest in geneaology sent me a-googling. Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon a gorgeous 1914 photo of my Grandfather Walker's Ann Arbor taxi company with his dad posing in the driveway.

This discovery formed a notion of collecting enough old and new photos of Ann Arbor to make my dad (an Ann Arbor native) a calendar for his January birthday. But when I moved to Flickr searches, the whole nature of the project changed. I accessed the collections of thousands of photographers and uploaders. With so many options, I ended up compiling and publishing an iPhoto hard cover book that, modesty aside, is really pretty cool.

The most unexpected pleasure of this project was the social interaction I had with the photographers. Over thirty conveyed well-wishing permissions. Some like Jeff Lamb, and Bonnie Reardon, and Gary Priest took the time over the holidays to look for high resolution jpegs and send them by email so that I could print the best photos available.

Flickr has terrific potential for the classroom. Many of the photos are in the Creative Commons, so students and teachers can freely use them, sometimes even for "mash-ups". The Library of Congress has just added a fabulous Photostream that I have only just begun to explore. I use Flickr to decorate my blog and Twitter pages. For school, Flickr photos now supplement a Third Man Slide Show and appear in a new wiki I have started.

I would love to hear your idea for tapping into this vast treasure trove.













The Grad" Phil Dokas

Serendipity

If you are over thirty, you may be able to relate to this. My usual approach to mastering something has been utterly linear. Whether it meant reading an owner's manual from cover to cover (yes, really) or prepping a new text by going though chapter by chapter, my idea of learning or gaining mastery meant not skipping any steps. And this approach has served me well in very instances. But recently, I have been letting go of some of these habits. For instance, I started playing around with Twitter. As the site explains, "Twitter means you can step in and out of the flow of information as it suits you and it never queues up." It also means you can't master it or maintain a linear correspondence.

OK, so I have been dabbling with Twitter. Well, last Friday I got the idea of setting up a colorful Twitter page design. Since I am a complete doofus with graphics, I looked for help online and found a template for Keynote, an application I owned but with which I had no experience. So I learned just enough about Keynote to discover that I could import a jpeg background for the page. I remembered recently reading that millions of digital photos were available on Flickr. This is probably not news to you, but it was quite a revelation to me. I opened an account, chose a couple of candidates for my Twitter design, digressed and selected some Third Man picts for my Film Class, chose the "Blue Sky 2" picture for Blogger, and contacted all the photographers concerned. By Sunday all had replied with permissions and I was able to show my finished Twitter page to the chap who had supplied me with the "Apple White Bricks" picture that gave uniqueness to my page. I learned a lot, but not by any sort of predetermined step-by-step.