You Got To Fight For Your Right To ... Blog

GAS (Geeks Are Sexy) has a story of Chinese bloggers who are writing their blogs backwards so as not to get caught by censors and face jail time.

We've probably heard of the proposed death penalty for disagreeable bloggers in Iran. I read about it at Read/Write Web.

So, in the context of perhaps "changing the conversation" in a different direction, what could educational bloggers do to help our counterparts in countries who are punished for what we tend to take for granted?



Can bloggers (especially educational bloggers) make a world-wide difference in basic human rights?

Do you recall when Will began working on us with Darfur.

I thought it was great. It is one or three primary reasons I wanted to get back to the classroom. Not sure I ever said thank you to Will or not...so here is a public thank you for taking me beyond the tool to begin tasting the world's reality again.

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Boneheaded Decision OR Just Another Brick in the Wall

Look at the Top 10 Words Right Now in Twitter (2008-06-19 21:08:22):

ice, mars, best, water, iste, ready, work, google, usa, today. See http://tinyurl.com/2jzqq2

Mars rover has found ice created from water.  Pretty cool (pun intended).

Best, work, today, ready are innocuous.

Google and USA - makes sense that these words would be used frequently everyday to me, based on the people who use Twitter.

But ISTE.  C'mon.  It's an education-related term.  Who truly cares what ISTE is outside of the education technology world.  No one.

And that's the point.
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The reason for the talk is that ISTE is denying attenders the opportunity to record (audio/video) of any presentation without the presenters approval.  I'm good with that; after all the material they share may be their livelihood, or even better, they may have already made plans to have the session recorded.  [I believe I read that Will was planning to Ustream his session].

But ISTE thinks it is now Major League Baseball and decides to do the "...no recording or rebroadcast of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited..." announcement.  Since the advent of BetaMax, how's that working out for ya MLB?

I first read about this issue from Wes.

Last year, when NECC was in Atlanta, the Blogger Cafe was all the rage.  I followed the conference everyday from the education writers I enjoy reading.  I got a sense of the atmosphere.  I was sorry I wasn't there (only 90 minutes from my house). 

I decided during last year's conference that I wanted to go to San Antonio, but since that decision my niece decided she would was getting married in early July (in Charlotte, NC), and I would rather be at her wedding.  I would like to invoke the digital divide conversation, in that I can't afford to do both in the same week, but I'll refrain.

Besides, methought, I could catch the rerun.  I could actually have the opportunity to LEARN from the world's best and brightest because the technology that will be discussed at NECC is being used by the best and brightest - so I, along with thousands of others, could "attend" and support the work of colleagues. 

Guess not.

Other have written, and will continue to write, about this issue.  You can follow the conversation at Miguel's Diigo page. 

The only way I could possibly be assuaged, is if ISTE recorded all the sessions themselves, then provided each session, free of charge, as a service to educators (service is what a non-profit is all about, right?).  The long tail approach could be to gain membership, even though Gary Stager might oppose that view (read his comments from June 19).

Speaking of Gary, he sent me a tweet with two great comments on this issue.

@rrmurry
How about going to a conference to listen, talk and learn? Why should we all become broadcasters or stenographers? What do we lose?

@rrmurry
I'm equally concerned about liveblogging. I've been savaged for misquotes and comments out-of-context. You can't unring that bell

My response is Gary should WANT TO BE RECORDED is to avoid the misquotes, and the recording is for those of us who are not able to attend, who can rely on nothing more than the misquotes.  We all shouldn't become broadcasters, but perhaps some of the better ones could.

So, ISTE has ticked off a fair amount of Ed Tech people. Not enough to shut down Twitter like an Apple conference, but enough.  It would seem that ISTE might want to reconsider their position.  They'll never rescind this one, that would mean admitting wrong, and God forbid that would occur from anyone not running for President these days.  But perhaps they'll have an answer before 2009, or perhaps a boycott might do the trick in D.C.

Anybody else who presents at NECC have these kind of guts...from Miguel Guhlin.

In fact, I'm so disappointed that I regret that I provided ANY
assistance in helping ISTE advertise the NECC Conference, a part that
involved having bloggers write about NECC 2008 event!

I will NOT present at NECC 2009 or any other ISTE affiliated event
UNLESS this wrong-headed policy is changed. I urge you to do the same.

Then again, maybe all this prohibition is just an advertising campaign to get some buzz for the conference.  Maybe it is ISTE's attempt to prove that "any publicity is good publicity."  Kind of like Coke Classic in '80s.  Wait, that didn't work out that well.

You know what our students do when they are told they can't do something.  I have the image of Seinfeld sneaking into the theater with a Handicam to pirate the presentation, so the movie can be sold on the EdTech underground.  Perhaps another reason why more students should be invited to NECC.  If they did, I could catch that killer panel discussion on YouTube, with the "We Don't Need No Education" song from Pink Floyd as the background music.

In the World of Education, this is just another Brick In The Wall.

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Clay Shirky speech of "Cognitive Surplus"Clay Shirky, Will Richardson,

Thanks to Will and Arthus.  Take time to read Will's thoughts.

My quick thought from a powerful 20 seconds (beginning at 15:54). 

We are looking for the mouse.  Every place where a user, reader, listener, or a viewer has been locked out...who has been served up a passive, fixed, or canned experience - could we carve out a piece of cognitive surplus to make a better thing happen?  I'm betting the answer is yes.

Does anybody describe the educational experience for k-12 students any better than that?

I also appreciate the "doing something is better than doing nothing" because we can learn from the surplus of activity even if it fails.  How can teachers, and more importantly students, begin to get comfortable with this idea of learning?

By the way...don't you think he looks a little like Tom Hanks?

Sticklers

Not available through Feed Readers...sorry.




Based on Will Richardson's post - Making Kids "Googlable"

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Creating Self-Importance

I've been away, for longer than I like, from posting. I've been reading, but time to write has been limited.

I've been coaching our middle school track teams. Our boys went undefeated, with 4 school records broken, and our girls finished first in all their meets except 1 - against a great private school team in Chattanooga. Anyway, my evenings have been busy -- and fun. But I haven't had the time to blog.

I was also notified last week that I get to return to the classroom to teach 7th grade Social Studies next year. I'm looking forward to it. Middle East, Africa, Asia - History, Geography, Economics, and Culture. I've already started compiling my resources, finding websites for WebQuests and Treasure Hunts. Thanks to my Twitter/blog friends for the congratulatory notes. It really means a lot to me.

But I've been reading my feeds. Blogging, to me, is active reading. I write about what I read. Occasionally I'll have a post that derives from personal experiences, but mostly I reflect, and use the information as raw data (D. Warlick).

So here's my favorite reflection of the past week or so.

Jon Becker (much like Tim Holt last summer) posted to his blog that he feels left out of the inner circle. He then gives his evaluation of the inner circle members - Will, David, Wes, Vicki, Dean, Stephen, and Chris.

[Hey Tim, If you're reading this - there doesn't seem to be a big change from last summer in the buffet :-) -
Yes, there are a few Hispanics and there are a
few women, but for the most part, the dinner is being hosted by white
guys. And it is being hosted by middle age, middle class white guys.
Still feel like coming to dinner?]

So, what's my point? Simply this, and most already know this - I did it too. If you want to get noticed, drop some serious blogger names. As Scott says - quoting Seth -

[They] don't care about you. [They] care about themselves.

Jon, you have gotten several people who have noticed you because of your thoughts. You are figuring out how to make yourself known in the information economy. Either praise the people who have gone before you, or criticize the ones who have gone before you. [They] will notice - and respond! I didn't know about you until I read Scott's post. Dr. McLeod gives very good advice, and does it consistently.

So Jon - Here's my advice. You now have an audience. Many of the people whose names you included in your post have responded, and in doing so, they have given you an audience (that's how I found you). Now for the hard part: What will you provide to keep us coming back? You have invited yourself to the buffet. You have knocked on the door to the inner circle. You have made your presence known. You have said, as all of us have, "I am somebody. I am important in the conversation."

What will your role in the conversation be?

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Why We Twitter

Will writes about his "concern" of Twitterialization.  Twitter is a "strange yet somehow important little tool," says Will.  Agreed.  I also understand Will's concern about the depth of conversation and thought.  Perhaps Twitter is not about the depth of conversation of the professional opportunities.  It is, ironically, much deeper than that.

Twitter
Tell the story
In a hundred forty
Characters (or less if you're good)
Useless?

I created a Twitter account last Spring.  Played for a day or two.  I didn't get it.  I read about how Twitter was the topic of the NECC edubloggers cafe.  I tried, I really did, to get into the power of Twitter.  Again, I didn't get it. 

There is a chicken/egg debate in the use of Twitter.  Do you have to have a network before Twitter exposes its power or is the power of Twitter that you can build your network?  Hmmm.  The ones who  discussed how great Twitter is had their network of followers through other means.  Twitter seemed to make it easier for them to keep in touch.  As it has evolved, it is a place to highlight new tools, backchannel conferences, share seed ideas, and other things.

In late November, I decided to hop back on the Twitter brigade, and tweeted so.  Within a day I received a direct message from Sylvia Martinez wondering if I was giving it another try.  I responded and said yes.  I jumped into the Twitter pages of a few educators, followed them, and a few followed back.  I dropped a few tweets, and people responded.  Cool.  In a way, better than a comment on a blog post...why?  It is more immediate.

So I have come to this temporary conclusion:  Please indulge the analogy, and at the end I'll clarify.  Babies cry to get attention.  The quicker the attention, the more appeased the child, but the more frequently the child cries.  Response to the cry makes the baby feel loved.  Twitter operates the same way.  We cry out into the wilderness, when someone @replies we feel accepted, loved if you will.  The more people respond, the more we cry.  CLARIFICATION - I am not saying those of us who tweet are babies.  I am saying Twitter gives us a feeling of belonging, of being accepted, of being loved.

A few weekends ago, during the Packer/Giants game, I sent out a tweet saying something like "No one wants to win this game."  Stephen Rahn and Sylvia Martinez responded.  As I sat in my living room alone, my sons were out with their girlfriends and my wife does not usually watch sports, I felt I was watching the game with friends.  I have never met Stephen or Sylvia, yet we had an immediate conversation after nearly every play near the end of the 4th quarter and overtime.  It was fun.  It was great.  Thanks for playing along.

I get Twitter now.  It connects us, plain and simple.  Whether it is what you are eating, what you're linking, what you're doing...it really doesn't matter.  It's like real f2f life; sometimes we discuss important issues, and other times we discuss the movies we saw over the weekend.  Web 1.0 did not allow this kind of connection.  Web 2.0 does.  Twitter does it instantly.  Get it?  When you tweet and someone tweets back, your existence is validated...you are loved.  Be sure to love someone back.

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Oh What A Web We Weave

Okay, I'm admitting this post will get very little editing. So many things have "hit me" within just a few hours, and I've been thinking about why school matters, it it does in the traditional sense, and in trying to separate myself from thinking for a while, here's what happens.

Young son (19) comes home last night and says, "Dad you gotta see the professor on the MIT site. He's a physics prof, but he's cool...and old...but funny in a good way...kinda like the Einstein picture with his tongue out." So we watch Dr. Lewin for a while, through iTunes.

A few minutes later I'm floating through Twitter and see someone link to an article on 71-year-old Professor Lewin - http://tinyurl.com/2syhzb

Coincidence?

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While I'm in Twitterdom, I follow Clay Burrel, and he is an angry young man -- in a great way. "He is so starting his own school." He has a conversation throughout my evening with Sylvia Martinez and others. They begin talking about Papert (another MIT guy I believe) who was a Piaget protege, and constructivism proponent.

I had just finished reading some information from Piaget three days ago, and Papert's work was mentioned as further reading material.

------

This morning, I decide it is time to check on Sir Ken Robinson's progress on "Epiphanies," a book he promised in his 2006 TED Talk. As I'm checking, I get a Twitter update that Sir Ken's website is now functioning. Weird.

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A few minutes later, I get to thinking about Will Richardson's all-time-great post (IMO) about how his kids don't need to go to college to get the education they need, nor do any of us. I'm really, really trying to accept this concept. Honestly, I can, but I don't know if employers can...yet. So I watch all of the MIT, DUKE, U of Wisconsin undergrad classes. It's like an audit, at best, in the minds of people who still have the view that the college from which you graduated really means anything.

I'm the guy who believes that most employers don't care where you graduated college, but rather that you did graduate. Graduation from most institutions proves to an employer that if you can put up with the garbage in college, you can probably handle in garbage from the business world. But can they, will they, make the leap to acceptance of an audited education?

Then, I decide I will try to blog something. I go into Blogger and I notice the Blog List of 10 you should see. Usually these are a waste of time, but I decide to see what topic are big at Blogger now. Why? Based on Clay Burrel's comment about how bad educators are at making networks outside our arena. So I click the first one...It has Buenos Aires in the title, so I expect a travel site, or something. As it loads, I notice it is Sexy Spanish Club in Buenos Aires. Yikes, I don't have time for this...THEN KAPOW...

I'm an American writer, researcher, teacher and mother of four college students. I'm currently living in beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina where I'm busy writing a book about creative education...

Her name is Mary Frost. She is writing a book titled: The World Is Your Campus: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands On Tuition, and Get An Outrageously Relevant Global Education.

She has another site dedicated to her writing, called The World Is Your Campus. Good stuff.

What is all this telling me? My wife says, "It's telling you to get away from your computer and go grocery shopping. Let's go already. Tell you're playmates you'll be back later." Reality.

Miguel & Will Both Know the Answer

Recent posts from Miguel and Will are not connected to one another, but the answer to their questions is the same. Here are quotes from their posts.

From Miguel who states he "doesn't get" all the Web 2.0, School 2.0, etc. and yet understands the importance of us changing:

What I do get is this: Those granite-rock, plodding, myopic institutions we call schools restrict our creativity. Any effort to reform, to modify, to adapt, these institutions to what needs to be, to what already is, fails. Actually, it's a foul lie. We can't get there from here. Somehow, we want to jump the gap holding on to all our curriculum guides, 3-ring binders, policies and procedures, quaint ways of interacting and meeting and making decisions. But all that must go. We just have to let it go. Let it go. Let it go!

Then...

Oh. Another question pops into my head. As an educator, I want to work somewhere where people have let go of fear. To get there, will I have to let go of my steady job? Let go of what passes for traditional career? Let go of...well, you get the idea. After all, the only way to fly with the eagles IS to let go of the branch and FLY.

And from Will who provides his insight to the University of Michigan's new graduate degree in Social Networking.

So, does anyone else find this a little ironic? I mean how in the world would this particular degree “certify” anyone as a social computing specialist any better than, um, spending a year or so just actually becoming a part of social learning network, learning from the various teachers and conversations within it, and building a rich, online portfolio that illustrates your ability to be an online community manager, social network analyst, community organizer or any of the other descriptions they list as possible outcomes? For, um, zero dollars?

The answer to Miguel's question, though admittedly cynical, is because of money. Miguel states that the "steady job" is something he likely would have to give up to pursue the "well, you get the idea." Not many of us can afford to do that. The risk of economic loss is too great. Chris Lehman is not starting schools everywhere :^) And I am not aware of other schools who are willing to let go of the 3-ring binders and jump the gap. I would submit that most schools are unaware there is a gap that needs jumping.

The answer to Will's question, though admittedly cynical, is because of money. Will is an inspiration to many of us. He has done (and continues to do) what many of us would like to be able to do. Although I would really like to see him in the classroom again someday. He is an example of a life-long learner, and he has advocated this for his own children. There is a ring of truth to what Will suggests, that spending a year immersed in social networks will likely provide a better education than the classroom. This has been my experience. However, I do not get a pay raise based on my skills or knowledge in the educational arena. I get a pay raise based on obtaining higher degrees. This is the way it works in education.

Perhaps it is not fair. Perhaps we should be paid based on our attained skills. Perhaps, well, you get the idea. We do not make the jump unless we have some way to ensure our lifestyle is maintained. We get the higher degree, even though we may not learn anything new, because we can increase our income to improve our lifestyle.

I know money is not the end-all, be-all of existence. I know the love of money is the root of all evil. I know money can't buy me love. But I also know the lack of money ain't much fun either.