Thinking Allowed.

This is the beginning of a new blog to continue where my current will leave off. Currently, I keep the blog Harter Learning, on blogspot.com which is my first attempt at professional thought and discourse on technology, education, and learning. It’s going fine, but as I learn more about blogging and web 2.0 along with my thoughts on education, I have come to the decision that my blog belongs in edublogs for two reasons: 1) its educational focus and 2) I’ve just been tremendously impressed with WordPress. (already, the available tools in the toolbar are awesome!)

I have a lot to learn about what Wordpress can do and I will play in this environment while I continue to offer my thoughts on learning and 21st century skills.

So, for a short time, I will be posting on both blogs, to ease the transition, but mostly I will be using Harter Learning to send people this way. If you are reading this, then you are in the right place. All of the posts from Harter Learning have been included on this blog to ease the transition and for archive purposes. My apologies if you’ve followed a trackback link only to find you’ve already read that post.

Thanks for getting here…hope you come back and help me sort through the wealth of thought that is out there as well as in my head about learning.

As for the title change…I was never happy with the title having my name in it, but truly, I was at a loss for a decent title and I just wanted to start blogging and discussing learning, hence the simple name. The new name describes what I’m really doing: thinking aloud. And I just liked the simple play on words. We tell our students that not only is thinking allowed, it’s encouraged. Here too.

(originally posted on harterlearning on Mar 12, 2007)

The Economist just ran an article on Wikipedia, which while behind the times for us in ed. tech. blogging, is a good indicator on how the rest of the web-not-quite-2.0 world perceives it or will come to perceive it. After all, the Economist is the intellectual’s magazine.

Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of collective common sense.

The article shares how anonymity can be a problem with Wikipedia, but then argues that collectively it is in fact VERY well maintained and that even many of the pretend-experts are conscientious, careful, and accurate.

Constant scrutiny and editing means even the worst articles are gradually getting better, while the best ones are kept nicely polished and up to date. Someone, eventually, will spot even the tiniest error, or tighten a patch of sloppy prose. Mr Jordan, for all his bragging, seems to have been a scrupulous and effective editor.

It’s a great article to share with your teachers. As much as I have tried, I come across teachers who are resistant to the idea that Wikipedia can be trusted or that Wikipedia can be used as a source by students. They think that they are teaching good research skills. I think they are missing an opportunity for students to think critically, to defend arguments, and to confirm information from other sources.

Has anyone else come across the attempting-to-be-web-savvy teacher who in efforts to show they are “with it” with new technologies, make the pre-emptive ban on using Wikipedia as a source with students?

Are we not missing out on conversations with students on “collective common sense”? Or global participatory culture? Educators complain about misuse and abuse of social networking sites like MySpace, but fail to acknowledge the powerful force for shared knowledge that Wikipedia (and other sites have become). Web 2.0 is being used for good right in front of even the most tech-resistant noses, but they miss it hiding behind “anyone could write it, so it’s not allowed.”

The quality of writing is often a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A regular user soon gets a feel for what to trust.

I thought that was a nice quote to describe exactly what we are missing out on, by not allowing kids to use Wikipedia. Don’t we want kids developing that skill of getting “a feel for what to trust”?

I’m going to be sharing this article with my staff. Let’s see if it can get our own conversation started.

[on a side note...Conservapedia?!? Really?!]

(originally posted on harterlearning on Mar 7, 2007)
The Washington Post has had some gems lately…glad I have them on my Netvibes.

A recent article delves into a continuing, but also growing problem in online social networking sites where rumors and disinformation and personal attacks are impacting people’s lives negatively (to understate it). It’s a very scary article on what happens when the Web 2.0 tool gets used badly.

The article starts with the story of a Phi Beta Kappa, Yale Law graduate who did not get many call backs and received no job offers. Though admittedly difficult to prove, she claims that this was a result of deragatory postings about her in a well-read public forum on AutoAdmit.

The woman and two others interviewed by The Washington Post learned from friends that they were the subject of derogatory chats on a widely read message board on AutoAdmit, run by a third-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania and a 23-year-old insurance agent. The women spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution online.

The forum in question contains useful information about law schools and law firms, but also contains hundreds of posts filled with racism and bigotry. But the site’s founder says it’s free speech.

The students’ tales reflect the pitfalls of popular social-networking sites and highlight how social and technological changes lead to new clashes between free speech and privacy. The chats are also a window into the character of a segment of students at leading law schools. Penn officials said they have known about the site and the complaints for two years but have no legal grounds to act against it. The site is not operated with school resources.

This is out there. It’s real. How much more hiding from it can educators do? Ignorance on this type of thing is simply no longer acceptable for teachers. This is the world that a participatory web 2.0 has created. One in which anyone can say anything about anyone else. We can’t just teach kids to protect themselves, instead teachers have to assume the responsibility of teaching students to be responsible users as well.

The technology is new(ish), but it isn’t going away. As a teachnology facilitator, it’s my job to make sure that teachers get this. I need to show them how important it is for our students to learn how to use the tool properly AND responsibly. It is worth noting here that the “misuers” in this article are law students slandering their peers.

Dare I quote it? “With great power comes great responsibility.” (Thanks, Spidey.)

The educational power of Web 2.0 is out there for us to embrace: collaboration, critical thinking, communication. But not all teachers have jumped on board. Maybe we are still too content focused in our curriculum. Maybe “the kids are going to learn the technology anyway”, since they spend so much time on it outside of school (side note: why wouldn’t this be a reason to make school more like that?). But even if that’s the case, this article reminds us how important it is to have conversations with students about the implications of their actions.

So whose job is this? Only mine as the tech. guy? Parents? What about all educators? What about the village? But here in lies the rub: most of those people don’t even know what’s out there. They don’t know that this technology exists, that kids are using it, that kids are learning in it, and that kids are misusing it too.

Like so many things, the answer lies not in protection, but in education. But that adds to our problems as more and more schools are knee-jerking their way to blocking access and sealing off their schools from the participatory culture that’s out there. So we emphasize the good, make little of the bad (see Jeff’s ThinkingStick post on this), and get people on board.

So when’s a good time to bring in the bad? To have those real conversations with kids? How about ALL THE TIME. Damn…that puts me back at square one…I have to get our teachers to see this as their job. I want to be obsolete as Jeff suggests (well, the job anyway…not me personally), but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

That’s the key to this Web 2.0 participatory environment…it’s put power into everyone’s hands. And we just haven’t prepared everyone for that kind of responsibility.

It’s no wonder that there is misuse, just as it is no wonder that some are learning on their own how to behave well and how to protect themselves (great post on this from Justin at Medagogy and teacher directed kids learning based at ThinkingStick).

But we can’t rely on self-learning anymore, because it is about more than skills that we can scope and sequence. It’s about responsible use as well. It’s the job of all educators to make sure that students get that. And teachers will get there, because we can’t afford not too…I just hope it’s fast enough for our students’ sake.

(originally posted on harterlearning on Feb 27, 2007)

Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs? - washingtonpost.com:

Call it multitasking homework, Generation ‘Net style.

The students who do it say multitasking makes them feel more productive and less stressed. Researchers aren’t sure what the long-term impact will be because no studies have probed its effect on teenage development. But some fear that the penchant for flitting from task to task could have serious consequences on young people’s ability to focus and develop analytical skills.

We all know the scene: teen managing their MySpace, instant messaging, listening to music, sharing homework, and word processing all at the same time. This article from The Washington Post takes an interesting look at teenager multi-tasking.

The article misleads though when they quote Jordan Grafman, chief of neuroscience at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as saying,

Introducing multitasking in younger kids in my opinion can be detrimental,” he said. “One of the biggest problems about multitasking is that it’s almost impossible to gain a depth of knowledge of any of the tasks you do while you’re multitasking. And if it becomes normal to do, you’ll likely be satisfied with very surface-level investigation and knowledge.

This quote has NOTHING to do with neurological disorder or stroke, yet by quoting him, the writer offers the impression that this could be a possibility. Is this even ethical? Lots of adults are saying the same thing…how can they be focusing? How can they be understanding? What purpose is their in getting this quote from the head of the Stroke Institute unless it is to imply that they think it’s bad for teens’ health (which they do not as far as I can tell)?

The article goes on to describe a study which indicated that scoring is similar on a card recall activity by those multi-tasking and those not. Interestingly again, it then goes on to offer that the multi-taskers seem to recall less detail.

imaging showed that different parts of the brain were active depending on whether the subjects did single or multiple tasks. When subjects were focused on sorting, the hippocampus — the part of the brain responsible for storing and recalling information — was engaged. But when they were multitasking, that part of the brain was quiet and the part of the brain used to master repetitive skills — the striatum — was active.

Was recall part of the activity? Multitasking may shut off certain parts of the brain that are unnecesary, but could it be that good multi-tasking would have allowed for recall, if that were asked of the multi-tasker? Maybe the multi-tasking brain is effective because it can shut off what it doesn’t need. I don’t know the answer to this, but as I read this article I thought of how often we, digital immigrant, try to force our own hang-ups on digital native multi-taskers.

If students aren’t getting to the depth of knowledge like they are “supposed” to, then perhaps that is because we aren’t “asking” them to. If they can multi-task and get good grades, as the article suggests, then these students are doing what is being asked of them and doing it well.

Yet we then question the depth of their knowledge?

Is not the depth of their knowledge, dependent on what we ask them to know? And if our questions ask for depth, wouldn’t that be an effective gauge for how well they can achieve that depth, while still multi-tasking? Maybe with thought-requiring questions, a student might drop some of those “tasks” and focus on the one…or maybe we’d find that their brains are in fact wired differently than ours and that they can think with depth while chatting with their friends.

Either way, I find it hard to blame the lack of depth in teens’ knowledge on their own multi-tasking. No, that blame falls directly on us…their teachers. Let’s give them something worth focusing on and then we can worry about how they get there.

(originally posted on harterlearning on Feb 26, 2007)

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Teaching wikis to future educators: My virtual presentation at the College of William and Mary:

Tomorrow I am spending time with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s class EDUC 330 Tech Enhanced Learning at the College of William and Mary.

It is great to see that my alma mater is doing some forward thinking here. Made me feel proud that they have a class that focuses on this and that isn’t focused on “tech” that is already outdated. The speaker list is terrific with some of the great bloggers I find on my own Netvibes account. Great news. Well done W&M! Go Tribe!

There are some other great gems on this particular post from Vicki. A great couple of videos on wikis and the 21st century teacher. It’s worth checking out if you came here first…(though CoolCat’s readership is significantly higher than mine, so I am guessing that it’ll happen the other way around if at all).

(originally posted on harterlearning on Feb 19,2007)

Too much traveling and catching up with my first job lately. Been catching up on my feeds, but not enough time to ponder to sort through my thoughts.

Two great posts though recently that I commented on that I’d like to share though.

1) Dangerously Irrelevant just hit its 6 month birthday. This is incredible to me, since I find Scott’s blog has a large reader list. It just goes to show what you can accomplish with meaningful posts and thought-provoking ideas. The post is a particularly good one in that Scott talks about what he reads and how he makes those choices - very useful for a blogger trying to increase his readership to get more conversations going.

In particular, Scott brings a focus on leadership in education which I find refreshing and important. I worry at times, that we (the ed tech bloggers) get caught up in our 2.0’s (web, school, student) and we become victims of our own group think. Scott’s D.I. blog keeps an eye on the other sides of the argument. Recently he has also shared other leadership blogs worth keeping an eye on. Only 6 months…incredible.

2) Another frequent read for me is Chris Lehmann’s Practical Theory. He recently posted a poignant reminder of how the students that we teach affect us as much as we affect them. Reminded me of some of my own fortune in becoming peer/colleagues with many of the teachers who were inspiring to me as a student. Anyway…as always, another great post from Chris.

Just had dinner with an old friend from those days actually. Hadn’t seen her in at least 12 years…and yet we fell back into it. Good people are good people. Common ground is common ground. Doesn’t matter how long you don’t see them for…those two things keep relationships going. (okay, that’s a random aside…but it was nice catching up).

(originally posted on harterlearning on Feb 12, 2007)

Scott McLeod over at Dangerously I rrelevant brought attention to this April 2006 guest posting by Mike Wesch (who just made the incredible Web 2.0 you tube video…see earlier post in this blog). In his guest post on Savage Minds, Mike describes his World Simulation activity. He calls this activity an example of anti-teaching.

“Teaching,” he says, “is about providing good information. Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions.”

Reading on in this post, it sounds like a terrific example of students learning and understanding cultures and how they differ and how they thrive (or not) in a globalized world. The activity in fact, seems like a great one and comments by actual students seem to confirm this.

I am struck, however, by his use of terms. Purposely, he refers to this successful activity as an example of anti-teaching. He continues to say that he finds himself anti-teaching more and more in his efforts to have students really learn. Has our opinion of teaching truly come to this? Have we lost all faith in the idea that teachers actually do teach for understanding and that the very questioning that Mike values is in fact the very same questioning that many teachers value? And they call that teaching.

Now I recognize that perhaps it is Mike’s intent to inspire us (like Apple) to Think Differently. His very use of this technology may anger some or at least make teachers defensive. But then, reading the comments, I found no such anger. No such indignation. No one saying, “Wait a minute, I do that stuff all the time and I’m a teacher.” Perhaps it’s Mike’s disclaimer that appeases people by saying classrooms need to have both teaching and anti-teaching. Or perhaps the World Simulation was just such a good activity that teachers were able to look past any slights and recognize a chance at a good lesson plan when they saw one.

Or maybe I am just too sensitive.

Recently there have been discussions in other blogs about teacher movies and whether they inspire people to become teachers, or paint the picture of teaching to be too intense and too life changing to be done by any mere mortal, I guess I am sensitive to how we as educators refer to ourselves and our colleagues. Maybe we don’t all do it perfectly or even well. But when we do, shouldn’t we be calling that “teaching”. Doesn’t it hurt our own cause to refer to best cases of students truly understanding as the exact opposite of teaching?

I love education. And I really love to see understanding happen around me. If, through something a teacher did/planned/encouraged, students start asking deep questions and demonstrate understanding, then I say we call that TEACHING. Because that’s why I think a lot of us got into this gig in the first place.

(originally posted on harterlearning Feb 9, 2007)

I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand on a grade 8 four-night trip this week. Just got back and am a little bleary eyed. Chaperoning is tiring work. Also didn’t touch a computer in that time which was both refreshing and worrisome.

Anyway, as I biked and hiked around the rural areas, I was struck, as I always am, with the understanding that the Internet and Web 2.0 and all of these other technologies that we talk about so much aren’t in everyone’s world. It’s our world that they influence, but there are a whole lot of people for whom day to day existence and agriculture sustenance are realities. Blogs, wikis and podcasts are not. They are not less happy for it. In fact, some of the happiest people I’ve met in my life have been in Nepal. People for whom we would describe have nothing, but they would say that have everything they need. Would they like to be wealthier? I am sure that they would, but they don’t need it to be happier.

I always liked going to Nepal.

Anyway, thinking about the massive population that does NOT have access, inevitably takes me to wondering about our focus on changing education for a 21st century learner. What about the world’s learners who are still mid-20th century at best? We are just widening this gap. But then I am reminded that our world is shaped, not by those farmers and those “without”, but rather by those “with”. And so, I am encouraged by what we do and our efforts to prepare worldly-wise, critical thinkers who won’t just learn the technology and the thinking that we teach them…they will bend it to their will.

And if that widens the gap, then perhaps these same children will be able to figure out a way to preserve (not destroy) and celebrate that world in which “those without” live - something we have not been able to do.

Upon returning from the trip, I got back to my netvibes to find this article among the many I had to catch up on. It reminded me of my “hiking thoughts” and so I’ve included it here. It reminds me how lucky, by simple fluke of birth, I have been to live without such massive oppression.

Despite a Ban, Chinese Youth Navigate to Internet Cafes - washingtonpost.com:

For those unable to afford their own computers — the vast majority here — going online in a clandestine dive has become the only option; the local Communist Party leader banned Internet cafes nine months ago as a bad influence on minors.

‘If they dare to reopen, we might launch another campaign to shut them all down again,’ proclaimed Zhang Guobiao, party secretary for the surrounding Fangshan County.

Yikes.