A typical response to presentations I have given to IB leadership on social media and education technology is, “That’s all very well, but my school district or education authority bans this technology.”
Well, for all those who are faced with this problem, this video by Michael Wesch is for you. It’s an academic’s response to the transformative power of YouTube and why we need to understand it better. It was presented in June this year, at the US Library of Congress.
The video is nearly an hour long, so it’s best viewed with colleagues and coffee (and possibly at home?).
Michael has published a timeline, which I have copied for convenience below.
0:00 Introduction, YouTube’s Big Numbers
2:00 Numa Numa and the Celebration of Webcams
5:53 The Machine is Us/ing Us and the New Mediascape
12:16 Introducing our Research Team
12:56 Who is on YouTube?
13:25 What’s on Youtube? Charlie Bit My Finger, Soulja Boy, etc.
17:04 5% of vids are personal vlogs addressed to the YouTube community, Why?
17:30 YouTube in context. The loss of community and “networked individualism” (Wellman)
18:41 Cultural Inversion: individualism and community
19:15 Understanding new forms of community through Participant Observation
21:18 YouTube as a medium for community
23:00 Our first vlogs
25:00 The webcam: Everybody is watching where nobody is (“context collapse”)
26:05 Re-cognition and new forms of self-awareness (McLuhan)
27:58 The Anonymity of Watching YouTube: Haters and Lovers
29:53 Aesthetic Arrest
30:25 Connection without Constraint
32:35 Free Hugs: A hero for our mediated culture
34:02 YouTube Drama: Striving for popularity
34:55 An early star: emokid21ohio
36:55 YouTube’s Anthenticity Crisis: the story of LonelyGirl15
39:50 Reflections on Authenticity
41:54 Gaming the system / Exposing the System
43:37 Seriously Playful Participatory Media Culture
47:32 Networked Production: The Collab. MadV’s “The Message” and the message of YouTube
49:29 Poem: The Little Glass Dot, The Eyes of the World
51:15 Conclusion by bnessel1973
52:50 Dedication and Credits (Our Numa Numa dance)
Andrew Keen wrote an interesting short piece in the Independent’s media supplement recently on a new American website called OpposingViews.com - a digital debating chamber for proven experts in politics, economics, culture, science and faith.
Keen argues that “it offers convincing proof that Web 2.0’s cult of amateur content is rapidly going out of fashion and that the Internet’s new “new thing” is expertise”.
I’m not so sure. For me it simply highlights, once more, the imperative to critically evaluate sources and content, developing one’s own judgement in the process. This would certainly be the approach I would take when looking at OpposingViews.
A great TOK lesson in the making too, I think, when you consider it is the likes of Amnesty International who say “Yes” to the question: “Should the US abolish the death penalty?” and Joshua Marquis, a District Attorney in the US and media commentator, who says “No”.
Since 2007, Techcrunch have hosted a conference for online start-ups in a bid to attract further investment. Called Techcrunch Top 50 in 2008, there are some interesting ideas in development.
To help you navigate your way through, I thought I’d pare the list down a little, in so far as the ones listed below have some resonance for teaching and learning. Hopefully you’ll find it useful.
Youth and Culture:
Blah Girls - Backed by Ashton Kutcher, Blah Girls is a gossip site that features a group of animated teenage girls who provide opinions on what’s going on in the world of entertainment
Tweegee A hub for tweens, Tweegee offers the youth market a suite of online tools for social interaction and organization
Shryk Web-based financial software for children aimed at promoting financial literacy and good saving habits
Hangout Industries Blends social networking with virtual worlds by creating a 3D, online environment where 16-24 year olds can chat and share media.
Memes & News:
DotSpots Tracks the memes spreading across the web, aggregates the content associated with them, and gives everyone Wikipedia-like control over that content
Angstro Lets you set up a feed of news about your friends, instead of news by your friends
LiveHit Tracks the music, videos, and entertainment sites people are clicking on right now
Quant the News Creator of StockMood.com, a service that tracks the sentiments of online news stories about stocks and then measures their potential impact on the direction of those stocks’ prices.
Advertising & Commerce Monetisation:
Burt Collects user data to tailor individual advertising campaigns and target users more effectively
Adgregate Markets Brings online stores to consumers through a display ad that is a fully transactional widget
Adrocket Contextual text-based advertising for email; assigns keywords to each address depending on known demographic and contextual data.
Collaboration:
Tingz Offers a unified platform for delivering internet content across multiple devices including mobile phones and PCs
MIXTT A group based social network/dating site that encourages real world interaction that’s more comfortable than the 1-on-1 format of most similar sites
Imindi Based on neuroscientific principles, Imindi’s Thought Engine tries to exceed human thought and help its users find new ideas, concepts, and questions on the Web
Popego Surfaces the most meaningful information from within your social graph based on your interests and other factors.
Finance & Statistics:
PersonalRIA Allows users to shadow a professional investment advisor’s portfolio, automatically executing trades (which most brokerage sites cannot do)
Emerginvest Offers commentary and analysis on Emerging Markets and tools that provide you with information on how to diversify globally
ExchangeP Dubbed a ‘fantasy stock market’, ExchangeP’s service allows users to sign up for free and start investing in private companies
Me-trics Lets you see how mood, weight, and goals correlate with other metrics, including web services like Facebook or RescueTime
iCharts YouTube for embeddable, interactive charts (link not working at time of post).
Mobile:
Mytopia A gaming platform that lets players compete across mobile devices and social networks
Tonchidot Makes the Sekai Camera, a camera system that aims to merge the virtual and real worlds by using a digital device as a viewfinder
FitBit Developing a small wireless sensor called the Fitbit Tracker, which automatically records data about a person’s activities, calories burned, sleep quality, steps, and distance throughout the day.
Language & Communication Tools:
Alfabetic Translates any blog or Website into another language and places ads alongside it in the new tongue
Postbox Based on Mozilla technology, Postbox saves users’ time when looking for particular information within their email
Swype A new method of text input on touch screens; does away with traditional “hunt and peck” in favour of a more fluid motion
DropBox Provides an easy way to backup your files, share them with co-workers and friends, and synchronise them between computer.
Rich Media:
VideoSurf A visual video search engine that allow users to search across millions of videos for a given actor and to view summaries of videos through a series of detected keyframes
GazoPa An image search engine developed by Hitachi that uses visual similarities between photos to suggest matches (rather than simply relying on keywords)
Fotonauts A photo sharing application that turns every album instantly into a Web page
Bojam Although there are a slew of online music services already on the Web, Bojam is trying to do something a bit different: it wants to connect musicians and allow them to collaborate over the Web.
Games:
Grockit A “Massively Multi-Player Online Learning Game”
Akoha A web-based social game played with trading cards aimed at spreading good deeds around the world
Atmosphir A platform for creating 3D interactive games by selecting blocks (such as a sand castle tower, fireball-breathing bird, or trap door) and snapping them onto a grid
PlaYce Provides a 3D virtual world inside the browser for games and social interaction that is based on the real world
Shattered Reality Interactive A new massively multiplayer online game (think World of Warcraft) that lets the crowd guide the direction of future expansions.
Research & Recommendations:
GoodGuide Provides information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies
GoPlanit A one-click travel planner that assembles a customized trip itinerary with the click of a button; also supports mobile microblogging
Goodrec A mobile and online recommendation service that provides brief, to-the-point recommendations from friends and trusted sources.
I have just ordered a copy of Imagine Teacher for the Nintendo DS. According to Play.com it allows you to:
Teach your students writing, maths, biology, geography and history
Develop their artistic skills - music, drawing and pottery
Help organise school events such as organising parties for your pupils’ birthdays, an end of year party, and many more
Encourage your students so they find their true vocation
All your students have their own personalities and favourite subjects
Position them carefully in the classroom to prevent them from chatting and distracting other pupils
Buy or collect new items
Upgrade your school
Multiplayer for up to 4 players with a single game cart.
If anyone has tried it already, please let us know. Play.com’s review says “[it] allows you to live the rewarding life of a young teacher by embodying a trainee teacher who takes over a class in a brand new and modern school. Increase your students’ knowledge via fun minigames and help them enjoy school! Pay attention to your students’ behaviours to manage their moods and create the best learning atmosphere. Live a great adventure and interact with lots of people, your students, parents and school officials.”
Crumbs!
I’ll let you know how I get on and, more importantly, whether I learn anything from it…
We’ve been having a look at some new developments in web-based technologies to improve and evolve the user experience of the browser.
One great example is PicLens by Cooliris. This transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for online photos and videos. It’s a small download, but once installed improves the user interface significantly and offers all sorts of possibilities when displaying content. We’re trialling it with Visual Arts folders for example. Highly recommended.
Another is Tag Galaxy. This is basically a cool way to display shared photos from Flickr. Just type in a keyword and wait for the results to display in a planet-like orb. Related tags are then displayed in a solar system arrangement. Great fun.
Just launched, as a proof of concept, is Aurora from Adaptive Path. The best way to describe this is that people, places and things are represented by objects in a three dimensional space. Closely related objects are clustered together and users can rotate through these as required. Try this video for more details (sorry about the link only - the embed code didn’t work in Wordpress)
Clearly, as more learning takes place via the web, anything that can be done to improve the experience and facilitate access to information will ensure that learners are, in turn, more inspired and engaged.
Tom Hemingway, over in Ankara (though not for much longer, sadly) has begun a wiki to help his successor quickly get to grips with coordinating the IB’s diploma programme in TED Ankara College.
He has very kindly opened this up to the IB community in general, so please take a look.
In his own words:
“This site is designed as a virtual handbook for IBDP coordinators at TED Ankara College, but coordinators
from other schools are welcome to take and use what they like. The site contents are listed on the left, and
are organized according to high school grade. If you’re new to this site, I suggest that you start with the Calendar page. You can follow the links in the calendar to relevant pages that explain the tasks.
This is very much a work in progress, but this project could lead to something of more general benefit to IB
programs in other schools. If you have suggestions for improvement, please click on the Discussion tab on
any page, or click on my icon at the bottom of this screen to send me a message.”
Thanks Tom, and good luck with your move back to the US.
Please find below a YouTube video B Nesbitt created to “inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.”
Paul Fairbrother and I used it at the most recent IBNA conference in San Francisco. It went down very well with school leadership who told us they will show it to their teaching faculty as soon as the new school year begins.
During a Will Richardson session at NECC 08, this blog, by 11 year-old Laura Stockman, was highlighted:
Laura started the blog in December 2007, after wanting to do something in honour of her grandfather who tragically died of brain cancer in 2005. He had been an inspiration to her over many years and so she decided, beginning Dec 1, to do 25 things that would make a difference each day leading up to Christmas. She decided to blog about what she had done in the hope that it would inspire others to do something similar.
It’s a wonderful example of how doing lots of small things locally can have a significant impact far beyond what was originally intended. Just take a look at the comments people are leaving and where they’re checking in from to see how widespread her readership now is.
Pedagogically, it’s also a great example of how a primary school student can reflect on her own learning on an on-going basis.
The blog reminds me of the key purpose of the IB community theme project, which encourages all members of the IB community to engage with some serious global issues, such as infectious diseases, the digital divide, peace & conflict etc, and actually do something about them - no matter how small that action might be. Two great examples are highlighted here:
“Make poverty history” a post by Sofia Thorell from a school in Norway describing all sorts of ways you can make a difference.
“Community and curriculum” a post by Randy McCord detailing how his economics students not only learned about development economics but actually experienced a much deeper understanding by putting it into action.
We now have over 2000 schools and 600,000 students. That’s a lot of small things adding up to a big difference. And as you’ll see from Laura’s blog and the examples outlined above, this difference can been sustained beyond the original “25 days”.
I was at NECC 08 recently and bumped into some interesting people. One of whom was Mark Wagner who presented on his PhD research into the use of massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs) in education.
According to the literature review for his thesis, MMORPGs offer significant possibilities for rich social interactions and learning. They include:
Engagement and motivation
Context-embedded learning
Inquiry-driven learning
Socially negotiated learning
Reflection and metacognition
Social change
Mark set about testing these via the Delphi method and, from his discussions with a number of experts in the field of education, learning and gaming, he concluded that these benefits were possible but that a good body of evidence needed to be further developed.
He does, though, have a number of recommendations for educators and these are as follows:
Use existing commercial MMORPGs with students, particularly in relation to developing 21st Century Learning Skills.
Support MMORPG play with dedicated, structured and frequent debriefing.
Use MMORPGs to motivate and engage students.
Use MMORPGs as a context for student learning, including social learning.
But beware infrastructure needs and logistical challenges.
We went through a few examples that he recommends, which I have diigo-ed. You can find them here. Please take a look when you can.
