Digital Eyes

I went to the CoSN Conference in Washington DC this week. In the course of two hours, I had the opportunity to see two diametrically opposed speakers, Gary Stager and Daniel Pink. At least they would have you believe they are diametrically opposed. I don’t really get it. Gary Stager blogged this week about how Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind , is the worst book ever. Harsh words. He must have very good reason for attacking a man who in many ways embraces the same principles that Stager embraces. In his book, Pink talks about the need for more creative thinking, synthesis level thinking, and play in our lives if we are going to be successful in the future. Stager spoke about Why Papert Matters (referring to the great educator, Seymour Papert ). He spoke about constructionism, the theory that students will be more deeply involved in their learning if they are constructing something that others will see, critique, and perhaps use. Through that construction, students will face compl...

In my job as a technology integration specialist, I spend a lot of time teaching people how to use technology, convincing people of the power of technology, and demonstrating how technology can be embedded into our curricula. However, the more I do these activities, the more I realize that it is not about the technology. But before you start rejoicing that I will suddenly stop evangelizing about educational technology, I’d better explain. When I say it is not about the technology, I mean that I am spending a lot of time thinking about the outcome. What do I want kids who graduate from school to be able to do? Do I want them to multiply, memorize capitals or dates, or write beautiful five paragraph essays? No, I want them to be successful in this new society, controlled by ubiquitous access to massive amounts of information, instant and cheap communication with the whole world, and access to tools that do many of the tasks that have traditionally been taught in schools. So how do I do t...

For those who insist that we are in a downward spiral in which our youth read and write less and less, I would like to offer this up. Since the early 1900’s, the way in which information has been transferred has shifted from a largely written text to radio and then television. This transformation has lead to a society of consumers. We passively accept information from multiple sources. We have no avenue to question its authority. There are no letters to the editor. Only recently has radio begun a discourse in which listeners call in to speak about their viewpoints. Unfortunately, many of these radio stations are highly biased programs that solicit one-sided debates. They are capable of sifting out callers, allowing only those who they choose to get through. They can also cut off callers at any point. Not very democratic. Television is even less democratic. Channel after channel of information (I use this term loosely) is streamed into our homes in a solely one-sided fashion. We accept ...

Now I'm not a doctor so I don't know if this is a real medical condition, but it has been my observation that many people suffer from "techno paralysis." This is the condition when people, often teachers, get so overwhelmed by the degree of change in the area of technology, that they seem unable to decide where to get started with trying out new tools. In other words, there is too much to learn, so they end up not learning any of it. I don't have a cure for this disease, but one thing that seems to be helpful is starting small. Pick one thing to focus on and get started with that. For example, just focus on blogging. Don't worry about the myriad of other tools. You will never learn them all anyway, so why not just choose one to learn? What tends to happen is this removes the paralysis to some degree and builds some excitement. I hear things like, "Wow, I'm not as dumb as I thought!" or "Hey, I can do this!" The other great part about th...

Recently, I have been spending a good deal of time training staff members on the use of Voicethread. Voicethread is a Web 2.0 tool that allows the user to upload images and then narrate them or type comments about them, creating online, collaborative, multimedia presentationws. It is incredibly easy and powerful. What I love about it is the versatility of it. You can upload presentation slides and narrate them, you can upload student created artwork and narrate them, or you can upload photos. I inevitably get the question, "So why would I use that in my classroom?" Here is a short list of ways it can be used: Storytelling Book reports Narration of a multimedia presentation Sequencing Field trip narration Explanation of how to process complex problems - see http://www.mathcasts.org/ Virtual field trips to far away times or places Current events upload diagrams/concept maps and explain their meaning How to Videos Anything, everything Here is a quick Voic...

I had the opportunity to present at the Wayzata Parenting Forum this weekend. I am attaching my presentation in case anyone is interested. The presentation was created in Smart Notebook which could not be uploaded so I converted it to pdf. The only problem there is that the video on the 4th slide is not viewable. Oh well. I thought it went really well. The discussion was far more interesting than the presentation. I wish I had recorded it. I spoke with a teacher who came to my presentation and he had a great idea. He said we should present this to parents when their kids are in kindergarten. One of the big discussions at the presentation centered around how much easier it is to set up safe routines for using the Internet if you start when the kids are young. Taking a 12-year-old and changing the rules now is much more difficult. I would love to see us present this to all kindergarten parents, but finding a way to bring them all together is a bit of a challenge. I'd love to hear som...