The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web -- Will Richardson

You don't have to be very old to be able to say, "I was there when the web first came along."  There are different definitions of when "the web" first sprang into being, but the first widespread graphical web browser, Netscape 1.0 came out in 1995.  For me, that's when "the web" really started.  And that was less than 15 years ago.  In that time, we've come to expect our computers to become twice as fast every year or so.  We've come to expect cell phones to shrink in size and explode in functionality.  We've come to accept technology in just about every aspect of our lives (honestly, digital toilets?--you bet! and if you're honest with yourself, you're not even surprised...)  But what about the web itself?  Has it changed in the last 13 years?  Oh yes it has.  As Will Richardson clearly points out in his article, "The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web," the web has gone from a read-only source of information to a wide open canvas on which ideas and content are painted everyday by people all over the world.  More relevantly, students are using the emerging two-way nature of the web more than ever and Mr. Richardson hones in on some of the effects this has on teachers.

New tools that have turned the World Wide Web into the Read/Write Web:

• Blogs--like the one you're reading now.  Allow people to publish to the web with almost a single mouse click.
• Wikis.  Allow web users to collaborate in the creation of online references.
• RSS.  Really Simple Syndication.  With this snazzy software, users can collect new information off the web automatically--without having to actively go searching for it.
• Social Bookmarking sites.  Now web surfers can save and share webpages.  When like-minded surfers  start getting together (hence the social bookmarking moniker), the amount of relevant information to be found can be impressive.
• Podcasting.  The web isn't just text anymore.  Now users create their own audio/video programs and publish it to the web.  All available anytime, anywhere.

What all this means to Educators:

• Literacy doesn't just mean being able to read anymore.  To be literate in today's society, a student must know how to edit, collaborate, and publish on the web.  This is the new way ideas are exchanged.
• Audience.  Students used to create papers for their teachers to grade (judge).  Now students create content that is potentially available to the world.   
• Guidance.  Teachers cannot match the wealth of information available on the web.  But they can, and must, be effective guides to teach their students how to navigate.
• Reflection.  Combining the storage capabilities of the web, along with its emerging easy-use publishing portals, it is possible for students to maintain a "portfolio" throughout their education.  This makes "metacognitive reflection" (Mr. Richardson's term) possible for students.  What a difference this could make in education.

Prior to reading this article, I knew, in a yeah-someday sort of way, that I would need to get my students up and running on publishing to the web.  My particular school is situated such that their exposure to the web, for the most part, has been somewhat limited.  However, Mr. Richardson's point about "metacognitive reflection" is an eye-opening idea.  If the students are creating their own content, keeping their own content, managing their own content--year after year--the reflection that is inevitably going to occur will be fantastically valuable.  How often do educators struggle at the beginning of the year to "refresh" kids?  What if instead, the first day of school was spent going over a student's blog/rss/podcast/furl content from the year before?  Imagine the collection of information a student would have by the time they graduated.  This idea, more than anything else in the article, inflames my imagination.

What is my Copier doing while I sleep?

Can you trust your copier?

No really, it seems innocent enough, but do you really know what it's doing while you're not looking?  My copier is fancy, fancy, fancy.  It will make me copies, double sided if I want,  I can feed documents in from the top, or on the glass the old fashioned way.  It will scan (in color!) and email or ftp the file wherever my little heart desires.  But while I'm not watching, what is it doing with all of its brainpower?

Or more to the point--how much Energy is it using while I am not using it?  How much energy does it take to keep all of that brainpower going?

Time to find out.  I want to know how much (if any) energy I can save by turning my copier off while I'm not using it.  Lots of people have asked similar questions and posted their answers all over the web.  However, most of them have been concerned with energy efficiency, not the amount it didn't use because it was turned off.   I have no way to meter just the electricity my copier uses.  Heck, my community has no electrical meters on any of the buildings even.  But with Google, I was able to find the manufacture's specifications for my copier.  If I only turn the copier on when I need it, and turn it back off again when I don't, and by keeping track of how long that is each time, I'll be able to tell (with some assumptions) how much energy the copier is using.  I can compare that to how much energy it would have used (again with some assumptions) if I had just left it on all the time.  Collecting this data will be simple and old fashioned--a clipboard and a pencil next to the copier.  Once I have my info, a little math and I'll know!

Anthro-Tech Assessment

For the last two weeks, I have been down on hands and knees with a dental pick and a size-small paintbrush doing some Anthropology.  Ok, no dental picks or paintbrushes, but the idea is the same.  I've been digging through layers of "tech" in my District to find out the "who's" and "what's" that make up the structure of technology in my school.  And there are layers, for sure.  Like schools and businesses the U.S. and world over, my District has grown through and into the tech it currently uses today.  In my classroom, I still use a fax machine, but I can also scan files directly from the copier and have them sent directly to my laptop.  We don't get cell phone reception, but our Internet comes via satellite.  All of this adds up to a unique set of tech-tools and tech-culture that is characterized by a strong desire for the students to learn and use technology, but one that is shaped by the realities of isolated schools in Southeast Alaska.

Read the complete report of my findings here:  Anthro-Report

Note: Last names have been abbreviated in the report as I do not have their permission to publish their names on the public web.

"Listen to the Natives" -- Marc Prensky

Do today's educators and today's students live in the same culture?

They exist in the same physical world, but more and more, it is the virtual world which is becoming relevant to the educational process. In fact, in his article, "Listen to the Natives" Marc Prensky divides teachers and students into two classes--Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. Today's students are born into a digital world, and they grow up speaking and thinking digital. Teachers, on the other hand, have immigrated into this digital world, and not always willingly. The results is a divide which renders traditional teaching methods obsolete and ineffective. Fortunately, Mr. Prensky holds out hope for our educational system. If teachers can shift their focus in a few areas and modify their approach to teaching, not only can students still be reached, they can be instrumental in developing their own education.

How do we do this?

• Select teachers for empathy and guidance skill, not just subject-matter knowledge.
• Put student engagement before content.
• Involve students in designing their own instruction. Help them educate themselves.
  
• Focus less on teaching, and more on leading.
  

Why do we do this?

• Only a small portion of teachers are likely to be as tech-savvy as their students. By guiding students, teachers allow students to use their own skills as educational aides.
• In the digital world, engagement is everything. To have relevance, teachers must engage their students. Rather than compete for attention with digital devices, teachers must leverage those devices and technologies to engage students.
• In many ways, students have a better sense of the future than teachers. By involving them in the design of their own instruction, teachers are effectively using students as a invaluable resource that can't be bought for any price, but is begging to be used.
• In the old paradigm, teachers needed to be "smarter than the students" in whichever subject was being taught. Technology has become so integrated with life in the 21st century however, that it is proving impossible to segregate it from education. When students are more tech-smart than teachers, the smart teacher guides the students direction while allowing them to use the tech-tools along the way.

On a more personal note, this article strikes a strong resonant chord with me. I'm young enough to be a bit of a "tweener" between a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant. I arrived on the tech scene at the same time as Netscape 1.0. Mr. Prensky makes hugely compelling arguments that I completely agree with. Kids now are growing up in a completely different way than in the past, and it's still changing every day. To try to lock kids into a mode of learning, or lock them out of using what's familiar to them sounds like a recipe for disaster--analogous to forcing a left-handed child to use a pen right-handed. Not only is it foolish, but also pointless. Besides, kids will need this technological aptitude after our time with them is done. As Prensky puts it, "Educating or evaluating students without these tools makes no more sense to them than educating or evaluating a plumber without his or her wrench."

Ironically, my teaching position is on a remote island with no cell phone coverage and very little technological exposure. Kids here are more familiar with fishing nets and chain-saws than cell phones or computers. Still, many of these concepts are still relevant. The idea of "leveling-up", or beating a game to go to the next level is something these kids thrive on. Avoiding the "herding" of students, and instead letting them into the design of their instruction is a fabulous idea. Indeed, while my challenge may be more along the lines of getting them exposed to technology so they can transition into the digital world if and when they leave the island, they are still part of a generation which expects things to be different. They are isolated, not tuned-out, and Prensky's final warning still hold true:

"If we don't stop and listen to the kids we serve, value their opinions, and make major changes on the basis of the valid suggestions they offer, we will be left in the 21st century with school buildings to administer—but with students who are physically or mentally somewhere else."

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Futuring

Q: How would you “grade” or assess Fox Becomes a Better Person, and School Train?

"Grading" an assignment is a judgement of how well the completed work met the requirements of the assignment.  The background information provided with School Train states that the students needed to demonstrate they understood the concept of a metaphor.  As a completed media piece, this work clearly shows an understanding of metaphors, with clear parallels being drawn between school and trains.  However, without being present while the video was being created, I have some concerns that all students understand the concept.  A large part of the effectiveness of this type of project comes from participation in the creation of the project.  If the project was broken into smaller segments where each child could have meaningful interaction with the project prior to the project's assembly as a whole, then the success of the project increases.

Assessing Fox Becomes a Better Person is not as clear-cut.  The objectives for the assignment are not provided, but I can see this project fulfilling several needs.

• Writing--creating an original book, including artwork
• Traditional storytelling--including public performance of the story
• Technology--blending the first two elements into something better than either element alone.

Assuming these criteria had been provided to Hannah ahead of time, assessing this piece becomes a joy.  As the background images clearly demonstrate, Hannah understands the traditional print media version of a story.  Her illustrations and text make a complete story.  Her storytelling was wonderfully done, with expressive body language and voice.  But it is her blending of the paper media and verbal storytelling that makes this video medium piece so effective.  

Q: What impacts could the developments portrayed in epic2015 have on your classroom, particularly with respect to things like podcasting?

The main thrust of the epic2015 piece centers around where news will come from and how news will be available to people in the future.  What is perhaps even more difficult to predict than the evolution of news media in the future is how young people will respond to new types of information delivery.  Will personalized news cause students to be more interested in world events?  Local events?  What about events inside their own classroom?  Indeed, the most intriguing idea brought up by this piece is the immediacy of how information can be delivered.  Imagine the collaboration that becomes possible if two students can share information more effectively than if they were actually talking.  One student could be struggling on a concept, post for help, and almost instantaneously get graphic, audio, or text help from other students--even remote students.  If educators can harness the personalized collaborative technology predicted in epic2015, students may begin to receive truly personalized education.

Q: How might you use Sabrina’s piece as a model for something you would do with your own students?

SabrinaJourney does a wonderful job of demonstrating an introspective piece of video media.  Her repeated questions set up a wonderful theme and cadence for the piece while showing how the same question can have many different answers.  Conveniently, her piece surrounds questions in her life after high school, thus removing the temptation for a student to merely copy her work.  I can see using her piece as a model for students on a reflective writing/media project.  This could prove to be a very useful project for students who have not had much exposure to technology, as the self is a subject which everyone has ample information.  Thus, the challenge of mastering a topic is removed somewhat as a new challenge (creating a multimedia piece) is introduced.

The best kind of studying....