I spent a productive and exciting day at Marin Country Day School, attending one of the occasional meetings of the Bay Area Independent School Technology Network (BAISNet). The day focused on Web 2.0 in schools in two sessions, a morning group meeting and then several breakout groups. You'll find the meeting outline and notes at WikiSpaces.



Edward (Bay School, formerly of KQED) and Michael both focused on student and teacher use of wikis at their schools. Michael referred to wikis as "bulletin boards" within his school, a helpful use of an old metaphor to explain the function of a new technology. I regularly wrestle with the competing values of reducing our intranet to a small number of tools and providing the best tool for each purpose. Both WikiSpaces and MediaWiki do a better job of keeping the discussion forum close to the wiki than do either Moodle or Drupal.

Barbara focused on VoiceThread, which I was happy to see for the first time. MCDS elementary students posted photos and drawings of themselves and various subjects and then commented on them with audio. I like how Voicethread supports multiple source media, so that users may post content in the media they happen to have or best fits the subject matter. The Voicethread team also seem to have paid very close attention to adjacency in their user interface. They cluster the icons for submitted comments closely around the original post and display user tools just underneath.

Hoover, Joanne, and Tracy from Sacred Heart focused on their use of Moodle. SacredSF has over 200 Moodle courses, an impressive rate of participation in taking courses online using this platform. Hoover also demonstrated that they have teachers using Moodle at a high level -- one was making use of at least six different types of Moodle objects. Discussion forums at SacredSF also seem very active.

Barbara encouraged people to join the Independent School Educators Ning (ISENet) as a way to extend our network beyond the friendly confined of BAISNet to an international audience. It's quite possible that the launch of ISENet will answer my longstanding question of where are the independent school bloggers. Though still small in number, it is helpful to forge connections with the leading national figures in one place. I have great hopes for this social network, even while no relishing the need to judge whether to post a blog entry to my blog, the Ning, or both. Perhaps I will use it only when seeking feedback on specific questions.

I also hope that the new BAISNet Wikispace that Barbara started will really take off. It is well past time to build documentation and hold certain discussions in a wiki rather than all via email. It's time to end the practice of starting the annual email-based discussion on "topic x."

I was pleased to receive positive feedback to my use of connectivism to demystify the appeal of Web 2.0 tools to a small number of wildly enthusiastic educational technologists. Hoover questioned whether connectivism is just a different word for social constructivism, and I pointed him toward the idea that constructivism, even within a social context, finds the source of learning within the individual. Connectivism posits that learning takes place beyond the individual, within the network itself. The network learns, primarily by taking over the functions of information storage and retrieval from the individual.

I was also pleased that a dozen attended a roundtable discussion entitled "Take your web site to 2.0 with Drupal." In a complete shift from three years ago, we now have a critical mass of school technologists frustrated with the limitations of commercial school web site providers and seriously considering open-source alternatives.

BAISNet meetings happen serendipitously, usually when email discussion on a particular topic reaches a new high, or when someone realizes that the group has not held a meeting in many months. Flying down from Portland for the meeting was totally worth it, both for the specific knowledge I gained today, the feedback I received on my new ideas, and the reminder that the Bay Area has a truly valuable concentration of independent school technologists who understand how to share information for the good of the group. Kudos to Barbara for organizing this meeting and Hoover for shepherding this group for many years (and driving me from the city to the meeting and back!).


tags: edtech, techintegration, drupal, moodle, connectivism

Web 2.0 Adoption In Schools

Presentation given at BAISNet Web 2.0 meeting


Who Participates?

Poll: Who reads the NY Times online? Uses Blogger? Wikipedia? Facebook?

Slide: Five-year trends

Slide: Total known Moodle sites



Top 10 U.S. web sites

1. Google

2. Yahoo!

3. Myspace

4. YouTube

5. Facebook

6. Windows Live

7. EBay

8. Wikipedia

9. MSN

10. Craigslist




Slide: Who Participates



Introduction

Why does a small, wildly enthusiastic group embrace Web 2.0 for teaching and learning, yet the majority do not? A growing club of international edubloggers seek to redefine education using Web 2.0 tools. Students have quickly adopted Web 2.0 to meet their social needs. Yet, only a minority of teachers have embraced Web 2.0 to support teaching and learning in their classes. Almost none employ Web 2.0 in their own professional practice. Why is this so? There must be good reasons, right? Seeking to understand these apparent contradictions may help us better understand what Web 2.0 actually is and what long-term potential the tool has for education.



Connectivism (George Siemens, 2004) may help explain the difference between observing Web 2.0 tools from a distance and embracing them.

• A new theory of learning impacted through technology


• Knowledge continues to expand exponentially and at an ever-increasing rate


• Learning happens in a variety of means, some informal and some through personal learning networks -- what some have termed "School 2.0"


• Focus on the process of knowledge acquisition rather than knowledge itself.


• Challenges the notion that all learning takes place inside the individual



• Technology takes over the tasks of information storage and retrieval ("Hold on while I Google that.")


• Emphasizes skills of acquiring knowledge, making connections, seeing patterns, and making decisions.


• Leadership: highly-connected individuals who help facilitate knowledge flow within the organization.

Potentially Connective Technologies

• Learning environment, learning community


• Blog, wiki, podcast, forum, social network, (video) chat, microblog (doesn't have to be web!)

Examples (focusing on enhancement)

• Summer Reading, Sustainability/Recycling



• Trip Planning Project (kmz file?)


• Reconstruction and Civil Rights Songs


• Pirates of Penzance


• Image galleries


• Becoming a World Class Negotiator


• Knowledge I gain through blogging: school Drupal sites, Riffly, Web Site Baker, K12 Online Conference, EduCon 2.0, connectivism



• The importance of reflective practice in professional improvement: forum diaries, A Window into Gaza

Conclusion

• Still seeking to understand

Suggestions

• BAISNet


• Kassblog blogroll


• Independent School Educators Ning


• Powerful Learning Practice


• Mercy Corps in Gaza

tags: web20

part 3 | part 2 | part 1

Some students wrote on their Skype video chat experiences.

I shook with excitement as I sat down in front of Richard Kassissieh’s laptop to talk face-to-face (via skype video chat) with students from the Gaza strip. I had the opportunity to talk to the deputy chief of affairs for the Palestinian president, as well. We even interviewed with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craig’s list. All of these conversations left me with an unshakable feeling that I have finally left the darkness of ignorance and illuminated the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I can hardly believe that every day we as Americans wake up unaffected by the events occurring daily in Palestine, and one can only imagine the thoughts running through my head when I had to respond to a Gaza student’s question: “How does this conflict affect your daily life?” It hurt to answer truthfully, and I felt sick to the core of my morality. Winterim of 2008 left me enlightened to something that the world community must stop turning a blind eye toward. I thank the organizers of the Winterim program for allowing me to have these experiences.

The moment I remember most from my winterim, is when we had a live
video conference with teenagers from Gaza. Getting to school at 7:30 in
the morning was a small price to pay for such an opportunity. Our
questions were pretty scripted in the beginnning, resulting in an
expected conversation. Then, all of a sudden, the questions started to
get more spontaneous. The discussions gained passion. A moment that
stuck with me is when one of the adult leaders in Gaza stepped in. We
had asked about their relationships with Israeli students and they had
claimed that they knew none. The teacher said that she had Israeli
friends when she was a child and that times have really changed. That
moment definitely stuck with me and I was quite moved by that
experience. If the only Israelis the teenagers ever see work as guards
at check points and harass them, of course they are going to have some
amount of hatred towards the other side. They were not able to
sympathize with both sides as we were in our safe Catlin classroom.
Even though everyone preached messages of compromise and peace it was
quite clear that those kids felt the Palestinians had gotten the raw end
of the deal. They felt their people had lost their dignity. I feel
like I'm an educated teenager who knows more about the world than an
average one, but hearing the emotion from another my age on the issue I
studied in a history book, brought a new facet to my understanding. The
limitations in those children's lives, in many ways being trapped in a
small arid portion of land, Gaza, and the electricity restrictions made
me learn more about my freedoms and opportunities and how I should jump
on them. It was definitely a memorable experience and I strongly
suggest having a similar winterim next year. It does not have to be
about the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, but to learn this much about
any conflict in the current world is an enlightening opportunity.

Although I really enjoyed the mock peace conference the highlight of my week was talking to to a group of young Palestinians in the Gaza strip. Getting their perspective on the issues surrounding the conflict was a real eye opener for me, however I think the greatest part of that experience was being able to see that they have hope for a situation that seems almost hopeless.

What would it be like to converse with your nation’s supposed enemy? Are you supposed to support your nation’s beliefs, or are you supposed to empathize as a human? During my time in the Winterim How to Become a Better Negotiator, I experienced the thought process and emotions that occur when one views an especially disturbed and convoluted conflict through facts and reason. This Winterim not only helped me improve my modest grasp of the middle-east conflict between a western influence with questionable but subtle primary intentions and a collectively strong desire for Muslim independence, but it taught me how to rethink a conflict without personal beliefs or culturally based conceptions interfering, filtering, or muddying. To rationalize a vicious clash that intertwines religious and emotional aspects with economic and political desire seems generally unthinkable, but the easily understandable content we reviewed and the impressive array of powerful speakers that joined us proved to our Winterim body, as a whole, that the capability of conflict resolution through negotiation is generally eventually obtainable. While I sat in Vollum with Richard, Peter and my negotiating companions, it became apparent to me that this topic was not grudgingly presented as a hopeless view on middle-east conflict, but influenced the teachers as much as it concerned and affected the students. By the end of Winterim, our group, including the teachers, had unconsciously opened up and bonded over the intensely intellectually stimulating discussions regarding Palestinian rights and Israeli opinion. Our group connected over an influence that changed all of us. At lunch, we conversed and laughed together as if we had been together for at least months. Most Winterims rode roller coasters or ate sushi downtown. While they may have simply enjoyed a nice temporary break from academic inspiration, my assembly bonded over a serious conflict, and even though this bond may not be permanent, I believe that this Winterim I attended, How to Become a Better Negotiator, is the type of experience that changes mindsets and creates individual passion. This knowledge and comprehension defines what a Catlin student yearns for, and this experience, although not as "fun" as watching movies in hollywood, will stick with me and my Winterim-mates for the rest of our lives.