We are now in our 8th year of podcasting. I could be totally wrong but I'm going to declare us as the longest running educational group podcast on the planet. If I'm wrong leave a comment and I'll retract.

We had a relatively quick conversation with Rob as Alec and I were in the same room planning for our workshop the following day. 

Here's some of the show notes:

• The NBCHS Grade 9 photo gallery
• The Point-Counterpoint article about Bring Your Own Technology, featuring Jen LaMaster and Gary Stager (from Learning and Leading with Technology)

Also, you'll want to listen and earn a coveted Posse Mug. Hey, I've now done three consecutive posts as podcasts which is a new record. I'm kinda diggin' the audio again and am actually planning to develop a workshop on audio design. Anyway enjoy the show.

​So Steve and I have talked about doing stuff with Discovery and we both share the philosophy of "just do it". So here's how this podcast was born:

​As you'll tell from the podcast, this was not rehearsed and it was pretty much uncensored. I hope it can be something where I learn more about the awesomeness of Discovery and you can too. Can you tell I've been drinking the kool-aid? If you want a prize, leave a comment on the DEN blog. 

Zac Chase and I talk about learning. I don't know if that sounds boring to you but Zac makes me think and challenges me about my learning project and some of the things rummaging around his brain.

Really has it been almost 6 months since we last recorded? That's bad. 

But it's great to chat again with the posse. As an added bonus we took over #ds106radio and recorded it live. Alec, Heather, Rob and I are joined by my daughter Meredith as she talks about her new book. Alec shares a bit about his recent trip to Australia and Heather and I talk chat a bit about my new gigs. 

If you like silliness and seriousness all mixed together, you might enjoy this. 

Oh, by the way, if you're wondering about image I used, you'll have to listen, at least to the first 5 minutes. 

My talented daughter is having to take a few more courses at the University of Regina to get her teacher certification here in Saskatchewan. She's taking an elementary science course and convinced her professor that perhaps she could combine her music skills for a major project. She's been using the Saskatchewan Science curriculum to develop songs as well as a songwriting guide for students. It's a wonderful blend of science, language arts and arts education. She's created 8 songs covering a range of topics. I'm bias but I do think they're pretty good. Not your typical kids songs but they are pretty diverse in content and style. 

She's currently building an epub book that we'll share soon. For a little preview here's one of her songs and the study guide to go with it. 

Here's the m4a version if you prefer. (still not seeing this show up on an ipad…any ideas why?)

Analyze

What did you learn about living things? 
How does a plant poo?
How do you know you are living?
What is the form of the song?
What is the rhyme scheme in the second verse?
How many lines long is the chorus?
Create 3 more interesting questions to analyze the song.

Songwriting Activity

Pre-write

1.) Choose a plant or an animal that interests you.

2.) Is it living? How do you know?

3.) Create 3 of your own interesting questions about your species.

4.) Gather your information on your plant or animal.

5.) Start song writing!

a) What will your song be about (big idea)?

b) What information do you want to include?

c) Does this information help to communicate the big idea?

Write

Form: Verse, Chorus

Rhyme Scheme: Writers choice.

Lyrics: Must be original. Refer to your pre-writing work.

Melody: Choose 1.

a) Parody. Use the melody from "Does it Poo?" or use the melody of another song.

b) Original. Create your own melody!

Edit

Does your song show what you have learned about your plant or animal?
What is your rhyme scheme/ schemes?
How is the feel?
Is the melody clear and "catchy"?
How could you improve it?

Perform

Perform your song for the class. Acapella (just voices), or with music if someone in your group can play an instrument!

I ranted a little today about a word that's bothered me for a while.

Even if you scramble around for a definition that's not so offensive the best you get is: "thorough and exactness." 

Even those words easily can be translated to inflexible or "my way or the highway".  I don't get the fascination with some people and this word. This document doesn't even define the term and this one says:

There are many definitions of the noun rigor, most of them related to some form of physical or mental rigidity or severity. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary definition of logical rigor—“strict precision or exactness”—seems at least relevant to the educational context. The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English defines the related adjective rigorous as “extremely thorough. ” Yet neither of these definitions satisfactorily conveys the intent behind the word. To me, rigor implies the reaching for a higher level of quality in both effort and outcome.

We talk about Rick's book, my appearance on John Gormley, the Saskatchewan Teacher's contract negotiations and civil disobedience. 

I've been a big fan of both podcasting and audio books for several years. In particular This American Life is among my favorite. Wonderful storytelling combined with well designed audio make it a highly compelling format. Audio design is one area, I personally need to explore more. In the same way that it may be easy to record and upload 5 minutes of video that is of little value, the same can be done with audio. 

Sound is a wonderful thing. 

I never knew what a foley artist was. 

So for DS 106, we were invited to play with audio. Here are my efforts.

First I captured my Uncle Bill telling me how he ended up in veterinarian college. I don't get to see him very often but happened to spend a day with him earlier this week before ITSC. I turned on my italk app and was glad I did. Bill, if you're listening, hope you're okay with me posting it. For the rest of you, does this story resonate as compelling or is it simply that way for me because he's my uncle?

The second audio is simply a version of 5 card story or my own 5X5 video formats. Alan has much better sound and more interesting sound but I like this idea and am going to have to play some more. 

1. CNN during breakfast

2. Standing outside my Dad's condo
3. In the car, driving to the golf course
4. My Dad hitting the ball and complaining
5. Me wandering in the woods, looking for mine.

Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy.

We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students.

Here are the slides and the audio is below:

So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators.

And then it was my turn.

I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side.

It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project

Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil.

This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd:

Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart.

I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story.

Today this happened at the school.

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That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful.

I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging.

I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division.

Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three.

So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other.

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There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story.

• Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others.
• The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts.
• People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web.
• Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking.
• Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now.

*Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner.

Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there.

Is  “off task” behaviour relating to technology an issue with your students? If yes, how do you deal with it, if no, what have and your students done to alleviate the problem?’

The following represents a request I made to several teachers in our school division. You’ll see a few different viewpoints which is what I wanted.

I see it as an issue of off-task behaviour.  Every teacher deals with it differently, but for the most part, they are instructed to get off of Facebook immediately and risk losing Computer/Internet.  In my Information Processing class, I allow for them to check e-mail/Facebook in the first few minutes of class.  I usually need a few minutes to get myself logged in and get the projector up and running.   They will also get to class early so that they can do this.  It helps.  We do not worry about its use during the noon hour, except that they are asked no to use the videos because they consume band width.  With special needs students, I have used  it to help them develop social skills.  They struggle with writing but they want to communicate with their peers (many of whom have graduated already) and I use Facebook to help with this.  I use Word to convert speech into text and they pastes it into Facebook.  With regards to content on Facebook, they are instructed that they are responsible for what they see and do on any site, including Facebook.  I have instructed them that I cannot possibly list every inappropriate piece of content which they might encounter, but they will know it when they see it and are to immediately move away from that content.   Dwelling or calling over buddies changes everything and it is dealt with as a discipline issue..

I hope they do not use a single blocking mechanism.  I can only see it going to a very locked down place.  Communities would be forced to accept the values of other communities, be it too much or too little content from the internet.   Are we going to see an internet blocked based on needs of Kindergarten students?  Will high schools be different?  What about K-12 schools?

Given that the internet is a moving target, we need to educate.  We need to educate our students, teachers, parents and administrators.  Do they realize that within a couple of hours of blocking Facebook, they will need to get IT to block a proxy server?  I have been so impressed with how well the filtering has worked and how helpful David has been.  I hope that it does not change and that people can be educated.  Easy solutions are not always good solutions.           Ed Fahl, High School teacher, Avonlea, SK

Is the Pope Catholic?  Believe it or not we even have off task behaviour in the classroom!  I know let’s use shock collars!

Is off task behaviour an issue?  Only if you let it run rabid.  How do we deal with it?  Supervision, education, learning, protocol, expectations (kids can come up with and agree on expectations – our cell project proved it – I did the same with facebook, no problems yet), respect, responsibility, and the odd consequence.  It’s no different than classroom management.  Same startegies work in the classroom as in the lab.  We need to move into the new millenium here.  Planning, preparation, and management.  Oh yeah, learning, engagement, and expecations.

Other solutions?  Let’s start teaching and learning about technology and respectful/responsible use.  We can’t put our kids in a bubble, but we can teach them how to be respectful/responsible people.  This is where we are missing the boat.  We aren’t going to be there to censor their activities when they are 19, so we better teach them right from wrong when we do have the chance.

I don’t know if this helps or not Dean, it’s pretty broad.  All I can say, is since we have adopted the philosophy of teaching/learning respect/responsibility for technology and the net, our off task behaviour has decreased because kids can make good decisions about their learning/lives, too.                        Gord Taylor, Principal Craik, SK

I am struggling with this issue in my classes and in general.  Usually the logical consequence for an off-task behaviour is, after a warning, removal of the stimulus.  In this case it is not possible to remove the stimulus.  Facebook, or any social networking tool, twitter, etc. is extremely addictive as it seems as if you are “out of the loop” you are truly missing out on something that seems impossible to catch up on at a later time.  I have to admit, I have checked my facebook during work hours myself.  The temptation is great.  I struggle with what consequence to enforce…denial of internet access?  Seems extreme when most of their classes require them to use the internet.  In-school suspension?  Meeting with a parent and having them promise not to do it again? How could this be enforced in any way but scanning their use logs everyday to ensure that anyone accessing off-task sites were given the same consequence.    My belief is that the temptation is great as our students are multi-taskers who are used to typing an essay, creating a spreadsheet while surfing you-tube for music and IMing on facebook.  They do not see this as a distraction at all.  They believe (may be true) that they can scan their facebook while doing other things and it isn’t a problem for their focus.

We have had an instance of bullying that was documented on facebook during school hours.  The student who made the comment on the wall of another student did so during school hours from a study period that is “supervised” by the library technician.  The issue was dealt with as a bullying issue, not a technology issue.  I supported, promoted, and stand by this.

We do not have adequate staffing to supervise all students on all computers at all times in our building. We have students completing on-line courses that are, unfortunately, not always supervised.  In my own classroom students are accessing off-task sites on the sly.  I have 27 students and one me.  They know that if I am helping students in the far corner that I can not see what they are doing on their computers in the other side of the room.  These are good, reasonable kids.

In the end, when all is said and done, what I am doing in my classroom?  I did my educational piece on internet, bullying, proper use of work time, what businesses expect (i.e. fireable offence to waste company time on off-task behaviour), etc.  This does not seem to curb the use of facebook…I teach PAA classes and so I am allowed to assign a mark for business-like attitude and behaviours.  I dock this mark for off-task time.   Does this curb the behaviour?  No.

The reason that I am harping on facebook is that of all the off-task sites, it is by far the most addictive as the very social networking nature of it makes it so tempting.  Games, youtube videos, etc…do not seem to be a problem.  The main problem is facebook in our school.  The main problem with dealing with facebook is the seemingly lack of logical consequence to enforce.            Lona Froshaug, High School teacher, Assiniboia, SK

Finally, this conversation is with Patricia Yeske, High School teacher at Riverview Collegiate in Moose Jaw,SK.

It was a great conversation with Alec, Rick and Rob. One of my favourites. To think it’s year five. Wow. I’m particularly satisfied with the dicussion around Alec’s flickr issue. I think Alec in particular provides a nice response to the issue.

Shownotes

The Posse felt he would make a great guest so Alec and Rick and I spent the better part of an hour with Michael. Thanks to Rob Wall who edited the audio, but unfortunately could not join us in the conversation. Heather Ross, our other Posse member, was also unable to attend.

Image: Michael Geist – Why Copyright? – 4 by D’Arcy Norman
http://flickr.com/photos/dnorman/2383910972/

The complexities of these topics imply more problematiztion rather than definite answers.  The desire for educators to have clear cut responses and answers to a shifting society is becoming more and more moot.  Technology continues to raises at least as many questions as it does answers.

Original Photo: danah boyd at HHL08 by Ewan Mcintosh
http://flickr.com/photos/edublogger/2941900634/

In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas that are pretty foreign to most. I wondered if a few of my students from previous sessions would want to share with my current students what, if anything, they learned and are using today.  I have spent a fair bit of time with Kyle Lichtenwald so while his responses were excellent, they were not all that surprising since he and I are fairly connected. Darin Janssen and Nicole Little were students in my Winter 2008 class. Both showed quite a bit of growth in the class and were two that continued blogging.  They shared some powerful lessons about many of the themes I’ve tried to focus on throughout the class:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the work I do is that the more you can point to others who are doing the right work, the more powerful and applicable it is. Darren’s student voices is a great example of this.   Alan November has apparently discovered this as well. In other words, “don’t take my word for it, listen to these people”.

Listen to these three students share their discovery and application of networked learning.

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Everyone once in a while you try something and it turns out far better than you imagined.

Photo: The Blonde, the Contrabass and the Microphone #5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brtsergio/1275188911/

Show notes:

Dan’s 10 videos
Ze Frank
David SimonThe WireGraphing Stories
Summer Camp Video

*My feed in itunes is not functioning. The feed validates but itunes says it’s wrong. Any help would be appreciated.