A purposeful moment of geekdom
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Ok. I am no Apple fan and I have certainly never been a Marvel fan, but take a look at the Marvel app for the iPad.
I love it. I don’t love it because I love comics and love shiny new technology (ok…that’s a bit why I love it). I love it because of what it can mean for how we interact with our content.
This month’s issue of Wired magazine features an article about the future of computing. One of the things discussed is the replacement of the Graphic User Interface with a Natural User Interface…the NUI where we swish, pull, push, and drag our content around as if it were in front of us. It doesn’t sound revolutionary when you read it like that (mostly because you are reading in your head and can’t hear anything) but, as this video demonstrates, the natural interface can be remarkable for small children and adults alike as they grab and manipulate the virtual images before them. This ability really dissolves the barrier of the interface and makes working with content so much more beautiful and natural.
And this MIGHT even get me to buy a Marvel comic. Might.
S
3 good reasons to have a “more open” internet policy in your school.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this website called “YouTube” that has videos on it. Some of these videos are interesting and so, when available in school, YouTube can offer a distraction to otherwise studious pupils.
Oh great! Now I have to compete with interesting videos as well as iPods, cell phones, and fashion magazines for a moment of time for my insignificant “teachery” stuff!
Perhaps it is my own hubris, but I have never worried about being less interesting than the din of media. I have always found that if I use my time respectfully and in a way that “pays off” for everyone’s goals, I don’t have to compete with YouTube; YouTube has to compete with me. In fact, here are 3 reasons that opening the internet’s flood gates can actually be a benefit to you, your class, and your school.
1) Teachable moments galore*. As this Mashable article by Greg Ferenstein demonstrates, banning social media and device use can generally have the opposite of its intended effect. Not only is the lure of the forbidden too great to resist, student attempts to circumvent the blockage can take more time and energy than actual work.
2) Realistic workplace training. Fewer and fewer offices block parts of the internet. It creates an unpleasant workplace culture and is an IT nightmare. Instead, companies have employees sign an internet use policy and trust them to make appropriate choices with regards to their surfing. Having such a policy in place in a school allows teachers to guide students toward more responsible surfing choices.
3) Transmedia instruction. A big buzzword right now, “transmedia” just refers to telling different pieces of a story through different media. Think “webquest” with a narrative backbone (and reliance on more than just web resources). A more open policy allows teachers to create immersive units with video, social media, and wiki-based components.
*There is the possibility that numbers 2 and 3 are functions of number 1. I’m OK with that if you are.
Cheers!
S
Sacha Chua and the Good Life
I like to find out about people whose perspectives are helpful and hopeful. I am also particularly interested in educational professionals who seek to enrich the lives of other educators and, of course, students everywhere. So I am delighted to have stumbled upon Sacha Chua of Toronto. She demonstrates what is great about our age: simple, helpful, and wonderful (in the truest sense of the word – full of wonder) participation in the world.
Take a look at one of her SlideShare presentations.
I share this presentation for two reasons. First, as a professional seeking ways to help both teachers and students find their place in the changing landscape of educational technology, I think the message of this presentation is essential. Secondly, I like to promote people who are doing good work. (No…we have never met and I have received no money for advertising 
)
Enjoy the slideshow and check out Sacha’s page.
Cheers,
S
Wow…this used to take me a whole unit…
Being a “Fossil” is a good thing.
What is a fossil? In my elementary science classes, I learned that a long time of sitting still, combined with heat and pressure, made regular bones, trees, and insects into fossils. I also learned that these once mundane objects and creatures, once set free, held millions of years of valuable information for us.
In somewhat a different context, I was recently asked what I could do to aid “fossils” in the teaching profession. Although the response I gave at the time was mostly about providing support and encouragement, after some reflection, I think that a better approach would be just like that of the scientist who comes across a petrified gem: set it free and see what it can tell us about life.
Let’s forget for a moment that actual fossils decompose when exposed to the atmosphere after millions of years in isolation. I have an opinion about that too, but it’s beyond the scope of this entry. Let’s assume for now that when the “fossil” is set free, the environment supports him or her so that “decomposition” doesn’t take place.
A seasoned professional can do a lot with new tools. They may, once conversant with those tools, be able to show us all a few things. The reason this is possible is because they know how to keep their eyes on the prize. They know their content and they know the nature of learning. They don’t take new technologies for granted and so they are also sensitive to the needs of students who don’t have up-to-the-minute gear. In a word, unlike many new professionals, they know that all technologies from chalk to projectors to Google all have their place in the grand scheme of experience. At the end of the day, that’s what we all want for our students: the experience of success. One of the best teachers I ever had was a man who, at fifty years of age, was building web sites from scratch. He certainly didn’t grow up with code. Instead, he saw a new tool that would serve his purposes of teaching computer science to his students and ran with it.
In the process of thawing from a glacial neglect of technological change, some very cool things can be unearthed. People can choose to make an enormous change in their practice with very little time spent learning about some new tools. Three years ago, I didn’t know how to open Photoshop. At thirty years of age, I was already “fossilized.” However, with a little time playing and a whole lot of mistakes, I got to where I could actually use the application as a tool for enriching my practice. Today, I am happy to say that my time spent poking around on the web and the few dollars I have spent on tutorial books have gotten me to a place where I can confidently help others out of their own petrification.
Did learning Photoshop unlock the mysteries of all technology for me? Not at all. What it did do for me, however, is show me that I can still learn and that, if I so desire, I can learn new tricks. Better yet, I learned that I could apply my new tricks to old problems. No one could hope to keep pace with the rate of technological change…so why try? Instead, the cagey professionals will survey the field and pick what works best for their purposes.
Putting the iCart before the iHorse?
This article by Frederic Lardinois is a brief that describes how at least two universities plans to furnish all new students with an iPad and/or a small Macbook.
I applaud these institutions for their forward thinking, but I hope this move will provide publishers with the impetus for producing content that is actually designed to take advantage of the new tools. Lardinois points out that publishers would be wise to leverage the interactivity that is possible with a tool like the iPad. I would like to go further and say that it’s up to educational professionals of all stripes to take action and be creators of content that actually serves the purpose of education.
Books, for the most part, do what they are supposed to do. As one student surveyed for this article states, the interaction that is possible with a paper book is exactly what he wants in an educational resource. There is no reason to move to an electronic tool when the hard-copy works so well. What smart publishers are doing with their educational content is finding where books are lacking (see the video below) and producing content that is interactive in a way that a print resource cannot be.
As educational professionals, we should be looking at ways that our content is working well and ways that it is not. The only way to do that is to be constantly aware of the objectives we are trying to achieve. With that always in our minds, it will be clearer where new tools like the Kindle or the iPad are best employed.
For more information, check out Lardinois’ other writings on ReadWriteWeb.