Sunday, March 16, 2003

Knowledge Management in Schools. Jim McGee raises some interesting points about knowledge management that I think relate to schools very appropriately. Craft workers exist to share the fruits of their creating. A true knowledge craft product embodies something of the soul and personality of its creator. You share it with others not so they can copy it but so that they can find inspiration in using it in their own craft. Weblogs hold so much promise in the organizational realm precisely because they amplify this connection between craft and creator. Your record is there to be seen and to be shared. It's an interesting line of thought, one that makes me see some very interesting potentials in schools. In the grand vision, the Web log becomes the school portfolio. It's informative, and its main goal is to share knowledge about the school, but it's also a collection of selected best practices of craft and thinking. It could be a place where teachers and community members and parents and others have a collective space to share and develop ideas. And in a community like ours in which most have access, the whole idea of using syndication to push content and in turn increase involvement just increases the possibilities. The big question of course is whether or not schools really want community. Do we really want to share what we do inside the classroom with the outside world? Like our student writers, that's a scary proposition. It's potentially more hassle and means greater accountability. And more work. As always, a lot to think about. 6:39:04 AM

Middlebury Musings. I'm glad that Barbara Ganley has been popping in here lately because it reminds me to spend some time checking out the goings on at Middlebury. And as usual, there is much going on to learn from. Barbara and I tried to set up a collaboration earlier this year, but it just didn't gel for some reason. Now she has some students in her Intro to Creative Writing class working with local fifth graders in their Web logs, and as usual, she's doing some very cool things. (Here's a link to her student Web logs as well.) Meanwhile Hector Vila is modeling another great use of Web logs as workshop, namely the Computer Training of Trainers Workshop. He's bringing together "students" from 12 Eurasian countries in a Web log setting to prepare them for a visit later this month. It's a great use of the technology. And Hector and Barbara also points to Digital Storytelling using Manila. Wild stuff, and very creative. Many, many ideas growing from this project. Add that to the great work that "Sarah" continues to do at CET with Bryan (who is a contributor to some of the coolest Web logs out there), there is a lot of groundbreaking stuff going on up north. 6:39:02 AM

Assessing Web Logs. Yesterday I had midterm grading conferences with my journalists. (Just for the record, I abhor grades, for a list of reasons too long to post here.) It was interesting to me how Web logs have changed the whole process, and it has me thinking more seriously about the assessment issues that come along with this technology. Most teachers using Web logs on the 9-12 level aren't using them as online portfolios/filing cabinets for all classwork. As with anything else, there are advantages and disadvantages to doing so. Since I haven't changed the content of my curriculum much from my pre-Web log days, the way I assess the individual pieces hasn't changed much. But with such a drastic change in the process, a whole new list of issues has come up. The biggest advantage I have found is...(more) 6:39:01 AM

RSS Redux. I want to introduce my journalism students to the concept of RSS and see what they do with it. The potential impact of RSS on reporting and news gathering is pretty huge, I think, especially for special interest journalists. Since I have my students keeping track of an individual beat, the addition of RSS feeds about their topics would greatly increase their exposure to and consumption of news in their areas. I think RSS has the potential to develop a lot of experts at an early age. Now the difficulty is that Manila has no built in aggregator yet, and most all of the other aggregators out there require a download of some type. That's not an easy task with student machines here. I can't put Radio on every machine in my room. The only web based aggregator I've found doesn't really suit my needs. If I could get NewsMonster on every machine...now that would truly be interesting. Kids could get content even from sites without RSS feeds. (It requires a new version of Netscape, too.) But what happens when classes change and I have new journalists sitting at those machines? It may be nothing more than changing the feeds, but it's more thinking than I want to have to do. Anyone know of any web-based aggregators that do a bit more than just update content into a long feed once a day? 6:39:01 AM

Adding to the List (Again). Seems like I'm doing this more and more these days...hmmm. James Farmer hits the ground running: Having spent so much time thinking about & arguing for the use of blogs in eduction... figured it was about time I got myself one and started playing with the idea a bit more. It's interesting to watch someone else have all those eye-opening thoughts and "A Ha" moments that come with the newness of this...I'm sure it's happening a lot more than we know. 6:39:00 AM

Web Log Idea #257. One of the best things about this technology is the possibilities it brings in terms of ways to bring different audiences together. "Anne" and I are starting our collaboration tomorrow. (Note: That page is a work in progress.) And as I've been getting e-mails from other teachers from all over the place, I'm thinking even bigger. Our school has won all sorts of awards for Electric Soup which is a long time electronic magazine featuring creative writers from all over the world. The staff gets hundreds of submissions a year and then they publish the edition using some very high level design and graphics packages. It's very impressive. But it's excellence doesn't foster collaboration among a diverse student population. You need skills to produce that stuff. (I know I couldn't design some of those pages!) It's a beautiful application of Internet technology, but in some ways it represents many of the issues that "Pat" brings up when he's talking about the "Digital Paper" that Web logs give everyone access to. So, what about this...a long distance Web log journalism magazine? One that focuses on a different topic relevant to school kids each month. Writers collaborating from around the country, moving through as writers, then Content Editors etc. Collaborative groups working on through production and design issues, giving feedback, writing and editing together. Each of them with equal access to all of the digital paper they need. Nothing earth-shatteringly new here. But realistic. That's is THE BEST PART of what this tool offers...possibilities that were either too difficult or too cumbersome to pull off before just got a whole lot easier. I hate to sound overly dramatic about it, but this does change the landscape in so many ways, and now a lot of it is unexplored territory once again. Pretty cool. 6:39:00 AM

Relative Paths in Manila. Thanks to "Karen" who via the "eBN" site explains the use of relative paths for stories created in Manila. Even though I understood the concept, I didn't really connect it to the need until I read her explanation. I know that Barbara Ganley does the same thing with her students at Middlebury, and I guess I've had some vauge idea of how to use it with my own students bouncing around in my head. But now I have to think about it more. There is so much potential here, and I find my problem is that I want to do it all. "Terry" mentions a multi-author Web log with one managing editor, and my mind races with the idea of what editorial responsibility could teach my students and how to work it in and set it up. "Tim" is photoblogging and "Pam" is audioblogging and everyone is moblogging. The more I know, the more I want to try. I find my thinking comes in sporadic bits that either coalesce in writing here or on bits of real paper while I'm driving or in meetings or wherever. Hard to focus...I really need to get a life, I think. 6:38:59 AM

Now Here's a Rec. The members of educational Bloggers Network ("eBN") are working to instill several generations of young people with the values and concepts of narrating the work, sharing their knowledge, and thinking out loud. By the time these young people enter the workforce such ideas will no longer seem foreign, outlandish, or wasteful. Rather, they will be seen as ways to do more, learn more, and earn more. We won't have to spend 90 percent of our effort just convincing people to share. The change won't happen immediately, and it won't happen soon enough to help some of us at all. But it will happen. And because it will happen we need to support efforts like eBN in whatever ways we can. These people are on to something that matters. We should help. This is definitely the kind of thinking that will bring all of this to more and more teachers and educators. Well said! 6:38:59 AM

Adding to the List (Con't). Laura Rebecca at Garden City High School on Long Island has a Web log started for her Film classes. I think it's pretty interesting that many of us if not most of us took the same route that she is, starting with Blogger. On the "eBN" site, (which is looking mighty fine) "Terry" recounts the same route. It really is a very painless intro to the concept, and it really helped develop my understanding and thinking of the whole concept. I might have given up had I started with Manila! I'm wondering what, if anything, Google will be doing with Blogger in the future. 6:38:59 AM

Tech Support HELP. In the last week I've lost two sites to the error message that says "Sorry! There was an error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "department" hasn't been defined." I can get to the sites by typing in the URL of a subpage, but the homepages all come up with the error. And all of the departments when clicked, produce the same error. Ken experienced the same message but was unable to get a fix. I'm going to post to Newbies, but if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. 6:38:58 AM

Terry's world - a little context. Terry provides some context for what's happening with his growing project. My seniors are doing this in the midst of war fever (I have two guys who are subject to National Guard call up), non-existent tech support at the local level (but fabulous help at the eBN level), a first year principal who wants above all to keep his job next year and who is therefore damned edgy about any element of chaos in his tight little ship, and (take a deep breath) a near-mania for teaching to the test. A good reminder that teaching teaching and learning don't occur in a vaccuum and the importance of support networks like eBN. Terry also adds that Some days you are too busy bailing the boat. So far, the boat is still floating. 6:37:37 AM

89,020 new teachers? How about a war instead?. See how much the cost of an invasion of Iraq could buy in your state from the National Priorities Project Database. Taxpayers in New York will pay $6,780.00 million for a potential invasion of Iraq . For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided : 89,020  Elementary School Teachers or 800,474 Head Start Places for Children 6:37:36 AM

Elementary school ESL bloggers. Tim Lauer is working with some new elementary school ESL bloggers in Portland. 6:37:35 AM

Free and Open Source Movements. Though cited elsewhere, I'll add another pointer to George Siemens' excellent articles on Free and Open Source Movements. Part 1 is History and Philosophies and Part 2 is Developing, sharing, expanding resources. Quote: The essential concept presented: we need open access and sharing of educational materials to provide an alternative to increasing pressures of proprietary content providers. Amen. Lots to think about here. 6:37:35 AM

Tim's SF Report. Tim's ASCD notes are on his site along with a photo of the SF skyline and some familiar names with faces. 6:37:34 AM

Riding the crushing wave of info.. Thoughtful, reflective post from Terry (as usual) over at the eBN guestbar: In a post last week I asked four questions to be considered this weekend. One of them weighs heavily on me: how do I manage the flow, nay, the flood, of information that will burst from the weblogs. Each news item, story, picture, gem is a discrete blob of information to be weighed by me. I have to decide where to focus my attention on what could become a crushing wave of info. Good to see Terry bringing up these issues. I've been thinking about some of these questions as the year has progressed. 6:37:33 AM

Playing with Nukes. Al Delgado is giving phpnuke a run-through (along with everything else he can download). Lots of great open source resources from "Al", as usual. I managed to get PostNuke installed and running thanks to some tech support from Charlie Lowe of Kairosnews who kindly lent me a theme he developed for instructional use. 6:37:32 AM