I had the opportunity to meet with Steve Kindel from Learn360.com who produces a subscription-based database for video, images, articles, and other media that serves as a high quality option for schools or districts that block YouTube and other video resources.
Latest Entries »
Check out Kelly’s Blog at http://ilearntechnology.com/
Text from http://www.secretbuilders.com/aboutus.html
SecretBuilders is a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers. On SecretBuilders, children will explore virtual lands, undertake quests, play games, maintain a home, nurture a pet, and interact with their friends. Three features which form the backdrop for SecretBuilders distinguish it from other online worlds:
- Children learn through immersing themselves in the stories, themes, and concepts from the best in literature, arts and humanities. They will interact with famous historical and fictional figures and be introduced to content and characters from world civilization and the great thoughts and ideas of human creativity.
- Children will create this site, not just consume it. They are directly involved in creating this world with their ideas, critiques and contributions on virtually every aspect of the site and many of their ideas will be implemented!
- Children publish their works – writings, art, videos – making SecretBuilders their own personal store of creativity. They can invite friends and family to view their works, and comment upon them. Seeing their works published and enjoyed by others instills tremendous for self-confidence as well as motivation to do more.
In the news: This week Google rolled out their new Wave communication service to over 100,000 members by invitation only. To generate interest, the Internet communication giant unveiled its new messaging and social networking product to technology reviewers and bloggers across the world. For the uninitiated, Google wave is a revolutionary new tool that combines traditional e-mail, chat, SMS, MMS, pictures videos maps, and social networking feeds in a live real-time interface. Early reviews range from “a new paradigm in digital communication” to “noisy”. The full rollout is not expected until later this year.
Apple Computer is getting back into the notebook/tablet arena again. Apple has reportedly rehired Michael Tchao, the guru behind the original Apple Newton, to head up a project designed to compete with Microsoft’s Courier booklet. Early insiders report that Apple’s plans to reinvent tablet computing will include a multi-touch surface similar to Jeff Hon Perceptive Pixel displays and a Microsoft Surface. No rollout date has been set, but this new version of the computing device is rumored to do for laptop computing what the iPod touch did for MP3 players.
Twitter announced that they have been working on a new project designed to filter out bots and spamming tweeters. The project, known as lists, which would allow users to organize tweeds into categories. Those of us who have felt the need to open several putter accounts to separate the different groups that we follow and activities we participate in, breathe a sigh of collective relief. The new twitter lists offers a solution to separating and aggregating our twitter traffic.
You can find links to these reports and more news more news on our website coolteachers.org.
As educators, we have a long and fruitful heritage as innovators and re-purposers. We take a tool not intended for the classroom and modify it to fit the needs a group or even a single learner. In retrograde, the Internet, personal computers, typewriters, books, paper, and even slate tablets had their merits debated at one time or another.
Each millennium debated whether the tools of education did more to support or distract from it. Homer wrote, “Vespian, Hermatecles,… passing scrolls, are ye? It shall come to pass that they will be remove from your person, and you will have them no more! These kids shouldn’t have scrolls! All they do is put their own ideas in them.”
We teachers have a knack for taking what is new, engaging, or affords us unique opportunities and placing it in the classroom. Teachers find emerging technologies and we employ them for the benefit of learning.
Over century ago, the advent of photography allowed the student to travel half way around the world and see the elephants of Africa, wax recordings permitted students to hear speeches and music before the turn of the 20th century. The printing press made it possible for students to hold the latest books within months of their creation. News could be delivered in print daily a hundred years ago.
We don’t typically think of these as technology tools. A tool that enhances the students’ ability to learn, by using it, rightly perpetuates the notion that including these new tools, despite the modifications we make, helps our students. It is simply part of the educational evolution.
The current phase of the “Information Revolution” is mobile. Cell phones and handheld computers (like the iPod and Blackberry) are just a part of the way students connect to the world. Young people use these devices to transmit and retrieve information in all contexts.
They make use of mobile devices in conjunction with the world around them to acquire and exchange knowledge, verify and disseminate comprehension, apply that knowledge to life schema, analyze, synthesis, and evaluate. They use these devices to leverage resources including friends, family, the Internet, streaming media, and applications to make and sustain meaning of their own…They are, in essence, doing all the things we, as teachers, want credit for. 
The problem: They are learning things that we may not have a standard for.
As educators who sustain valid and reputable learning theory, we can support the use of these tools by relying on two tenants: Social Learning theory and Multiple Intelligences. For a detailed look at this research, consult your “Encyclopedia of Confusing Theories.” Suffice it to say, reference will be made in short.
Social Learning Theory states, “people learn not only through their own experiences, but also by observing the actions of others and the results of those actions” (Bandura, 1977). Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences asserts, “Students possess different kinds of minds and therefore learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways.” We look at these theories to support what we as teachers, actively engaged in their world, already know to be true. It takes a broad approach to reach the students in our classes. They need a multiplicity of tools to engage and support their learning. We also are keenly aware, that the creatures benefit from interaction with one another,…even though their interaction it a little creepy.
When examining the technology itself, we tend to overlook ALL that these tools are capable of doing. They are surprisingly powerful devices. It’s staggering to think that my daughter holds more pink, bejeweled computing powering in her hand than on ANY Apollo spacecraft. That “One Small Step” is now technologically eclipsed by…
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Where are you?”
“At Home. Where are you?”
“At Home.”
(Long Pause)
“What are you doing?”
But a deeper look shows us that mobile devices serve us up a surprising number of functions we seldom recognize as valuable in an educational space. Lets take a moment and identify them.
The first and most common area is Communication. All mobile devices make phone calls and support SMS (Short Message Service) or text messaging. The vast majorities also support MMS or 3G, which includes picture messaging and video messaging. Coincidently, these features also came standard on the Apollo capsule, but were about $10 Billion dollars cheaper that my daughter’s airtime.
In addition to winning the Space Race, these pocket computers interact with social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace with startling efficiency. A student cannot only send and receive messages through these sites to other users, but can create and retrieve content all within the framework of tradition messaging. Cell phones are interacting with Web 2.0 functionality.
Many new phones, as part of the standard package, include full email service. They utilize the same features found in traditional email clients including address books, attachments, forwarding, and PPP (the ability to collect and manipulate email from another location). Cell phones also have their own unique email address specifically routed to the phone (i.e. 2085556743@att.net, depending on the service). You can send and receive messages via email this way, as well. As devices of communication, mobile phones have an extraordinary capacity, range, computing power, and portability.
In addition to communication devices, they are media players. Mobile devices also leverage media in ways no personal computing devices ever have. The network of information sources and portals exists to allow use of them almost anywhere. Most of these pocket-size media magnets can record audio and send it to other phones, email, upload it to a website, or store it on the originating device. Many act as portable music and audio players themselves. They take and store high quality photos as well as receive picture content from other sources. Phones employing the 3G (or 3rd generation/MMS) technology allow downloading and playing of video content including Podcast and other RSS supported media.
Now that my “why you should buy a cell phone” pitch is over, let’s talk about what this has to do with prime directive: Learning and Engagement. We understand the culture at most schools forbids we even acknowledge their existence lest be branded Heretics. Like writing notes, the use of tools to socialize represents a threat to order and control. However, specific and meaningful lesson structure using what these devices do best can allow for engagement and time on task. Which is ultimately what they want. Couple that with the fact mobile devices may offer unique solutions for supplementing or supporting your instruction and activities and we have a recipe for success.
They behave like personal computers because they are. Many now include hybrid forms of Internet or actual web browsers, which have the ability to navigate the World Wide Web anytime they are connected to cell service. They contain many other applications as well. The majority of mobile devices contain features like calendars, appointments, clocks, alarms, stopwatches, timers, conversion calculators, maps, GPS, and radio, just to name a few. Add to the this the litany of games and proprietary applications that can be purchase and loaded, and you have the single most powerful and portable computers ever devised.
Which make them perfect for •“OMG, he sd wt? TMTH! GTG, L8R 
”
The following are some of the GREAT examples.
“Students could learn about time zones using the world clock or in an economics classroom checking the stocks.”
“I would like to take “show and tell” to the next level. On Friday I would give the assignment to take a picture of something interesting or fun, then send that photo to 5 people. On Monday back in class people would be able share the photo they liked best and the student that sent the picture will be able to tell the class more about the photo they took. Show and Tell 2.0.”
“One idea that was used at my school was looking at Shakespearean Language and discussing how this was a popular and accessible form of communication at the time. The teacher then had the students translate ‘To be or not to be’ in SMS shorthand. The students really enjoyed this task.”
“Students could take pictures of their work and instantly send it to their fellow classmates for review. I, as a teacher, could video myself demonstrating a lesson then either upload it to a website or send it to the students phone. If computer resources are scarce in the art room, which they most likely are, the students could use the internet on their phones to do research for assignments. Another function of the camera or camcorder could be that the students could use them to show their progress or any tips they have on a classroom website.”
“I can give the students play money and have a “lunch” in the classroom where…each student would get their “bill” and would have to figure out with the tip calculator how much of a tip they would want to add. Then they would use their play money and pay the bill. The students would see how much the meal is before the their tip and how much it is after with using different percentages. The cell phone would actually be a good way to teach students about math, money, and responsibility.”
Like in the traditional classroom, some students do not own one. In the same way teachers provide calculators for classroom use. Prepaid, limited use phones and mobile devices can be employed. A phone worth $80 could supplement the instruction for a number of students while allowing them to participate and even take an active roll.
When we allow students to use tools that are also social, we turn over a measure control.
To view mobile devices as just tools of the Devil would be short sighted. They ARE tools of the devil, mind you, but a Devil you know. This one has reared its head many times in educational history. We call it by many names: talking, passing notes, laughing, playing, singing, and even competing but is known by its formal name “socialization”. We tend to fear it, mostly, because we don’t know how to control it.
“When the students are working independently, or in a small group, on something (such as centers) you could have one of them with a cell phone set a timer so that they will know when to stop and switch stations.”
“I thought i could use mobile devices in the classroom as a form of a pop quiz… I will ask them [individuals and groups] to text other students in another school about a similar subject. They can ask them any questions relevant to the material being studied … They can also receive text messages from an one else whom they might think has answers to their questions. This will not be cheating but a way for the students to decide what material is relevant and discuss their knowledge with other students.”
Students who perform appropriately have the ability to use the technology from time to time. Those who abuse it or fail to utilize it, lose that right, just like every other classroom tool.
Teachers who can set limits, use these devices in specific and meaningful ways, dictate (like calculators) when they can be out, and can anticipate and manage issues as they arise will have richer learning experiences and engaged students.