News for July 2008

My life in the next couple of weeks…

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It may be the summer holidays, but I’m busier than ever! After meeting my new thesis supervisor yesterday, I need to get cracking investigating the concept of ‘digital literacy’. I’ve also got an impending deadline for the work I’m doing with Nick Dennis for a publishing company. Not to mention the list Hannah left me when she went down to Devon with Ben to give me some time and space… ;-)

Thanks to @langwitches for linking to the image!

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Posted: July 29th, 2008
Categories: Everything Else
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edte.ch barnraising: get involved in forming a community!

The edublogosphere is a wonderful place. It’s a place that’s grown almost exponentially since I joined it 3 years ago, making it a wonderfully diverse arena for discourse. :-)

However, sometimes it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lost. How do you get in touch and interact with those facing similar situations and challenges as yourself? In addition to a network, there’s a need for groups.

Enter edte.ch. As I’ve already discussed, edte.ch is to be a place for educational technology professionals and students. I’ve no financial interest in the project: I’m acting as domain name owner, facilitator, and contributor. :-D

I want it to be a grassroots community, a place for postgraduate students to find people to bounce ideas off, an arena for instructional technologists to discuss barriers and opportunities. But I need YOUR help to get this off the ground.

  1. If you’re an educational technology professional or student, imagine the type of community to which you’d like to belong.
  2. Imagine how you’d interact with that community.
  3. Contribute your ideas to the barnraising section of edte.ch
  4. (optional) Share links to good stuff at http://friendfeed.com/rooms/edtech
  5. (optional) Get involved in a synchronous chat towards the end of the week (to be organized) about the future of edte.ch

Although I’ve obviously got my own ideas, I don’t want to be overly-prescriptive. I’m a great believer in the ability of people to organise themselves on a grassroots level. I’ve already been contacted by a great number of people who would seem to be in need of something like this. I know I am – let’s make it work! :-p

*Wondering what I mean by ‘barnraising’? It’s a predominantly Amish practice and a two-day event where the community comes together to build a barn. I first came across this in the film Witness.

My new Digital Literacies codex

I came across CommentPress again recently. It’s a theme for WordPress (which powers this blog) that allows people to comment on each paragraph of a post. I thought it would be a good idea to enable people to comment in this way on my Ed.D. thesis.

Therefore, to make things as simple as possible, I’ve set up a new Edublogs-powered digital codex at:

digitalliteracies.edublogs.org

I say ‘digital codex’ because it’s not a blog, per se, more of an online article. There’s not a lot on there at the moment – just my thesis proposal – but it will grow as I write each chapter of my thesis. :-)

Posted: July 22nd, 2008
Categories: Thesis
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Synaesthesia, migraines and creativity

It was only about two weeks ago that I found out I’m a bit weird. I was listening to an episode of BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind (listen), part of which was dedicated to synaesthesia. I didn’t realise that something I experience all the time actually qualifies as a mild form of the condition!

But what is synaesthesia? Nature defines it in the following way:

An unusual ‘mixing of the senses’ in which a stimulus in one sensory modality (for example, a sound) elicits a percept in another modality (such as visual perception of a colour).

All In The Mind explained that this definition can be widened to include something both I and my mother experience: conceiving of time as being physically and spatially located. It’s difficult to explain this in words, and my perspective and view on time changes depending on the period I’m ‘looking at’. To give you some idea, however, here’s something like what I ’see’ when I think of the period of human history:

The above is a very quick and rough sketch – what I actually see is a lot ‘thicker’ and 3D. As you can imagine, this has its benefits and is probably one reason why I’m a History teacher! :-p

I didn’t think anything more about this until I listened to one of the series of TED Talks entitled A Journey to the Center of the Mind by Vilayanur Ramachandaran. Towards the end of his (fascinating) talk, he mentioned that ‘creative’ people (artists, poets, etc.) are eight times more likely to experience synaesthesia than ‘normal’ people. He explained the condition as probably being due to a malfunction in the gene that ‘trims’ ‘the connections that exist initially between all parts of the brain.

So I wondered… perhaps there’s a link between synaesthesia and migraines? After all, I experience ‘aura’ when I have a migraine – something like a less extreme version of the picture below, usually starting with patches of coloured light:

Sure enough, when I looked it up I found several references, including this one. Now I’m no painter or poet, but I am fairly good at metaphors and making links between (often fairly diverse) subjects.

I’m firmly of the belief that, especially when it comes to the brain, things cannot be studied or considered in isolation. Although I want to do further research, I’m fascinated at the possible link between synaesthesia, migraines and creativity (in the form of associationism). Perhaps, like autistic people who are fantastic mathematicians or artists, migraines have their associated upsides…

Do you experience synaesthesia? Perhaps you see numbers or days of the week as being certain colours or, like me, conceive of time in a sensory way. Do you also get migraines? I’d love it if you could share your experiences! :-)

(Image credit: My Brain on MRI by CaptPiper @ Flickr)

Help me fill in the gaps.

I need your help.

As I’ve already mentioned several times here already, next year I’m going to have the role of E-learning Staff Tutor at my school. This involves having a reduced timetable and spending time raising what I would term the ‘digital literacy’ of the teachers in my school.

To do this, I need examples of folks within their discipline who are using educational technology and Web 2.0 tools successfully. Whilst I could point people towards/use the International Edubloggers directory, there’s the problems of a) not everyone (including me) is on there, and b) I don’t ‘know’ them – and therefore can’t introduce others to them. Plus, I much prefer recommendations! :-)

Below is a list of the subjects taught in my school.* Next to them I’ve filled in the names of those that teach that subject who I follow on Twitter. I may have missed some out if I’m not entirely sure what they teach or if they’re a consultant.

I’d like to leverage the ‘power of the network’ to fill in the blanks so I can expand my network and make it more ’rounded’. In turn, I hope this will become a valuable resource for those in similar positions to me! Individuals in italics have been suggested in the comments section.

If you’ve got an individual to add to the list, please give their name, location and blog/wiki/Twitter/whatever URL. :-D

If I’ve got something wrong – your name(!) or your subject, please let me know ASAP so I can change it. :-p

So they don’t feel left out, there’s a host of primary school teachers doing amazing things, such as Al Upton (Australia), Amanda Rogers (USA), Brian Crosby (USA), Clarence Fisher (Canada), Doug Noon (Alaska, USA), Graham Wegner (Australia), John Johnston (Scotland), Jo Rhys-Jones (England), Lisa Stevens (England), Mark Ahlness (USA), Mark Warner (England), Steve Kirkpatrick (England), Tom Barrett (England), Wendy Goodwin (USA). Even members of Senior Leadership Teams around the world blog! For example, Chris Lehmann (USA)

The edublogosphere is also full of those hard-to-define characters who have job titles/roles such as ‘E-Learning Director’, ‘Technology Specialist’, ‘Digital Curriculum Co-ordinator’, and so on. Don’t worry – I’ve got something for YOU coming in the near future! :-D

*There are some subjects taught in my school because it’s a specialist Engineering school that you don’t tend to find much elsewhere. These (Catering, Construction, Engineering) I’ve left out – but I very much welcome links if you can find them! :-)

(Image credit: Bullseye by raspberreh @ Flickr)

Update: RSS feeds from above blogs collated thanks to Grazr here: http://elearnr.edublogs.org/links/ :-)

Posted: July 16th, 2008
Categories: Education
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5 productivity tips/hacks I’ve come across recently.

I’m always on the lookout for ways in which I can be more productive and increase my creative outputs. Time is precious when you’re a teacher, husband and father! Whilst I recommend you subscribe to blogs like Lifehacker and Lifehack.org directly, I’d like to share with you some of the tips and ‘lifehacks’ I’ve found useful recently:

1. FriendFeed

If you’re not using FriendFeed yet, you should be! I’ve been using it for a couple of months and find it very useful. It’s like the river of news and updates you get on Facebook (or at least last time I checked). The difference is that it’s people in the edublogosphere so it’s things related directly to professional learning. The quality of links, recommendations, etc. I get through FriendFeed means that I actually check my feed reader less often now (and use Feedly instead of Google Reader when I do…)

2. Firefox Extensions

I’ve already blogged about Stylish and Feedly, but it’s amazing how much Firefox extensions (addons) can improve your productivity. Take a couple recommended by Lifehacker recently:

  • Tree Style Tabs – allows you to hierarchically organize tabs in a vertical manner in your sidebar. Much more useful than it sounds!
  • Picnik – allows you to capture and edit screenshots online.
  • Zemanta – adds features when creating blog posts like related articles, suggested tags, links to Wikipedia articles, etc.

It’s worth trawling through the Mozilla Firefox addons site and/or doing a Google search for recommended extensions. There’s some great one out there! :-)

3. How Priorities Make Things Happen

I know from experience that I work much better and in a more focused way if I’m working to a deadline. In fact, I purposely don’t start things until, for example, I’ve only got 24 hours left to complete it. Otherwise, I procrastinate and then, when finished, endlessly tinker to make things ‘just right’.

In a Lifehacker post about a book entitled How Priorities Make Things Happen, this is put into a more structured and easy-to-understand (and follow) form:

The easiest way to make a goal meaningful is to use ordered lists and a high priority one bar. These two simple tools force you to make tough decisions early. An ordered list simply means putting your goals in priority order, most important at the top, least important at the bottom. Divide that list in half: the top are things you must do, or die (Priority 1). The rest are things you hope to do, but can live without (Priority 2). Make your priority 1 list as small as possible: set a high bar. The smaller your list of must do’s, the easier they are to achieve. You will face waves of conflicting emotions as you decide what is truly important, but once you settle on priorities the hard decisions will be behind you.

4. Share Your Secrets To Be The Change

I’ve always shared pretty much everything I’ve ever produced – from my university essays/theses to resources I use in the classroom. Others have been flabbergasted by this approach, finding it strange that I should give away for free what I’ve put so much work into. I have the opposite approach – I get back so much more than I give. I’m sure others reading this have found the same.

It’s for the above reasons that I found Share Your Secrets To Be The Change, a post on Lifehack.org, to be so affirming. I especially liked the bits about sharing ‘making your life happier’ and making you into a ‘hero’. Knowing that I’ve got an audience certainly makes me more productive.

5. Top Ten Modern Life Survival Skills

It’s all very well these websites that show you how to start a fire using a Coke can and a piece of chocolate, but how many of us will actually ever need to do that? Really useful ‘modern survival skills’ can give you more control over your life; ergo more time and therefore productivity.

A post on Lifehacker entitled Top Ten Modern Life Survival Skills includes this gem:

Ever notice how putting your hand on your clock radio tends to clarify and boost the signal? You can use that same body-as-extended-antenna trick to locate your car in a stuffed parking lot. Hold your remote opening fob against your skull, hit the alarm (or beep-beep locking button), and you’ll locate your vehicle from farther away.

Have YOU got any productivity tips/hacks you’ve come across recently you’ve found useful? Share them in the comments section! :-D

(Image credit: branching out by shapeshift @ Flickr)

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Knowledge vs Experience

After attempting (fruitlessly, it would seem) to show the importance of experience and context in the edublogosphere, I can’t help but poke some fun at myself with today’s daily Dilbert cartoon:

Dilbert is © Scott Adams (Dilbert.com)

Posted: July 13th, 2008
Categories: Everything Else
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‘In The Night Garden’ as a communist utopia

My son, Ben, like most toddlers, has a routine. This includes, every night before bed, watching In The Night Garden. Now before anyone accuses us of being bad parents, let me just point out that he watches the programme, then goes in the bath, is read a story, has his milk and then goes to bed. :-)

If you haven’t seen In The Night Garden before, you really should – it’s quite an experience. Each episode is around 30 minutes long, but you can get a flavour from this YouTube video:

I’ve watched most of the episodes several times by now. We record them all as the BBC, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to screen the programme in the morning instead of during CBeebies Bedtime Hour.

The above is by way of prelude to my main point. The programme (probably intentionally) can put you into a state of not quite being awake and not quite being asleep. In that rather nice state of consciousness I got to thinking just how much like an ideal communist society it is:

  • The characters have all of their needs provided for, yet no-one is in overall control (do they ‘own the means of production’, though?)
  • There is no monetary system.
  • Men, women and children are of equal status.
  • There is no mention of, or reference to, religion – the garden just exists.
  • In the most innocent way imaginable there is ‘free love’ – in that everyone kisses everyone else.
  • Liberal parenting (in the form of the Pontipines) prevails.

Whilst I’m sure the group who conceived and produced the show aren’t raging communists, it does make you think of the values being explicitly and implicitly inculcated into even the youngest of children… :-p

I am Spart-arthus!

OK, so I’m not really ‘Arthus Erea‘ the poster boy of the Student 2.0 ‘movement’. I considered pretenting to be though. :-p Apparently he’s going to launch a new blog as ‘a teacher’:

Here’s 3 reasons I don’t think 14 15 (whoops!) year-olds have a full part to play in the edublogosphere:

  1. They haven’t had much life experience. In the same way that you wouldn’t appoint a newly-qualified teacher to run a school, teenagers haven’t got the experience to make fully informed comments on education. They only see one side of the picture.
  2. The transparency that we almost demand in the edublogosphere – even the simple ‘what’s your name and where do you come from’ – cannot be provided by these youngsters due to child protection issues. The edublogosphere therefore just becomes another anonymous forum to them.
  3. They tend to be ships without a rudder, speeding off in one direction and then another. Yes, they need interactions with more mature people to give them this ‘rudder’, but I would argue that they learn by imitation. The best place for this is offline – especially given point 2!

It’s not up to me who you follow on Twitter or whose blogs you read, but I see teenagers as having the same role in the edublogosphere as student councils do in schools. That is informing professionals.

Finally, I just find it all a bit unhealthy that we treat a 14 year-old as a fully paid-up member of adult discussions. It’s a bit like me interacting with students on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. As a teacher, I just don’t do it.

I’d love to hear some proper justifications of why I should that aren’t platitudes or crowd-pleasing posturing… ;-)

Posted: July 12th, 2008
Categories: Education
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I need YOUR help with the future of edte.ch

I’m done with edte.ch as a business. I’d post a video of me setting my business cards on fire if it wasn’t for the fact I’m going to recycle them! Why is edte.ch as a consultancy dead? Answer: my role next year has pushed me into the area previously only available to me as a sideline. Hence, I recently blew up the site. :-p

So, what to do with the great domain name? I’ve a couple of ideas which I’d like to bring together on the new site. They both involve creating places for discussion for distinct groups of people who, at present – as far as I’m aware – don’t have a forum for debate/help/guidance:

  • Ed.D. students interested in educational technology.
  • The role known variously as E-Learning Tutor, Instructional Technologist, E-Learning Director, etc. that’s becoming increasingly common in schools around the world.

Over the last few months I’ve had a substantial number of representatives from each group contact me for advice, guidance and requests for resource/idea-sharing. I want to provide that forum for discussion and debate,* but I need the help of the community in two ways:

  1. I want to use some type of software to get this sorted out. I tried KickApps, but didn’t like the advertising. Despite several attempts, I’m clueless with Drupal, so was going to try Joomla. I’d really welcome suggestions and recommendations – especially of those found at OpenSourceCMS.com
  2. I’m going to need some co-administrators/moderators for the new site. Anyone up for that?

Please do let me know in the comments if you’ve any ideas or want to take part! :-D

* Let me re-iterate that edte.ch as a business has ceased to exist. The only thing I will ‘own’ on this website is the domain name. Let’s face it – someone has to! The content will be Creative Commons-licensed.

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