The Revolution is Synergy

It doesn't have to be either/or. The revolution in media is not about traditional media vs. social media; it's about a newly possible synergy between the two.

Synergy. That's what we can offer our students.

• Saturday: Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com - Annotated

  tags: Iran, media

  • To supplement reporting by New York Times journalists inside Iran on Saturday, The Lede will continue to track the aftermath of Iran’s disputed presidential election online, as we have for the last several days
    • This is the future of newsreporting: a synthesis of professional reporters in the field, a variety of bloggers, and Tweets and other social media supported by citizens experiencing events and commented on around the world in real-time. - post by teachpaperless

Posted from Diigo.

The Conversation on #IranElections

Absolutely vivid discussion/argument/whateveryouwannacallit going on the last few days in the comments to a post on Weblogg-ed titled "#IranElections: Why We All Need to be Editors Now".

Read it. Comment. Diigo it up.

Ignore at your own risk.

School Games

Generation Yes blog reports on recent EU research on Games in Schools.

This on the heels of the Games, Learning, and Society Conference, and the upcoming opening of the Quest to Learn School in the Fall of 2009.

Naysayers gird yourselves with Pong-addiction horror stories. Let's see where this goes.

Social Media's Possible Effects on Assessment, College Admissions, Identity, and Critical Thinking

Engaging discussion this afternoon at the Friday Chat. The topic of discussion concerned the ways in which social media will have an effect on assessment. Going back over the transcript of the chat, three things really struck out at me.

The first was how social media could effect college admissions -- and not in the sense of colleges looking for pictures from high school parties, but from the perspective of how a four-year social media portfolio might demonstrate more about the student's academic, intellectual, and creative capacities than a list of scores on exams ever could.

Second, we discussed the connections between authentic assessment and identity. I discussed this in a post yesterday and have had a lot of conversations about it today. I think it's one to give some real thought to, especially as we see the role of social media becoming more ubiquitous in all aspects of life.

Finally, we had an interesting talk about 'Critical Mass' as a teaching and assessment tool. I am fascinated by the possibilities of using Twitterfall and other forms of real-time search to facilitate critical thinking.

Here are clips from the chat:

On social media, assessment, and college admissions:

I agree w/ critical mass assessment. For a bottom-line oriented community, though, pointing toward a corpus of work might create conflicts. as in -- "this isn't quantifiable...how did you come up with these grades?" Sadly, more earnest assessment isn't always easy to explain. Nate at 3:25 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

I think that's changing. I think the final push will be when colleges completely stop accepting AP scores and move to student portfolios. Shelly at 3:26 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

As a result, I think teachers then create assessments that are retrograde b/c those structures are easy to perceive as being authoritative. Nate at 3:27 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

'Authority' is on the way out. Shelly at 3:27 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

I hope it's changing. Unfortunately, secondary schools w/ more clout w/ colleges are perhaps more able to take these kinds of risks. I'll have to ask some of my friends in college counseling how they perceive these types of portfolios. Nate at 3:27 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

The 'clout' issue... I think there may be a subtext there with regard to grade inflation. Shelly at 3:29 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

It'd be great if students could include on their college application a blog that they've curated for four years and shows intell. growth. Nate at 3:29 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Admissions Counselors are savvy. They know what those scores mean. I think admissions wd prefer four-year portfolios. Shelly at 3:30 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

can you expand on what that subtext of grade inflation is? Nate at 3:30 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

And once they put the muscle of scholarship and financial aid money behind it: watch out! Goodnight AP exams. Shelly at 3:30 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

that'd be great. I think the CB tests do emphasize some important intell. skills, but the institution is just out to make $. Nate at 3:31 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

A friend told me a story that when he first came to this country from afar as a teacher, he was giving lot's of low-Bs as his highest grades Shelly at 3:32 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Pandemonium ensued. Shelly at 3:32 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

That's the subtext of grade inflation. Shelly at 3:32 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

yeah, the issue of grade inflation is rampant at my school presently. Demographic fears (e.g. a top 10% policy) has created a ground-swell movement for higher grades across the board believing that will help. Nate at 3:33 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Universities, more than ever before, are international. What do you think is going to happen to US students w/o changes in assessment? Shelly at 3:33 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

On the connections between authentic assessment and identity:

I also think that social media and blogging is a good way for students to really distinguish themselves and create a clear identity. Nate at 3:35 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

The 'identity of intellect'. Pappas wrote about this yesterday; I did a follow-up. Absolutely vital to student success. Shelly at 3:36 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

beyond assessment, I think social media helps clearly communicate that the teacher is also simultaneously learning from the students. Nate at 3:38 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Students need to be connected to and validate one another; that's a successful society. Can't just be looking for approval from top. Shelly at 3:38 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

and that community-construction helps foster an 'identity of intellect' that you mentioned. Nate at 3:39 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Recognition of teacher learning is a form of good modeling. In seeking information and analyzing info, we model intellect. Shelly at 3:39 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Using Twitterfall in assessments to teach critical thinking:

how do you articulate the concept of "critical mass" to students? It seems a rather nebulous idea. Do you outline it on your syllabus? Nate at 3:42 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

We look at it in the 'real-world' and discuss what it means. Twitterfall is hands-down the best example for the kids. And the fun thing about Twitterfall is that it can be anything from the silliness of celebrity to the seriousness of warzone events. Shelly at 3:44 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

interesting idea about using Twitterfall to see meaningful vs. non- or less-meaningful postings, thoughts, etc. Nate at 3:44 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Exactly. All a matter of being able to evaluate good writing and validate or invalidate sources. Shelly at 3:45 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

that's also a great idea for teaching students to read for POV/perspective; how to understand bias and pay attention to the source's origin. Nate at 3:46 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Heck, I can tell you this: teaching bias via Twitterfall makes teaching Caesar and Augustus a piece-of-cake. Shelly at 3:47 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

yes, primary sources are opaque for students w/out contrasting it with contemporary primary sources--the bias, context, etc. students know. Nate at 3:49 PM, 19 Jun 2009 via web

Rescheduled Friday Chat

For folks following this feed live: there was a screw up re: todays's Friday Chat.

I'm the screw up.

Here's the deal: I'm going to try to run a rescheduled session at 3PM EST today. I'll be there, let's see who shows.

The topic will be: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

How will the integration of social media into assessment effect the authority of final exams and high stakes tests as 'authentic' indicators of student understanding and achievement?

The Friday Chat: Hosted by TeachPaperless every Friday at http://todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless

Debate at NECC 2009: Ask Them About Blocking in a Post-#IranElection World

Interested in hearing what the ISTE sponsored NECC 2009 Oxford Debate has to say about Internet and Social Media Blocking post-#IranElection?

Me too.

They are currently collecting ideas for questions to be asked at the debate. Click here to support their asking a question regarding blocking.

It's too important an issue to let slide.

Think about it: this is all about making authentic connections. And so long as Web 2.0 is blocked to students and teachers, we will never be able to give the kids an authentic 21st century education.

And what would that mean to our future?

I Think 'Common Sense Media' didn't do their Homework

Was considering posting about the Common Sense Media silliness about kids using technology to cheat, but Michael Kaechele beat me to it with an excellent post.

First of all, where are the teachers in the classroom administering the tests? I think cheating is not that easy if teachers are paying attention while they administer tests.... Cheating has been around for ages before we had cell phones. Don't blame phones for students behavior.

More importantly teachers should re-evaluate their tests. If tests are really at high-level thinking requiring analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and application then they should be "cheat-proof." It is much easier to cheat on multiple choice or fill in the blank than on a test that actually requires thinking, interpreting, and students writing their own opinion.

Absolutely agree.

Validation and Authenticity

Interesting post over at Copy / Paste concerning student perceptions of what their answers mean to a teacher.

Students learn that their comments are of provisional value until "approved" by the teacher. Over time, students stop listening to each other and only focus on what the teacher says or validates.

I'm interested in how this observation applies to technology in the classroom.

There's been a lot of talk over whether or not technology 'helps' students see things more broadly, let alone whether it helps students take part in the learning process in a more authentic and effective manner.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to the value of technology, it's all a matter of how you use it.

If your laptop/LCD setup is merely being used as a flashy overhead projector, then you might as well not be using it. If you are just using ed software to give easily graded multiple choice tests, then you might as well go with the Scantron.

The successful 21st century classroom will be the one in which the teacher's and the students' minds and the teacher's and the students' technology work seamlessly towards facilitating a fluid, transparent, open ended discussion between the teacher, the students, and the expanse of the connected network. It is a classroom that integrates authentic globally connected social media and authentic face-to-face conversation together into a learning reality.

Because when it comes to the matter of student validation, it's a matter of authenticity.

The whole thing revolves around a teacher who understands how to use and is comfortable working in a connected environment and who sets a tone of learning that suggests to the students that their answers carry the weight of intellectual identity and should be more than vain attempts to mimic what the teacher 'wants'.

The whole thing revolves around a teacher who understands how to integrate social media in such a way that the students are responding to one another and taking part in the big conversation beyond the classroom walls.

Otherwise, the students only learn to seek validity. And as Pappas states:

With no teacher to validate their comments, they naturally gravitate to other subjects where peer comments are valued - "what are you doing this weekend?"

Friday Chat: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

In my class, blogging is the primary form of assessment. Everything from vocab dictation quizzes to student posts on the ties between history and current events gets thrown up onto the students' blogs.

I originally started doing this as a way to develop portfolio reviews so that the students would have an easy-to-use resource for studying for the exams. Along the way, I discovered that the blogs themselves were a much better indicator of student understanding than the exams.

Now I'm weighing whether the exams are even worth it.

This Week's Friday Chat will be at 1PM EST on June 19th

The topic will be: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

How will the integration of social media into assessment effect the authority of final exams and high stakes tests as 'authentic' indicators of student understanding and achievement?

The Friday Chat: Hosted by TeachPaperless every Friday at http://todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless

Implications of #IranElection for Social Media in the Classroom

For the last several days, I've been consumed by this Iran story. I apologize if any of you think I've just been wasting blog space. I realize that in the heat of the moment I have not always been the most discrete concerning my statements on the media, but regular readers of this blog will long have since recognized that shortness of tact is just part and parcel of my prose.

Getting to the matter at hand: I just want to state for the record that I believe that two things have happened this week, give or take whatever the end result is in Tehran.

First, the Iranian people have protested their government in ways that seem unimaginable not so very long ago.

Their lives have changed.

Second, the use of Twitter to get information into and out of Iran -- being so important that the US State Department even got involved -- has demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt the legitimate importance of social media to societies.

All of our lives have changed.

As a teacher, my thoughts rest on what this all means for my students. And in thinking about it over the last few days, I see this as possibly a watershed moment in terms of what it means for the blocking/access debate.

I've posted in the sidebar to teachpaperless.com a section compiling all of my posts on #IranElection and what that feed means for the future of social media in education.

Read through; digest; and comment back with ideas, suggestions, and criticisms. As with most things these days, this blog depends on your continued generous sharing of ideas.

cK-12

Spoke with someone from cK-12 during the last Friday Chat. Our topic was the future of textbooks and she came into the discussion to present the open source point-of-view.

Here's a link to the cK-12 site. Check it out; I'd be interested in hearing what folks think.

Specifically, she was interested in what sorts of Web and Web 2.0 resources teachers would want integrated into an open source textbook platform. Apparently right now they are working with Wikipedia and Facebook. My vote was for Diigo, Twitter, and the full range of Wikimedia resources.

Contact cK-12 directly and give them your ideas.

On the Media: Eyes on the Ground

Pulled an early post from this morning because it really didn't say what I wanted it to. It's so easy as a blogger to just put stuff out there and forget about it. So I wanted to do this post right.

In all the talk about traditional media and social media, between cable news and Twitter, between that generation and this generation... there has been one thing vitally missing: the people involved.

Thank god for Robert Fisk. His reporting from the streets of Baghdad comes in the best tradition of in-the-moment reporters stemming from Edward R. Murrow right up to the present. Without these reporters, news is just a sham.

Thank god also for the students and Twitterers inside Iran who have risked so much to show to the world what their country is going through. They too have a little Murrow in them.

It's easy, in the heat of battle as-it-were, to sling arrows with little regard for where they fall. Fisk and his ilk deserve better than to be compared to studio reporters who wouldn't know a story if it exploded in front of them. And the Iranian Twitterers deserve better than to be written off or -- even worse -- merely defined by their medium.

When it comes down to the brass tacks, good reporting isn't about whether you publish in the New York Times or whether you Tweet from a college dorm in Tehran. It's about whether you are honest about what you see.

Changes are taking place in front of our eyes. The mainstream media will not be the same after the events that have taken place in Iran. Not if they can be honest with themselves.

Likewise, the role of social media has changed. When you have the US Department of State telling Twitter not to shut down for scheduled maintenance in the midst of the protests, you know we have transcended the old criticisms of social media as a meaningless trend.

This is the world our students are growing up in. And more than anything, I hope that the events of the past days will change the way school leaders view social media.

But even more important than that, I hope for all humanities' sake, we recognize the value in having eyes on the ground with connections to the rest of us.

The Connection

Speaking of thought provoking, check out the work being done over at elearnspace:

...being a literate person is not so much about what you know, but about how you know things are connected.

This is a riff on the old adage that it's not what you know, but how you know. I like the extension to connectedness; it feels right. Because we really are living through times -- as the examples of #IranElection and Twitterfall have demonstrated wholeheartedly -- in which understanding how to read the connection is crucial to the understanding of the content or situation at hand.

Just yesterday I got in a comments-argument with a fellow Web-citizen over the value of traditional media versus social media. What amounted to a lot of bickering really made me pause upon reflection this morning that really it's just a matter of how we read the connections made by either media.

It was my interloper's perspective that traditional media was more authoritative because the reporters are professionals. My argument against that is that because they are professionals, they are bound by the customs of their institutions -- whether we're talking about the ethics of their profession or the top-down management of news via the hierarchy that exists in corporate media.

It was my perspective that, though there are obviously dubious positions that will emerge, by and large the critical mass of the blogosphere actually keeps things relatively honest; thereby, videos and pictures and news reports Tweeted by amateurs-on-the-street are just as viable a news source as any professionally tweaked report. Now, an argument can certainly be made that mass-made anonymous media could easily be rife with untruth. Point taken.

In the end result, what it really comes down to is understanding the connection.

How is the traditional reporter connecting to you; what are the filters? Editors? Advertising dollars?

How is the amateur-on-the-street connecting to you? What are the motives? Biases?

We have always taught our students to be aware of bias. But now it's taken a new turn. And it's the turn that hints at the dilemma in 21st century media. Big corporate machines vs. Mr. Nobody. It's an age old story; but now, Mr. Nobody has equal billing.

Make the connections.

Smart Mobs on Mob Smarts

Smart Mobs has got a wealth of thought provoking posts regarding the links between mobile communication, networking, and social action.

Some of this is disturbing stuff; some of it is compelling in its witness of human compassion. All of it is very telling of the ethical and analytical dilemmas faced by a society living within a global network.

And I would consider Rheingold's book to be required reading -- especially for teachers.

Because students ask teachers questions. And though we may rarely -- if ever -- have the answers, we can at least give context. That's what this book does.

It gives the context for understanding social change in these networked times.

And by reflecting on the nature of the societal changes brought about by social networking, we teachers can have a better understanding of the context in which our students' questions are asked.

Twitter Search: a primer

Useful Common Craft video explanation of Twitter Search via Open Learning.

Real-time search is now.

Block at Your Own Peril

Regarding the manifest ways in which social media outdid MSM concerning the ongoing Iran protests, The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf writes:

Are we approaching a point where political information is processed so fast that an event happens, information elites weigh in to shape the discourse surrounding it, the conventional wisdom is communicated to Congress, and elected leaders formulate reactions based on public opinion... all before most of even the formerly plugged in members of the public ever learn what on earth is going on, or have a chance to form an opinion? Is anyone who works at a company that blocks their Facebook feed going to be meaningfully disadvantaged in the political process? Egalitarian concerns aside, are the information elites going to set a course, ossify as they always do in their opinions, and influence the nation's course too hastily? Are we on course for a kind of political singularity?

And I respond: Only if we fail to teach our schoolchildren how to use and process social media.

Block at your peril.

The future is now, whether we are ready for it or not.

An Anonymous commenter leaves the following very well-thought-out considerations:

While looking at the world in a new way, we can find great sources for primary source, unfiltered information - as you have shown with the Iran Tweets. But I do think there is going to be a period of time where students will need to live in paper AND paperless worlds. Learning how to find authentic and valuable information among the torrent that is raging around them in the paperless world of Tweets, Facebook, and blogs is a skill students don't even know they need. The vast majority of students don't recognize bias and subjective information without some excellent examples to use for comparison. Frankly, right now many of those examples are in print for the vast majority of students because of access.

Access and equity are large, complicated issues. Not everyone has access to Web 2.0 tools, even if they have computer access. Not every student has access to a computer. (One-to-one computer initiatives across the US would help!) Not to dull the cutting edge for you, but some respect has to be paid to those issues in the greater scheme of things. Moving to a paperless teaching environment will take years and some kind of administrative motivation beyond saving the trees.

In terms of living in paper and paperless worlds, I would agree only in the present. Meaning that we are going through a transitional period and were we living in a previous time I think it would be onerous to force the medium of a previous age on the innovation of the next, as in say forcing papyrus on the manuscript editor or goatskin on the village printer.

In terms of access and 1:1 computing initiatives, I have advocated time and time again both here and via my Twitter feed and in various communications and in talks for free universal open access Wi-Fi. This begins in the cities with Wi-Fi initiatives and community access projects. These things are already happening in cities like Philadelphia and Minneapolis. Make it happen where you live.

In terms of hardware, ask your local school district what it costs to educate the average individual student. Then compare to the cost of a Netbook or SmartPhone.

As for motivation: saving trees is great, but this is well beyond even that. This is about our kids actually taking part in the 21st century in an authentic way.

The future is now, whether we are ready for it or not.

Classroom of the Future: the Open Architecture Challenge

It will be interesting to see who wins the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge... because this year, the challenge was to design the 'Classroom of the Future'!

Here's a fun video they produced to introduce the competition. Note in the beginning: "The industrial model of school design hasn't changed for hundreds of years, but the theory and practices of teaching have dramatically evolved..."

Hmm. Wonder if there will even be classrooms in the future...

Who are We? -- Profiles in Ed Tech

Who are We?

It's time to put faces to names and stories to ideas. I want to know who we are. Who are the teachers, the ed leaders, the IT folks, the administrators, the thinkers, the visionaries, the students, the parents, the authorities, and the revolutionaries who make up the Ed Tech world?

In preparation for a new blog series here on TeachPaperless, I am seeking NECC 2009 presenters and attendees who would be available for interviews in DC.

Please RT on Twitter and get in touch if you are interested or if you know someone attending with whom I should absolutely not miss the opportunity to talk.

Thank you, fair readers,

- Shelly
Tweet me @TeachPaperless

Reminder: This Week's Friday Chat on the Effect of Social Media on the Future of Assessment

Reminder:

This Week's Friday Chat will be at 1PM EST on June 19th

The topic will be: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

Is blogging more effective than the writing of traditional academic essays? Is a Twitter-enhanced collaborative test more authentic than a traditional selected response test? Does the integration of social media into student assessment portend the end of high-stakes testing?

The Friday Chat: Hosted by TeachPaperless every Friday at http://todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless

This is the Moment: Legitimize Social Media in Education

It can not be denied. Social Media is now a part of everyday reality.

The situation in Iran demonstrates this beyond any of the articles TIME or NEWSWEEK will ever write.

Twitter's simple statement explaining that they would halt a scheduled maintenance this evening so as to not disrupt a means of communications for news within and without Iran demonstrates this beyond the pundifications of any of the loose cannons on cable news.

It's happened.

This weekend will go down in history in two ways. First, it will mark -- for better or worse depending on the outcome -- a fundamental shift in the way the people of Iran are able to express dissent with their government. Second, at least here in the United States, this weekend will mark the moment at which the mainstream media -- particularly cable news -- was overwhelmed by social media.

It can not be denied. We are all now living in a world of social media. You can't claim ignorance. You can't call it a 'trend'. Whether or not Twitter exists in five years is besides the point. What happened this weekend is that social media became -- in the most legitimate way -- the voice of the people.

***

Now, what do we do as educators?

Well, I'd say that this moment both offers us an open door and compels us to act. The door that has been opened now allows us to cross the threshold of the legitimacy debate. No one who has followed the #IranElection feed can argue that social media is not a vital and legitimate media source; nor can they argue that social media is nothing more than the playground of the Internet. If anything, what that feed demonstrates is that social media is the closest thing to an active collaboration of global human thought and knowledge that exists or has ever existed in the the collected history of global humankind.

It compels us to act immediately as educators because our students can not afford to have their access to this Zeitgeist blocked by foolish laws and fearful bureaucrats.

The blocking debate ended this weekend.

Goodbye to the last vestiges of 20th century top-down media. Goodbye to the fear of what humans might produce given the opportunity to work collectively in thought and goodwill. Good morning, humankind.

So teachers, don't try to teach kids to live in a world that doesn't exist anymore. Rather, reach out and take hold of the possibilities social media offers. Anyone countering you doesn't deserve the authority their office holds.

This is the moment. Legitimize social media in education.

Today's Lesson: Students Will Be Able To Explain How a Global Network Responds to Current Events via Real-Time Search

Present events have created a perfect teachable moment.

In the time it took me to write that sentence, 93 new reports came across Twitter Search concerning the situation in Iran. Twitter Search updates automatically in real time and posts the number of updates since your last check right in the tab you've got it running through on your browser.

I've had classes of students use Twitter Search to create collaborative bibliographies as well as self-directed grammar reviews.

It's also a darn good way to explain how a global network responds to current events.

The ability to process and analyze real-time search is one of the fundamental 21st century skills. Unlike the traditional search functions most of us are used to, real-time search opens up many new possibilities: including the ability to use search as a broadcast tool.

We're now up to 435 new reports since I wrote that first sentence.

Real-time search is also a democratizing tool. It evens out the media playing field and gives each voice -- from the correspondents of major news organizations to the average persons-on-the-street -- equal time. Real-time search is carrying live and in real-time the news of what's going on right now in Iran; and it's doing a much more comprehensive job than any traditional media outlet.

This is something our kids need to understand.

And it's something that needs to be explained in no uncertain terms to the folks who would otherwise choose to block social media in schools.

Social-media-driven real-time search is currently producing a wealth of human knowledge. For what reason, barring ignorance, would we want to hide that from our students?

As for the updates? In the time it took me to jot out this post, over 1045 individual stories came through Twitter Search -- just on the situation in Iran. Stories, links, first-hand accounts, video feeds, Flickr galleries, and a whole lot more. Over 1045 news messages in the time it takes CNN to run commercials.

Here is the link to the #IranElection feed.

Where Were You When They Tried to Beat the Democracy (and Social Media) Out of the Kids?

No comments here. Just Tweets via Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish and @Change_for_Iran.

I'm feeling sick, actually.

Via Sullivan: Imagine this Is Your Dorm Room.

Students. Twitter. Beatings. Death.

Paperless Attitude

A reader writes:

As a new reader of this blog, I've enjoyed the various topics--all of which seem to fit into the idea of a paperless classroom. To me, it's more of an attitude than specific techniques.

Thank you.

What is the purpose of this blog?

A colleague writes in dissent:

Twitter is not democracy. Your statements about Twitter and Iran and education certainly seem far removed from what you say is the purpose of this blog. I thought this blog was about paperless classrooms. What's Iran got to do with it? What is the purpose of this blog?

I've thought a lot about that question over the last few weeks.

Back in February when I wrote my first post, I never thought it would all pan out like this. I figured I'd have an audience of a handful of colleagues and would post occasional updates about cool things to do in a paperless classroom.

Guess things changed.

In the past two or three weeks I've written about social media in China, the politics of online textbooks in the California budget debate, the legitimacy of Twitter as an educational tool, and now about the need to teach via social media in light of the protests in Tehran. I've had conversations with leaders in the alternative textbook field, argued with the representatives of major corporations, and been invited to report at the NECC convention.

In that same time-period, I managed to give final exams and perform all of the duties of a classroom teacher. And a father of three.

As for what it means in terms of this blog... I don't know.

All I know is that this blog has taken on a life of its own. I don't ever have to wake up in the morning and worry about whether there is going to be something to write about.

There's always something.

And so, I say to you, colleague: you are right. Twitter is not democracy. Twitter is a means of access to information. Information is step one in producing democracy.

You are right: A lot of what I've written here seems out-of-line with the stated purpose of this blog.

But you are also right: This blog is about helping teachers build paperless classrooms.

It's just that my thinking over the last five months and 350 posts and countless conversations both in real life and online has altered for me what this 'paperless classrooms' thing is all about.

Because it's not about saving paper.

It's not about replacing paper with technology.

It's about looking at the world in a new way and actively taking part in it fearlessly, wherever that may lead. And it's not about using or not using a sheet of paper. It's about realizing that we are now living in a world where the dominant human-driven media are divorced from the top-down mode of corporate leadership that earned its keep in the Paper-Heavy World of the 20th Century.

The 20th Century is over.

Now we live in a Post-Paper World. Meaning we live in a world where text and information is dynamic, immediate, and immediately redactable. We live beyond the anomaly of mass-produced printed matter. We live beyond the static version of top-down knowledge as best represented by that dusty set of encyclopedias sitting forlorn in your local library -- miserably wondering what went wrong in the shadow of the computer bays bringing the democratized word of Wikimedia to everyone lining up to receive it.

Whether we like it or not, we live beyond the old modes of knowledge that paper represents.

We are all paperless teachers. And our students need us to be.

So I leave you, colleague, with a question: What is the purpose of this blog?

Friday Chat: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

This Week's Friday Chat will be at 1PM EST on June 19th

The topic will be: How Will Social Media Effect the Future of Assessment?

Is blogging more effective than the writing of traditional academic essays? Is a Twitter-enhanced collaborative test more authentic than a traditional selected response test? Does the integration of social media into student assessment portend the end of high-stakes testing?

The Friday Chat: Hosted by TeachPaperless every Friday at http://todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless

The New Global Student

OnPoint Radio this week with a great show talking the pros and cons of The New Global Student.

What the Iran Protests Suggest about Social Media and the Future of Education and Societal Organization

This is more than a compelling example of why we need to include Twitter in education.

Regarding yesterday's protests in Tehran, Andrew Sullivan blogged:

As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived.

Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message.

Think about it. When all else failed, there was Twitter.

To all of those naysayers who have excoriated social media -- likely only because you don't have the imagination to see its vast potential for human exchange or because you lack experience in making it work for building authentic and connected societal networks -- I ask you to do one thing for the rest of us: sit on your hands and watch. Watch as the new socially connected peoples of the world demonstrate for you what it means to participate in the global network.

Watch as we become aware that there are millions just like us, dying for the truth.

Watch as we take responsibility for our own understanding of what is going on in the world. Watch as we use social media to enact that responsibility in manifest ways.

And watch as we unapologetically teach our children and our communities how to use social networks for educating themselves, for empowering their neighborhoods and families, and for enacting change both on a local and a global stage.

Andrew nails it:

You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

And if we fail to recognize what has really happened here -- give or take whatever the outcome in Iran -- we will be doing direct harm to our future.

Now is the time that we must bring social and participatory media into the classroom. Not as an auxiliary to learning. Not as an extension of learning. But as the primary means of engaging real and authentic learning.

Learning that matters.

Learning that does things.

Learning that changes lives.

This is our challenge.

A Teachable Moment: Scottish Community Bans Twitter for Teachers

This is a story that's been out there for a bit, but only recently in the big press:

Teachers banned from Twitter after indiscreet tweet

Basically, based on a parent complaint about a teacher's 'indiscreet' Tweeting, the ed leadership of one rural community in Scotland has banned the use of Twitter by all teachers.

Never mind that 'indiscreet' here can be taken as a relative term. Never mind that the teacher may very well have been 'wasting time' on Twitter. Never mind whether or not what she Tweeted was 'appropriate'. The crux of this story concerns the nature of transparency and the inability by the authorities to handle the situation without resorting to draconian (and very 20th century-style top-down) limits on professional individual engagement with the global network.

In other words, the reaction of the authorities to the questionably questionable use of social networking by an individual has resulted in the suppression of individual freedoms extended to all.

This is the perfect example of why we need more and not less engagement with social media in the workplace. Because this is a case that stems from social-media-ignorance.

While for many Twitter amounts to a simple way to waste time, in the right hands and put to educational and professional development purposes, Twitter is the most powerful medium for the maintenance of a personal-learning and idea-sharing network that the Net currently offers.

We have the obligation to teach our communities the value of this network.

Rather than ban Twitter, the higher-ups in the Scottish case would have done better for themselves and their community by asking the teacher to educate the parents, students, and admins on how Twitter works and what its benefits are to education and professional development.

And I stand by what I stated in comments to the article:

There are lots of opportunities to waste time on Twitter. Just like there are lots of opportunities to waste time in the faculty lounge. But there are also many ways to use social media to connect to a much larger conversation.

Rather than blocking and filtering, we should be engaging and sharing in the conversation. It will at times be mundane; but it will at times be inspiring. Get with it, this is the 21st century; we're connected. That's just the way things are.

We as teachers are the ones whose role it is to educate communities, families, authorities, administrators, teachers, peers, and students about the value of social networks, social media, and participatory engagement with the Web. We are the only ones who will make the Scottish case an aberration rather than the norm.

Internet Access is a Human Right

ReadWriteWeb posted yesterday on the decision of the French Constitutional Council -- their High Court -- to declare Internet access a 'fundamental human right'.
Says RWW:

It's tempting to consider internet access a luxury, but consider the increased quality of life that comes with the huge jump in access to cultural and logistical information the internet brings. We think this is an important opportunity to think about expanding our understanding of human rights.

Exactly.

The discussion of Internet access 'rights' came up here on TeachPaperless back in March with regards to the allocation of Stimulus funds for educational technology. I stand by my post from back then:

I don't want 'nice proposals for challenge grants'. I want access for all. Internet access as a civil right. Now.

Exactly.

TeachPaperless: from June 28th to July 1st -- Live from NECC 2009

Looks like I'm headed to DC!

From June 28th to July 1st, I'll be blogging from the NECC 2009 conference thanks to a press pass award from ISTE.

A special thank you to ISTE Connects & the readers following the guest blogs at ISTE for giving me this opportunity.

Congratulations also to the other bloggers receiving a press pass: Beth Still and Neil Stephenson. See you in DC.

The Newsweek High School Rankings Sham

Caroline Grannan posts on the sham that is the Newsweek high school rankings:

The rankings are based entirely on the single criterion of how many AP (or two other similar) tests are taken by the students in the school. That's it. How the students perform on the tests is not part of the equation.

Newsweek's description: "Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by [reporter/editor] [TP Ed. - and "doomed fad" expert] Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate (IB) and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2008 divided by the number of graduating seniors."

Just wait until you read what Grannan then reports about the ties between Newsweek, Mathews parent-paper: the Washington Post, and the test-prep industry. Hint: WaPo owns Kaplan.

You'd think these big-media folks would have figured out by now that we're living in the age of instant global communication and real-time search. I guess they still think us bloggers are as lazy as their reporters.

Now THAT'S a list.

@MagistraM tweets:

Weird list of top 100 ed-related folks, don't you think? Not too many K12 and lots of those marketing to educators.

Indeed.

The iThinkMedia list of 100 educators is useful for finding folks deeply involved in thinking about ed tech, but it's definitely heavy on the higher-ed side... as well as folks involved in industry and research.

And, yes, some of the folks mentioned are just downright silly in terms of being one of the 'top 100' ed tech Twitterers. No insult implied, but I mean, the president of Ohio State University?!?

No hate mail, please.

So, a list of 100 Ed Twitterers not good enough for you? Ok, then... how about 1500?

The EdTech Twibe started by Steve Katz is much more comprehensive with over 1500 Twitterers from all walks of the education life. And lots of these folks are actually K-12 classroom teachers.

Like I Need a Second Life...

So I feel like I haven't given Second Life a fair shake in the past. Could be that as a pretty avid gamer, I'm rather appalled at the quality of the environment in SL compared to most MMOGs. That said, I'm willing to spend sometime this summer looking through and taking part in some of the prof development offerings SL has to offer teachers.

Currently, I'm hanging out on ISTE Island. Lots and lots of info, tutorials, and general help available here; seems like a good place for an ed tech SL newb to start out.

One of the odd things that I've noticed already, though: compared to the MMOGs I'm used to, Second Life is very quiet. Kinda ghostly.

But that could just be a matter of where I've found myself.

So, I think I could use a little advice from some of you SL regulars. A few basic questions I've got: What have been the pros and cons of your experience using SL? Do you find it a worthy forum for prof dev? What are the best sites and hang-outs in SL for an educational technologist looking to integrate virtual environments into the classroom experience?

And is there somewhere I can find a better haircut?

I'm sure I'll find answers to these and all of Second Life's more vexing questions, 'til then, look for Caesar Coleslaw hanging out around ISTE Island.

Educators to Follow on Twitter

iThinkMedia has put together an annotated list of 100 educators and ed-related folks to follow on Twitter.

Check it out, follow to yr heart's delight, and leave your own suggestions for follows.

On the Future of Textbooks

This week's Friday Chat: On the Future of Textbooks

Given recent developments in California and Virgina, we'll be discussing the pros and cons related to the digital text debate.

Go to http://www.todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless to take part in the conversation.

1PM EST, Friday June 12, 2009.

At the End of the Anomaly of the Age of Printed Books

I've been thinking about what we call paradigm shifts and whether what on the surface looks like a major one with regard to the Digital Age, may in fact be part of a much broader situation that's been occurring since the advent of the printing press and the obsolescence of the manuscript codex.

Back in college, I took a course called 'European Culture in the Middle Ages' with Jan Ziolkowski. Now, this was just about the last place I ever would have thought a discussion of the Internet would have arisen. But, in his discussion of the nature of the Medieval manuscript codex, Ziolkowski made an observation that has stuck in my mind ever since: in it's ability to be quickly redacted, altered, and republished, the text-experience of the Internet actually has more in common with the text-experience of the manuscript codex than with the text-experience of printed books.

In essence, as I took his meaning, it was incorrect to think of the text-experience of the Internet as an elaboration based on the text-experience of printed books. Rather, the text-experience of printed books was actually an anomaly in the history of how humans communicated via text. The text-experience of the Internet marked therefore not a paradigm shift forward, but rather a correction of the anomaly of printed books.

There is a distinction to be had between technological paradigms and ideological paradigms. Their influence on one another is what's so interesting.

Take for instance our notion of transportation. A horse gets you from point A to point B just as a car gets you from point A to point B. The technology changes, but the idea and purpose primarily remain the same. However, the car is able to overcome certain obstacles to the speed and carrying capacity of the horse; this shifts the idea of what can be accomplished via transportation. In other words, the idea paradigm changes according to the re-evaluation of what the tech shift means in terms of innovation.

The shift ultimately depends upon the worth of the innovation-exchange that both the technology and the idea produce.

With regards to communication, the situation is a bit different. Communication has sped up -- not unlike the automobile -- but, is it really able to overcome the obstacles of itself? In other words, whereas there are bio-technical distinctions to be made between horse and car, there is no such distinction to be made between written word on manuscript page and written word on computer screen. The distinctions are only in what you do with those words, which then amounts to syntactical hub-bub which could produce a shift but which in and of itself is not the shift.

The words are the words.

During the anomaly of printed books, the printed words took on a different connotation: they became 'the standard'. Newspapers were more 'authoritative' than handwritten broadsides; we argued about whether song lyrics should be considered 'real poetry' if they were typed up in a book.

Neil Simon wrote that once you wrote something down, it was considered truth; I'd append that to read: once you wrote something down that was then mass produced, it was considered 'the standard'.

That's changing.

Our current age of Diigo looks far more like the critical age of Medieval glossing than it does the age of shiny mass-produced magazines and textbooks. Our current age encourages 'writing in books'. No more of those fussy signs in the library discouraging highlighting.

Highlight away.

And look at what he said, and she said, and I said while you're at it.

You wanna know what the real paradigm shift is? It's that the Digital Age itself isn't a paradigm shift. It's a realignment.

The realignment itself is not the shift. The fact that we are realigning and re-evaluating the printed word is the shift.

In this way, 'Post-Print' is a better designation for our current environment than 'Digital Age'. Because, the Internet and Web 2.0 is not something new, rather it is the broad and global manifestation of something much older and more human than printed books ever were.

A 21st Century Dilemma

Interesting question from Ann Darling popped up in the comments of the Blocking discussion over at ISTE:

Is it ethical to use web 2.0 tools in classrooms knowing that our students must provide personal information to create their accounts?

Hmm. Talk about ethical dilemmas!

We all know that an alias and an alt Gmail account pwn any Web 2.0 log-in without giving away any personal information. We also know how annoying it is to have to deal with anons on blogs or discussion boards.

So, the dilemma: Do you let kids alt their way around outmoded firewalls and proceed anonymously through Web 2.0, or do you teach them to approach social media in an open manner and risk whatever consequences?

Discussion on Students and Internet Blocking at ISTE Connects

The discussion at ISTE Connects concerning Students and Internet Blocking has been remarkable.

In the past week, we've had discussion between teachers and admins on all sides of the debate, IT and tech workers whose job description entails doing the actual blocking, and even executives from the filtering industry.

I'd like to thank the folks at ISTE for giving me the opportunity to guest blog on their site; this has opened up a wonderful conversation.

Learning Games Network

Learning Games Network is an excellent web resource for information on Games and Learning.

Today they point to a remarkable essay on the topic of designing video games for foreign language learning.

Subscribe to their feed and follow the upcoming Games, Learning, and Society conference from Madison, WI.

Paperless Classrooms Becoming a Reality

TeachPaperless quoted today in The Guardian in an article about paperless classrooms becoming reality.

From the Horse's Mouth: a Textbook Editor Responds

A textbook editor responds to my call to 'Get Off Textbooks'.

Here's the highlight reel:

As one of the textbook editors you disparage in your post, I will say I am equally as frustrated as you are w/ the state of textbooks, but I think laying the blame completely at the foot of textbook publishers is misplaced. State standards such as those in CA are in essence political documents, and the textbooks produced to align to these standards are also politicized by extension. They are not so much a way to ensure that our children get the best education possible but a way to ensure that every interest group gets its say in how our children are taught.

There are a lot of intelligent, well-meaning, passionate people in textbook publishing. But unfortunately, the goal of textbook publishers is not ultimately to make a book that is of great value to teachers and students. Their goal is to please adoption comittees [sic] and district administrators who decide which books to purchase. To do otherwise would ignore the biggest markets and the biggest profits.

To truly change the educational system, change needs to happen to the standards themselves to make them more open and flexible and to allow for innovation in the classroom. And that change only seems like it can happen when the majority of parents, politicians, and educators begin to seriously reflect on how students are treated and taught and begin to change a lot of institutionalized attitudes that are really detrimental to actual leearning [sic]. I do see the glimmers of that happening, but it seems a long way off.

Problems with 'standards' and 'politicization'. Acknowledgment that this is really about markets and profits. Acknowledgment that flexibility and de-institutionalism are the benefactors of 'actual learning'.

If these are the feelings of a representative from within the textbook industry, then it's no wonder that classroom teachers themselves would want to throw textbooks out the window.

The short of the story: textbooks -- whether of the paper variety, or their online doppelgangers -- don't seem to be worth the time it takes to produce them.

Get Off Textbooks.

Get Off Textbooks

With the exception of a grammar book in first year Latin, I haven't used a textbook in class in over four years.

I'd remembered textbooks from high school... well, at least I'd remembered having had them. But my first real introduction to textbook culture came in my first year of teaching. I was hired out of college as an English teacher at a big public school east of Baltimore. I was handed a curriculum and a textbook and told: teach.

So, I tried to. And it was a miserable failure. I'd spent four years engaged in study in the Liberal Arts only to be handed a thick glossy book filled with abridged texts of questionable selection, 'critical' questions that were anything but, and historical information and background that was cursory at best.

I recall that the first thing I was supposed to teach was The Odyssey, which in the textbook was described as an adventure story and for which the publisher had supplied background material on the Trojan War and Greek culture in the amount of two paragraphs cribbed from Joseph Campbell.

By second quarter, I had scrapped the textbook and was teaching entirely using unabridged novels and plays. I didn't last long at the school, but at least in my time there my kids got a more authentic experience of literature -- and they all managed to pass the district exams at the end of the year, so I guess not using the textbook didn't hurt them much in the department that seemed to matter most to my higher-ups.

When I came to my new school, I began by teaching American Lit to Juniors and British Lit to Seniors.

The textbooks still stunk. To this day, I will never understand how an American Literature textbook -- in the 21st century, no less -- can treat Ezra Pound's most trivial work as his most important, can fail even to address the importance of The Waste Land, and can manage to exclude entirely the life and work of Allen Ginsberg.

For the non-Humanities folks among you, that would be like teaching the colors but skipping red, green, and yellow.

"This is what I learned in high school?" I thought to myself. I could have sworn I'd read Pound's Cantos and Eliot's The Waste Land, and Ginsberg's Howl. And then I recalled back to Junior year -- a year of handouts of major works not included in the textbook; a year of books on reserve in the library full of crucial unabridged texts not included in the textbook.

Now I realize what was going on back then. My teachers were using the resources at their disposal -- mostly library books and copy machines -- to offer us what the textbook companies could not: an education that reflected the reality of literature, not the practicality of what textbook editors thought that high school kids would be able to understand.

***

Read yesterday that California was moving to get off textbooks. I was very excited at first.

Went back and read the article a second time and was less excited.

The more I thought about it, the more depressed I became. Now I'm trying to reconcile why I feel this way.

To begin with, I have to give CA credit for looking towards getting off paper. This blog is all about paperless classrooms and digital education, so you'd have to figure I'd be elated about that. And, to an extent, I am. We know that paper production and consumption produces vast amounts of methane by-product, so any attempt to limit its use seems good to me.

What makes me depressed is the route which the article seems to suggest that California wants to take in going paperless.

It appears that the State wants to replace its textbooks with... textbooks.

Well, textbooks of the online variety.

Now, I've spent my entire academic career -- both as a student and as a teacher -- in the humanities and social sciences. The reason I don't need a textbook in English class or in History class is because I can grab anything I need from the Internet or the library; the reason I don't need a textbook in teaching a foreign language is because of the vast resources of the Web and the resourcefulness of my own experience working with the language. But, maybe it's different in mathematics and the sciences. Maybe a textbook is necessary.

But somehow, I doubt it.

I took a statistics course in grad school where there was no textbook and by-and-large we learned statistics by studying Quetelet, rolling dice, reading box-scores, and analyzing modern political campaigns.

I have a long-standing interest in String Theory and Quantum Mechanics, though I have no formal training nor the ability to complete complex mathematical equations. But I've read widely on the subject and devoured what I could via the accessible resources of the Web and, though formally ignorant, I can still sit down and engage in an educated discussion with a physicist.

If we think in terms of our students, there will be kids who get more of an understanding of probability from predicting horses than they ever would by reading text on a page. There are kids who could pick up and relate matters of contemporary physics to their art, their writing, their philosophy if but they were allowed to engage with the contemporary discussion without being bombarded by the question-and-answer-key doldrums of the physics textbook.

How many kids have missed out both on ever really appreciating poetry and and on ever really appreciating physics because of those damned textbooks and what they do to the expectations of what understanding and achievement mean in the classroom?

***

Virginia has recently become, I believe, the first state in the nation to go with an open source online textbook. Called a Flexbook, this physics text is entirely customizable:

FlexBook provides an environment for development and display of educational materials available for any teacher to use, share and adapt at no cost, using software and tools such as Java, Django, Ajax and the Google Web tool kit.

The non-profit foundation that produced the flexbook technology is CK-12. Unlike P21, whose board is cluttered with special interests of the textbook industry, the 'Educational Partners' of CK-12 include open source stalwarts like Wikimedia Foundation and the Open Access research advocate Public Knowledge Project.

Will flexbooks prove a cure-all? Not a chance. Is their board necessarily less self-interested than the folks who comprise P21? That remains to be seen. Plenty of tech industry superstars reign in the leadership of the organization.

But does the philosophy of the foundation seem to point in the right direction? Well, as far as open source goes, I'd say yes it does.

There are a lot of smart teachers out there. A lot of teachers who have spent countless hours in front of a jammed copy machine, making supplements to functionally primitive textbooks. Give them the tools of open source and the resources of the Web and we will see an exploding of the myth that demonstrative learning is best served by standardized education.

Holy Crap (Never Mind)

California to replace textbooks with online textbooks.

From the beginning of the next school year in August, maths and science students in California's high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review.

My emphasis.

So in other words, CA replaces paper with computer screens put to the same purpose.

Holy Crap

California to abandon textbooks.

Blocking Internet Access: the Conversation

The conversation about what Internet blocking suggests to students continues at the ISTE Connects blog. I urge you to contribute to the discussion: we want to hear your opinions!

Most recent comment, from Anthony Della Rosa:

I understand the need to block per CIPA compliance but that needs to be amended. I believe children 13 and over should be allowed the web with little or no restrictions. The problem is then we have to police what they do and teach them how to be socially responsible. Things haven't changed only the medium has. 3 years ago we taught students social responsibility but the Internet didn't exist. You didn't just go to school to learn how to read and write but how to act and behave and become an adult. Somewhere along the line that changed in and that why now we just block stuff, instead of teaching them responsibility, acceptable behavior and appropriateness. What will they do when they get to college or the real world???

A Good Use of Paper

There is a false bottom in the lower drawer of my desk. In that hideaway, I keep the one thing that keeps me coming back to work each August.

It's a short stack of envelopes filled with letters written to me by graduating Seniors.

Each year, I receive a few more and I add them to the stack. And each Graduation Day at roughly this time -- just before 11 in the morning -- I go back and re-read each of those letters.

I will not be so presumptuous as to divulge any of the content of what those letters contain. But I will say this: without those letters, I would have given up teaching long ago.

A lot of folks don't realize just what teachers go through over the course of an academic year. And though all teachers are different, I can say that in my case -- by the end of it all -- I am run down to the core. I am a man with exposed nerve endings. I am a sleepless and exhausted fool. I've got nothing left. I usually need a month just to recover lost sleep and brutally crushed synapses.

And it's just not worth it...

but for the letters.

***

Not that many students follow this blog, but for the couple that may, here's what I've got to say to you:

Thank you. I apologize that too often we teachers get caught up with other things going on and it takes us until the end of the year to finally get around to saying it, but: thank you.

Your letters inspire me. Your letters create for me a compendium of memory. And your letters help me realize that you do not need me around anymore. And that's the best thing for which a teacher can hope.

***

Nice use of paper, letters are. Sure better than hundreds of copies of a PowerPoint handed out at a faculty meeting. Sure better than thousands of multi-paged multiple choice tests.

Letters. The Roman statesman Cicero once said that life would mean nothing if not for the light of literature. And for me that means letters. Because those letters stuffed away in that desk drawer produce enough light to keep me going each year. Without them, most certainly, I would be lost in the darkness of an empty classroom.

On Mortarboards

I'm in a silly mood. Today is Graduation Day.

Diplomas. Speeches. Mortarboards.

Mortarboards? What's the story there?

The mortarboard is generally believed by scholars to have developed from the biretta, a similar-looking hat worn by Roman Catholic clergy. The biretta itself may have been a development of the Roman pileus quadratus, a type of skullcap with superposed square and tump and is now known as the Bishop Andrewes cap. The mortarboard may also have been influenced by practices in Islamic madrassas. It was originally reserved for holders of master degrees (the highest qualification in mediæval academia), but was later adopted by bachelors and undergraduates. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries corner-cap (catercap in the Marprelate tracts) was the term used (OED).

Thank you, Wikipedia.

I still think they look silly.

As my teacher friend Bob said, "Look how smart I am: I wear upon my head the stupidest piece of apparel humanity has ever produced."

Top Viewed Articles on TeachPaperless

According to Feedburner, these are the top ten most viewed posts so far on TeachPaperless. Thought I'd post the links here for folks new to the blog to catch up with the conversation we've been having.

1. Trust
2. Security and Monitoring of Online Tests
3. What Makes a Great Teacher a Great Teacher in the 21st Century
4. Don't Block: Educate
5. Technology and Museum Education
6. Facilitating Interactive, Multi-sensory Grammar Review
7. Technology Is Not the Goal
8. Educational Technology: Don't Fit it In
9. Don't Be Afraid to Talk Openly to Your Parents About Social Media
10. The 21st Century vs. Classical Education

In addition, here are the collection of posts on using Twitter in the Classroom that many folks have asked about:

1. Best Practices in a Twitter-enhanced High School Classroom
2. Latin Test Via Twitter
3. High School Sophomores Weigh in On Using Twitter in the Classroom
4. Twitter for Teachers
5. Using Twitter in the Classroom

If you don't see anything in these two lists that strikes your fancy, well hopefully there is something useful to you among the 325 posts written here over the last four and a half months. And as always, please comment and tell me what you would like to talk about here on TeachPaperless.com .

TeachPaperless: Thank you, Teachers

A comic strip about memory and gratitude.

Reminder: Today's Friday Chat about Digital Plagiarism

Today, Friday June 5th at 1PM EST:
The Friday Chat will be on the topic of Digital Plagiarism

A topic dear to the heart of any classroom teacher: plagiarism -- and methods of both discovery and prevention -- has become a fresh challenge in the Digital Age. Join us for informal discussion on June 5th.

June 5th at 1PM EST
http://todaysmeet.com/TeachPaperless

Your Students Write Alot? Apparently, Mine Don't.

This morning, during our last class of the year, I asked my Latin I students to blog about their experience learning in a paperless classroom. This was my favorite response:

I love using the internet. It is very easy and requires no writing.

I cut-and-pasted this student's blog into a Word doc.

And it turned out to be 156 pages long.

Entirely written by the student.

Not even counting comments.

No writing.

Indeed.

Another case of using technology in such a way that the students don't even realize that they are working and learning.

What Does Internet Blocking Suggest to Students?

Did a little guest blogging at ISTE CONNECTS this afternoon.

Topic: What Does Internet Blocking Suggest to Students?

The idea for the post came to me after a student emailed me this morning about the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In the subject line of the email: Looks like schools aren’t the only place Facebook is blocked.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely High School Band

Now this is a project: Band Director Brian Rabuse, of the Central Berkshire Regional School District, led the Wahconah High School Band And Chorus in a performance of the entirety of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!

Catch recordings of these amazing performances here. For my money, 'When I'm 64' has never sounded better.

This is a clear demonstration of a teacher and his students 'getting it'.

Why 'getting it'?

Well, I think it's a matter of collaboration merging with vision. It fundamentally underlines exactly the sort of practice that we strive for in our classrooms.

But, you counter, isn't this exactly the sort of project that undermines all your ed tech wonkiness? After all, you don't need computers and Internets to sing and perform music!

Yes. You are absolutely right. I don't need anything but my heart and lungs to sing music.

But think about this, perhaps, from the point of view of the listener.

I have no idea where Wahconah High School is. In a previous age, if I was ever going to have heard about the goings-on of Sgt. Pepper and the Wahconah Band, it would have had to have been through the medium of a proper broadcasting venue. Perhaps the local news would have done a story that was then picked up on by 60 minutes and was then shown as a two-minute clip at the end of a program. But, probably not.

Or perhaps the concerts might have been recorded and put out on CD; and the majority of these CDs would have wound up either in the hands of Wahconah Band's family members or the band director's basement. Probably, most definitely, they would not have made their way to me.

Instead, I get a Tweet around 10PM last night. It's a link to the audio blog of the project. I immediately listen to the concert in full as I blog about it and ReTweet the link out to my network of several hundred Twitterers.

I don't even know where it goes from there. Are you hearing about it (and hearing it) for the first time?

Just in terms of the idea of how this information was distributed, you have evidence of the power of our connected networks. And students can learn from that process just as well as having learned via the process of learning the music to begin with. This band project then becomes much more than even just the amazing concert experience it was. It becomes a lesson in how ideas get passed around the world.

Visit Wahconah and leave a comment. Let them know what it means to live in the global network. After all... it's Within You and Without You.

This is Zeitgeist Stuff

I've read a lot recently and heard a lot recently about the frustrations and burnout felt by teachers.

Well, it's June, so that's bound to happen.

But this year it's seemed to have been heavier and more pervasive than in most years. And I think when we look back on it, we'll realize why.

The 2008 - 2009 school year will be remembered as the year that the battle for social media in the classroom was fully engaged.

True, some great teachers began using blogs and wikis in school years ago. But this year saw something different. In the full explosion of social media -- especially as evidenced by the exponential cultural growth of Facebook and Twitter -- this year marked the first time that teachers took control of social media in a big way and demanded that they be able to use it both for professional development and as a tool in their classroom teaching arsenal.

Some admins bought in, some admins balked; but teachers everywhere flocked to social media and opened it up in ways that could not have been imaginable just a short time ago. Teachers flocked to Twitter because they fundamentally recognized the value of a free connected network. And that's one of the most important distinctions to be made between the old Web and the new Web:

The old Web was top-down and styled after the world as it had been.

The new Web is free and reflects we the people as we shall be.

This is Zeitgeist stuff.

***

And, inevitably, along with the Zeitgeist came the fear. Along with the teachers dying for the truth followed the folks scared to death of anyone knowing the truth. Along with the freedom that the new networks of humanity suggested came the eventual threats of blocking, filtering, and just plain turning off.

And many teachers who had just begun using Web 2.0 saw the doors closed before their eyes.

There were no explanations. Just fear. Paranoia.

Same stuff that always follows Zeitgeist around.

A teacher friend confided to me that his school had a team of several lawyers prepped for a battle over social networking. A battle that never took place. The fact that the school was willing to keep the lawyers retained for work they'd never do speaks volumes about the culture of fear.

Years ago, MySpace was made out to be a den of villainy. I recall being told by a law enforcement officer that perverts and criminals were timing their villainous escapades to the posts of teenagers across the USA.

Paranoia stuff.

"Don't take the train because it could derail" stuff.

***

I have had the fortune to work in a school where getting sites unblocked has been fairly easy and where parents have been on the side of opening access. And that's another of the things that we teachers need to keep in mind: parents and teachers working together can change the world.

Many teachers have long feared parents.

And many parents have long feared teachers.

Enough.

Get together, already. It's our kids' futures we're talking about here. It's our future. And despite the best intentions of the philistines to portray it as blithe cliche: it's THE future.

Who the heck do you think is going to be running this place when we're all gone?

Them.

Those kids.

The ones we're afraid will discover sex on the Internet.

The ones we're afraid will curse each other out in a chat.

The ones we're afraid will publish things on a blog about how they hate school because it's boring and useless and the teachers treat them like two-year-olds who don't actually realize what's going on.

The ones who we're afraid might ignore us.

Those kids.

Them.

***

Ever see one of those slasher films where the bad guy is wielding a kitchen knife?

I'm especially a fan of the late-'70s / early-'80s brand of horror flicks, so I'm thinking Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc.

Now, tons and tons of kids saw those movies. You, like me, might be one of them.

So consider: after returning from the movie theatre, did any of you find all the kitchen utensils hidden away by your parents?

Because that's sort of the same lunacy we're talking about here with the fear of social media. We're telling kids: you can't use the thing that hundreds of millions of adults are using because we know that you are so impressionable you would only be able to use it to conduct unspeakable acts.

When we pull social media from kids, effectively what we are saying is: we can't trust you around the knives in the kitchen.

It's insane.

As for the fear of people stealing our children via the Internet: did fear of strangers in shopping malls ever really slow down the economy? You might as well keep your kid locked in a box because that's the message you are sending: you can't be trusted.

Kids get all of these ludicrous messages from us the responsible adults and then we wonder why they go and do stupid things.

Which lands us back in the classroom.

Because the classroom is the final frontier for trust. The classroom is the last place that kids can go and try to get a little truth, experience a little honesty, and be served by a professional whose sole responsibility is to prepare the child to enter the world with integrity, grace, and intelligence.

And now, you've emasculated that professional by taking away the one thing that can best connect her or his classroom to the rest of that 'real world' we always talk about.

And it's right there that the kid realizes that it's all a con.

It's all about the lawyers.

All about the fear.

***

So I understand why so many teachers are burnt out. I see the exasperation in the comments I receive on this blog. I feel the pain and frustration in the emails I receive.

All I can say is this:

The 2008 - 2009 school year will be remembered as the year that the battle for social media in the classroom was fully engaged.

And if you are reading this blog, then in some way you were probably a part of this battle. It's not over. Our work just gets harder.

I will continue to use the freedom my school honors its teachers with to continue to seek new and effective and powerful ways to engage students through the authentic application of digital technology to their everyday classroom experience. I will continue to fight for the rights of universal free access by all students and all teachers in the one way I feel like I can: by setting precedent for the use of that access in the classroom. And I am hardly alone. As I've said before, there are thousands of teachers who in a simple blogpost would make my work look like so much of yesterday's news.

I'm asking them hereby to do exactly that. Make this paperless classroom teacher look old-fashioned. Make the paperless classroom and the full integration of social media into education appear as obvious and simple and naive as it is.

Make me obsolete.

That's the way we win this thing. Because none of this is about you or I feeling comfortable; it's about our kids getting the truth.

Make me obsolete.

(un)Planned Obsolescence ?

TP readers sound-off on obsolescence and education:

Norman Constantine:
School is irrelevant as it is currently organized. It should not be fought but ignored. Something new will emerge as we create and learn outside of the obsolete form. History is a viral spread that connot be stopped. We are part of history.

Andrew B. Watt:
Norman Constantine is on the right track. School IS irrelevant as currently organized. we are begining to organize ourselves via twitter, blogging and everything else to operate without schools, without blocking software, and eventually without school administrators or classrooms or district school boards.

CEO of 'We Are Teachers' Responds to Criticism

Sandy Fivecoat, CEO and founder of We Are Teachers (WAT) responds to my criticism concerning the "Knowledge Marketplace" and P21:

Great post. Thanks for sharing. In spirit of transparancy, I am CEO and founder of WeAreTeachers (WAT) -- so my comments are influenced by that work. I TOTALLY understand and support that we need TEACHERS more actively engaged with this discussion. This is one of the big reasons we believe the WAT platform was selected by the P21 Partnership leaders for this Cyber Summit. I know they share that view. Yup -- at WAT we do have a 'knowledge marketplace' -- -because we believe teachers who create content deserve to be published and compensated for their work. And we think there should be a place where great content can be accessed and purchased easily - BUT based on Teacher Recommendations -- not just a catalogue listing.The CENTRAL purpose of WAT is its value proposition for teachers -- to help them connect, collaborate, engage. But we also try to connect companies in the education space directly to teachers --- to ensure collaboration occurs there as well. We look carefully at the needs of teachers. Then we seek corporate sponsors to help fund and support things that really matter to teachers. Like Microgrants for supporting creativity. Or a scholarship program for inner city youth. Or a grant to support environmental education. We are stil learning, but we hope to help find that critical interection where 'what teachers need and 'what companies might provide' can intersect. We want to help connect dots that promote proper and useful conversations between end-user teachers and those commercial providers who publish great content. And the P21 forum is a great partner for that discussion -- and even controversy --- a very healthy thing in this connected world to move the needle in a positive way. Thanks again for a valuable discussion!

Your thoughts?

Do we 'need' corporate sponsors to help fund and support the "things that really matter to teachers"?

And, in the bigger picture, whose best interests do the board members of P21 most serve? The children of America? Or -- in terms of the majority corporate presence on the board -- their shareholders?

I tend to agree with the Tweet I received from @willrich45 yesterday in perfect abbreviated 140 character form: P21 is a bus. entity, plain and simple. It's nowhere close to the school transform we need.

21st Century Skills: My Personal Mission Statement

Dear Friends,

There has been a lot of talk recently for and against “21st Century Skills”.

Part of the debate has raged around the goings-on of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. As I’ve previously addressed the matter on teachpaperless.com, it is my opinion as a paperless classroom teacher that whatever the motivations and self-interests of the board members of P21, their version of “21st Century Skills” just ain’t my version of “21st Century Skills”.

P21 is holding a 2009 ‘Cyber Summit on 21st Century Skills’ starting today, June 1st. As an educator deeply involved in educational technology, I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the free registration and see what they had to offer.

What they’ve got to offer is a site 'powered by' We Are Teachers: the "Knowledge Marketplace".

I could not have come up with a better descriptor for everything I find discouraging about P21.

Schools are not and should not be “marketplaces” of anything. They are learning environments. They are academies. They are workshops. They are temples of education. Fields of knowledge. But they are not and should not be marketplaces.

But, perhaps P21 put as little time into thinking about the slogans of their 'powerers' as they did coming up with a meaningful mission statement.

As has been mentioned countless times by countless observers, there is little if anything in P21’s Mission Statement and accompanying selection of skills that has anything to do specifically with the 21st century. I fear that more than anything, the board’s weak statement only serves to undermine much of the valuable work we educators and educational technologists have accomplished independent of P21.

This becomes all the more pressing given the recent attempts at P21-approved legislation and corporate marketing in relation thereof.

And that’s why I am writing this, my personal mission statement of 21st Century Skills.

***

MY PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT
Serve the children who will live out their lives in the 21st century by building collaborative partnerships between families, communities, and educators independent of any proprietary business interests. Teach the deep reflective understanding of global historical, philosophical, creative, and intellectual content via the best methods 21st century technology and networking have to offer and may in the future offer and teach how to use and how to think about what the best innovations 21st century technology and networking have to offer and may in the future offer by teaching the deep reflective understanding of global historical, philosophical, creative, and intellectual content.

TWENTY FIRST CENTURY CHILDREN
Every child in America deserves to be treated as a citizen of the 21st century. Every child in America deserves an education that treats them first as human beings who will live out their life in the immediate globally connected world of the 21st century.

There is a profound gap between 20th century manufactured education and its accompanying textbook-based bubble test knowledge and the reality of a shift in the authority of knowledge as made clear by the democratic and participatory technologies of the 21st century. Our students deserve better than to be sold a textbook or its online equivalent. Our students deserve an education that bears an awareness of and an engagement with the multifaceted and ever evolving connected network we call humanity.

Students of the 21st century will know that ‘rigor’ means ‘stiffness’ and we the teachers will abandon such arbitrary ed speak in favor of addressing the real needs of the families and communities that we serve. Students should be made aware that most of what we predict about future career and workforce markets is complete nonsense. Students should learn that socio-economics effects the results of institutionalized education. Students should learn that standardized testing completely fails in predicting individual lifetime achievement. And students will learn that education is not about the ability to get a job, but rather is about the ability to transcend whatever position or situation one finds oneself in throughout a lifetime.

My version of specific 21st Century Skills includes:

• Critical Media Network Skills: the ability in a networked environment to recognize when you are being taken advantage of via special interests and the ability to argue within the dominant paradigm of a global network with acuity and accuracy based upon the application of historical, philosophical, creative, and intellectual skills grounded in the history of human thought and applied to the spontaneity and immediate global impact of 21st century networked communications.

• Participatory and Networked Information and Communication Skills: the ability to take part in one’s global society on equal footing with any other human via the immediacy and power of digital networks. Long-term, this may mean sharing any variety of networked consciousnesses.

• Collaborative Social Meta-Thinking: the ability to learn from and give back to both local community-based and global-based digital social networks. This may extend in future environments to nanotechnology merging with on-demand personalized virtual reality.

• Creative Network Confidence and Digital Community Stewardship: the ability to use the global network for both the purposes of creative problem solving and for the benefit of peaceful co-existence between peoples, animals, ecologies, and environments.

• Digital Cunning: students will learn that merely ‘using technology’ does not mean that you are either educated in or are a contributing member to the global network. Drawing on a strong Liberal Arts background merged with Digital Age critical thinking skills, students will be able to distinguish between participatory media and authoritarian media even when the latter cloaks itself as the former.

• Awareness of Digital History and Digital Divide: the ability to understand historical analog modalities and to recognize the value of pre-digital and non-digital media as well as the temporary nature of specific technologies within historical evolution; the ability to understand and through social action compensate for and help to eliminate digital distinctions based on economics, politics, geography, and race.

***

I am 100% for teaching content via 21st century skills and 21st century skills via content. I do this every day. Ed tech savvy teachers throughout this country do this everyday.

So, why are there no individual day-to-day classroom teachers on the board of P21?

Tech savvy students are learning like this throughout this country everyday.

So, why are there no students on the board of P21?

In schoolhouse lingo, I could only declare teachers and students 'absent' from the board of P21. And until that absence is rectified, the board will only symbolize the top-down old-fashioned 20th century style of management that's gotten us into so many of the problems that as a nation we currently face.

We don’t need a board comprised mostly of corporate interests telling us what’s good for our children whilst they busily turn them into the consumers of tomorrow. What we need is leadership by a truly independent movement of sophisticated and tech-savvy 21st century classroom teachers who for far too long have been seen as the ‘users’ of technology rather than the ‘creators’ of education.

Sincerely,
Shelly Blake-Plock
teacher, artist, blogger

ps - And just for the record, sending Cookie Monster out there as the feel-good face of corporate power is nothing less than tremendously disturbing to the childhood memories of many of us kids born in the '70s'.

FYI: Partnership for 21st Century Schools board members currently represent Intel, Pearson, AASL, Education Networks of America, Junior Achievement, Adobe, Apple, ASCD, Atomic Learning, Blackboard, Cable in the Classroom, Cisco, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Dell, ETS, EF Education, Ford, Gale, HP, K12, Knowledge Works Foundation, Learning.com, Learning Point Associates, Lego, Lenovo, McGraw Hill, Measured Progress, Microsoft, NEA, Oracle, PolyVision, Quarasan, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Sun Microsystems, Thinkronize, Verizon, and Wireless Generation.