Web 2.0 and Political Involvement of the Masses

There is an iron law in American politics: The party that most quickly absorbs and adopts the latest technology dominates politics. FDR dominated the radio through the fireside chat; JFK triumphed over Nixon in televised debates; Republicans rose to power on talk radio; and Karl Rove mastered the use of direct mail and computerized databases. The next technological political model will revolve around the power of community and individual uploading. In this model, the public officeholder will no longer be the one who promises to solve the problems of the many. Rather, he or she will become a hub of connectivity for the many to work with the many, creating networks of public advocates to identify problems, solve them, and get behind candidates who are ready to mobilize the government and the people in the right direction."

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,
Release 2.o, by Thomas Friedman

My son's football practice has a striking view of downtown Denver from the outlying suburbs. As I looked across it this afternoon, I couldn't but help think about the above paragraph knowing that the DNC started today. So where are each of these presidential candidates at in terms of absorbing and adopting technology? Is there one ahead of the other? Will the iron law whisper a winner's name?

Never having "felt the need to email", McCain openly admits to his computer ignorance and reliance on his wife for tech assistance as seen in an earlier interview with Yahoo/Politico. I can hardly fathom this. In this day and age, a political candidate not really understanding the power of the ever interactive Web? Wow. Unless, of course, there's money to be raised thru it. Then it might get a casual head-nod. But if that is as far as you can see using this incredible medium, then the boat's been missed.

Our country has no national broadband policy, to the worry of many tech experts. This is the same broadband that is quickly becoming a mainstay for education, for how we communicate, and most importantly, for how we conduct our work day. If it's digital, it's ubiquitous. McCain did recently release a technology policy, but I cringe when I read...

John McCain is uniquely qualified to lead our nation during this technological revolution. He is the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The Committee plays a major role in the development of technology policy, specifically any legislation affecting communications services, the Internet, cable television and other technologies. Under John McCain’s guiding hand, Congress developed a wireless spectrum policy that spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology that enables Americans to surf the web while sitting at a coffee shop, airport lounge, or public park."

He's the same man that doesn't know how to use email! How can you understand the immense power of this thing we call Web 2.0 if you don't use it? It' not about being able to surf at coffee shops or the airport. Here's what it is really about:

Democracy in America is changing...Networked voices are reviving the civic conversation. More people, every day, are discovering this new power. After years of being treated like passive subjects of marketing and manipulation, they want to be heard. Members expect a say in the decision-making process of the organizations they join. Readers want to talk back to the news-makers. Citizens are insisting on more openness and transparency from government...Personal democracy, where everyone is a full participant, is coming."

Manifesto of http://www.personaldemocracy.com/

Does Obama's side get it? We have 120 credentialed DNC bloggers this election compared to a measly 30 credentialed bloggers in 2004. That's an improvement to take note of, but wait. Don't give the credit to the organizers of the DNC. According to Micah Sifry,

Not only are these gatherings (the DNC) still completely geared for television … they're designed for television circa 1990," Sifry said. "Think of it: All they need to do is put up a big banner behind the speakers each night saying, 'Join the conversation -- go to https://www.democrats.org/page/contribute/JoinUs or http://www.rnc.org/ and set up an interface to involve people in live chats by state or ZIP code.' State delegations could be enlisted to participate."

Those who understand this medium, the users, are making it happen. Not a party, the people. There will be many in the days ahead that will continue to participate as never before via the Web. The word is politics are no longer a spectator sport. But still, wouldn't it be nice to have a nominee that really gets this?

Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Denver_Downtown.jpg; Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0

I'm Giving Away a NY Web 2.0 Expo Full Conference Pass

Was excited when I posted that I'd won, but I can't go (too many consecutive school days to miss, cost of airfare, lodging, etc.). So, I'm giving it away. If you're an educator that can use this full conference + workshop pass to the 2008 NY Web 2.0 Expo on Sept. 16-19th, comment below as to why you'd love to have it for free. Tell me what you're doing with Web 2.0 in the classroom or ideas that you have and how you might benefit from attending this. I have to pick someone to transfer the registration to by Sept. 1. Best of luck! Oh, and make sure I can email you/contact you if you're the winner.

Blogging is a great Web 2.0 Gateway Experience for Students

I firmly believe that blogging is a wonderful way to introduce students to so many other Web 2.0 tools. Here's why and here's a slideshow of all Web 2.0 applications and sources mentioned below.

• - If you have to research for a blog post, RSS via Google Reader and bookmarking via Delicious are a dynamic combo.
  
  
• - If you want to interview an expert for your blog, Audacity, Gabcast and podcasting become important.
  
  
• - If you want to create a video/audio-visual on your blog topic, Animoto and VoiceThread then becomes meaningful.
  
  
• - Need a unique, visually striking image for your blog? Students then learn the value of digital creation/manipulation via Picnik, Splashup, Flauntr or Adobe Photoshop Express, as well as the importance of understanding copyright.
  
  
• - Need a one stop location where each student can provide a link to his/her blog so others can comment on them? Wikis get it done.
  
  
• - Additionally, along the way you could discuss how the "world is flat" and how this all ties into what skills students need with people - here and abroad, and with all things digital for a successful tomorrow (T. Friedman and D. Pink material). In the end, students end up getting exposure to a variety of online apps/services/technologies!

I know at least where I'm at, the high school class called "computer applications" used to be the standard MS Office class; however, students are really getting lots of this at the late elementary and middle school level. Two semesters ago I changed my approach and offer this same class as an introduction to Web 2.0 technologies. I want students to walk away with so much more than just knowledge of how to use a software suite. In changing the class, my primary focus has become showing students the immense power shift that has occurred with these tools; before, they were only consumers of what others wanted them to know and think, but now they can be intelligent, saavy consumers AND producers of original and remixed information/content.

As I Teach This Year...

Ran across an excellent, inspiring post recently by Bud Hunt titled, "An Open Letter to Teachers". Put it on your list of things to read at the start of this academic year. My goal is to glance often at his suggestions so I "wordled" it. Thanks, Bud!
Larger Poster Size Here

Gmail Accounts for Students Fail

I had the chance to watch the Olympic men's steeplechase yesterday. Wow - what an event! The runners must not only have endurance, but have reserves to constantly be jumping over barriers and thru water pits! For those of us blazing the way with Web 2.0 technologies, I thought this event symbolizes us rather appropriately. Keeping up with the newest webware and apps dictates a rigorous, fast paced learning curve. It's not an area of study for the educational sprinter, but more for those who can go the distance. Attempting to use those same technologies can also involve "hurdle jumping" of fatiguing proportion when they don't work correctly or as expected.

Just this last week, Google provided me just such a hurdle to jump. I noticed earlier this summer that I could sign up for a Gmail account without having to have another email account. Perfect, I thought! I have always wanted students to use this excellent email service, but as long as I can remember, Gmail required those signing up to have another email address. Not so easy for students who don't have another email account. When I discovered that they'd dropped this requirement, I thought "yes!!" - this is exactly what I need at the start of the year for my students as we learn about email attachments! So, I proceeded to make two video tutorials showing students how to establish their Gmail accounts and learn about captchas, as well as create signatures, contacts and compose their first assignment (total video creation time approx. 2 hours). Even the morning before I was to have the students make their accounts, I tried Gmail again and all worked splendidly. However, as my first of three computer applications classes tried to make their accounts, a message popped up telling each student that they could not have an account. Seems like Google sensed several requests coming from one IP and thought spammers were trying to set up bogus email accounts.

Talk about frustrating. I'm learning to jump hurdles fast without losing much forward momentum, and created two more video tutorials over my 35 min. lunch showing how to do the same in Yahoo mail. I love the products Google has developed over the past few years, and I have to admit, this has been my first bad experience with Google. It was disappointing; Gmail is better than Yahoo mail, in my opinion (cleaner interface, less distracting, etc.). I would have liked my students experience it. Additionally, I would have liked to have known about this hurdle before students rolled in. Hopefully posting about it will help forewarn other teachers who have similar hopes and plans for their students.

Image by tedknudsen on Flickr, licensed as Creative Commons

Evidence of Web 2.0 Tackling Really, Really Big Problems

Sometimes, events just seem to unfold as if scripted by an invisible hand. The below story is just such a thing.

From previous posts, you might remember that the Web 2.0 class I teach at my high school is structured around the idea of helping students see what amazing power they have to invoke social change by using Web 2.0 tools. Students have chosen to create blogs on child slavery, on racism, on deforestation, on AIDS orphans in Africa, on alternative fuel issues and more. In just days students will be walking in to learn about a side of the Internet they really don't know much about. To some extent it will create an unsettling disequilibrium in them because the class won't focus on how the Internet can add more entertainment value to their lives. Instead it will revolve around how it can help this generation tackle some of the toughest problems staring down humanity.

In this class, I've replaced what used to be only learning MicroSoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint (which now many learn on the middle school level). They now learn to use webware and "always-available online apps" to be producers of information, not just mere passive consumers. They no longer turn in just a piece of paper to the teacher to demonstrate their knowledge of a skill. Now they use RSS aggregators to help them research a chosen social issue. Their resulting information helps them craft blogs, online surveys, podcasts, slideshows and videos that then become avenues of meaningful, authentic conversation with the world about topics that really matter. My mission is to share the new power they have at their fingertips, but to use the power carefully.

Because I am involved with an organization that hand delivers medical and educational supplies to AIDS orphanages in Malawi, Africa, the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin, recently caught my eye. Last night I finished it and wished I could have all my students read it. The book shares the incredible power that one man has (Greg Mortenson) to bring about change. Nearly a decade ago, after attempting but failing to scale K2, the world's second highest peak, Mortenson feebly wandered into a Pakastani town where the villagers nursed him back to health. Before leaving, Mortenson vowed to come back and build a school for the children who have none. To date, he, and the CAI organization he founded, have built 55 schools in very same geographical area that has spawned the Taliban. And get this, the schooling is just as much for girls and for boys. It is a wonderful testament of one person informing others and then acting to bring about change. And to this day, he may well have done more on the war on terrorism delivering books than our military has with delivering high tech bombs.

Because of all the above, three days ago I had to stop and take notice of an article connected to this ever evolving theme. In it I learned there are others out there thinking in a similar way. Seems that last year Tim O'Reilly made a keynote address to the 2007 Web 2.0 Expo encouraging us to start using the idea of Web 2.0 and all that it embodied to tackle "big, hard problems". My jaw dropped with excitement! As I read on, the article asked for auction ideas to benefit specific charities at the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit conference (5-7 Nov). I scanned the article comments and saw many ideas already posted, some advocating for the first Tim Berners Lee web page, others for a day with Bill Gates and the likes. I almost didn't enter, but then shyly typed in...

I'd bid to send three web celebrities on a week long trip to visit AIDS orphanages in Malawi, Africa, with the condition that they would write web articles about these two things upon their return.

A. Their experiences with the children and orphanage operators while there.

B. Their ideas on how "Web 2.0" can make a huge impact on really, really big problems like this.

I commented on another educator's blog that wouldn't it be radical if the suggestion won! Wouldn't it be radical to see one person's idea shared and take flight in such a way as to benefit so many others! Today, I received my email that I was one of two winners! I'm not so much excited about winning the conference pass (I'm not actually sure I can attend) as what changes the resulting web articles might make on the world. Can we use this medium to bring about change? From this tiny corner of the world, seems like I'm seeing a trend!

Real Honesty about Virtual Reality: Second Thoughts on Second Life

I've blogged twice about my experience now with the Stepping into Literature virtual conference. I've simply been honest about "not getting it". I don't think I've been rude, but I have been honest. There's a lot more that I could have blogged about the conference, like overly "deep cleavage", but I didn't.

Initially I was excited about his new frontier, so much so that I invited a good friend and colleague who teaches AP English and college prep literature courses at a nearby high school to sit beside me as I navigated my avatar during the online conference. Here's some more brutal honesty. After the second speaker (the one on how to use Second Life to market books you've written), my friend politely told me she didn't think she'd be staying for any more because she just couldn't see doing this type of activity with her students. Maybe it was the second guest speaker turning into a winged rabbit with a cigarette in her mouth that scared her off. Maybe it was the part about how the winged rabbit felt we all needed to make sure that we "included" little beings like herself when advertising or marketing in SL. I know that was the point that I mentally checked out, like my friend.

Apart from accidentally standing on the stage once, did I act so egregiously to get an email from Daisyblue Hefferman the day after the conference stating ...

[8:41] Daisyblue Hefferman: You have been ejected from 'Stepping into
Literature Conference' by Daisyblue Hefferman.

Um... if you're new to SL like I was, it is very hard to know if you're actually up there with your avatar, or if you're just sitting but "zoomed up" to see the speaker. For Pete's sake! It was my third time, for crying out loud, and there were no more seats to sit my avatar in in that section, so I stood. (Paying $65 to have my avatar stand at a conference might seem a little strange, as well). And don't ask me what good it does to eject someone after the conference is over. You see, it was Daisyblue Hefferman that instant messaged me about being on the
stage. As soon as I saw the message, I got off right away, and embarrassingly so. Read my other post, Daisyblue. One of my main concerns going into the conference was that I'd commit some noobie mistake to my detriment.

Wish me luck Monday; how embarrassing to go to a conference and fly into a wall
or have other avatars transporting onto my head because I forgot to make room
for them as they transported in!

Was it my question I asked about why SLifers would want to purchase items for their inventory (clothes, etc.)? It was an honest question. I wasn't rude about it. Was it my comment while in Dante's Inferno about what the student learning objectives were for the assignment - that it seemed very random and hard for me to learn from? I was being honest. Perhaps the rejection email was because of yesterday's post. I was being honest.

The Stepping into Literature virtual conference needs to step back and learn a few lessons from this recent attempt to evangelize professional educators to SL. When you have two seasoned teachers leave your conference mid-way - each with 15 plus years of classroom experience, one being a stellar English teacher and the other an ex-English teacher turn computer science teacher who readily embraces all things Web 2.0 - you've got a problem. Instead of thinking how you market inside of SL to strange creatures (I believe you referenced as "smalls"), perhaps you should think more about how you market this experience to real people, and in specific, real teachers.

P.S. - Daisyblue, you should know, it wasn't my avatar doing all that yawning during the second guestspeaker. I barely know where to stand, let alone make my avatar yawn.

I'm Just Not Getting the Lure of Second Life

I feel bad. I see myself as someone who catches on pretty quickly. I use all kinds of web 2.0 tools and apps, and usually get excited about how students could use them in the classroom. But had my first virtual experience today in Second Life by attending a conference and I have to say "it just doesn't rock my boat". Second Life has its own steep learning curve and I see that, first and foremost, as a big hinderance to its adoption. It's not as realistic in appearance as I'd hoped, and though it is interactive, the meaningfulness of many of the interactions is just not what I'd hoped for. We are told to "touch" this item and that, then we get information, clothes, etc. to put in our inventory. Why does a person want so much "virtual kitsch"? I took part in a virtual book discussion; didn't care for that. I like looking people, real people, in the face and connecting with what they have to say and indicating that back with real gestures. I heard a guestspeaker talk about how to promote self-written books in SL; not too interesting, though I was amazed to learn that some are making money selling virtual "stuff" in SL (again the "virtual kitsch" question). I went on a virtual field trip into Dante's Inferno. This ended up being more like a final project by the professor's students; they wrote the information, but their teacher did all the creation and backend scripting of the project. This appeared to be a nice assessment of their knowledge, but for someone who hadn't read Dante's work for about 26 years, walking thru the tour was, well, very random. The screenshot above shows me in the fieldtrip about Gothic Literature. I touch the sign and I'm told more info about Gothic Literature (and then can keep the card in my inventory -- why, I keep wondering). Couldn't I just make a web page for students with a hyperlink to a definition, to another supporting website, to a movie clip, to a sound clip, etc.?? You might be thinking, "you just don't get it because you're not a literature major". Oh, but I am. That's what freaking me out....

For now, I just need to step back and admit that I don't get it. I don't understand the hype about Second Life, nor its supposedly grand potential for educational use. I liked the idea of having an author come in to SL to talk with students about his/her work, but wouldn't that be more meaningful in Adobe Connect or Illuminate where students could see the REAL author in REAL time?? Would someone help me if I'm just totally off here?

ISTE Technology Standards for Students - Creativity and Innovation

I woke up early this morning and started some curriculum work on my Web 2.0 technologies class. After spending some time looking at the ISTE NETS*S, I thought I'd jot down a few ideas for what "Creativity and Innovation 1. a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes" might look like if taught/explored more. Here is my resulting brainstorm session. Remember it's a brainstorm so I'm all over the place. I'm always going for the gestalt, wondering how we see creativity/innovation occur, thinking that this will better help us encourage and foster it in the students we teach. Ideally, I'd like to do this for all the NETS*S, but even better yet, would be to get some collaboration going on this. Let me know what your ideas are. What has been overlooked? What needs to be added, or emphasized?