What Blogging Was – A Memoir

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The ever thought – full David Weinberger has written a great post on the power of blogging and why it is still vital and important. A great piece of writing that asks us to think about the web that we have and the web that we seem to be losing.

“Blogging mattered to us more deeply than you might today imagine”

“At least among my set of bloggers, we tried to engage with one another and to do so in ways that would build community. We’d “retweet” and comment on other people’s posts, trying to add value to the discussion. Of course not everyone played by those rules, but some of us had hope.”

“And it worked. I made friendships through blogging that maintain to this day, sometimes without ever having been in the same physical space.”

Even the comments are worth reading:

“Facebook really is the new town square. Everyone connects to everyone there. You can’t deny that. But they mostly drink beer and talk about the weather there. It’s a pretty low-brow town square. A great place to distribute your pamphlets, but not really a great place to collaboratively write them.”

The web is a moving target. No one expects it to stay in one place or to quit moving. But as we move more towards centralized services (Facebook, etc) and silos of information; as we learn more each day about how everything that we do online is monitored; and as the web becomes more commercialized than it ever was in the days when everyone had a stack of AOL CDs that they used as coasters; we are losing things that we took for granted.

I believe that many of those things are worth fighting for.

Beginning a Journey

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My wife and I bought our 14 year old son an Arduino Starter kit for his birthday.

We opened it up tonight on the kitchen table and spent an hour or so installing software, sorting through parts and playing.

One of my favourite parts was in the intro to the projects book that came with it:

“Arduino is open and simple. It’s founded on lessons we’ve learned teaching our own classes: if you start with the assumption that learning to make digital technologies is simple and accessible, you can make it so. Suddenly, electronics and code become creative tools that anyone can use – like brushes and paint.”

I like the emphasis on doing, on creating. These are tough skills to learn, but if you are motivated to make something, to solve a problem, to use a tool creatively, you are more likely to stick with it.

I’m looking forward to the journey we’ve got in front of us.

Bringing Heads and Hands Together

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C3

Trend #1 from a few years ago: Put kids online. Give them tools to collaborate, share and learn together. (blogs, flickr, skype, google docs, etc)

Trend #2 from the present: Have kids use some of the amazing tools that are out there to create things. (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, 3D printers, programming, etc)

How and where do these two streams come together?

Both of these trends promote distinct skills in our classrooms and schools. They both are valuable and are worthy of classroom time.

How and where do we bring them together? What are examples of projects and pedagogy that promote both of these sides?

It’s All About the Community

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A few years ago my wife had bought me a telescope as a present. I was ( and still am) very interested in astronomy and this was a great gift for me.

As I learned more about astronomy, one of the things that struck me the most was the amount of pro-am research that was going on. Some amateur astronomers spend thousands of dollars on equipment and have beautiful setups. In fact, many discoveries are being made by amateurs or by collaborations between astronomers who work at labs and others who just love the sky as a hobby.

As I’m digging more into the programming world and the world of makers, it doesn’t take long until you come across this same idea. Makers, programmers and geeks come from across the world. They are all ages and do almost anything you can imagine for a living. Some are hard core code geeks who spend countless hours in this world, while others are hobbyists looking to make and learn something. In education, many people complain about the blogging and edtech world being an echochamber of ideas. In the world of making and building, teachers and students are only a small minority of people involved.

In fact, breaking into this world to gain information and experience requires a full step out of the often closed up world of edtech. In making and programming, it’s all about the community of learners who are willing to work together. In fact, most vendors have been wise enough to help build a community of people around their products who help others to build and tinker.

In the past six months or so, I’ve moved into a few of these communities so that I can learn more myself and so that I can support the kids in my classroom.

 Reddit: Reddit has a reputation of being the web’s ultimate time suck. As well, if you are a person who is easily offended, some of the stuff posted on Reddit may offend you. But the truth is, if you make an account and subscribe to specific sub reddits, you will find a wealth of information on this site. I use Reddit mostly for information about 3D printers in general, about reprap and about Printrbots. There are a number of good programming for beginners sub reddits as well as good Linux and Raspberry Pi information. Reddit is weak on electronics and Arduino information so you may best look elsewhere for that.

Adafruit: Adafruit is an electronics vendor who sell almost everything you would need for any type of project. I was directed to Adafruit’s massive tutorial and learning centre by a very smart high school student I met on twitter who, incidentally, also has his own store for selling Printrbot accessories. Adafruit is an active and busy place.

Raspberry Pi: The Raspberry pi site has an active community of people gathered around it who are up to all sorts of projects. There is good basic programming information here as well as a ton of ideas on using your little machine to do all sorts of things. There is a specific thread here for teachers looking to integrate programming into their classrooms.

Element 14: Element 14 is another vendor I have ordered things from. A great site to buy things from, they sports a less busy community. They definitely deserve credit for trying. They have some great tutorials and even a web series on making, but their forums aren’t as busy as other sites. Lots of people posting things, fewer answers coming back. Element 14 is a great site, but they need some new life breathed into their community for it to truly be a hub for makers and learners.

Printrbot: I bought a Printrbot 3D printer this summer and like any other 3D printer, you can tinker with it for endless hours. It’s a good thing that Printrbot has a solid community around it. I’ve posted a few things in their forums and answers always come back solid and well researched. I’ve tried to give back a little in this space by posting a few answers, but I’m often still too much of a noob to be much help. Valuable site. Great community.

Arduino: I’m just beginning to get into working with Arduino. The possibilities are endless, but the programming and building can be deep. Once again, Arduino has an excellent, vibrant community of builders, tinkerers and makers gathered around it. The video tutorials and forum boards are stuffed with people willing to share.

If you want to get your students involved in the world of building and making, you need to help them get connected with the worldwide community of people who are doing this kind of work.

All for $40

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Last spring I had ordered two Raspberry Pi computers when they first came out. I was excited to get this little 5 inch by 3 inch box and amazed to think that the board and SD card I slid out of it were enough to be a computer.

It’s Christmas break, but I’m sitting in my basement with a monitor propped up on a couple of old textbooks and a brand new Raspberry Pi running beside me that I’m writing this post on.I’ve also got my Ipad and my Macbook Pro down here, but they are just serving as a resource when I get myself into trouble fooling around deep in the bowels of Linux.

I’m still excited about these machines and the potential that they have to teach us about computing. They reduce the “mystery” that lives inside the sleek aluminum case of my Macbook Pro to its basic components. I can see the board and all of its connections and plugins. I’ve learned about GPIO pins and how to hook this little machine to something else like an Arduino board in order to make it do something else. I’ve learned about different operating systems and found myself interested in command line prompts and Python coding. While I don’t have it all memorized like a true Linux geek does, I feel pretty confidently that I could use this little $40 machine to set up a server and a personal cloud space if I wanted to. I could hook it up to my 3D printers and run them wirelessly. I’ve learned to install software and write the code to hack a game of Minecraft so that my 13 year old is impressed by what I can do.

There are certainly a host of things I can’t do on this machine. Video and audio editing are basically out. Any type of 3D modelling or animation are not possible without choking the small amount of processing power the board has. But using this machine feels different. I know how it works. I can take it apart, write new code for it, get it back online and make it do things that I couldn’t do with my $2500 Macbook Pro. It’s like learning to build a garage or change the oil in your car. You feel like it’s something that you have a lot more control over because you know how it works. In comparison, my Apple products feel like opaque magic.

It’s slow and its clunky, but it’s a trade off that just might be worth it if we are able to break inside and learn how all of of this stuff works. There is a lot more to learn, but as far as I’m concerned, these machines have served their purpose. They’ve taught me to want to get inside, to take things apart, to wonder about their potential and to question many of the decisions that we make about information and about teaching and learning using technology. That’s quite an accomplishment for $40.

Classroom Edtech Survey Results

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A while ago I posted a Google survey with some basic questions about technology in classrooms. While I am disappointed with the number of people who completed the survey. (I was hoping for 100+ and instead only 23 people filled out the survey.) Strange. I think there are still some interesting things to report from these numbers.

What kind of hardware do you have access to in your classroom?

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We’ve heard a lot of hype over the past year about ipads and tablets in classrooms, yet the people who filled out the survey were still split; mostly between desktops and laptops.

And while a lot of people are gaining 1:1 access to either laptops or desktops, we still have relatively few tablets.

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And apparently schools are still willing to spend large amounts of their own budgets on technology as 61% of people recorded that their buildings are not BYOD and will not allow their students to use their own phones either.

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One result that surprised me was that word processors and Powerpoint still reign supreme….

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74% of students are not using Google apps:

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and 39% of classrooms have taught at lest some coding skills:

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Most teachers who took the survey reported that they have an online space that they use to communicate with students and parents:

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Collaboration remains on shaky ground:

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and filters remain a significant issue to using technology

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I think in many ways, these small results show us some interesting trends that haven’t moved in a few years:

1.) Traditional laptop and desktop computers that are provided by the schools themselves still dominate in classrooms.

2.) We are still using a lot of basic office software in classrooms. We haven’t made much of a leap to concentrate on film or audio making, design or collaboration.

3.) Surprisingly, Google apps still have a lot of inroads to make in schools and classrooms.

4.) Filtering is still a large issue. I was surprised to see this. I thought that in many ways this battle had been fought and at least partially won. Apparently we still have some distance to go with this.

5.) A lot of hype around coding entering classrooms, but it still remains largely on the outside.

I’d be interested in your thoughts about this.

 

 

 

Are 3D Printers Trendy?

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I’ve written before about the fact that I’ve acquired a 3D printer for my classroom this year. It’s been interesting in a lot of ways. Kids are fascinated by it, the possibilities of making things are almost endless and I’ve been pulling out the little hair that I have left trying to keep the machine calibrated and running.

It’s an adventure.

The hype behind 3D printers seem almost endless. Makerbot has been pushing hard, readying ads for the holiday season and contributing to a frantic Donors Choose campaign to put a 3D printer in every classroom in the US.

I think it’s time to step back from the hype.

As with any technology, dropping a 3D printer into a classroom will not fix all that ails education and learning. Some of the kids in my classroom are ready to tinker, make files and work on the printer itself. Others could care less. As I mentioned, the printer in my room seems to require constant work. After it was picked up improperly and knocked out of alignment, it took me hours of work to get it running again.How many people are willing to spend that time?  No matter what you buy, it will break down. You can count on it. It might work right out of the box, but after a few weeks the filament will stick, the gears will slip, the calibration will come out of line. I can see all kinds of printers sitting in back rooms about 3 years from now when they have had mechanical troubles and no one is able to fix them.

The same story goes for the files themselves. While it is easy to download things from places like Thingiverse to print, there’s almost no educational purpose in that. This means that you will have to work with kids to design your own 3D meshes and stl files. These files are glitchy, incredibly finicky and often print improperly or sometimes not at all.

The hype behind 3D printers has been incredibly overbuilt as companies like Makerbot work to invent an industry from the ground up. While they are fascinating machines with incredible possibilities behind them, I would caution people to be sure they have a plan before they purchase. The trend and pressure is building. 3D printers are turning into a must have for a lot of teachers and schools, but in my experience, the machines are nowhere near prime time.

As with any other technology, purchase for your school or classroom only after you’ve done your homework and have a solid plan for making sure the goal is learning and not satisfying your shiny gadget syndrome.

Idea Hive Lesson Planning

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My Idea Hive partner, Heather Durnin, and I are working on a few short stories together in our classroom.

Heather and I have been working together collaboratively for a few years. I thought a peek into how we do our planning might be interesting to some people.

Over the past week Heather and I have been working on the story the Monkey’s Paw with our class. It is time to keep moving along. This time, I chose the classic Canadian story To Build A Fire by Jack London for us to work with.

Heather and I live 2 700 kms apart so tools like skype, twitter, email and google docs allow us a series of channels to work though. So as I sat down at my kitchen table and began building a structure for us I knew we would be making use of all of these tools. I started with a Google document with some simple lesson plan outlines laid out. We will work through a day of pre reading activities, a few days of reading and then move on to post reading ideas. There is nothing ground breaking in the content and structure of these lessons. Heather and I have managed to break a lot of boundaries, but this set of lessons isn’t about breaking new ground in content. They are mostly focused on getting our students working together and practicing the skills they will need to do that. So, after I had finished a draft of his document I shared it with Heather for her to take a look at, comment on and make any revisions or adjustments. This has to be a collaborative process as we both have a lot of outcomes that we need to meet.

Following this, I begin making up a series of nine documents that we are going to use with our students for the pre and post writing activity. Heather and I have already shared class lists and email addresses for our students so this is a simple matter of making up the activities that we want and sharing them with all of the kids who are in that group. Here is an example of what we are going to do for a pre reading activity for this story. The first day we are working on this story we will start off the day of the lesson with a quick skype call and make some connections between kids and communities. Following this, students from each class will head to their google docs account where they will have an individual and a group activity to complete. Heather and I will split the supervision of the chatrooms that goes with each document, jumping back and forth between the nine groups ensuring that the students are on task, productive and practicing good online collaboration skills.

After these pre reading activities are completed, we will begin reading the actual story. We do this over skype. We will begin the morning with a call, any quick news items and then one of us will read. We have set up a Today’s Meet chatroom for each day that we will read. As the teacher in one classroom reads aloud to all of the students, the other will supervise all of the students in the chat, keeping them focused on the topic and also posting questions and ideas for everyone to consider. (Here ‘s a chat that we used for the story The Monkey’s Paw.) When we finish the reading for the day, we always have the students post their ideas on a linoit bulletin board. (Here’s a bulletin board from The Monkey’s Paw)

We think that the reading of this story will take us two days over skype. Following this we will move the students into a post writing activity. For this story that will involve the students listening to an mp3 of another version of this story as well as completing a task on a group google doc. We’ve also got a few reflection questions for our students to take a look at since at that point they will have finished working with two different texts:

POST READING STUDENT REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1.) While we have read these two stories, I have mostly used the chatrooms to…. (ask questions, socialize, post quotes, post comments, post random thoughts, etc)

2.) I have found the bulletin boards each day helpful / not helpful to help me to think about the reading that day. Why?

3.) How is using these kinds of tools for learning as opposed to socializing different? How is it different working with partners 2 700 kms away?

I started these documents and then shared them with Heather. She was online while I was doing this planning so we talked about a few things, made a adjustments to our plans and are now ready to move ahead.

There is nothing ground breaking in our lesson plans. Pre reading, reading and post reading activities similar to what you would find in many classrooms. What is different is the added value that is brought in the collaboration and the skills that the students (and teachers!) need to focus on when you work in this way. We are not breaking new ground for our students in the content of these lessons, But we are pushing them to use these tools in ways that support learning, collaboration and gaining new perspectives.

Classroom Life in 2013

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It’s 8 AM. School here starts at 9. I’ve been in my classroom working for almost an hour when I start thinking about what today will be like:

- the 3D printer in my classroom has been running since I arrived here. I’ve had a few problems dialing it in, but with a few final adjustments this morning, the quality looks great and I’ve got a backlog of student made projects to print out. It will probably take a few days to catch up.

- My Idea Hive partner, Heather Durnin and I are working on the story the Monkey’s Paw with our students. Our classrooms are 2700 kms apart, but over the past two days we’ve had kids form up into groups and have played vocabulary bingo between our two classrooms. Today, we are going to actually begin reading the story. As well as reading it live on skype between our two classes, we are also recording it on 105thehive radio so that other classes can listen in if they wish. We have a chatroom set up for the kids to use while we are reading the story and a linoit bulletin board for them to post their ideas on after we have finished our reading for today. We need to talk with our students about appropriate use of chatrooms for learning as it is a different skill set than simply using these kinds of tools for socializing.

- My high school web design class started on some simple video editing yesterday. Today, a grade 12 student in our school is coming to show off some of his imovie creations that he made in a class of mine last year. After that, we are spending some time hunting down trailers old cartoons and archival footage from archive.org to put into our own original remixes.

- Later today we are going to use Khan Academy videos to practice a few geometry skills that we are struggling with. I’m not a huge user of Khan Academy and I’ve read many critiques of the site, but I am willing to use any resource I can find to help when my students struggle. I think that the site has a good set of tutorials and practice exercises on this topic and I am willing to use them.

- Finally, my students have to finish up their writing of a fantasy story that they have been working on. We usually use Google docs for any kind of writing like this. It makes revising and editing easy. It makes it easy to work on something here and at home as well. It also lets students share their work between each other and me to get some feedback as they go.

I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years. Any one who thinks education isn’t changing and isn’t more powerful now than in the past needs to spend more time in classrooms.