YouTube Investigation

I’m going to undertake a full evaluation and investigation of YouTube with my children and students to canvass their ideas and views.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/hMLX68MHVtw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This short video was uploaded directly from my mobile phone. What fantastic opportunities… and I managed to do it without happy-slapping anyone!

Social Software – Ban don’t think!

What dynamic is at work when schools or LEA’s take unilateral decisions to ban sites like YouTube without even consulting students (or teachers for that matter)?

Toss out a few negative soundbytes based on unbalanced media coverage and harp on about ‘duty of care’ and the decision is soon justified. Often though, there is not even a decision that anyone, in this era of transparency, can challenge or track. Where are the lists of sites published that are banned so that they can become an agenda item on the school council or at a staff meeting? Evaluating real websites for their suitability for task would be a purposeful learning activity for both teachers and students. Identifying, weighing up and avoiding potential risks while enjoying the benefits of a website is a creative challenge that faces everyone. Going through this process as a school community offers ownership of internet use decisions, something that is sadly lacking in many schools.

And what do students thinks about this state of affairs? Nothing! They do not care because it simply confirms to them the increasing irrelevance of their formal education to their everyday life. Whatever!

Supporting the blogging community.

Suffering from a sort of design hyperactivity, I’ve changed the look of this blog yet again. The designer of this WordPress theme, Fredrik Fahlstad, offers this and other cool designs to the community to use for free. It must have cost him a fair bit of time though to design this template and I think it only fair that I should throw a financial ‘thank-you’ his way. I found a donate button on his blog and sent him 20 quid via paypal. I had never done that before for a free theme design. This particular theme has been downloaded 1308 times so far. If everyone contributed something to their favourite designer (or plugin creator) then that person would probably be even more inclined to continue producing (and supporting) themes and plugins. It seems to go against the grain in education though, paying for something that you can get for free. Shame really…

Life beyond Google?

Dave Winer writing about Google:

I stopped believing in Google fairplay when they added a Blog-This feature to their toolbar, and didn’t use open APIs so users could post with any blogging tool, not just Google’s.

Google is becoming an all-embracing, accepted part of our societal furniture. It buys up companies for fun. Only the other week, I went to access my JotSpot account, only to find that it has joined the Google family. I am assured that this is good for me as the consumer. I’m not convinced.

In 2002, I was concerned that using only Microsoft products with my students would not serve them well. I now have the same worry about Google.

Gareth Davies on Phil Beadle

Gareth’s firm rebuttal of Phil Beadle’s article in the TES Guardian lays out the stark realities of not harnessing ICT in teaching. I would love to interview Phil Beadle, not least because of his inspirational teaching, but also to tease out for him how ICT would enhance what he does. After all we are never too good to learn

Phil admits that ICT may be a fantastic tool, but like so many teachers he claims he does not have the time learn how to use it. Well Phil, perhaps you need to find that time, because pupils in your care deserve a 21st century education in which ICT has and will not replace books, pens and pencils, but is just as relevant in a literate society. To not be engaged in the forms of communication that this technology affords means, as an English teacher, you are unable to inform and educate students on how to become a constructive member of today’s society.

Freakonomics

‘Freakonomics’ by the economist Steven Levitt and the journalist Stephen Dubner is proving an enthralling read. It’s a book that asks questions and uses the information in the world about us to get at the heart of what’s happening under the surface of everyday life. The questions are engaging in themselves. For example:

What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?

Why do dugs dealers live with their mothers?

The Freakonomics Blog is a treat too, complete with downloadable teacher- and study guide.

The explanation of information asymmetries and the effect of the internet on them is enlightening. There are applications in there to be gleaned by educational consultants/advisors, and teachers for that matter. Many consultants still rely on an information asymetry that the Web 2.0 internet world is making more and more difficult to maintain.

What then is the role of the consultant/advisor? The future is a ‘consultancy 2.0′ and it is slowly beginning to take shape in my own mind. Many will not want to go there. Of that you can be sure!

I recognise that people much more talented than me have been grappling with these issues but this ramble is a marker for me to start gathering my own thoughts on the subject. It is also the only time I’ve found myself first in a google search – Consultancy 2.0. Perhaps I’m about to coin a phrase You heard it here first