Web Applications for Collaboration

TechCrunch recently launched an online Web 2.0 dictionary site (go2web20.net).  It is fantastic.  I highly recommend checking it out.  For those in education you can click on the ‘Select Tag’ at the top and select collaboration below that (sorry no direct link).  It has some old time favorites, but there are a lot of new web applications I have never seen before. 

Note:  They are constantly updating the list too.  Since yesterday there are already two new applications.  Looking for something new to try out… great place to start! 

By Jeff | Posted on: February 9, 2007 at 5:00 pm |

GREAT article with Insights about Teaching Today!

I have not had much time to post as of late, but have to pass this on!  I read a GREAT article today from Will Richardson.  He mentioned 10 things we need to ‘unlearn’ if we are to progress as teachers!  This is for those out there that aren’t already subscribed to Will’s blog.

  1. We need to unlearn the idea that we are the sole content experts in
    the classroom, because we can now connect our kids to people who know
    far more than we do about the material we’re teaching.
  2. We need to unlearn the premise that we know more than our kids, because in many cases, they can now be our teachers as well.
  3. We need to unlearn the idea that learning itself is an event. In this day and age, it is a continual process.
  4. We need to unlearn the strategy that collaborative work inside the
    classroom is enough and understand that cooperating with students from
    around the globe can teach relevant and powerful negotiation and
    team-building skills.
  5. We need to unlearn the idea that every student needs to learn the
    same content when really what they need to learn is how to self-direct
    their own learning.
  6. We need to unlearn the notion that our students don’t need to see and understand how we ourselves learn.
  7. We need to unlearn our fear of putting ourselves and our students
    “out there” for we’ve proven we can do it in safe, relevant and
    effective ways.
  8. We need to unlearn the practice that teaches all students at the
    same pace. Is it any wonder why so many of our students love to play
    online games where they move forward at their own pace?
  9. We need to unlearn the idea that we can teach our students to be
    literate in this world by continually blocking and filtering access to
    the sites and experiences they need our help to navigate.
  10. We need to unlearn the premise that real change can happen just by
    rethinking what happens inside the school walls and understand that
    education is now a community undertaking on many different levels.

I feel like one of those congregation members in the deep south Baptist churches who yell out ‘AMEN’ as the preacher preaches.  Amen Will, Amen!!

By Jeff | Posted on: February 7, 2007 at 10:56 am | Comments (3)

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

I came across this video thanks to Jeremy Hunsinger from Virgina Tech who posted it on Educause Connect.  You have to watch it!  It comes originally from Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. 

Last week I posted an article in which I struggled to define my place with instructional technology and ultimately decided to focus on the power of the web.  This video cements my resolve to further investigate the power of the web, as well raises some great questions about how it really will change everything. 

He thoughtfully ends his short video by saying we need to rethink the following things:

  • copyright
  • authorship
  • identity
  • ethics
  • aesthetics
  • rhetorics
  • governance
  • privacy
  • commerce
  • love
  • family
  • ourselves

If this list doesn’t show how the web will change EVERYTHING, I don’t know what will. 

By Jeff | Posted on: February 5, 2007 at 8:37 am | Comments (3)

Somewhat Random Idea for the Future of Computing…

So I was just reading an article on Wired Science and it really got me thinking.  The article in itself talks about a new mass storage (10-20GB) device that can be hooked up to cell phones.  All that space would potentially create room for an operating system to run, but you still have one lingering problem with cell-phones becoming the computer of the future… the screen size.  Even a full-size iPhone screen is still small… how do we get past this? 

Well, my idea is to virtualize the screen… virtualize the whole computer.  We need to create a way to just hook the cell-phone up to our head so we can virtually navigate.  I’m not talking about wires, I’m talking wirelessly.

I read an article a couple of months past (which I can’t seem to find again… anyone?) about researchers that were able to type letters by having a computer monitor their brain waves.  The process was long and tedious but it worked.  That technology, adapted to moving the mouse around, is a next step.  After that the sky’s the limit!  Why not just think “My Documents” and it opens… visualize that picture of the ski trip and you found it… think of a webpage and it’s up.  The speed of thought… now that is real speed!

Sounds kind of Matrix like, but in a strange way… possible in the coming years.  Computers are just managing information anyway.  With out minds hooked up to the computer we can manage that information a lot better.   There’s no need for these peripheral keyboard/mice/monitor things…

Just don’t sign me up for the first tests…

By Jeff | Posted on: February 5, 2007 at 8:14 am |

Future of Books – Google ‘Unbound’ Conference

Many of my recent posts (Human Education Network, ECAR, Webpage Documents, Trailfire) focus on the future of education and the internet’s role in that.  Yesterday Inside Google Book Search posted an short article about a conference they recently had in New York about the future of the book.  As part of their post they posted a video montage of the event.

The conference, appropriately titled ‘Unbound,’ focused on the future of books.  Here are a couple of quotes.

Presumably talking about a website centered around a book one presenter said:

“The website should be interactive.  It should be forum, there should be author talks, there should be talks the author can participate in.”

Another presenter said the following about the power of social networking. 

“Social activity around my work is absolutely the most important thing that can happen for it.  To have someone turn to someone else and say: ‘I read this book, I love it, you must read it.’ Boy, nothing sells books like that.”

Probably the most important quote comes from David Worlock, Chairman of EPS.

“The future of the book is secure.  It’s what we do it, how we promote it, how we develop it, and how we put new layers of meaning around it in a digital context which becomes extremely important. 

I post this all just to re-emphasize the importance of the internet.  The internet will provide a sphere where we can add these new layers of social networking, collaboration, and a myriad of other new layers that haven’t even been thought of yet. 

I applaud Google once again because they are ahead of the learning curve.  Last week I saw some features on their Google book search that is already potentially changing the way we learn from books.  I look forward to more developments in the future!

By Jeff | Posted on: February 2, 2007 at 10:48 am | Comments (1)

Google and Education

As part of another article I wrote yesterday I created a sort of online tour through some of the products Google has and their educational uses.  Since I posted it over a hundred people have taken the tour.  I am reposting the link to it here for those who are interested in possible ways to use some of the technologies Google has in the classroom.

Enjoy!

By Jeff | Posted on: February 2, 2007 at 10:20 am |

ECAR Report Thoughts

I just finished reading the ECAR report “The Future of Higher Education: A View from CHEMA” that was released last August.  Some of you may have read this already, but some may not have.  Anyway, it has some interesting quotes that I would like to point out. 

Second Wave of Technology Implementation

Seeing as I am not an administrator, I found the Section III, Part 5 “How will technology continue to transform the academy?” most interesting (pg. 12-13).  The report quotes Mary Daniels of Ohio State University as saying:

We are at the end of the first wave of technology implementations, where we learned how IT can change the way we do business.  The second wave will transform the learning experience.  It is just taking higher education longer to technology enhancements to education. (12)

I thought this was a good way of describing what has and is happening in schools around the country.  We have seen the power of technology to help us get our work done, but we are just beginning to see how technology can, and will change the way we learn.  In an earlier article I examined the emergence of an entirely different way of writing research papers where the paper could be written by going to different things that talk about that subject and adding your comments online.  I am not saying that is what is going to happen in the future, but it is an example of changes that could happen in the way we do things. 

Technology Changes Everything

Another responder, Steve Sayers, continues along the same line.  He says:

I think significant changes will revolve around technology.  It will alter where students learn and how they learn.  It may be longer than ten years, but the time will come when students will be able to learn anywhere. (12)

If we look at the way students are growing up using the web, it already has altered everything.  They don’t go to books for information, they go to the web.  The web will be come the platform for learning (if it has not already).  The web has replaced books for all but a few of the younger generation.

I realize that some people might look down on this change as bad.  I too consider it a great loss to not read books.  But the answer is not to go back to the books, it is to bring the books to the internet like great companies like Google are trying to do.  That way the students will go there for information, not less-reliable webpages. 

Universal Impact

Among the survey respondents, technological change was the second most selected change driver for higher education as a whole and individual functional areas.  The anticipated impact of technology did not differ significantly by either a respondent’s institutional perspective or primary mission of the functional area they represent. (12)

I include this quote just to show that everyone, everywhere sees the importance technology is going to play in the coming years. 

Resistance to Change

The #1 threat to the success of higher education as a whole, not to mention technology in it, is resistance to change.  People don’t like to change.  That is the bottom line.  When you get somebody that has done something the same way for 25 years it is VERY hard to change that… but not impossible.  From the report:

Marvin Peterson, professor of education at the University of Michigan, argues that higher education is not an irrational community that will refuse to change no matter what.  He points out that ‘there is no such thing as resistance to change in the face of a compelling reason to change.’ (15)

The key here is examining those reasons… are they good reasons?  If so, move forward.  If not, that’s okay. 

Collaboration

I have talked a lot in my recent posts about collaboration.  Perhaps that is why this next quote stuck out to me.  One of the responders said:

The increasing access to information and the speed at which it comes to us is challenging higher education’s more deliberative and collaborative tendency. (13)

I don’t disagree that the amount of information is challenging, but that is why we have amazing search engines and collaborative social networks to filter out what is important and what is not. 

What I disagree with is the notion that technology is hurting collaboration in education.  I think this idea is based off of the idea that we collaborate in person in a classroom.  I don’t know about you, but most of my classes didn’t include any type of collaboration at all!  I collaborate a lot more online than I ever did in the classroom.  Technologies like Google Docs will only increase that collaboration. 

It’s not all Good

The report is not all bright lights and star gazing.  There are some inherent problems that come with technology.  Georgia Yuan, from Smith College points out:

Technology is speeding up the expectations for responding to requests for services.  This has quickened the pace of administration to a dangerous level.  Thoughtfulness is sacrificed in favor of acting and responding quickly. (13)

I thought this was a very good point.  Technology has really sped up our lives.  We are constantly doing something, reading something, responding to something, sun-up to sun-down.  For those of us that work with technology that is even worse.  It is something we need to recognize and work on.  That being said, I think I have written enough for today.  I’m going to go and look at the wonderful weather outside! (Snow)

By Jeff | Posted on: February 1, 2007 at 4:37 pm | Comments (1)

Are Webpages Documents?

So I was doing a search query today on Google and it didn’t find anything. That happens when you do very specific searches. Something caught my attention though. The “didn’t find anything” page said:

Your search ‘ “[search terms]” – did not match any documents.

I found it very interesting that Google decided to use the term ‘documents.’ When I search the web I usually think of searching for web pages, even though I do search for specific documents every once in a while.

My teachers always taught me that the information on the internet was unreliable. They NEVER described anything you found on the internet as a document. It was always a webpage, which carried a distinctly negative connotation to it. This may be because when I was going to school when the internet was first coming online, but even now teachers caution against citing anything on the internet as a source.

Do you think Google’s use of the word ‘document’ was on purpose? Is Google trying to redefine the definition of webpages or am I just reading too much into this? :-) In reality a webpage is a document… but document sounds so much better to me…

By Jeff | Posted on: February 1, 2007 at 1:50 pm | Comments (1)

Trailfire – Create Guided Internet Tours

What is Trailfire?

About a month ago I was looking for a way to annotate the web and came across Trailfire. In their own words.

Find what’s important on the web in an entirely new way. Learn what others have already discovered. Follow trails of web pages and discover new ideas, cool lists, hot topics, reviews… and more.

I see it as the next revolution to del.icio.us, or at least a nice spin on it. What you do is create (or follow) ‘trails’ of webpages for others to follow and comment on those webpages. These ‘trails’ are mostly centered around a certain theme, but can be a trail of any type.

There is an arrow next to your comment that will allow the user to go to the next webpage/comment.

Social Aspects:

Just like all social webpages that are cropping up there are ratings you can give to a person’s trail. There is a also popular page with some of the highest rated pages of all time, as well as a recent page with some of the recently updated trails.

As a user goes through the trail there is a place for comments on each page to add to the trail creator’s comments.

Educational Possibilities:

When I first saw this I instantly thought of a teacher guiding their class through the internet, exposing them to different articles, pictures and what regarding a certain subject. The awesome thing about this tour is the absence of the professor. They could create it in advance and send the students to check it out on their own time. Students would then have the time to explore the pages, comment, and even add to the trail.

Students are often given assignments to look on the web for information. Students could create their own trails as part of that project, where they could comment and educate. Not only would it benefit them, but their trail would join the fabric of the social web for others to learn from.

I believe that the internet will continue to grow as far as the information that it contains. Imagine 5-10 years into the future where research papers no longer stand alone with hyper-linked footnotes, but actually go from one reference to another, allowing the reader to understand the entire background for a reference. The web dynamically becomes the platform for composition.

My First Trail – Google and Education:

I obviously like the idea a lot so I thought I would give it a test run. Sign up and everything else was typical. I installed the extension in firefox (note: toolbar also available for internet explorer) and went to town. Commenting was an easy button that you could move anywhere on the page. There was a WYSIWYG editor that allowed standard formatting including hyperlinking and pictures. You could edit comments easy and even move your trail pages around (on the mainpage).

I figured I should create a trail around something I know and understand. What am I more passionate about than Google and Education. You can view my trail here.

Note: If my comment doesn’t automatically show up in your browser look for a little icon. I tried to put them next to the titles of the pages. Click on that so see my comments and follow the trail.

Complaints/Suggestions:

Overall the process was very easy. I am using a very high speed connection, so it might be a little slower to load for some people. I did try out my trail on another computer that didn’t have the extension/toolbar installed and it was kind of slow to load. The users could, however, still see the comments. That was nice!

I did have a couple of ideas for improvements:

  • Publish/Unpublish option – as soon as I put my first page on my trail it showed up in the recently updated page. There is an option to make the trial private, but it would also be good to have a publish/unpublish button if you are working on the trail.
  • Voice Capability – wouldn’t it be awesome if instead of writing your comments you just spoke them and they played when a person followed your trail?
  • Highlight capability – as far as I know there is no way to highlight something on the page in addition to the comment. It would be very useful to highlight something you were commenting about on a page… especially if there were several things that needed to be commented on.
  • Education Trail under Categories – Right now you can categorize your trails, but there is no educational category… don’t forget about us!

Overall I think this is a great tool with some great potential. It does not look like there are a ton of users right now, but I imagine that will continue to grow.

What other potential uses could you see for Trailfire?

By Jeff | Posted on: February 1, 2007 at 12:32 pm | Comments (10)

My Specialty – The Web

A large re-organization of our group was recently announced. Up until this point in my job I have been both responsible for technical support for 8 departments, and instructional technology for those departments. Starting in about two weeks I will only be responsible for the technical needs of my departments (now 10). The instructional side of my job is going to go to a newly formed ‘Instructional Technology Group.’

The move is a great idea. It is very difficult to balance both technical and instructional needs of a department, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed. I really wanted to continue working with faculty and staff in an innovative way. I did go and discuss my concerns with my manager, and he suggested that I would still be able to do instructional technology, but perhaps in a more limited way. He suggested that instead of taking a large approach to anything and everything technology related, I focus on something and become very good at that thing. As much as I would love to just do instructional technology all of the time, I realize that might not be possible for a while. So what is my focus? What do I love? What technology do I want to focus on?

I thought about these questions for a while and realized that my specialty is the web. More specifically, my specialty is using the web as a learning/educational tool. This in itself is still a bit broad, but I think that is where I want my focus to go when I don’t have as much time as I used to to devote to instructional research. I want to look for new an innovative programs (websites/technologies within the web) that educators can use to increase the effectiveness of their teaching. I think the biggest piece to this puzzle is the read-write capabilities of the web; the awesome (as in massive) collaborative potential that we as educators can harness through the web. Social networks will play a part, but only in emerging technologies, not in things like Facebook and MySpace. I am working on a couple of articles right now about some programs (Footnote, Trailfire) that let you collaboratively annotate web pages and documents online in a social atmosphere. These are the kinds of technologies that I was to focus on.

How I will actually be able to implement these ideas is yet to be seen…

What are your specialties? What other read/write web technologies have you found useful in education?

By Jeff | Posted on: February 1, 2007 at 9:09 am | Comments (2)