Question 37 of 365: What should you do if Google decides to compete directly?

Google competes with our jobs. We are only kidding ourselves if we believe otherwise. All of the knowledge that was known as expertise and was highly valued in a different time is now just a click away from any employee. Google directly competes with our textbooks, our reference books, and our news to a great degree. It competes with teachers for their knowledge, programmers for their ability to create applications, and journalists for their ability to report widely. They have the competitive edge in all of those spaces simply because they get rid of all of the friction. The search bar gets beats a scope and sequence of curriculum, an API beats a proprietary software program, and online syndication beats increasingly lower paid circulation.

Yet, most of us do not see Google as directly competing with our interests. We use Google, and many of us love Google. We filter everything through our Gmail accounts. We use Google Docs to edit and store our important information and presentations. We plan out all of our daily events in a calendar that reaches farther than a daily planner ever could.

We see them as an incredibly useful and “non-evil” company. How is it that we are so comfortable to outsource large portions of our jobs to a service that we continue to find endearing?

I continue to come back to the example of how teaching and learning has changed in the era of Google. Before Google indexed the world’s information, teachers, the library (including the encyclopedia), and other expert “people” were one of the only ways in which to get the knowledge required to earn the grade you wanted. There was no self-paced inquiry driven model for figuring out the dates of when something happened or the cause and effect of a war (without huge dependence on the teacher, books, and experts that is). Teachers occupied classrooms the same as they do now, but they were relied on for the information in a way that can’t be said of today’s teacher.

That means that fundamentally, teaching is different now. It has to be. When Google went head to head with teachers on the basis of their wide breadth of knowledge, Google won. So, they forced teachers to shift their focus to the activity and experience of learning rather than the “stuff” of learning. While this may not be universally true, students come to class with devices in their pockets capable of relaying all of the content for a given class. The teacher must respect that, and find a different place to compete for the attention of students. They must find a new “market” that Google can’t yet compete with.

Authors, Journalists, Programmers, and any other specialization that Google has put in their sites must do the same. In fact, we must all find markets that Google cannot penetrate if we want to stay employed. The average worker cannot be an information expert, rather she must be an integration expert. She must be able to take the information that Google spits out at her and make sense of it, integrating it into the systems that currently exist in her company. The folks in IT that used to be in charge of setting up calendar, mail and disk images to be maintained and upgraded must find another way to occupy their time. They have to find a way to take what Google can offer and train with it, implement it better, or build on top of it. Even the person that makes things must be able to iterate faster upon the product line because of how easy it is to produce rapid prototypes and harness the power of the crowd to distribute the manufacturing process.

I had a conversation with Ashton recently, my co-founder of Open Spokes, discussing what would happen if Google moved into our space before we were really ready to launch. We talked about how scary that proposition was. However, I realize now that it is only scary if you are so attached to the idea of what it is that you are “selling” that you can’t find a new space to be in. While direct competition with Google can be done, that isn’t really the point. If Google has decided to develop something that competes with your “product”, you must realize that your “product” as you have defined it isn’t your core business. Just as with teaching, the core business of schools isn’t the information, it is the learning itself. When Google moved into the news space, newspapers needed to realize that information can’t be their core business anymore. Their core business must be about the process of connecting individuals with the information and people that are most important to them. If news is to survive, it has to focus on the conversation as much as the content.

So, what should you do when Google comes for you? Pivot and believe in yourself enough to know that your “core business” can never be outsourced. As a person and as a contributor, you will always have value so long as you never stop working toward finding a space where relationships are the focus and not information. I still believe that relationships and the structures we build around them is one thing that Google will never be able to index.

Twitter and Google Reader for Productivity

Observation with teacher.

I had the pleasure of observing another teacher in my school today who teaches the 8th grade. We are creating a partnership of practice (or something with less alliteration) so that we can find out exactly what good teaching looks like from different personalities, in different classrooms, with different demographics. It is something that I really don’t feel like I do enough. I know what my own teaching looks like and I know what the teaching of teachers looks like. But, how connected am I to the practice of other teachers when I can’t be in their classrooms? I must constantly remind myself that the answer to the question that authentic learning presents should not always look like MY CLASSROOM. It is the approximation of an ideal, the learning environment as work-in-progress. Plus, it gives me so much more time to reflect upon what I do that it seems ludicrous that I don’t make more time for it. No matter what my future job description looks like, I always want to observe classrooms and be a part of this. It amazes me.

1. 
• I really like the ways in which students immediately were proud of solving the puzzle. Does it approximate success?
2. 
3. 
• I like the idea of a more relevant poem.
• Is there a greater purpose for this kind of thinking/writing?
4. 
• Do kids settle for just those answers when they are enumerated?
5. 
• How can the bigger questions be answered in the student discussion as well as the teacher-led discussion?
6. 
• The relevancy to student life is easy to see. Is there any way for students to be as critical of the lyrics as they are of the news article?
7. 
• I love the modeling. What kind of modeling works the best (student created, teacher created, discussion created)?

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The Social Networks of Tragedies

The Social Networks of Tragedies Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (197)

July 05, 2007 07:52PM

This podcast is pretty heavy:
I was in Osawatomie, KS for the 4th of July. It flooded earlier in the week, and my sister-in-law lost her car and her apartment due to this natural disaster. This event really got me thinking about how we can use the technology that our schools provide (especially in 1:1 programs) in order to create social networks for a community. I hope that we can start putting together ideas like Steve Hargadon’s Public Web Stations (link below) in non-crisis times. If you have any ideas about how to do this, please shoot me an e-mail at benwilkoff@gmail.com
I am also interested in knowing if you would rather I don’t include links and pictures with my podcast, but rather simply upload the mp3 file. If you have an opinion either way, please post a comment on this podcast.
Show Notes:

• 00:00:00: Intro to Osawatomie Flooding
  Pictures
• 00:02:12: Supporting the people of Osawatomie
  News Article and Support Links
• 00:03:02: The 1:1 Social Network
  The Osawatomie 1:1 Initiative
• 00:06:24: The New School Community Center
• 00:07:51: Steve Hargadon’s Public Web Stations
  Public Web Stations
• 00:09:53: Bridging Social Networks and Analog Communities
• 00:12:15: How do we use tech in our schools to benefit the community?
  My Blog

The Social Networks of Tragedies

This podcast is pretty heavy:

I was in Osawatomie, KS for the 4th of July. It flooded earlier in the week, and my sister-in-law lost her car and her apartment due to this natural disaster. This event really got me thinking about how we can use the technology that our schools provide (especially in 1:1 programs) in order to create social networks for a community. I hope that we can start putting together ideas like Steve Hargadon’s Public Web Stations (link below) in non-crisis times. If you have any ideas about how to do this, please shoot me an e-mail at benwilkoff@gmail.com

I am also interested in knowing if you would rather I don’t include links and pictures with my podcast, but rather simply upload the mp3 file. If you have an opinion either way, please post a comment on this podcast.

Show Notes:

• 00:00:00: Intro to Osawatomie Flooding
  Pictures

• 00:02:12: Supporting the people of Osawatomie
  News Article and Support Links

• 00:03:02: The 1:1 Social Network
  The Osawatomie 1:1 Initiative

• 00:06:24: The New School Community Center
• 00:07:51: Steve Hargadon’s Public Web Stations
  Public Web Stations

• 00:09:53: Bridging Social Networks and Analog Communities
• 00:12:15: How do we use tech in our schools to benefit the community?
  My Blog

Digital Ex-Patriots and The Formula for Transparency

Well, I may be going out on a limb with this one, but I have described in the podcast a level of discomfort with technology that goes beyond the simple immigrant/native debate. The fear and panic that is associated with technology in the classroom comes from Digital Ex-Patriots. These people (parents, teachers, administrators, etc.) are so sure of their anti-technology stance that they are actively pursuing a life (of education) away from technology integration. These are the people that we must win over if we are going to continue our collaborative efforts and truly create change. Please let me know what you think about this concept in the comments or in an e-mail (benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org)




Show Notes:

• 00:00:00: Intro to Online and Offline Life
  Internation Community of Minds

• 00:03:17: Safety Vs. Panic
  The Most Discussed Post I’ve Ever Written

• 00:05:07: Creating Discussion
  Bud Hunt’s Blog

• 00:06:07: Twitter as Tool

  My Twitter

• 00:07:28: Formula for Transparency
  Discovery Online Code

• 00:08:16: Twitter as Classroom Communication
  Remote Access Twitter

• 00:09:40: Digital Ex-Patriots
• 00:11:37: Google Paper: Good or Bad Idea?

  Google Paper

• 00:13:14: Mass Phone Call Newsletter
  Pheeder

• 00:13:53: Paths to Transparency
• 00:18:03: The Role of Students in Classroom 2.0
• 00:19:20: Transparency as Conversation
• 00:21:35: Conclusion with Challenge
  Podcast Blog

The Perfect Online Professional Development Community

I have really been thinking a lot about how to create an online community for all of the teachers in my school district who are as passionate about technology integration, reflection and collaboration as I am. The way that it stands, I feel so isolated in my quest for new and more effective ways of teaching. I know this is not the case, that there are probably hundreds of teachers who feel the same way, but that isn’t really much comfort when I don’t know who they are and I have no way of contacting them. I almost feel like I need to send out a classified ad: Young passionate teacher seeks the same in order to learn and collaborate about technology and pedagogy.

I can’t think of a better way to ask for a community than to create one and hope that other people join up. I have already run this idea by a few, more experienced, Edubloggers, Bud Hunt and Karl Fisch. They have both responded pretty well to the idea and are willing to help me get it off of the ground.

After my initial e-mails to my administration and these two great teachers/resources, I thought that there would be no way of stopping such a mammoth idea. My principal loved it, and the feeder area coordinator thought it would work well with some of our other goals. But last night, I received an e-mail from the Web Services manager of my district. In it he said that I should consider using two semi-crippled technologies (Firstclass and SchoolCenter) that teachers in my district are already fairly comfortable with (and the district has already paid for). I say that these are crippled technologies because they have real holes in their capabilities. They just can’t do everything that I want to do with this community.

Even with this minor setback, I have decided that I will not compromise (at least initially) my vision of the “Perfect Online Professional Development Community.” I would like to see just how collaborative, easy to use, scalable, social, and reflective I can make this experience for other teachers. So, without any further explanation, I would like to unveil what I think are the essential pieces of a new generation professional learning community.

A central portal will give you access to the following (I am thinking about using protopage):

1. A master blog that would guide discussion.
2. Blogroll
3. Recent Blog Articles (a la SuprGlu)
4. Archived Blog Articles (in a newsletter type format)
5. A Google Earth Mash-Up of all of the school represented in the community
6. Bios of the teacher bloggers (if they wish to include them) done in a social way so that collaboration is easier (an Elgg.org-type personal page)
7. A calendar for event planning (Skypecasts, Classroom Demonstration Webcasts, Classroom Picture Flickr Stream)

The other aspects of the community that will not be directly shown on the portal’s front page except for simply linking to them:

1. A Q+A section for both teaching questions and technical help questions (Ning.com has a great set-up for something like this).
2. A Digg-Style Article/Website recommender.
3. A Wiki for success stories of technology integration or improved practice (a little like David Warlick‘s Telling the New Story Wiki)
4. Walk-Throughs (screencasts) for how to create blogs, collaborate, etc.
5. A way of dealing with comments both attached to and unattached to their original posts. (co.mments.com has a pretty great strategy)
6. A professional development bookshelf (akin to either this one or this one)
7. A way of signing up for an e-mail RSS system for new posts (most teachers check their e-mail religiously)
8. A belief statements wiki about technology or teaching in general for certain collaborating members or individuals (this could be a running list of belief statements and/or a running list of questions that these belief statements beg to be answered. I also like the idea of using standpoint.com somehow).
9. A system for sharing lesson plans and ideas (both formatted and unformatted) including a collaborative document center.
10. A cross-school project starter (partnering up similar teaching styles)

Questions I still have about how to get this done:

1. How do we get as many different positions represented in this community (principals, core teachers, librarians, elective teachers, etc.)
2. Should we try to protect anonymity on the blogs?
3. Just how much do most people know about these technologies? Will it be like starting from scratch for most people? And if so, should I send out a formal (or informal) survey about these ideas (What have you done in your classrooms with technology? Do you like to create you own lessons? How much do you enjoy reflection? Do you want feedback on your classroom ideas from other teachers? How worried are you that this is going to take too much of your free time? How many of you already blog?)?

Well, that is pretty much it. I would like to make this project as appealing and voluntary as possible, so that everyone who is in the community has a lot of buy-in. Let me know what you think of this grand scheme. What is possible and what is not possible?