Question 186 of 365: How should we submit our work?

I think a lot about the submit button. The process of taking something that you own and uploading it to someone else is an act of trust. I am trusting that everything that I submit to Flickr will be there when I look for it, without some crazy provisions or copyright license on it. I am trusting that the presentations I upload to Slideshare will be embeddable wherever I want them to be. Whenever I submit an assignment in an online course, I am trusting that it will be valued by the person on the other end and not just put into a virtual file cabinet to make one more check on a class checklist.

This trust isn’t something that we should take lightly or that we should let rest as it is. There is inherently a problem with turning over your work to something else via a button. The transaction method of turning things in is all wrong. When we have to turn over all authority of the things we have authored, we are no longer able to take responsibility for where they end up. And we should be able to do that. We should be always able to make decisions about our content, continuing to extend its existence wi every link and collaboration.

I want to start making Dropbox the standard for submitting. The very idea of dropping your content into a folder on your desktop and having that sync into a space that other people and services have access to is he future of sharing. Removing content or revising it updates the files everywhere that they are referenced, preserving your control and your ability to revise and continue to come back to where you have already been without recreating or storing every ne version on every different service that comes into existence.

I want to turn in assignments by dropping files onto my desktop and revise my answers with a simple save. I want to share them with everyone else who is in my class and have the facilitator see that sharing as well. I want to have photo sharing sites get access to my collection through a sync from my computer. I want to always maintain the copies but know that they exist and are accessible easily.

The possibilities for creating are simple and elegant when you remove the pressure of the submit button. When you no longer have to wait until something is good enough to start syncing it our to the world, collaboration has the ability to take hold of everything that you do. When you don’t have to be connected to the web in order to check in on what other people have contributed, we aren’t tethered to any device or service. Sharing ownership of our work and also being able to continue to expand its use is the next journey that we must attempt.

This is the workflow I see:

Any file that is on your device is on the cloud is also shared with others and is found on other’s hard drives. The redundancy allows for backup after backup of our work. All of these drives and versions are networked and allow us to see as a work progresses because a visualization of all edits across the world will be a part of the metadata of the file itself. Each file will be editable on all devices either by a local program or a cloud based service. The file will not care which. Microsoft word and Google Docs will simply be the way we revise the much more powerful part of this process: the sharing. Each file will become linked and embeddable. And because of the way all of these hard drives are networked, the file will not be embedded just from the cloud service, but it will also be embedded from the original source (your device). This will mean that we will always be able to track where content has come from and where it goes to. The single source of truth will be the person that created it, and if they delete it, all that will be left will be the remixes and revisions that work under fair use.

None of this will happen if we keep on with the submit button as the only way to share (this button takes many forms, but it is the function that I think is going to hold us back). We need to move toward sharing responsibility for our files and our ideas. We need to submit by moving things around on our devices and not just on the services that seem to come and go every few weeks. We need share via a link that will always exist, instead of break with every whim of a few shareholders. The infrastructure isn’t what needs a tweak. It is us. We need to push what our own devices can do and what we are willing to pay for as well. We need to become our own data centers and wharehouses. We need to become our own cloud, all with the idea that Google or someone else will also have backups of our stuff too. Because you know they will.

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Easy vs. Hard

Sharing content has become easy.

Video has become easy.

Networking has become easy.

Meaning is still hard.

Context is still hard.

Perspective is still hard.

I don’t want to do the easy things. They do not have value and aren’t interesting.

Now that I have outlined the three things that I would like to do with SpeedGeek Learning, I just have to do them. Stay tuned.

The most trusting of folks

We trust that things will happen , that the projects we are working on
will eventually see the light of day.
 
We trust that by sharing our information and learning, good things
will occur. We trust that feeds are freedom and voice if virtue.
 
We trust that when we create something of value, that others will
recognize that value.
 
We trust that tomorrow will, in fact, be another day.
 
We trust that change will occur if we will it into being. We trust
that learning isn’t static.
 
We trust that a great many things will be stable, though too.
 
We trust that networks are not based upon the platform they were
created in. We trust that people will still be humane when faced with
the possibility of being so.
 
We trust that truth still matters.
 
Or, at least I do.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Too busy to work on workflow

The other day I was working with the principal of our online school on
creating a workflow for contacts, email, and calendar that would allow
her to add, read, and create from anywhere, meaning more productivity
for her.
 
I am pretty convinced that we need to be addicted to creating a better
workflow for ourselves, but that is a longer blog post. The reason for
this one was that Chris Lehman left a comment on my last post
expressing that he had a similar idea of people who were just too
busy. His post is right here:
 
And here is my comment on it:
http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?url=archives/361-Hardest-Working-Teacher-Syndrome.html
 
I recognize that this happens everywhere. I love that you have a
better name for it, though. (The hardest working teacher in the
building syndrome)
 
I know that you were talking about teachers when you wrote it, but I
really think that admin and IT need this post quite a bit.
 
The lack of help, support, and sharing that goes on because we are too
busy is truly troubling. Taking time to recognize that busy (or hard
working) is no excuse for not sharing what you are working on or
taking time to see what others are working on.
 
I think recognizing that an addiction to finding a workflow that
actually works is not optional anymore. If a teacher or admin is “too
busy”, their workflow is probably out of whack. That doesn’t get
talked about enough in our conversations. We just assume that others
aren’t duplicating efforts all over the place because we don’t.
 
If everything (our learning) is connected, nothing is out of place,
meaning that we don’t have to add more, we just make it flow better.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Secondary)

Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Elementary)

The Ripe Environment: The Markers

The “I know it when I see it” form of collaboration is no longer valid.

We need new ways to tell if learning is happening through group contribution. We need to be able to assess collaboration, but we can’t do it the same way that we assess writing or proficiency. Those skills are much easier to boil down to a continuum or rubric. Others have tried, and we have been for the most part satisfied with their traditional, enigmatic, and mostly non-educational continuums for collaboration.

These forms, however, are not worthy of our cause. They provide us with a way to see things in an abstract sense, showing a fictional path to collaboration that is just as hopeless as using the term as a buzzword to show that change is occurring.

Instead, I would like to outline the types of collaboration that occur in The Ripe Environment. These are the markers that we should be striving for and looking for:

1. Learning objects to be used by multiple learners, created by multiple learners. (This does not include one person writing or creating and the others supplying their input. True collaboration means that everyone has their fingerprints on the potting wheel.)
2. Collaborative asynchronous lists. (Never underestimate the power of listing. And yet, the power is not in the listing. It is in the reordering, reorganizing, and reconstituting a list. Think of wiki collaboration here.)
3. A followable thread of discussion (This can be through linking, commenting, or something like voicethread)
4. Shared Space with over 10 revisions (Any object or space that has been edited or revised more than ten times by multiple authors can be considered a respectable work of collaboration).
5. A mash-up or remix of anything (This type of collaboration marker is the halmark of true collaboration. The best examples are when the masher doesn’t know the mashee. That is when the unintended (but most amazing) concequences of sharing and collaboration kick in.)

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list. What are the other markers of collaboration in The Ripe Environment?

What Myspace can teach us about School 2.0

This podcast was brought about because of the classroom discussion that my eighth graders had about what a terrible affect Myspace can have on their lives. I wanted to start brainstorming a school-sponsored space that we could substitute for Myspace that would be an extension of the classroom. This space would have the ability to connect students over academic interests as well as personal interests. It would allow for photo sharing and digital storytelling within these photos. Primarily, however, this space would allow students to comment on everything. Each element of the space (a module) would have a feedback form, so students would get comments about their school notes, their podcasts, their blog posts, their beliefs, and their photos. I can’t think of anything that would engage students more than being able to get specific feedback on all of the important aspects of their lives, and to do it all in an environment that wouldn’t allow the inflammatory remarks that are a systematic part of Myspace. Let me know what you think of this idea and its feasibility at benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org or http://yongesonne.edublogs.org

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?