Learning is Change

Web Presence

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There is a new type of reputation out there. It lingers and builds long after you you have stopped caring about it. Managing it is hard. Too many elements to focus on, and too little time to maintain them all. So, you do what you can.You look for just the right resources to update at just the right time to get you exposure. You believe that in doing some good, you will get recognized. But this kind of reputation doesn’t work like that. Your expertise can go unrecognized for years. So long as you have a well founded web presence, others will find out just how amazing you are, eventually.

I often think about this digital trail that I am leaving behind. It is amazing to me to know that many of the ideas I am having right now will affect others years from now. I still receive e-mail about a band webpage I put up when I was 16. It is scary how much the internet has a memory. It is cataloging every keystroke I publish. And this is beautiful. The internet knows that my name is associated with my ideas. This makes me truly happy.

So, in an effort to make concrete something that is so disparate, here are the key elements of my web presence (these will have active links in the near future):

Podcasting:

  1. Discourse about Discourse: Educasts
  2. Discourse about Discourse: Educasts Digg Page
  3. Weekly Authentic Gcast
  4. Yongesonne Gcast
  5. 2005-2006 Discovery Podcasts

Blogs:

  1. Discourse about Discourse
  2. Daily Lesson Plans
  3. Isabelle’s Dandelife

Wikis:

  1. Academy of Discovery
  2. Discovery -Isms
  3. Discovery Utopias
  4. DC Edusphere
  5. Yongesonne’s Educational Technology Resources
  6. LA Cresthill Collaboration
  7. Lesson Planning Wiki

Social Bookmarking:

  1. WeeklyAuthentic del.icio.us
  2. bhwilkoff del.icio.us

Social Networking:

  1. Myspace
  2. Standpoint
  3. Stop CyberBullying
  4. Facebook

E-mail:

  1. Gmail
  2. Firstclass

Public Accounts at services I regularly use:

  1. Teacher Bloglines
  2. Student Bloglines
  3. Discourse about Discourse Feedburner
  4. Flickr Account
  5. Google Calendar
  6. Google Documents
  7. Google Reader
  8. Conversate
  9. Jotform
  10. Wufoo
  11. Technorati

Number of Google hits for “Ben Wilkoff” – 891.

I hope that none of this comes off sounding narcissistic. This exercise merely meant to show the beginnings of my digital legacy. It is also meant as a challenge for you to estimate your web presence and to start to think about how your digital trail of breadcrumbs will help others down the road.

04.09.07

Core 1:

  1. Write-On: What would it take for you to start or go along with a revolution?
  2. Enter Animal Farm

Core 2:

  1. Extending the classroom:
  2. How to create a Standpoint Grazr on your Wiki Page.
  3. Expectations for this week:
    • Establish your core belief.
    • Write your belief statement essay according to the This I Believe model on a new Wiki Page.
    • Solicit at least three comments from our -Ism community on your Discussion page and make the revisions.
    • Record your Audio Essay on Gcast and embed it into your wiki page.

Core 3:

  1. What is the one true story that you could tell that would leave other people speechless?
  2. Read about Johnny.
  3. Finish the gender issue handout.
  4. Set-up for debate on gender stereotyping.

Core 4:

  1. The Rubric Debate: Solved.
  2. Extending the Classroom:
  3. Work on Utopias according to the Youbric.

04.06.07

Core 1:

  1. What is leadership?
  2. The History of Communism in 7 Parts
  3. Working with wikimail and working on your Utopias

Core 2:

  1. How can we use a social network such as standpoint to further discuss, enrich, and debate our beliefs?
  2. Work on your -Ism templates and standpoint beliefs.

Core 3:

  1. What happens at the movies?
  2. The Nightly Double.

Core 4:

  1. To Rubric or not to Rubric?
  2. Working with wikimail and working on your Utopias.

04.05.07

Core 1:

  1. Introduction to the ideas from animal farm.
    1. Get the BritLit Podcast to work.
  2. Respond to personalized discussion questions and continue to work on Utopia.

Core 2:

  1. Listen to a few audio essays from last year:
    1. Blake
    2. Jake
    3. Katelyn
    4. Carly
  2. Answer Personalized Discussion Questions and work on your -Ism.

Core 3:

  1. Why can’t we all just get along?
  2. Summarize characters and fill in Cast sheet.
  3. Continue Outsiders with paired reading.

Core 4:

  1. Now that we have gotten far enough into this project to tell really what it is all about, we need to decide what the end goal is for each of us.
    • How is this “writing” assignment different than a traditional writing assignment, and how does that influence the way in which we should grade it?
    • What would you look for in a “good utopia?”
    • What should the requirements be?
  2. Answer the Personalized Discussion Questions and work on your Utopia.

The Embedded Classroom

itunes pic
The two wiki project that my students have started to work on have taught me that an open framework that allows for embedded materials is preferable to any all-in-one solution that tries to do too much at once. I also would like to apply this concept to my classroom in a concrete way. My students should be able to embed their knowledge and experience into the framework of the classroom. They should be allowed to use whatever service/method they can to prove that they have learned something.

Show Notes and Links:

04.04.07

Core 1:

  1. How can we discuss our worlds?
  2. New examples of Utopian integration.
  3. Introduction to the reaction novel.
  4. Read about and discuss the many levels of Animal Farm.

Core 2:

  1. What does formal and informal discussion look like on the wiki?
  2. Making Belief Statements real
  3. Listen to This I Believe Essays and start to narrow down which belief you want to write into your Audio Essay.

Core 3:

  1. Write-on: What is the perfect group of friends? (What types of people do you have to have in the group so that it works?)
  2. Learn about the Greasers from the rest of chapter 1.
  3. Fill out the graphic organizer for the characters.

Core 4:

  1. What new ways of revealing your utopia are you trying? (or do you want to try?)
  2. Explore a few of the most recent additions.
  3. Discuss measurable goals, and one more day of creation without rubric.

04.03.07

Cores 1-4:

  1. What is the Value of Amateurs?
  2. Work on Sem2_Week11 either on your blog (using Writetomyblog.com or Learnerblogs.org if it is working) or on your wiki page.
  3. If you choose to write on your wiki page, you will need to submit the “edit” that you did today as a delicious post. (Click on the history post and then control-click on the most recent edit and copy link location. This will be what you paste into the del.icio.us box when it asks for your url.)

Core 3:

  1. Outsiders blogging questions:
    • Why do you think Ponyboy is in a gang?
    • Who are the greasers and socs of Cresthill (Highlands Ranch)?
    • What’s up with the names Soda Pop and Ponyboy?
    • What kinds of slang do you use that other people wouldn’t understand if they were reading a book about your life?

04.02.07

Core 1:

  1. How will the las eight weeks of middle school be different from the rest of middle school?
  2. Show off the Official Seal Generator

    • How will our own licenses affect our content?
  3. Explore the Discovery Utopias Wiki.

Core 2:

  1. How will the las eight weeks of middle school be different from the rest of middle school?
  2. Show off the Official Seal Generator

    • How will our own licenses affect our content?
  3. Explore the Discovery -Isms Wiki

Core 3:

  1. Write-On (on the back of the handout): From a name like Ponyboy, what do you expect the narrator of this book to be like?
  2. Explore the Five Methods of Characterization in the first 10 pages of the book.

Core 4:

  1. Check-In with Independent Utopian novels.
  2. How do you think the “Enhancements” will add to your Utopia proposal.
  3. How do you want your Utopia proposal to be organized? How do you want it to look?

Remixing The Classroom

itunes pic
One of my students came up with an amazing metaphor for how intellectual property should work in the classroom and in greater society. She described the idea that remixing should be like cake making. You buy all of the ingredients and then can prepare any kind of cake you like. Once you have the cake, however, you can’t un-remix it and get back to the sugar and flour. You can also borrow sugar from a neighbor, but generally you give them credit when you are serving your delicious cake. I hope that this podcast outlines such a metaphor a little bit better, but I think that this is the metaphor for creating connections that I was looking for a few podcasts back. If you like this podcast, I recommend the Great Remix Debate. You can also digg this podcast at http://digg.com/podcasts/Discourse_about_Discourse_Educasts_by_Ben_Wilkoff

The Value of Amateurs

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I was at a wedding this past weekend and I had a sort of epiphany. I’m not really sure why it was at a wedding rather than anywhere else, but I immediately took the white paper napkin clinging to the bottom of a cold water glass near me and I scrawled out the greatest fallacy of modern education. It is so ingrained into the way in which I teach, I’m not sure I ever would have even recognized it without my constant reflection of how I am using technology in the classroom.

Without too much further exposition, the fallacy is as follows:

Professionals create more valuable content than amateurs.

By calling this statement a “myth” I am not aiming to devalue the work of people who have a lifetime of experience or that I would like to declare that students officially know more than their teachers. Instead, I would like to analyze the way that we define professionals and amateurs, and the kind of respect these kinds of definitions can and should provide.

In our stereotypical understanding these two words, we seem to glorify the professional and vilify the amateur:

We value all that the professional can do for us. He gets the job done. Although you pay a premium for his services, it are always worth it. He has the credentials that tell us he can do what he advertises, and he packages everything so nicely, presenting us with just the right amount of content as to not over or underwhelm. We feel safe with the professional in charge.

Now, the amateur on the other hand, works on his own schedule, according to his own interests. He gives us more information than we need, and more specific details than we could possible comprehend. His excitement is annoying when you consider that he doesn’t have the experience to back up his work. Sure, he is willing to collaborate with you, but you don’t have time for it anyway.  The amateur makes connections to others’ work by remixing it, sometimes by breaking intellectual property laws. The amateur is dangerous.

I would like to now enumerate the actual traits of each worker/learner. This is not an exhaustive list, but I think it gets the point across.

A professional is:

  • Someone who has experience with marketable skills in a given discipline.
  • Someone who has achieved accredited education based upon standardized performance measures.
  • Someone who requires compensation and/or credit for products and ideas.
  • Someone who’s work must remain consistent and thematic.

An amateur is:

  • Someone who has specific skills that allow them to create a specific product.
  • Someone who has achieved personalized education based upon self-assessed interest and achievement.
  • Someone who does not require compensation and/or credit for work.
  • Someone who’s work can be sporadic and follow inspiration in any field.

I may be oversimplifying things a bit in making these statements, but I believe that this dichotomy is the way we encounter the entire field of education. Each student we encounter is an amateur, and we see them through the stereotype. We should, instead, give them the respect that that word really commands.

My examples of amateur wisdom do not come from wikipedia or from digg. They come from my classroom. I would like to show you what my amateur students are capable of.

Professionals would never have created these. No one would have paid money for them or said that they are achievements equivalent to 1400 on the SAT, but they still have great value. Their value is in their their amateur status. Their value is in their passion and authenticity. Their value is in the fact that each one of the students involved in these projects are learning for themselves. To me, that is amazing.

Professionals will always be among us, and I think that they deserve credit for their work. But, real learning happens in the realm of the amateur. Real challenge and job satisfaction happens there to. The real challenge of School 2.0 is incorporating more amateur moments, encouraging all students to become true amateurs.