Let Freedom Ring! (Guest Post from a teacher in China)

"They are afraid and so it is easier to block access to any area that might cause a problem than to investigate and fight for solutions that are workable. It is easier to hide behind the Great American Education Firewall."

Heather Davis, teacher in China

 LET FREEDOM RING?
Guest Post by Teacher, Heather Davis

During the last week in February I was privileged to attend the Flat Classroom Conference at BISS in Beijing led by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay.  The fact that I live in Beijing made it doubly exciting as I was looking forward to people whom I respect and have influenced my thinking coming to see this incredible city and get a better understanding of China.

What no one could plan for were the challenges that were going to be faced due to the crack down by the government on areas that we as expats use to allow us to access information.  While I know it made producing the conference much more difficult it also provided the attendees with an opportunity to experience life behind the Great Firewall of China.

During the month of February and still ongoing, life has been getting more challenging as freedoms we have taken for granted such as the ability to work around the firewall when we purchase a VPN,  the easy use of most things Google and my regular banking practices have drastically changed.  I did not realize how much value these things had and how important they were in making my life easier and acceptable until I lost them. 
 

When I first arrived in China in 2004 I could easily access You Tube, Facebook, iTunes and any blog. Occasionally, they would be restricted for a few hours or at most a week but they would return. Then there was the 2008 uprising in Tibet and everything was blocked as the government realized it could not control the release of information with these tools and Twitter easily accessible. They were blocked and we now understand it is permanent.

I accept these restrictions to a certain extent because I am choosing to live in a foreign country that has a different worldview and ethical system from my home country of Canada. While I don’t like living behind the Great China Firewall I do intellectually understand why it is there and accept that as long as I choose to live here my freedom to access all available information on any subject will be limited by a government who controls the information their citizens can receive.

What I can’t understand though is how easily so many American educators are accepting the loss of freedom to access information within settings where providing the ability discover information and then make educated decisions and choices should be the driving force. 

I have just recently completed my Masters degree with an American university and I was astounded to realize how prevalent filtering or in reality blocking is in American schools.  What bothered me more was the total acceptance by the teachers that this was a positive and acceptable practice.  I vehemently argued against it and for the most part my comments were not well received at all, except by the professor and I think he may have wanted to encourage dialogue.  What right did a Canadian teacher who was teaching internationally in China have to disagree with standard operating procedure in the majority of US school districts?  How could I possibly understand the problems? 

I was also amazed at how much passion I felt on this subject until I began to compare what was happening in the school systems to the Firewall I daily live behind.  The educators did not seem to grasp the significance of the loss of freedom of choice and information.  It was difficult to deal with.

I know all the arguments – We must protect our students from the negative parts of the Internet because they are too young and impressionable to make these decisions. How have restrictions ever provided teaching moments? I have heard them over and over and yet it seems to me that the bottom line is not one of protection of the students’ minds but protection of school districts pocket books. They are afraid and don’t want to be sued and cause problems with the bottom line figures.  They are afraid and so it is easier to block access to any area that might cause a problem than to investigate and fight for solutions that are workable. It is easier to hide behind the Great American Education Firewall.

My questions are these - How can the citizens of the most powerful nation in the world take away freedom so easily from its young people and not see this is a problem?  How long will the brave teachers and administrators who encourage access continue to have the will to fight the fight?  How long will they be allowed to do so before they are also put behind the firewall?  All things considered I think I would rather deal with the firewall in China.

Heather Davis
@toadie1951
http://teachlesslearnmore.edublogs.org/
Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Class of 2011-1
April 5, 2011




With permission, I am posting this blog post from an email that I received from teacher in China, Heather Davis. She has given me full permission to post this here and list her full name. Yes, that makes me nervous (China has been cracking down on many bloggers) but I will respect her desire to speak a message to the heart of all teachers - especially those here in America.  

This isn't about filtration. Keeping pornography out of school is required by our laws. This is about OVERFILTRATION and a lack of ability to request URLs to be unblocked. Is there a procedure that teachers can use to get sites unblocked efficiently that is approved by CURRICULUM. The sites we use should pretty much be driven by CURRICULUM  - not IT .

Do we care about the recent US study that actually showed that the two biggest obstacles to the integration of emerging technology are filtration and the ban on cell phones? I was discussing with my friend Stephen Windwalker (Kindle Nation Daily) and he said something that stuck with me - 

"Most kids will be making their living creating web content, not writing novels."

We've got work to do and need to roll up our sleeves and start using some plain old common sense to make up for the shortfall in our pocketbooks. We can't have everything but we can have something. And we can do many things with the free things we can use in our schools - it is just a matter of typing the URL into the whitelist feature of our firewall - and as someone who does this every day - it isn't such a big deal.


Here's to you, Heather - you are truly an inspiration to me and represent everything good in a teacher and leader. I have taken the liberty to put a few things I think are very important in red. Keep up the great work.

Vicki Davis

Related articles

• Filtration Fever Hits China (and US) (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Dreams When We're Awake (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Ai arrest highlights China's crackdown (cnn.com)

Technorati Tags: education innovation china internet

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Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 04/13/2011

• New Research Center Stands Up to Bullies - UB NewsCenter

  Research center and free video focusing on research to addres and prevent bullying. This center will focus on stopping what they call "child abuse by children."

  tags: education bullying cyberbullying all_teachers

• David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts » Open Educator Manifesto

  I love this open educator manifesto drafted by David Truss. Lots to think on and discuss here.

  tags: education openeducation

• Tuttle SVC: If Schools REALLY Worked Like Businesses

  Flip camera is dead - killed by cisco. Interesting commentary from Tom Hoffman.

  tags: education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Dreams When We're Awake

This excerpt from our January 2012 Flat Classroom Book was written on a plane returning from Qatar and the first Flat Classroom conference. January 2009. I'm printing the full text here as editing is forcing me to cut it down for the final book! There are a few times in my life, I tell my husband, that I feel like I've put my "gutts on a page." This vision from this plane ride has in it a lot of what I do. Oh that you could see this too!

I am nestled amidst the quiescent heaps of jetlagged tourists, businessmen, families, and a mom with one colicky golden haired baby while contentedly listening to Van Morrison about 20,000 feet above the border between Iran and Iraq pondering the meaning of life. 

The lady two seats up is watching Eagle Eye (a movie) with Arabic subtitles. The man beside me left his seat a while back to remove his Arabic garb and put on a pair of comfortable black flannel sleeping pants. Katie, my exhausted student from south Georgia USA snuggles against a window that, if open, would show her Eastern Europe approaching at a pace of 500 miles an hour.

And that is really how I feel at this moment, with the rush of oncoming air; a vision is coming upon me for what this flat world truly means.

In my whole life, I have never seen what I saw this weekend. I daresay any peacekeeper on earth would sob at the sight of students from the US, Qatar, Syria, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Oman, Iraq,  India, Australia and so many other places laughing contentedly together in the midst of Qatar’s famous market, the Souk. 

Flat Classroom Conference - Qatar 2009

Lounging in chairs at Haagen Daaz, the students laughed, told jokes, switched intermittently into various greetings in different languages, and pronounced each other’s names like native speakers.

“John! Yaksan! Katie! Ahkmed! Tayler! Latecia! Steve! Muhammad! Violet! Sonwalbie!” 

Are these students the cosmopolitan types who travel the world and already know lots of people? Well, not necessarily. Among the students are mine from rural South Georgia, students from rural Australia, inner city Houston, the deserts of Oman, inner Ethiopia, Pakistan, and some who’ve traveled the world. More eclectic than the music on my iPod, representing not one curriculum or type of school – US public and private, IB, British Curriculum – these students were as diverse a group of kids I’ve ever seen together in my life.  

The sight of such a group, many in the native garb of their country – colorful hats, shoes, and western jeans – made many stop and stare.  Who are these people?  Who are these kids?  What has happened that such a site should occur out in the open in plain sight in a Middle Eastern market? Is it a dream?

Some women strolled by in black, not visible except for their eyes wide in interest and wonder. Children with gold-flecked eyes pointed. Our students continued to laugh and have fun, oblivious of the spectacle they were making.  

I haven’t blogged what I’ve seen as of yet, because somehow I thought I’d feel a stewardess tug on my sleeve and tell me it was time to deplane in Qatar. Surely, I wasn’t awake. I still do not know what has happened. We will not know until we see reflections on the Ning and watch these kids grow up.

All I know is what I saw.

The flattening of the world means that we can build bridges for the children of tomorrow to walk across.

We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for one blog post and one comment.

After students wrote reflections on Thomas Friedman’s chapter on finding your passion from his book The World is Flat, Julie Lindsay in Bangladesh read my blog post summarizing their work, and sent me comment. And then, the world started flying at me at over 500 miles per hour. That was almost three years ago and now; I sit on a plane at 20,000 feet contemplating students from around the world laughing in a Middle Eastern Market, wiping off the tears that have fallen upon my gold wedding band.

Stereotype bashing.

That was what one group of students said that we were doing at the conference. They had been assigned to teams purposefully as they entered a project based conference experience – not allowed to be on the same team with a member of their school. The students envisioned the future of education with proposals that would harness social media for learning and for improvement of global social issues.

Without that first email, first blog post, first Flat Classroom project, Thomas Friedman finding Julie’s blog and our project through some random search on the Internet, the many bloggers who’ve linked, talked about it, passed along information on the project, voted for it, and been a part of it -- these students would have never I repeat NEVER have made it to Qatar. I doubt they would have known of its existence!  

We’ve had this dream of a conference for such a long time; a conference as the next step of linking up classrooms from various walks of life and of building relationships to work with one another across the world.  

For, if we are to solve the global issues we have, we are going to have to link up good people working in many places from around the world WHERE THEY ARE. And to do this, we must be together sometimes to cement those relationships – to strengthen those bonds.

Change takes time. It takes baby steps.  

The defining moment for me came last year when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. On several occasions, I had debated NOT going to Qatar. Being from rural Georgia, I had SOOOO many people tell me I was “crazy” and “why couldn’t you just be a normal person and have the conference in Atlanta. Why go to Qatar?”  “ What if you don’t come back?”

Every time I looked at my three kids, despite the assurances of safety in Qatar and the fact that an attack has been quite some time ago, I reconsidered going. When my headmaster, Ross Worsham, looked at me with incredulity when first I took it to him, I reconsidered again.  Thank goodness for my supportive, amazing, husband, Kip: the best friend and closest companion of my life and my innovative, wise headmaster who researched the facts for himself to make the decision for us to go.

Then, in November, I had to tell the Flat Classroom teachers about Mom’s situation, they are my dearest friends! I’ll never forget it, we had about seven of us on the Elluminate weekly teacher’s meeting and we were nearing the end of the meeting. I told them about Mom and put my mike on mute as I choked back the tears.

I don’t know what he wrote in the chat – I’ll have to look at the transcript, but Salim al Busaidi from near the gleaming deserts of Oman wrote me a one sentence message. I wish I could remember what it was. But that one sentence of peace and good wishes, coming from him, a Muslim male in the Middle East, to me, a Christian woman in the US, was so kind and so touching that a light switch flipped in my heart, and I knew that it was going to be OK.  

It was going to be OK because I knew that if there was one person like Salim in the Middle East that there must be more.  

And that, my friends, is how we build bridges. We build them through the little ropes coming out of the back of our computers into the wall that travel under our oceans and through our skies into the little ropes or through the air into the computers of our colleagues across the world.  

Flat Classroom Students from Oman.

We connect, one person at a time to build trust. Now we must now connect classrooms one at a time.

There is no more time for the mindless debates of where a school is going to “put” this in their curriculum. Such virtual and eventually face-to-face connections are one of the most essential ingredients in a successful modern education.

Greta from HSBC bank (a major sponsor of the first conference) and I were talking about the workforce in general and how difficult it is for businesses to have workers who are problem solving, big-picture focused employees who do not have to be supervised. Our schools are producing hordes of students who know how to memorize facts and do what they are told. These students have to be retrained and many cannot be.

We have thoughts, but I’m on a plane at 20,000 feet and now over England. Julie is back in Qatar finishing up her school day and we have a lot to talk about.

But now, I think I will don my sleeping mask, put in my earplugs, and quietly slumber, dreaming of seeing such things as I saw this weekend again one day. And imagine the impact that each of these students will have when they go back home.

Talking to Paul McMahon over dinner, I told him – what I want is to be part of a grassroots movement of teachers to improve education from the bottom up.

To be a part of YOU, the teacher who loves working with students. To help YOU learn something and learn something from YOU in return. To stay in the classroom as long as I can and bask in the enjoyment of doing great work that is worth doing – the noblest of callings. All I really want to be is a teacher and a Mom.

I am so grateful to my God to have the privilege of being a teacher and also part of a movement to improve our world from this generation onwards by using technology not just to spread music and culture but to spread hope, understanding, knowledge, and learning.

You can call me an idealist but, colleagues; I wasn’t an idealist going into the conference. We knew it would either be a disaster or a dream but that if we didn’t take the risk, we’d never know if it could be done.

And now, my friends, as we fly over Stockholm, and we rush on, I shall dream and know that when I am roused from my slumber, that the best dreams are the ones you see when you’re awake

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Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 04/12/2011

• YouTube - Teachers Who Inspire Student Entrepreneurs

  Winners for imagine cup:
  
  Thanks so much!
  
  This afternoon in Redmond, WA, the nation's best and brightest tech students gathered for the ninth annual Imagine Cup 2011 U.S. Finals. Starting with a field of more than 74,000 students, the final 12 teams presented their life-changing projects to a panel of elite judges, tackling diverse issues from eliminating malaria to promoting alternative energy. After an intense weekend of presentations and eliminations, the winners were named:
  
  
  * 1st Place, Software Design: Team Note-Taker, Arizona State University. Project: "Note-Taker" - A portable, assistive technology to help vision-impaired students take notes in class.
  
  * 1st Place, Game Design - Windows/Xbox: Team Bloom, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy. Project: "Spero" - A game focused on alternative energy solutions and educating people on how to live healthier lives.
  
  * 1st Place, Game Design - Mobile: Team Big Impact Bear, University of Houston. Project: "Forest Gun" - A game that aims to prevent and reverse deforestation in the world.
  
  * 1st Place, People's Choice Award - Software Design: Team BearPaw, Brigham Young University. Project: A mobile and cloud solution for ultrasound images that is cost-effective, widely available and easy to implement.
  
  * 1st Place, People's Choice Award - Game Design: Team Bloom, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy. Project: "Spero" - A game focused on alternative energy solutions and educating people on how to live healthier lives.

  tags: education learning programming

• Home to Homeroom | Stop Medicine Abuse

  A website about helping teens with medicine abuse. A good specific website from the national association of school nurses.
  
  "Multiple national surveys point to the disturbing abuse of prescription (Rx) and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, like OTC cough medicine, among today's teens. Five percent of high school teens admit to having abused cough medicine containing dextromethorphan, or DXM, to get high in the past year."

  tags: education drug-abuse health_teacher health

• Givology

  From this organization:
  
  "We’re launching a new “60 Second Lecture” campaign in conjunction with the Ford Focus Global Test Drive, and many interesting individuals from the PresidentAmy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania to Dean Thomas Robertson of the Wharton School have already agreed to share their insights."

  tags: education

• MacdonaldTechForTeachers - iPad Apps for Education

  Ann McDonald is building a very nice wiki with so many resources! She is an excellent Flat Classroom teacher.

  tags: education ipad apps

• Hull shows why Gove's Govt can't ban mobile phones in schools - Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Learning

  Excellent article about a struggle to ban cell phones in schools and why it is not working.

  tags: education cellphone

• Social Media Policy Best Practices: Trust Is Cheaper Than Control | Beth’s Blog

  Nice Social Media Policy Best Practices discussion for nonprofits. The social media policy is related to your strategy. Most schools only have a strategy to prevent litigation and certainly, that is a factor as we look at schools and yet - we're not there yet on this discussion. I have to think at some point we're either going to have platforms that do a better job of protecting the privacy of minors or we're going to have to grow up in how we deal with these tools.

  tags: education

• Flat Classroom : The Tornado Tribune

  Helen Harvey's Flat Classroom participation received a write up in her local paper. An important part of each of our projects is to issue press releases to gain media attention for the schools that break down the walls.

  tags: education flatclassroom

• Seth's Blog: Moving beyond teachers and bosses

  So we, as teachers, are characterized like this from Seth Godin:
  
  "We train kids to deal with teachers in a certain way: Find out what they want, and do that, just barely, because there are other things to work on. Figure out how to say back exactly what they want to hear, with the least amount of effort, and you are a 'good student.'"
  
  Are we the kind of teachers who have to move past or someone that kids are moved with.
  
  Do we have a limiting mindset?

  tags: education teaching

• Knight Foundation Webinars - Knight Foundation

  April 20th from 2-3 pm EDT - a connected citizens webinar about their new report "Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril and Potential of Networks"
  
  sign up for this event here.

  tags: education

• Connected Citizens Report: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks | Beth’s Blog

  If you have no idea what network-centric grantmaking is and you write grants or work with fundraising - this blog post is an important read for you. (Buy Beth's book - the networked nonprofit - it is great.)
  
  Themes as per Beth:
  
  These themes include:
  
  1. Listening to and consulting the crowds: Actively listening to online conversations and openly asking for advice.
  
  2. Designing for serendipity: Creating environments, in person and online, where helpful connections can form.
  
  3. Bridging differences: Deliberately connecting people with different perspectives.
  
  4. Catalyzing mutual support: Helping people directly help each other.
  
  5. Providing handrails for collective action: Giving enough direction for individuals to take effective and coordinated action.

  tags: education edu_news

• We Want Your Videos

  join the crowdsourced keynote at the BC educational technology users group. Here are instructions:
  
  We Want Your Videos
  April 7, 2011 By grantpotter Leave a Comment
  Share
  PrintFriendly
  
  In June 2011 the BC educational technology users’ group (etug) will be hosting a Spring Workshop in Nelson, BC. The theme? OPEN 4 LEARNING.
  
  In the spirit of openness we would like to invite YOU to participate in a crowd-sourced keynote. Our vision is to create a keynote video that highlights the collective voice on the value of openness.
  
  Here’s what we would LOVE for you to do:
  
  Create a short video/interview/montage answering one or two of the following questions:
  
  1. What is the value of openness?
  
  2. What examples of openness stand out to you as being valuable/worthwhile?
  
  3. WHY do you believe in the value of open education?
  
  If you are interested in participating we would love to have you be a part of this exciting opportunity, to collectively gather voices across the globe in answering the question “what is the value of openness”. Have fun with your video – the more creative the better.
  
  .
  Upload your video to:
  http://www.dropitto.me/etug
  password: open
  .
  Deadline: May 9, 2011

  tags: education opensource

• Online Learning in Australia - Connections, Partnerships and Successes ~ Stephen's Web

  A report on the state of elearning in Australia. Every collection must comprise 40% free content.
  
  
  Again, this article proves that if you're in education and not reading Stephen Downes' feature-rich blog, you're missing out.

  tags: education elearning

• Colleges Spend Far Less on Educating Students Than They Claim, Report Says ~ Stephen's Web

  Colleges actually spend LESS educating students than students are paying. From Stephen Downes as cited from the Chronicle of Higher Education April 8, 2011.

  tags: education college edu_trends

• STUDYBLUE | Make online flashcards & notes. Study anywhere, anytime.

  Study Blue website to let you make flashcards to study and put on your ipod, ipad, cell phone, etc. Over 12,000 have recommended via facebook. Facebook is linking with learning as are mobiles.

  tags: education learning

• 20 Terrific TED Talks for Language Lovers | Bachelor's Degree Online

  Ted Talks for Language Lovers.

  tags: education language_teacher

• The Truth is Out There | November Learning

  Interesting discussion about "blue blood" and the quest for truth in an age where even Googling something may not change minds. By Bob Sprankle

  tags: education learning

• TLC = Tech + Library + Classroom: iPad Apps To Love

  Tara from the TLC (Tech + Library + Classroom) Blog posts her iPad apps she loves.
  
  I think the I write words app is very interesting for handwriting. I wonder if the fact that they are using their finger is a drawback but think that it will help the kids take the strokes the same way.

  tags: education

• Speak Up National Findings 2010

  Important study surveying students about empowered education with emerging technologies.

  tags: education learning

• One Year Later: Assessing the Impact of iPads on Education - iPads in Education

  Assessing the impact of iPads on education one year later by Sam Gliksman on the Ipad educators ning (hat tip to Julie Lindsay for this information.)

  tags: education ipad

• Final US Imagine Cup Teams Announced - 2011 - Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

  Final Teams in US Imagine Cup:
  
  Software Design
  
  TTHV - Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Central Connecticut State University
  Uca Ursus - University of Central Arkansas
  Lifelens - Anderson School of Management, Harvard School of Business, University of California San Diego, University of California Davis, University of Central Florida
  Note-Taker - Arizona State University
  
  Game Design –Windows/XBOX (XNA):
  
  Bloom - Tribeca Flashpoint Academy
  Plump Pixel - California State University Chico
  Righteous Noodle - University of Houston
  XozGaming - Lick-Wilmerding High School
  
  Game Design Mobile (Zune/Phone)
  
  Big Impact Bear - University of Houston
  EDO - Arizona State University
  Team AAMP - University of Houston
  Team Mintrus - Columbia College in Chicago, University of Louisville
  
  
  Read Alfred's blog for more.

  tags: education computerscience

• XozGaming–High School Team in the US Imagine Cup Finals - Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

  Alfred Thompson's ongoing coverage of the Imagine Cup. I love this interview with the kids who invented a program about fighting a global pandemic.

  tags: education gaming computerscience

• Sneak Peak of New Facebook Nonprofit Use Research from Idealware | Beth’s Blog

  Yes, nonprofits are seeing success on Facebook. Beth Kanter, nonprofit social media guru, has a guest post from Kyle Andrei of Idealware on their findings about Facebook and nonprofits. Fundraisers, schools, and facebook fans read up.

  tags: education fundraising nonprofit

• Gesture-Based ‘Gmail Motion’ April Fools’ Day Prank Gets Real - Techland - TIME.com

  I love this! Gmail motion was Google's april fools day prank and many people fell for it. Heck, if I'd had time, I might have played with it but after thinking I realized what day it was! Tee hee.
  
  But a lot of people WANTED this -even though the gestures were designed to be silly (who is going to do a jumping jack for making a star on an email.) so ICT used a kinect camera and actually made Gmail actions work! Watch the video and enjoy.
  
  People actually WANT this just not with the exaggerated motions and definitely not a shot that requires the camera to see your feet.

  tags: education google gmail gesture

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Two Biggest Obstacles to Educational Innovation: Filters and Bans

Image by woodleywonderworks via FlickrListen up Educators: Excellence in education is not what you're keeping out, it's about what are you letting in!

The Speak up 2010 results are in and out in the US Congress. The biggest obstacles to educational advancement:

• Overly aggressive Internet filters
• Banning mobile phone technologies

No surprises there.

The key findings as quoted on the homepage of the study:

• "67 percent of parents said they would purchase a mobile device for their child to use for schoolwork if the school allowed it, and 61 percent said they liked the idea of students using mobile devices to access online textbooks.

• 53 percent of middle and high school students reported that the inability to use cell phones, smart phones or MP3 players was the largest obstacle when using technology in school. Additionally, 71 percent of high school students and 62 percent of middle school students said that the number one way schools could make it easier to use technology would be to allow greater access to the digital content and resources that Internet firewalls and school filters blocked.

• Parents are increasingly supportive of online textbooks. Two-thirds of parents view online textbooks as a good investment to enhance student achievement compared to 21 percent in 2008. However, E-textbooks are still a relatively novel concept in the classroom. Slightly over one-third of high school students report they are currently using an online textbook or other online curriculum as part of their regular schoolwork.

• Nearly 30 percent of high school students have experienced some type of online learning."

So, let me get this straight:

We are facing some of the toughest budget cuts in US history and rather than be innovative and use what the kids already have in their pockets, we're rather continue to play prison guard and ban everything?

I've already made the case for cell phones in schools and am not going to rehash it here. We know that we have a lot of addictive behaviors relating to social uses of the cell phone but we also know that they pack more computer power in those palm sized handhelds than we had in computers around a decade a go.

The facts are that we can no longer afford to do this thing "our way." Remember the calculator battles fought about 20 years a go - now they are required even on the SAT. Likely that those cell phones will be our calculators in another 10.

I love the video created by Joy a few years a go on the netGen project where she pictured what will happen to students in the future who don't bring cell phones to class!


Find more videos like this on Net Gen Ed Project

It is a lot truer than some may think.

Related articles

• Making the Case for Cell Phones in Schools (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Content Filtration: A Little Dirt for your Health? (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• The Case for Digital Citizenship in Schools (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Speak Up National Findings 2010: How Students Are Leveraging Technology for Learning (debaird.net)
• What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School? (readwriteweb.com)
• Should Cell Phones be Allowed in Classrooms? Most Parents Say Yes (techland.time.com)

Read more »

Social Media Syndication Part 2: Overview of Places to Share

So, it is time to get your school into social media in a way that is safe, makes sense, and will help your image in the community. We've discussed in Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is your Audience?why social media is important to schools. In Facebook Friending 101 for Schools (170 tweets on that one) we discussed the impact of Facebook Friends on your teachers, students, and staff.

You've resoundingly flooded my inbox with requests for more on social media and how to get your school in safely - so, let's keep going.

Social media syndication doesn't happen overnight but can be simple, inexpensive, and powerful for your school. For example, in the first week my school's Facebook page had more "likes" than our email newsletter had gotten in two years!

How do we reach everybody?
There is no longer a "one size fits all" communication method. Teachers moan how half the parents don't read the child's folders. (Or separated parents don't give each other the message.) If an email list is used, half the parents don't read their email! Only a few people look at the website!. And on it drones. Why can't we reach everybody?

In our customized society, one size doesn't fit all but all of us fit into some form of communications. Leverage communications to hit most people.

As we discussed in Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is our audience? We learned that "our audience" is several places:

• Email
• Searching the Internet
• Facebook
• Mobile Phones
• Twitter (the "mavens" or opinion leaders are here)
• Kindle/ ebooks/ iPads
• Looking at their calendars in the device of their choice
• YouTube
• Buying/ Selling/ Giving to Charity Online
• mp3 Players

We also discussed how you no longer need a webmaster but a syndication master. Although I'm talking to schools here, this can apply to anyone wanting to leverage themselves through social media.

Social Media Syndication Principle #1: Select a Few Strategic Platforms
You can't be everywhere but you can be somewhere. And if you're smart, you can make that somewhere look like just about everywhere.

In this case, you can reach your audience by having just a few websites: a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a YouTube channel. Those are the "Fab 4" of social media. But it is also very helpful to have an embeddable, subscribe-able calendar and a place to share photos although that could be in Phase 2 of your implementation plan.

Remember, to share those social media platforms (as you set them up) through "Bookbag Blast" -- or by running off a flyer letting everyone know where they can get your information. (Know that those who don't like or use social media may push back - let them know you're not excluding them - only trying to reach more people who may not respond or be linked via the bookbag to their child.)

Social Media Syndication Principle #2: Syndicate and Automate with Conduits of Content
You cannot be everywhere at once. The best systems are those that manage themselves. 

When you post to Youtube it should automatically send to your blog, your Facebook page, and your Twitter account - right?

When you post to your blog it should update your homepage, post to Twitter, and send to your Facebook Fan page! You should never have to do what a "dumb" computer can do for you.

In retail the 80's and 90's were about location, location, location. The 2000's are definitely about syndication, syndication, syndication.  When you talk syndication you're also talking AUTOMATION and that means the computer can do it and you don't have to. Instead of you slaving over that copy machine - imagine little robots running around on the internet making virtual copies and doing your heavy lifting for you.

In this scenario, I'm going to recommend five "conduits" to syndicate your content. We'll get to how to do this specifically in future posts.

An example of how this works.
So, looking at a blog site, for example. If you set up a news blog on Blogger (see my school's news blog) if you set up conduits for your content you can:

• send a blog post to RSS Readers, 
• send an email to your subscribers, 
• update the home page of your website, 
• update the Facebook Fan page for your school, 
• send the title to Twitter with "Just blogged this: Insert Title here" 
• and also send it to the Amazon Kindle. 
  (Those who use an RSS reader on their iPad get it through RSS.)

 What is the cost of all of this? Free. Nothing. Nada.

What is the effort required? Only that of setting up the conduits. After that, it is as simple as sending an email or writing a blog post. It is all syndicated and automated.

My sister is a web designer and we have her customers set up to syndicate like this but most web designers won't tell you about these tricks because they know when you realize how easy it is that you may not be calling them twice a month to update things.

Good web designers will give you options. Because they know that fresh content is one key in getting boosted in search engine rankings. You need that.

From your pictures to your videos and lunch menus. You can use social media to reach your audience.

This doesn't need to be hard. We'll tackle how to set up our blogs and the content conduits in the next round of this series.

I'm enjoying this journey, how about you?

Related articles

• Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is Your Audience (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Why There's Nothing Wrong With Social Media Automation (e1evation.com)
• 11 Things Bloggers Should Do Today (And a Look at Blogger's New Changes) (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• Questions to Help Examine Your Learning Practices (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)

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Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 04/08/2011

• Google to Revamp YouTube With 'Channels' - WSJ.com

  Youtube is going to have "channels" and position itself to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. It is very interesting how the cable companies seem to be sitting aside and ignoring the primary cable channels coming into our homes through our Roku boxes.

  tags: education video

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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