Tag Archives: information

21st century learning

Howard Rheingold knows crap when he sees it

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Howard Rheingold knows what he’s talking about when he says we need to teach our kids to be crap detectors, critical examiners of what they find online. No, not censorship – Howard recommends teaching kids to be detectives and investigate the authority of what they read online. Our kids need skills more than they need content to navigate the explosion of information available to everybody. The video goes for 24 minutes and is well worth viewing and reviewing.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=3352757&dest=-1]

Here is Howard’s blog post of the same title.

There is a growing list of links to related online resources at the end of the article.

news, technology, Web 2.0

Iran uses Twitter to shout out

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Today on FriendFeed I read Howard Rheingold’s message:

Smartmobbery moves to the core of world events more and more frequently

and this link to Smartmobs, a Website and Weblog about Topics and Issues discussed in the book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold.  Here you can read Twitter: Following the Aftermath of the Iranian Election, 

Twitter appears to be one of the most reliable channels to receive a first-person account of what is happening in the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian “election”.  Tor Henning Ueland is actively compiling a a list of Iranians using Twitter.  Also, you can follow the realtime results for the #iranelection here.

The power of microblogging is obvious here. Twitter has moved to a crucial role in communicating news when other forms of communication, such as official news, mobile phones, sms chat, and websites are no longer functioning. Twitterer @Persiankiwi is being followed by many, many people – 4,916 when I last checked. These are the sorts of things he has tweeted:

websites being shut down fast. having trouble accessing tweeters. #Iranelection20 minutes ago from web

students arrested last night at tehran uni: Mansoor Mousavi, Vahid Sarfi, Amir Afzali, Kazem Rahimi. #Iranelection23 minutes ago from web

advice to people joing march. tavel toether with friends. do not travel alone. keep track of friends. #Iranelection26 minutes ago from web

 I’ve selected other tweets which give current updates on the situation in Iran, as well as the urgency of the people.

nR: RT @persiankiwi My twitter was hacked. am back in again. they are shutting down all internet services. #Iranelection
 
@NorwAnon They insist to take exam to show e.th is normal. No news about our exams but if I’ll tweet it!about 3 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

It’s 4th day that SMS service is down. #IranElectionabout 3 hours ago from mobile web

I’m calling my friends to get some fresh news but they don’t answerabout 3 hours ago from mobile web

I have an exam @ 14 (At national time). I’m a little worried, ppl are going to street again tomorrow morning and afternoon!about 10 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

@mahdi: I use this to update my twitter account http://www.twit2d.comabout 13 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

RT @mahdi @keyvan: Oh oh! Hearing that they have brought tanks to cities!about 13 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

@_Sober : Rasht, 3 minibus security guards on Gaz square surrounding the square.about 15 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

RT @StopAhmadi It’s getting rough in Rasht tonight. Armed forces waiting for ppl to make their move to beat them #IranElectionabout 15 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

RT @HatefRad They arrested Guilan university students and took them to an unknown place! #IranElectionabout 16 hours ago from Twitstat Mobile

 I can’t find my friends on streets.about 17 hours ago from mobile web

 They attacked protestors students in Guilan university. Blood and violence here… #IranElectionabout 17 hours ago from mobile web

Police arrested 100+ protestors in Rasht. #IranElectionabout 18 hours ago from mobile web

It’s third day they disabled SMS service #IranElectionabout 18 hours ago from mobile web

Mousavi’s meeting with the Supreme Leader http://bit.ly/si7rq (via… http://ff.im/3ZxBNless than 5 seconds ago from FriendFeed

RT @reuterswire Ahmadinejad due in Russia on first trip since vote: YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters). http://tinyurl.com/mt7bpkless than a minute ago from web

RT: @alirezasha: lost in lots of rumors and lies in news/چرا نمیشه به اخبار اعتماد کرد؟about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

Twitter Users Put CNN to Shame on Iran Riot Coverage #iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

RT: @Change_for_Iran: We’re trying to stop Masood from going outside! there is no way they will listen to us right now. #iranelectionabout 9 hours ago from TwitterFox

@Change_for_Iran what can we do? where are you? #iranelectionabout 9 hours ago from TwitterFox

RT: @Change_for_Iran:typing as fastest as I can in bth English&Farsi,Still we need outside help,I really don’t want to be captured by Ansarabout 9 hours ago from TwitterFox

@flashpolitique we are moving either toward a north korean style dictatorship or a more open and democratic societyabout 9 hours ago from TwitterFox in reply to flashpolitique

URGENT GET THIS OUT TO IRANIANS: ghalamnews confirms mousavi & karroubi WILL BE AT MARCH IT IS ON 100% AS OF NOW #iranelection2 minutes ago from web

RT @persiankiwi please tell all – march is NOT CANCELLED today. Mousavi is in danger of being killed. #Iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from web

Many roads are blocked in Tehran right now, it is like martial law out there right now. Government is panicking #iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from web

RT @persiankiwi I am online for few minutes. total communication blackout here. gov panicking. very dangerous. #Iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from web

intrepidteacher No matter what happens nothing will be the same in Iran again. I have been waiting for this my whole life. #iranelection

Irannews

Many pictures have been posted. Here are a couple:

http://twitpic.com/7fmr0 

 http://twitpic.com/7fmo8

Here are more videos and pictures of demonstrations in Iran 

http://tehranlive.org/

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyssJGHsGyw&feature=player_embedded]

I’m following developments on Twitter about the situation in Iran with interest – regular updates and personal information from people who are in the thick of these riots make this kind of news more dynamic than news from a traditional source. This is the new journalism.

This is very disturbing. I could read the updates all night, but I’m going to stop. Here is the last tweet I’ve read:

RT @drewb : #Iranelection web blocks via @IranPishi : “cant update topics on twitter anymore.cant open any webpage. hope you can see this.
You would have to be shortsighted to have read these developments and not recognised the role Twitter has played in new communication possibilities.
21st century learning, creativity, flickr, media, Teacher librarians

Sharing commonstuff

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Two things worth mentioning today, not new things but things that made me think about the happy movement towards sharing and collaboration.

Larry Lessig’s TED talk isn’t new but I had another look at it and it’s a very clever presentation in favour of rethinking laws that prevent creative remixing of existing material on the web. It would probably sway even those who are resistant to changing copyright laws. Lessig’s instinctive talent for minimalist presentation accompanying logical argument which takes a surprising perspective, reveals  the absudity of copyright laws as we know them. What is he saying? Young people are using digital technologies to say things differently, and these tools of creativity are becoming tools of speech because this is how young people speak.  Larry’s point is that the law hasn’t reacted positively to these new developments, that the law is strangling creativity. He speaks out on copyright issues with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competiton.

The talk is quite long but worth sticking with.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs]

The second thing: looking through Flickr, I noticed information about The Commons which was promoted as

Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photo collections.

The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.

You’re invited to help describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.

Here’s an example of what you will see on The Commons.

Children riding a horse to school, Glass House Mountains
from State Library of Queensland, Australia

The organisations involved include The Library of Congress, Powerhouse Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Media Museum, State Library of New South Wales, Australian War Memorial, New York Library, State Library of Queensland, and many other institutions from Australia and overseas.

The program has two main objectives:

  1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
  2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

Some people are sceptical and scared of the new democratic collection of collaborative knowledge and creativity. Personally, I’m excited by it. You only have to look at projects such as this to see the magnitude of data compiled by people all over the place. Frightened people have insisted on ‘peer-reviewed’ information only. But wait – isn’t this peer-reviewed too? The collective controls the accuracy of incoming data? We have to think elastically – information is shape-shifting, and if we have new technology and creative ways to collect it and remix it, then we’ll also find new ways of ensuring its credibility. It’s like the librarians’ favourite – information literacy. Well, let’s not get stuck  following the letter of the law without understanding its essence. If information literacy is the ability to manage information, then we need to keep up with the new ways information is presenting itself. And as educators we need to prepare students for the new types of literacy. Let’s embrace the new explosion of creativity demonstrated by young people now. As Larry Lessig says, it’s not stealing, it’s a new take on what’s there. It’s like a composer taking a well-known theme and reworking it, taking it into different directions.

21st century learning, creativity, debate, Education, learning, teachers, teaching, Web 2.0

A balance between teaching skills and content

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oldscales

Photo by takaken2008 on Flickr

What are 21st century skills and are these skills different to those currently being taught in schools?  How radically do we need to change our teaching practices?

Daniel Willingham has written an informative post in Britannica blog entitled Education for the 21st century: balancing content with skills, in which he asks and answers the important question: why the sudden concern for 21st century skills.

Willingham quotes reports and books  that point to:

changes in the skills required for most jobs. Our economy is generating fewer jobs in which workers engage in repetitive tasks throughout their day (e.g., assembly line work) and more information-rich jobs that present workers with novel problems and that require analysis and teamwork.

 Willingham quotes Elena Silva in defining these skills as having at their core the ability to

analyze and evaluate information, create new ideas and new knowledge from the information.

He also adds to creativity and critical thinking the following essential skills for the 21st century from a report from the partnership for 21st century skills :

new knowledge … [and] global awareness, media literacy, information literacy, and other new content.

Now, this is where I start sitting up and taking note. Although I’m fully on board with the need for 21st century skills, I haven’t felt comfortable substituting content for skills alone. Memorisation of facts without the skills is obviously a waste of time, and I understand that you need the skills to locate, manage and synthesize the freely available information to create knowledge, but we still need a knowledge of some content, surely, otherwise the skills are free floating and without context. 

Willingham ties up the skills/content dilemma very well for me. He says that the 21st century skills require deep understanding of subject matter:

Shallow understanding requires knowing some facts. Deep understanding requires knowing the facts AND knowing how they fit together, seeing the whole.

And skills like “analysis” and “critical thinking” are tied to content; you analyze history differently than you analyze literature … If you don’t think that most of our students are gaining very deep knowledge of core subjects—and you shouldn’t—then there is not much point in calling for more emphasis on analysis and critical thinking unless you take the content problem seriously. You can’t have one without the other.

As usual, a balance is required to make things work effectively, and this should surely be common sense. This way we avoid the too often pendulum swings that have occurred in the history of education

between an emphasis on process (analysis, critical thinking, cooperative learning) which fosters concern that students lack knowledge and generates a back-to-basics movement that emphasizes content, which fosters concern that student are merely parroting facts with no idea of how to use their knowledge, and so on.

For me, this balance is the key to identifying the problems and solutions of 21st century learning. I’m trying to understand the shift in education more deeply to avoid a superficial conversion. I think that, for me at least, more discussion will enable a deeper understanding of the learning processes and the corresponding teaching processes that are essential to prepare students for work and life in these times.

As usual, I welcome and am grateful for any comments, and look forward to generating some discussion.

creativity, Education, internet, learning, teachers, teaching, technology, Web 2.0

Humanity meets in the library

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This is how it goes.

I read Jenny Luca’s post ‘The future of libraries’ which she wrote after reading John Connell’s post ‘Education and the cloud’. John wrote his post after reading Kevin Marks. Kevin had read something Tim O’Reilly had written. Tim was writing after having read a book by Kim Stanley Robinson. Before spiralling further, I should redivert to the purpose of my own post which is to contribute my own thoughts following from these threads, and specifically following from Jenny’s valuable insights.

As John Connell remarks, ‘the world of knowledge is shifting inexorably onto the Web.’  Whether we like it or not, it’s true. Now, I’m not saying that, in agreeing with this statement, I’m ready to pull books off shelves, turn libraries into clubs and restaurants (as Russian communists did with churches), or make the whole population of teachers redundant. I’m here to say that the massive shift of knowledge onto the web is happening, and that people will be playing a new, even more important role in the location and management of knowledge and technology.
Thomas Frey, the Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, has written an interesting account of the future of libraries, which is actually a history of information and knowledge, since libraries house information and knowledge in whatever form they take. Frey comments:
We have come a long ways from the time of da Vinci and the time when books were chained to lecterns.  But we’ve only scratched the surface of many more changes to come…
Throughout history the role of the library was to serve as a storehouse, an archive of manuscripts, art, and important documents.  The library was the center of information revered by most because each contained the foundational building blocks of information for all humanity.
So what do libraries become once information moves to the web? And what becomes of schools and teachers if information can be accessed by anyone anywhere?
Jenny Luca says:
There will still be a need for schools and teachers. I don’t think we will become obsolete. I do think the nature of learning will change; we will need to encourage and foster self directed learners and this is what I see the function of teachers will be in the future…
… What the point of libraries will be, I think, is as a meeting place for humanity to share ideas. A bit like Ancient Greece where the Sophists would meet up together to share ideas.

 Humanity. Both Jenny Luca and Thomas Frey have identified the larger concern as humanity. It’s not about books, computers, buildings or technology but the collective resources of humanity. It’s not about books versus the internet. And as Frey says, ‘books are a technology, and writing is also a technology, and every technology has a limited lifespan.’  People locate, write, store, use and share information. How revolutionary was Johann Gutenberg who unveiled his printing press to the world by printing copies of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455? But, as Frey says, communication systems are continually changing the way people access information:

If you were to construct a trend line beginning with the 1844 invention of the telegraph, you will begin to see the accelerating pace of change:  1876 – telephone, 1877 – phonograph, 1896 – radio, 1935 – fax machine, 1939 – television, 1945 – ENIAC Computer, 1947 – transistor, 1954 – color television, 1961 – laser, 1965 – email, 1973 – cell phone, 1974 – Altair 8800, 1989 – World Wide Web, 1990 – Online Search Engine, 1992 – Web Browser, 1994 – Palm Pilot, 1996 – Google, 1999 – P2P, 2002 – iPod, 2004 – Podcasting.

If we bring back the true meaning of libraries – to share knowledge and ideas, or, more specifically, to enable the human interaction with knowledge and ideas, then we can see that schools and libraries, as centres of learning and interaction, are challenged with a new, global purpose. Frey says:

Libraries themselves are a global system representing an anchor point for new systems and new cultures… The notion of becoming a cultural center is an expansive role for the future library.  It will not only serve as an information resource, but much more, with the exact mission and goals evolving and changing over time.
It’s humanity that Jenny focuses on when describing what libraries and schools should be:
The space where students can form relationships, the space where they can articulate ideas and glean advice and encouragement, the space where the human network forms and where they can find ways to make it grow.  
In redefining the library and its purpose, Frey advocates experimenting with creative spaces. He suggests new functionality in the library, including band practice rooms, podcasting stations, blogger stations, art studios, recording studios, video studios, imagination rooms, and theatre/drama practice rooms.
With the whole world changing so rapidly, we have the opportunity to reinvent our learning spaces creatively. In doing this, we don’t destroy what we had in books or teachers, we respond to changes by recognising what is essential, and reshape our learning instead of holding on to external structures out of habit.
Learning is about people as my first paragraph attests to. Thankyou to my learning community.
21st century learning, Education, internet, Web 2.0

Own the info, keep the info, hide the info

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bottled-coins

 

I was reading Will Richardson’s article Get. Off. Paper. where he talks about people’s dependence on paper, and the reluctance to let go of owning information in hard copy. I’ve also just read what Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, has to say about sharing photos of ourselves. It’s made me reflect on the nature of owning and sharing information, and how that has changed dramatically in the last few years.

When I was at school and university, information was power. If you wanted to be successful and get good marks, you needed information.

I remember how scarce information was. I had to work hard to get it, and I had to work hard to get it before others did, or get it from places others wouldn’t know about.

Sound strange? Think about it. An assignment is set, and the class goes to the library, but there are only a few books about the single subject that needs researching. Once I was jumped from behind by another student who clawed me until I dropped the book she wanted. Sound unbelievable? Believe it; it’s true. That experience shocked me and I’m not about to forget it. I’ve wondered since then, how important is this information, that someone would behave in such a manner? Admittedly, this is extreme behaviour, but think about this. In those days, my assignments were based on the location of content. If I owned that content, I would regurgitate it and present it attractively. Would I be in a hurry to share this information? Well, that would mean that someone else would have the same information as me. Why would I share it? Did we ever do anything with that information? Analyse it, evaluate it, modify it, create from it? No. That information was what my mark was based on.

Will Richardson talks about a paperless society. What I remember most about university, was the time I spent photocopying chapers in the library. Not complete chapters, of course, just the legal percentage of what was permissable. I focussed on collecting bags full of coins so that I would be able to photocopy pages from all the books I’d found that were even remotely relevant to my topics of study. I needed those copies, I felt empowered with all that paper, all that information that I may need during my research. When I was finished, I kept that paper. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. I might need it. I think I still have it.

It’s a relief but also kind of strange to be functioning now in the potentially almost paperless world. I turn to people for my links to information, and I share freely, as well as receive in abundance.  My networks are not mean. They are made of people who are smart, connected, varied, informed, interesting and willing to share ideas and knowledge. I’m happy that I’m still learning so that I can turn my back on the old ways.

Education, flickr, learning

early images of reality from picture books and today’s clickability

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We take for granted today the clickability of information. We should think back, really think back properly, to the days before we had the internet as a source of information.

I was talking to my son today about our early conceptions, and we shocked ourselves about uninformed and xenophobic ideas we had of people and cultures when we were children. My primary school years situated me in a very narrow place, although not as narrow as some, since I did come from an ethnic background. These are very interesting times because we are developing and learning like crazy but we don’t have a great deal as points of reference, so our learning is coloured by our often incomplete or erroneously formed concepts. To put it another way, what information we do gather is not always correctly understood and is even reconstructed by our own imagination. I say imagination because you need a great deal of it to fill in the gaps between the isolated pockets of knowledge and understanding.

So, I remember growing up with Australians who were either ‘real Australians’ or from a European background (Greeks, Italians, Macedonians) and Russians from my own cultural group which was always a minority (and none at school). Since I loved to read, my knowledge in these days was gleaned from books, most of which I owned and some from libraries. Information books didn’t seem to abound, and picture books were often teachers of the world beyond my own. I remember learning about dark-coloured people with grass skirts or slanty-eyed people, people living in teepees or igloos or swimming underwater every day. Now, that’s not a deliberately racist description because, since my information was delivered through a visual medium, my knowledge of these people was almost entirely visual. And not a realistic depiction but usually a cutesy illustration.

Now we take it for granted, but a little context to information is just a click away on the internet. Google Earth or Maps would have given my little snippets of information of other cultures a geographical location, and joined all those floating, isolated bits of knowledge into a world map; Flickr could have given me an easily accessible collection of pictures. Of course, information books with photos abound, even picture books with beautiful photography which deliver early aspects of reality to the preschool child.

How has this affected my development of knowledge? Do I still harbour distorted ideas of the way things are in the depths of my subconsious? Or have I worked hard at reconstructing and revising the way I see and understand things? Is this a blessing in disguise, a constant practice for maintaining elasticity and flexibility in the course of life and my understanding of it?

Meanwhile, I remember my picture book worlds with nostalgia. I used to imagine myself in the pictures, and dreamed of living on the little island where the smiling grass-skirt girls lived, so tiny that you could walk it in a couple of minutes, always sunny, water crystal clear, fish and birds abounding, all things provided for idyllic living. Did you wish you lived in any of your picture books?

Web 2.0

Finland, Finland, Finland (the country where I’d quite like to be)

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Inari lake, Finland

Originally uploaded by enricod

I found an interesting blog connected to a Library 2.0 Symposium in Finland based in the Abo Akademi. If you can trust my limited Swedish, it’s a Swedish university in Finland. I found the statements about Web 2.0 in libraries interesting so I’ve included a paragraph:

‘The main goal of this project is to deepen the understanding of the interactive information source called Web 2.0 focusing on knowledge, experience, collaboration, and creation of new contents. The role of the information professionals and the libraries (Library 2.0) in this new dimension of the information chain is crucial. We need to put libraries in a stronger position allowing them to respond more quickly and flexibly to user needs, and to new challenges and development. Through this project we aim to develop the skills needed to manage the new information platform and foresee the development of needed competencies in the information society. The new techniques demand computer, social, and network competencies and may result in new kind of digital divide as well as creating new forms of information overload. We need to shift our understanding of the information society. It is not only a question of shaping order in information chaos but understanding how individuals shape their own personalized information spheres’.

I think this sums it up!