Not So Distant Future

The nation’s President delivered a very motivational message to a group of obviously excited students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, yet many of our nation’s students missed this message intended for them.

As I was listening to it, I thought of Kennedy’s speech which inspired us to go to the moon, and how his speech led young people  into being more involved in science, volunteerism, and politics; in fact, even inspiring a future president.

Obama’s speech today, no matter your politics, was an eloquent “pep talk” to the nation’s students, encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning. Yet across the nation, parents and school districts alike denied them the opportunity to participate–and I wonder in what way is that encouraging students to be responsible?

Do we not trust students (and their teachers) to analyze, discuss, and think about what they hear? And do we not want students to be inspired and motivated by leaders (whether they be principals, guest speakers, or Presidents?)

“Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. . .And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”

Isn’t that a message we want our students to hear?

And when do we as educators stand up for the school as a marketplace of ideas, and at least make these ideas “available” to our students?

In Ray Bradbury’s novel, Farenheit 451, (a book commonly taught in high schools), books are burned to prevent the spread of ideas. Because ideas might make people think.

When we as a culture are afraid to examine the ideas of an opposing viewpoint, when we encourage our children to block out/screen out opposing viewpoints, when we pressure our schools to block out/screen out opposing viewpoints, at what point does this become a form of censorship?

The quote of the day on my blog today, ironically, is by Indira Gandhi. It reads: “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”

How do we teach our students to be part of the great melting pot of our country if we don’t allow ideas in? And what is our role as educators in that?

Some things I believe we can do, now that the speech is over:

1. Air the speech as well as the speeches to students given by Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Ask students to compare and contrast rhetorical styles, the setting for the speech, response of students in the audience, etc.

2. Use Wordle.net to have students create Wordle visuals of presidential speeches to examine their emphasis and content so they can compare and contrast.

3. Examine the media frenzy over the recent speech. Help students filter out fact/fiction in print reporting /internet reporting over the speech. Have students look at the reporting before the speech (by checking newspaper archives, databases for last couple of weeks, letters to the editor, etc.) and then have them check out the post-speech reporting in the next day or two in those same sources.

4. Have them analyze the speech for examples of good rhetorical techniques (using a personal story, word choice, call to action, etc.) Compare these used to other motivational speeches.

5. Use the Newseum website to examine headlines around the country for their reporting on the speech and compare/contrast the reporting. (But quick, before the headlines disappear!)

The point is, as educators, we have many tools/methods for teaching our students that ideas aren’t dangerous–that speeches aren’t dangerous–and that we can use our powers of analysis to dissect the content and learn from it.

And then, just maybe, we won’t have missed the boat completely!

photo credit: Flickr, BrianForbes37

In keeping with the conversations (Karl Fisch, Wes Fryer, Doug Johnson, myself, and others) going on around the blogosphere about filtering, access, and social networking in schools, I wanted to share this excellent toolkit from YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) entitled “Teens and Social Networking in School and Public Libraries.”

The toolkit has ideas appropriate for librarians or technology staff on productive uses of social networking, how to share these tools with parents, etc., and is a great example of a proactive and positive approach. 

In addition, YALSA has an excellent wiki of resources, links, and articles about positive uses of social networking tools — though this was created with DOPA in mind, there are some excellent articles and links here, including a clever Slideshare called “Who would Jane Austen friend?”

Knowing where to find helpful materials on this issue to support each school’s efforts to have a constructive policy in place is part of the solution.  Please continue to share other materials you are aware of as well!

Update:  Shortly after posting this, I ran across a study that Patrick Higgins posted on his blog about the positive effects of blogging on student writing, so I thought I’d add it here since that is part of this conversation.

When grading a stack of student papers, Jacqueline Hicks Grazette, a teacher at St. Albans High School in the D.C. area,  recently noticed that a student used Wikipedia to answer a question, and had made a note of it on his paper.   

That, among other things, led her to write this opinion column in the Washington Post this morning, Wikiality in my Classroom, where she realistically outlines the collision of Wikipedia, Google, online ethics, student stress and web 2.0 tools and the dilemmas teachers face.

“In the online world in which teachers and students navigate, ambiguity. . .
is daily fare. For young people who have grown up with instant access to information, it seems like no big deal. But to educators, trained in accurate sourcing and correct attribution, deciding what the limits should be often poses a dilemma.”

As a student in the article comments:

“We are part of a networked society. . .Your world is different from ours. We are taught to share information and collaborate. We do it all the time. No one really cares where it came from.”

A collaborative world

The student’s comment perfectly highlights the tension between the online culture of sharing and the rigors of academic scholarship, as Grazette highlights. She points to Princeton’s Academic Integrity website which describes this.

The internet is bringing research issues into the forefront in ways that they never have been before, because “research” has become part of our daily lives, not a “once in awhile” project.

A comment from one student she interviews drives home the need for educators to take the time out of the rush towards testing and excellence to really discuss internet ethics with students.  They are already living in the “online” world in ways many of us are not fully, and will be living in this environment for years to come. 

Isn’t it our job to help prepare them for making good choices academically and ethically?   This is not to imply that many of us aren’t doing this–because we are–but how can we do it better across the curriculum?  

Change

I also wonder how is all this going to change our ideas of academic scholarship, copyright, etc?  The use of information has become such a grass-roots, democratic (little d) movement, that  it is going to drive change in all our systems, and maybe changes that will make information more accessible to all. 

Is MLA format really going to be the best way for tracking citations in the future, for example?  What about the Dewey Decimal system?  While both systems are capable of handling change and were designed in ways that can be flexible, on the other hand, is that linear way of thinking going by the wayside?

What questions does her article raise for you?

   dewey decimal signage–Seattle Public Library

photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/getdown/114686279/

As more and more content is used and shared online, the once clear rules regarding copyright become more and more blurred.   Mash-up videos combine songs (copyrighted) with original video or edited news clips(copyrighted) with songs, or mix clips from movies(copyrighted), or….  The list goes on and on.

  Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture, a book which is available online, (for free and in multiple formats) spoke at U.T. this evening about how the  “read/write” web challenges traditional copyright law.  Because the laws have been slow to change, a nonprofit organization, Creative Commons, has attempted to address the issue.

  Creative Commons, if you aren’t familiar, has established a set of “licenses” that creators can use to designate how their work can be used.   There are different levels of use–a work can be designated as useable by a noncommercial site(like a school) or may only be used if it’s credited, etc.   

Sites like Flickr use Creative Commons to identify images for various uses.  So when a photograph is uploaded, the user can specify which level of use is acceptable to them.

The concept behind it is to allow for the creative “remixing” and “re-creating” that we see students doing and to allow for the interactivity of materials that many of the web 2.0 tools allow within a copyright-type of system. 

Creative Commons also has a search site, where students could search for materials that the authors had given permission for them to use noncommercially, or even works they can alter, with permission.

Lessig gave many fascinating examples of “mash-ups” of different content, but one of the well known ones he shared was about Colin Mutchler.  Mutchler recorded some guitar music, called it ”My Life” and placed it online, giving it a Creative Commons license.  

my_life.mp3

About a month later, a violist, Cora Beth, emailed him that she had downloaded his work and added a violin track and changed the name of the joint composition to “My Life Changed.”

my_life_changed.mp3

Arguably, the song is more beautiful with the added violin composition.  Colin now has an entire album that was recorded this way, by artists he’d never met, over space and time. 

The point of sharing all this?

Our students create content constantly, so as creators and as users, they need to know about Creative Commons licenses.

The open and free way that artists, writers, musicians, and others are sharing their creative works is part of the web 2.0 culture that our students are completely engaged with.   

We need to help them understand the distinctions between copyright and this idea of Creative Commons for “open source” or web-created content.  We also need to explore with them how copyright law as it exists may need to change.

And all of this brings to mind–how are we, as educators, creating our own “new” and innovative mashed-up content?   (And by the way, I wish I could share his presentation here, but it’s not online yet–because the way he puts together his presentations is very stylish and engaging and a great model. )

How can we help our students use wise behaviors online?

That question has been getting a bit of discussion lately because of a recent article in the New York Times.

I’ve been thinking it would be interesting to compile a collaborative list of online “ethics” questions for students to discuss and consider.

The article has been getting some interesting discussion in the blogosphere, for example at the Science Leadership Academy.

How do we deal with opening boundaries for students to participate while helping them understand appropriate and ethical choices?

Update–:

After I wrote this, I ran across this fitting comment at Ed Tech Journeys–entitled “Kill the Messenger.”  Pete Reilly wrote,  “Technology is exposing issues that have always been there. This is a grand opportunity to explore the issues and to hear the message. Let’s learn whatever lessons need to be learned. Let’s not turn the technology off. Let’s turn teaching and learning on.”

I highly recommend the rest of his comments, and tend to agree that many(though not all) of the problems we are dealing with currently are just being exposed by the technology, not caused by it.

    Compared to the last presidential election, where the new web 2.0 tools were mainly part of a grassroots movement, the use of Web 2.0 tools like YouTube, Blogs, etc., is now a mainstream part of a campaign.

TechCrunch draws our attention to a new site, techPresident, which is tracking the web 2.0 trail of all the presidential candidates.

You can see which ones are using MySpace(and how many “friends” they have), who is on the site Second Life(John Edwards), see Flickr photos relating to the candidate, and see who is using YouTube.

And for those of you who attended our Project Tech workshop yesterday on RSS(thanks to Will Richardson’s excellent instruction without which I couldn’t have shared this), you can also grab RSS feeds from the candidates’ pages, all in one location.

Why does this matter?  If our students are participating in a democracy where the social networking tools they use are being used by mainstream entities as political campaign advertising, isn’t it critically important that we are teaching students how to evaluate sources, distinguish fact from opinion, and watch for bias and commercial uses of the web?

As these web 2.0 tools enter the mainstream, they are not only tools that allow “regular” people the ability to have a voice, they allow advertisers and candidates to approach us through many more channels and means.   How do we help students as advertising and content begin to “merge” more and more?

On his blog 2 Cents Worth, David Warlick posts a question for teachers for an article  which will appear in May’s issue of Cable in the Classroom.

What is your greatest challenge in teaching appropriate, ethical use of web-based media to your students?”

Since we have discussed that question here frequently, I would be interested in your experiences and ideas.  If you have comments or thoughts, please share them here. (and your ideas might just get published!)