Journal of an XO in Africa

Laptop Magazine sent an OLPC XO (also commonly known as the $100 laptop) to a woman named Salimata (Sali) Fandjalan in Africa. She kept a blog of her experiences which were published on Laptop Magazine's site http://laptopmag.com/News/Notebooks/The-OLPC-XO-Goes-to-Africa.htm .

Her blog is fascinating because it talks about the complexity of using this device in a third world country. Often when we hear about the $100 laptop (now actually closer to $200) it is portrayed as a magic wand as if the device by itself will solve world problems. One of the excerpts from her blog that I found interesting was~

"All children who get an XO WILL NEED TRAINING!!!!! There is nothing OLPC can do about it; there is nothing the children or their parents can do about it. Without training, the XO is nothing more than a little pretty green-and-white box that looks like a misshaped, overgrown bunny with no teeth".

Just as in the US, technology implementation is a complex process that goes beyond the device itself.

MDMC2007 Podcasts are Posted!

The podcasts created by the participants of the Milwaukee Digital Media Conference are posted at http://mdmc2007.com/media-list.php . These are podcasts created by educators with instructors from The Stephens Group of museum exhibits at the Milwaukee Public Museum. We are extremely proud of how they turned out!

Amazon Kindle

This week Newsweek covered the Amazon Kindle a new e-reader, in an article entitled "The Future of Reading".

What makes this e-reader different than others is it has wireless access. You can look things up on Wikipedia, Google and other website. It beams newspapers to you and updates of your favorite blogs. Amazon is calling it the “iPod of Reading”. “Google’s people have though about how this connectivity could actually affect how people read” (p. 62).

I think it is ironic that this new device is being released in the same week that the NYT wrote an article entitled, “Study links drop in test scores to a decline in Time Spent Reading”.

With the emergence of ultraportable devices such as the $100 laptop I don’t think it is that far out until students have wireless devices which will contain both traditional media (such as e-text books) and connectivity to new media forms. I think this will cause a lot of tension in school systems that only value traditional forms of literacy and teachers who are trying to hold onto a teacher as expert and disseminator of information pedagogy. As Mark Warschauer, asks in the preface of his book, Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom (2006), “What happens, then, when one of the most disruptive technologies of communication in history is placed in the hands of every student a classroom, grade, or school? When the irresistible force, as it were, meets the immovable object? How do students’ literacy practices in school change, or not change, when every student throughout the school day has a mobile personal computer wirelessly connected to the Internet?” (p. ix).

Speak Up 2007

Speak Up is facilitated each year by Project Tomorrow, the nation’s leading nonprofit group focused on science, math and technology K-12 education.

The Speak Up project collects and reports out annually on authentic, unfiltered feedback from K-12 students, teachers, parents and school leaders from every state on 21st century education and technology issues. Speak Up is conducted 100% via online surveys and every school and district in the United States and Canada is eligible to participate. The online surveys are open for participation until Dec 21st, 2007.

Here are just a few topics that will be addressed in Speak Up 2007:

• Creating schools of the future.
  
• Why students like gaming and the benefits to using them for school work.
  
• Engaging students in science.
  
• Helping students feel connected and valued at school.
  

School (and District) Speak Up data will be available online, free-of-charge in late January 2008. You can use this data to:

• Benchmark your school or district against national responses.
  
• Identify "what's working" and potential opportunities for improvement.
  
• Strengthen student engagement in school
  
• Facilitate conversations with community members.
  
• Support your grant writing efforts.
  

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Highlights of CoSN Webcast on Ultraportable Devices

Hightlights of the CoSN webcast on Ultraportable Devices were published in eSchool News http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?ArticleID=7474&page=1 .

Visions for a New Media Culture

Last week I was in Boston with my classmates from Pepperdine University were we had the opportunity to interact with a number of amazing people who shared their vision for the future of learning with us. They shared their visions of how emerging technologies such as digital media, gaming, and Web 2.0 technologies provide spaces and opportunities for us to engage with students in new ways.

One of the places we visited was an innovative digital media company called FableVision. Part of FableVision’s mission is to help off-the-path learners whose unique learning styles are not supported by a standardized approach. FableVision works on developing new products in support of their vision, such as a program designed to allow students to easily make their own animations to tell their own stories or a game which helps students learn math concepts.

Games have powerful implications for learning. We attended a panel discussion at MIT on Games & Civic Engagement. The two speakers were Mario Armstrong from NPR and Ian Bogost from Georgia Tech. Bogost sees games are a type of human expression. He explained how games are really models of somebody’s idea of how something works. They have opinions. We need to learn how to read these opinions. They allow people to construct an understanding of someone else’s perspective. This fits Henry Jenkins argument that educators need to help students acquire new media skills. In his white paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (2006), he talks about how educators need to help students overcome the transparency problem or "the challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world".

Our class had the opportunity to have a Q & A session with Henry Jenkins on the new media literacies described in his paper. He talked about the tension between emerging social networks on the web and the number of schools trying to block them from students to avoid the risks associated with them. He talked about the fact that adults have an obligation to “know about the world students are traveling through”. These spaces have the potential to offer rich transgenerational learning spaces where kids and adults can come together.

The vision for a new media culture also needs to consider equity, not only of resources, but also equity of experiences that allow students to fully participate in this new emerging media culture. "Educators must work together to ensure that every American young person has access to the skills and experiences needed to become a full participant, can articulate their understanding of how media shapes perceptions, and has been socialized into emerging ethical standards that should shape their practices as media makers and participants in online communities" (Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A., & Weigel, M., 2006).

Jenkins heads Project NML which is funded through the MacArthur Foundation.
Project designers, Anna van Someren and Erin Reilly, shared with us how they are tagging the footage they have collected to align with the new digital media literacies outlined in Jenkin’s paper. The site includes video vignettes of what learning that includes media literacy skills could look like.

Integrating these new media literacy skills will require us to be engage with our students differently. Toward the end of our trip we had the opportunity to visit a class taught by Benjamin Zander music director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Prior to our visit, I had never stopped to consider what a conductor actually does. Watching him coach his students to transform their music was a powerful metaphor of how we as instructional leaders can coach those around us. One of my favorite things I heard him say to a student during our time there was “I want to engage with you”. Isn’t that what every educator should want? I believe it is the core of why exploring the potential of new emerging technologies for learning is important. The goal should be to engage with our students in new ways.

Ultra Light Portable Devices in K-12: The Quest for a $100 Device

I have been working on CoSN's Emerging Technologies Committee. Below is some information on our next webcast.

Join us for the second Webcast in the CoSN 2007-2008 Internet & Education Webcast Series next Wednesday, November 14, at 1 p.m. Eastern.

REGISTER NOW for this Webcast
And while you're there, register for the series. Even if you may not be available for the live event, you'll receive information on accessing the archives.

Webcast Description

The one-to-one computer model of computer usage has been on the scene for a number of years, but this approach has not been broadly adopted in part due to the cost. The arrival of low-cost mobile laptops and ultra mobile devices has the potential for changing that. This webcast will explore the potential instructional, technical, and policy considerations that adoption of low cost/ultra mobile will involve.

Web Hosts:

• Karen Greenwood Henke, Author and Consultant, Nimble Press (Moderator)
• Darryl LaGace, Director, Information Services, Lemon Grove School District, CA
• Jim Rapoza, Technology Analyst, eWeek
• Bob Tinker, Chief Executive Officer, Concord Consortium

Participation in CoSN's Internet & Education Webcast series is free for many CoSN members.

Bring your team together to participte in this valuable professional development opportunity. Archives are available.

Visit the CoSN Web site for more information and to register.

Register early to ensure you're ready to go at 1 p.m. Eastern for this hour-long Webcast. You'll receive a confirmations and log-in directions.

About the Series
Designed for school district and state leaders, this six webcast series offers guidance on key challenges and opportunities in education technology. And the best part? CoSN members register for free for up to six webcasts! That means you can gather your team to stay up-to-date on the latest information on a variety of edtech topics.

Questions? Call CoSN at 866/267-8747.

21st Century Learning- We're not even close

SETDA, ISTE, and the Partnership for 21st Century Learning published a report called Maximizing the Impact: the Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System .

"The paper reported that there are two major conceptual obstacles preventing schools from taking full advantage of technology as a catalyst for improvements in teaching and learning: a narrow approach to the use of technology and an unfounded assumption that technology is already being used widely in schools in a comprehensive and effective manner".