That was my favourite quote from Polivka’s recent blog entry. Simple but true.

Call it what you will, crowdsourcing or the wisdom of crowds, it is here to stay and evolve. Information, knowledge and power lie not only in the Internet, but also in the people and the connections between people that network via the Internet.

As usual, the educational arena is among the last to acknowledge it. Never a day goes by when an RSS feed lets me know of some organisation or other using the 2.0 moniker. For example, the National Computing Centre in the UK has an article on how Web 2.0 has changed the face of education. It’s not a recent article, but it is practically a template for educational institutions who are trying to adapt to Web 2.0.

But I want to go beyond creating awareness. I am a matchmaker and I work towards educators embracing it!

Slideshare source

Rodd Lucier presents what he thinks are ten current trends that are likely to affect teaching and learning. Here are some of my favourites:

• Right-brained thinking
• Cloud computing
• Creative commons
• Crowdsourcing
• Social learning
• Web 2.0
• Virtual worlds

He makes the presentation as a call-to-action to educators to implement change in their classrooms. I am glad that he is creating this awareness and facilitating change.

The changes have already started and collectively they are like an impending tsunami. Like a tsunami, the change is a destructive one. But it is a positive breaking down of old and irrelevant ways of doing things. As Stephen Heppell said at the end of the video below, it is “the death of education but the dawn of learning.”

Video source

You can brace yourself and drown in it for lack of preparation or you can take action and go with the flow.

I am experimenting with a shoutbox (from ShoutMix) in the EdPsych2 wiki that I maintain.

Screenshot of my EP2 shoutbox

Shoutboxes seem to used by Website owners to interact with visitors, for regular visitors of that site to “shout out” to other regulars, and in commercial sites for customer service and feedback. Basically its use revolves around a simple communication interface that does not require users to use email or install an instant messaging (IM) client.

My planned uses for the shoutbox are for: 1) trainee reflection at the end of class (or outside class), 2) quick announcements or notifications, and 3) IM style communications during e-learning week.

I have started the ball rolling with the first two efforts. The first is a modification of the one-minute paper technique. I value post-lesson reflections, but instead of  requiring my trainees to maintain blogs (like I normally do for the ICT course), I ask them to share their “take home” messages SMS-style. The second is an attempt to provide links to current resources like online news articles.

It’s too early to say if the first effort is worthwhile. Both my trainees and I can see what the others are saying and thinking, but they have been at it for just two sessions. I think the habit and value of reflecting concisely will take some time to sink in. I have also not yet used other one-minute paper strategies, so they have not experienced the different ways of using the platform to its fullest.

But I already know that the shoutbox is not a good place for announcements. The item that I share scrolls away as soon as a few participants use the shoutbox. That is why I have a separate “Announcements” page and an “In the Media” page in the wiki.

I’ll have more information as the weeks go by and after I conduct a survey using Google Forms to get feedback mid-course.

Video source

This is a free service for streaming ‘live’ videos from a webcam, video camera or computer desktop to an iPhone or iPod Touch via 3G or wifi.

Imagine the possibilities! Watch lectures or demonstrations at home or work, collaborate with your peers by streaming reports from the field, set up cheap security systems at home or in schools, get students to show off what they know by creating their own shows, etc.

Some articles I am reading…

How Schools Get It Wrong
http://www.thestar.com/atkinsonseries/atkinson2009/article/718262–how-schools-get-it-wrong

Are Schools Preparing Students for 21st Century Learning?
http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/11/02/are-schools-preparing-students-for-21st-century-learning.aspx

Will the Digital Divide Close by Itself?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/will-the-digital-divide-close-by-itself/

Why Teenagers Are Growing Up So Slowly Today
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/11/05/why-teenagers-are-growing-up-so-slowly-today.aspx

Video source

A while ago, I wrote about how important it is to slow down (or even stop) to think. John Connell referred to this as slow blogging. The video above reminded me of this.

My take home message from the video: Slowing things down allows us to learn new things about ourselves and the world around us.

Someone from one of my ICT classes created a digital scrapbook with Smilebox to mark the end of the ICT course last week. Aww!

Here are some of my photos and videos from the final sessions.

Many thanks to all my trainees who made the course an enjoyable one!

It never ceases to amaze me how people find ways to connect 140 characters at a time with Twitter. Read how Karl Fisch did so at The Fischbowl: How Many People in Your Family?

Maybe one day I’ll have the same reach as he does!

Video source

At the 4min 36sec mark, the facilitator asks the panel, “What does it mean to tweet about education?”

The panel answers this question and goes on to describe the power of education in personal learning networks (PLNs).

I just read a TechCrunch article on something called Aardvark. Aardvark looks like a promising social Q&A tool, but it was the example (below) that Michael Arrington shared that caught my eye.

I had to laugh. I also thought how this was a good example of needing to know your audience.

I read this on the back of meeting my last ICT group today. This was the batch that was two weeks behind another batch, so things got confusing in terms of weekly topics. It had been a lot worse with the other course that I facilitate, EdPsych2 (EP2), overlapping by the same two weeks. I not only had to wear different hats, I had to wear different suits!

Or so I thought at first. I find myself blending the suits as I think of ways to integrate relevant forms of pedagogy and technology into the content-heavy course that is EP2. Why? It starts with knowing your audience.

I know that my audience comprises of future teachers, so I must give them opportunities to design, teach and reflect. I know that they are more technologically savvy with each passing batch. (My recent survey revealed that at least half were already users of Google Docs.)

I think I know my ICT audience pretty well as a whole. As I say goodbye to another batch of ICT classes, I am heartened by their tokens of appreciation, group photos, and their expressions on how they will miss the course. I recall some of their blog entries about how hard they are pushed to think, how their mindsets change and how much they look forward to attending class.

Now I think that if I can create half the energy and feeling for EP2, I’d be very happy!