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Will Google+ Encourage us to Sidestep Serendipity?
356 months ago
Since leaving the classroom I have had the opportunity to read more widely then I have done at any point over the last 10 years. The work I am doing now takes me down paths including design thinking, business, social media and of course education. It is the variety of new domains of information and perspectives that I have found so engaging.
Not only have I been able to work with and immerse myself in ideas from outside of education but I have begun to see ways learning can benefit from them.
I have seen Twitter grow and grow into a huge global tool for educators. However those of us using it are still, for the most part, in the minority. However difficult it is to admit it, teachers using any digital tool to connect with fellow teachers are still in the minority. The prospect of a new social tool, such as Google+, was hugely exciting to see. It was great to start in a fresh space with the customary intuitive interface we have come to expect from Google products. So all rosy? Well not quite.
My main concern is a key difference between Twitter and Google+. When Twitter users connect with each other they basically ask themselves is this person interesting or in my line of work? Yes = follow. We all have our different methods but I suspect that covers most people. When I look at those people who have followed me on Twitter recently I can see very quickly (on a single page which I can just scroll up and down) what they do from their profile and just click follow if a) they interest me or b) they are in education. That’s it.
Importantly with Twitter there are no ways to target your messages to groups within those who follow you, it is an “all in” sort of method. My updates go to designers, teachers, classes, professors, executives, artists, whoever makes up your network. Do I think this adds value to the replies and perspectives you gain? Absolutely.
With Google+ Circles are we creating silos of information? By saying to users, “do you only want to share with those that find it 100% relevant?”, are we in fact encouraging a narrowing of perspectives? What about those that might find it 60% relevant? Or whose current project makes it highly relevant to them, but perhaps not at other times. Of course we have the choice to make things public in Google+ and the choice to have different circles, but Twitter’s default broadcast state is always set to public. An open style of sharing is not a choice.
Perhaps targeted sharing, in the style of a Google+ post, will just give me what I always get. The isolation of ideas, fuzzy-warm acceptance but nothing to challenge them. Alternate expertise has no way of peaking in or seeping into the reaction.
Of course this idea of cross-fertilising ideas from different domains has a strong history with, for example, Innovation Time Off or 20% time from Google or bootlegging product development at 3M that led to the early concept of the Post-It note.
I think I will probably not use the Circles feature of Google+ because I think that I will be limiting the reactions I get and actively avoiding the opportunity to connect with other professionals who could add a valuable perspective beyond education. I still prefer a model that is more open by default and puts the responsibility of information filtering on the consumer, not the producer of the information.
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Pic Back of Beyond by violscraper
Are Online Behaviours Affecting Reading Skills?
49 months ago
In my final weeks of school our class had our usual Tuesday afternoon guided reading session, where we get the opportunity to work on some reading text with a small group of children. One particular comment from a pupil has stuck in my mind, so I thought I would share some of my reflections with you.
Whilst exploring a text we came across a particular word that became the focus of our attention. Although the group had no problem reading and pronouncing it they didn’t know what it meant. I aimed to set the children off exploring the definition from the information we could acquire from the sentence and the text overall, we may have even cracked open a dictionary or two…
“We could just Google it!”
As you can see the comment from one of the group stuck in my mind for a number of reasons. Firstly it indicated to me how much web searching had become part of how these 9 and 10 years olds process the information they see in the world. The concept of search applies to so much around them and the need for a better understanding of how we instruct and guide our classes to filter what they find, has never been so more acute.
Equally the appropriateness of using different tools is a key part of navigating the learning landscape, indeed one of the most difficult aspects is helping young learners make better decisions regarding the tools they use.
Of course I was not surprised by this comment after all many of the children have Kindles and the latest model has a full Oxford English Dictionary available on it. The children simply have to move a cursor and the definition will be displayed on the screen at the bottom. I remember writing lists of words I didn’t know from texts during my English degree and finding out later.
The immediacy of information and indeed the expectation for it is all to clear. We expect results, definitions and answers faster nowadays and so do the children in our classes. The question is what are we doing about it?
Within the browser too you have access to dictionary tools to help when you are reading online. I use Google Chrome’s extension which allows you to double-click a word and a little pop-up dictionary definition appears. I use this loads – no more written lists of vocabulary for me!
Another reason the comment struck a chord with me is how the decision to Google a word comes ahead of trying to establsish meaning from reading skills, such as reading into the context and exploring the sentence further. Of course, this one comment should not be over played. However in my opinion it does hint at the ways children are thinking about processing the information, from reading material or otherwise, we work with everyday.
I am of course an advocate for the appropriate use of technology, where it can transform learning and add value – and in this instance it is not a “this skill replaces that skill” scenario but an opportunity to reflect on the ways we can enhance what we do and take advantage of ideas children have.
To answer my own question in the title, yes they are in a broadly positive way, but especially children in primary school or elementary need support and guidance to help them filter the information they search. They need contextualised examples and ongoing references to the ways we search and use information tools – I think this is a pivotal aspect of teaching and can only become more acute in the coming years.
Blocked For Me, Open For You
711 year ago
by tombarrett
in My class
pay heed by most uncool
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Children in my class cannot use YouTube at school, but as soon as they leave at the end of the day, they will.
Since the exponential growth of the online video giant I have never once used a video directly from YouTube in my classroom. It is exempt from my teaching routine. On reflection I find this fairly incredible.
In England each local authority can choose which sites are open to use in the classroom. YouTube is blocked by many due to inappropriate content, which includes the comments accompanying the footage. However I have never been shown, read or offered an explanation by my local authority about their reasoning.
At the end of school children will go home and use the website, open to the inappropriate content we block in school. Not only is YouTube exempt from my teaching, I am exempt from helping children better understand, process and find value amidst a mass of video content. I am exempt from demonstrating and educating the children in my class to appreciate the power of such an information source. Apparently that is a good thing.
In my opinion it comes down to some hard decisions. The longer, more protracted path of educating young primary school children in dealing with open content on the web (including YouTube) is too hard a path for some to consider. The easy route is to block it. And that is what has happened.
It is hard to fully appreciate the effect this will have on years and years of children not being given guidance about open content, from the very people who are best placed to provide it.
I consider YouTube an unprecedented source of information in the form of videos. Does the blocking of access to this information infringe on our rights? According to Kimberley Curtis,
Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights holds that freedom of expression includes the right to information. Specifically, it states that
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
It goes on to admit that governments can place certain restrictions on these rights, but only if necessary. This has long been understood to cover access to government information, such as rights covered by the Freedom of Information Act in the US. But increasingly some are starting to include access to knowledge, particularly in regards to the internet, in this rubric as well.
No hands ma! by OLD! (NEW! http://flickr.com/codooautin)
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
I take it then that governments have given school’s local authorities the freedom to choose what to block “if necessary” and YouTube falls into this category and the easy short-term decision is easy. So what would I want to see? What would I do with an unblocked, unfiltered web? I would invest the money from filtering in high quality guidance, training and materials to provide teachers the ability to properly guide young learners in the web they use at home anyway. Bringing some parts of our teaching force up to speed with the internet their students are using, and equip them with the basic principles for teaching and using an open web.
Having complete access to knowledge will after all benefit an economy in the long run, right? The Every Child Matters aims and objectives state that whatever their background or their circumstances, every child should have the support they need to:
- be healthy
- stay safe
- enjoy and achieve
- make a positive contribution
- achieve economic well-being.
With a filtered version of the internet are we providing children the best possible chances to feel they can make a positive contribution to society? Is their protracted exclusion from a growing information source such as YouTube actually detrimental to their chances of achieving economic well-being? Would an unfiltered web make children more or less safe?
Jack Balkin from Yale University explains,
Access to knowledge means that the right policies for information and knowledge production can increase both the total production of information and knowledge goods, and can distribute them in a more equitable fashion. The goal is first, promoting economic efficiency and development, and second, widespread distribution of those knowledge and informational goods necessary to human flourishing in our particular historical moment– the global networked information economy.
I repeat: It’s not just a trade off between equity and efficiency. We are not simply fighting about how to divide up a pie. Access to knowledge is about making a larger pie and distributing it more fairly. Or, at the risk of extending this pie metaphor well beyond its appropriate scope, access to knowledge means giving everyone the skills to make their own pies and share them widely with others.
(“How to make a pie” returned 23,500 results on YouTube.)
Beyond the filtering of YouTube there is massive inconsistency across UK schools about which sites are blocked and which are open. I work in Nottinghamshire, for some reason many of the sites that I use for educational purposes are open to me in school. For many of my colleagues across the UK it is different. Would my development of learning technology use have been completely different if I was 30 miles further North, South, East or West? Of course it would.
Similarly children in one school will be able to use different learning tools in the classroom than another. As someone said to me recently this is a sort of “learning technology postcode lottery.” Inevitably those teachers that consider certain web based tools crucial to their teaching will think twice about a post in those local authorities most effected.
I want to hold a lens up to the inconsistency between local authorities in England. I have started a Google Spreadsheet with a list of 80+ web based tools used in the classroom and the opportunity to state OPEN or BLOCKED for your local authority.
Web Tools in English Schools > Blocked or Open?
Ollie Bray has been working on something similar for Scottish authorities – perhaps when both documents have reached a critical mass they could be amalgamated to create a full picture of web filtering in schools in the UK.
I would be grateful if you would complete the spreadsheet for your own location (unless Google Docs is blocked of course!) and help encourage others to do the same, this way we will build up a complete picture.
Five things I am hopeful for:
- This will continue to keep the issue of open web access on educator’s agenda.
- Local authorities will look at the list and question their own decisions. “Why has Nottinghamshire left Wordle open and we have not?”
- I would like to see teachers who are using these tools become part of the process of deciding upon filtering.
- Explanations why sites are blocked are provided to teachers and not some random category. We have reasons we want to use them in a positive way, LAs ostensibly have reasons why they are blocking them – that debate needs to be had.
- More consistency for what the web looks like for teachers and for students.
