Beyond School

Jaeho and Younsuk were gracious enough to give me a half hour of their time this Monday night for this Skype interview about the Basketball Without Borders blog and podcast project. I’ll go ahead and re-embed the video interview I shot with them directly after their Skype interview with their college basketball hero KJ Matsui a month ago (see the original post here):

A month later now, they discuss with me how having their own real-world, self-selected blog project for our English Seminar elective feels (click here for all posts about this “networked learning” class). As I say in the podcast, this class is far from perfect, but Jaeho and Younsuk give some very interesting feedback on how this real-world project-based learning approach has improved their speaking and writing skills - and motivation - differently than what they’ve experienced in a traditional “writing and speech” class.

Again, this is my first attempt for this type of teaching. Listening to Jaeho and Younsuk makes me want to stick with it beyond this “beta” version next time around. I can’t urge Language Arts teachers strongly enough to give these guys a listen. It’s a half hour, edited, with nice music for you and everything.

A request: I begged these guys to let me link to their site for a preview - they want to finish editing and post a couple more interviews with basketball stars they’re working on before unveiling it to the basketball world - and they gave me permission to give a sneak preview to you educators. So go ahead and take a look at Basketball Without Borders (love that alliteration!), listen to their podcast with K.J. Matsui, and show them some comment love.

The podcast is enhanced with chapter headings for easy navigation in iTunes (right-click here and “save as” to download). Click the player below to listen to it here:

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I’ve been a Diigo user for two years come July. Seems like everybody and their grannies have adopted it in a Twitter-induced stampede over the last two days (I think Will had something to do with it).

As I said on Twitter, the flood of emails requesting “friendship” on Diigo sort of shocked me (I despise email), since I wasn’t in the loop when the stampede started. I’m not sure I want to go Facebook with Diigo any more than I want to go Facebook with Facebook - I’m a fairly quiet person who tends to be happy roaming solo in his own flow, as taboo as that confession may be in these share-happy times (and it’s funny how manically I can twitter, and yet still feel uninvaded and uncrowded). So all these emails (which I’ve since turned off) make me feel my little secret reading cafe became trendy overnight, and too loud now to read in peace. Maybe I’ll come around to the social benefits in time.

That being said, I’ve been evangelizing Diigo on these pages since day one, as you’ll see in this compendium of three old posts showing how I used Diigo in the classroom over the last year and a half.

A caveat: for my own research, I love Diigo. It allows me to annotate, bookmark (and share automatically to del.icio.us), and highlight clips - all tagged, too. But just as I’ve had little luck getting students or colleagues to use feed aggregators, I’ve had no better luck getting them to switch on to the power of Diigo. So if you use any of these methods in your own classroom - or use Diigo in any other way with your students - I advise you to build in part of the assessment to be weighted toward demonstrated regular use of the tool. Schooliness is Web 1.0 (if it’s web at all), and our students seem to prefer schooliness over anything new every bit as much as their teachers do. A word to the wise.

That being said, here you go: Three uses of Diigo in the history and English classroom:

Screencast: Using Diigo on Student Scribe Blogs as Test Review “Sheets” (20 September 2007)

Here’s one more tutorial, 4 minutes, on using Diigo on Scribe blogs as test review sheets, with students as members of a Diigo Group. I just trained my students today in AP Lit, set them up on the class Diigo Group, and “shared” my highlights and annotations of the class scribe posts (it only works on permalinks, not on main blog pages) with the kisAP07 group. They use that as “test reviw.”

Here it is:

From Red Pen to Invisible Ink: Assessing Student Blogs with Diigo Groups (23 March 2007)

You are a young writer trying to experience what being a real writer is, because…your teacher is making you: sore spot one (but I can live with this one, for obvious reasons).

You are a young writer trying to have that experience by writing on a web-log (I’ve decided to outlaw the term “blogging” with students, and substitute the correct, grand old word: “Writing”), so that you can experience real audience, real feedback, real conversation based on your writing: blessing one.

You are a young writer who sees that someone has left a comment on one or your writings on your web-log (the word “blog” is a blighted thing as well, in the Language Arts classroom. From now on, we use “web-log”). What a delight–and a new one. You click the link, curious and expectant–how is the world responding to me as a writer?

But you see this:

You misspelled “frustrated.”
Is this a strong introduction?
Nice use of the appositive in Sentence Pattern 4, but your compound sentence in SP 3 is a comma splice because you forgot to include a coordinating conjunction after the comma.
B+.Your teacher.

“Well,” you say, “It was interesting. Thanks, but no thanks. Back to MySpace for some real conversation.”

Luckily, Chris Watson sparked an idea in one of our podcasted conversations about this problem: Somehow find a way to use Diigo to assess student web-log writing without defacing the students’ “intellectual property” and turning writing into “schooliness.”

So here’s my latest experiment, with thanks to Chris (and to Diane Quirk, who suggested this much earlier): using Diigo Groups (with a separate Diigo login for me, to keep my own bookmarks separate from my classroom bookmarks).

My students have joined the Group. Now when they go to their web-logs, after logging in to their Diigo account and setting “Show Annotations > Show Group Annotations” on their Diigo toolbar, they will see the highlights of specific passages from their writing that I have left (and I can start students doing this too, it occurs to me in a very attractive flash), and my annotations will pop up on their screen when they hover their mouse over the highlights.

Also good, our Diigo Groups Bookmarks page records all highlights and annotations I have made on one page. Students can use that to see all feedback I have given to specific strengths and weaknesses on all students writings.

And since they’re using anagrams instead of first-name usernames on their blogs, there’s less of a chance of any embarrassment resulting from this “public feedback”–with “invisible ink.”

The screenshot below is an example of what one student will see when she visits her blog with Diigo turned on.

How to Highlight and “Sticky-Note” Websites, and Save It All Online, Using Diigo (1 January 2007)

Here is an updated version of the Diigo tutorial. Your students will love you (not immediately, but only after they’re gone–they’re students, after all) for teaching them this great research tool!

And you’ll love being able to access your online notes of every website you’ve researched yourself, too–from any computer in the world.

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It’s been about six weeks since my last update on the ten-week-old Networked Learning class I created with the help of so many of you in the initial Open Thread post and Twitter. Students are still grading themselves and justifying it - and showing the same fondness for grade inflation as so many of our colleagues. They’re also reflecting up a storm on how messy learning is when it’s yours to create and pursue.

Lesson One: Natives Can’t Tweet, and Twits Must Sleep

I’m learning a lot too. I’m learning that students aren’t comfortable with Twitter - another strike against the Digital Natives concept - and don’t adapt to it easily. I’m also learning that the Twitterverse is so much fuller of good will and idealism than it is of time and energy that it’s often unreliable (and I include myself in this charge). I pulled back from that angle when I realized the absence of network input could be an excuse for not generating your own content from good old-fashioned writing (or new-fashioned blogging and multmedia).

Lesson Two: Failure Can Breed Success

But the favorite piece of learning I’m having is this: there is no unit testing involved, no chopping up of learning into opened-then-closed chapters. Instead, there is a lot of time for confusion, drift, frustration, and failure - without the option of quitting. And to me, that’s pregnant with more real-world learning than most stuff on the SAT or AP Literature exam.

Lesson Three: Fall Down Nine Times, Stand Up Ten — Then Slam-Dunk

And here’s some evidence: Jaeho and Younsuk have gone through a lot of challenges as they’ve tried to launch their Basketball without Borders website (I’m withholding the URL until the tell me it’s ready to launch). They’d

had a lot of leads for interviews that fizzled out, were delayed, fell through, and so forth, and had to traverse some really windless seas for a few weeks. We kept busy with more schooly writing exercises and such while waiting for fresh winds, but still - “inspired” and “motivated” are the last words to come to mind when I remember those weeks with this project.

But today they had a slam dunk: K.J. Matsui (Washington Post feature article here), an NCAA basketball standout from Columbia University, agreed to a Skype call from Korea to New York - during our class - to record for a podcast interview for their site. Younsuk skyped me at about 2 this morning to give me the news, chat about his interview questions, and so forth, which is, ah, unusual from almost any student. Then today in class, Matsui was on Skype as promised. (How cool is that from a world-class athlete, by the way?)

How do “inspired” and “motivated” fit these project creators now? You decide. I filmed them just as the interview ended, and interviewed them myself. It’s 4 noteworthy minutes, especially to those who can read body and facial language.

And me? I’m inspired, as a teacher, to help them write as well as they can on this site. I want it to succeed and grow long after they leave me.

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One for the MiniLegends

[Update: I was out of the loop preparing for my wedding when Australian Al Upton's MiniLegends and Qatar's Jabiz Raisdana got hit by two shockingly reactionary hammers. Since this podcast features Noel Thomas, an Australian high school principal representing all that is most forward-thinking and impressive about Australia's educational system, I'd like to dedicate this podcast to Al, the MiniLegends, and Jabiz. Noel, I can't help but fantasize that you and Al discover each other and join forces. As you say in the podcast, most teachers will never get it. Al is a teacher who has impressed us all for years with how much he does get it. (h/t to John Connell for the miniLegends badge - John, I hope you don't mind me nicking it?)]

Love This Podcast, or I’ll Eat a Bug

As I say in the intro to this podcast, if you don’t find it the most interesting hour of podcasting I’ve ever done, I’ll eat a bug. (And yes, Los Angelenos, that is a quote from the old Cal Worthington used car commercials of the ’80s.) That intro was hard, by the way: I tried about 8 times to summarize why I’m so excited about the things happening in that podcast, but couldn’t, and did the “eat a bug” intro instead. In retrospect, it sounds silly. But I had to get the thing published.

Creative Destruction Abundant

What walls don’t come down in this hour-long talk? Bye-bye edu-caste system, bye-bye geographic and temporal barriers. My guests are from three continents and four levels of school hierarchy:

• High School Principal Noel Thomas, Toorak College, Melbourne, Australia
• High School Principal (and next year’s Director) Rich Boerner, Korea International School, Seoul, South Korea (my employer)
• Librarian Jenny Luca, Toorak College, Melbourne
• Lara H., high school student, Toorak College
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilber, Punahou High School student (and Students 2.o staff writer), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• and me, high school teacher and tool-guy, Korea International School

(Quicktime free download required)

(right-click and “save target as” here to download enhanced podcast for iTunes)

Table of Contents

If you download to iTunes, you can navigate by these chapter headings:

• Intro: I’ll Eat a Bug
• Audio Snapshots
• Welcome
• Noel Thomas, Toorak College, Melbourne Australia
• Toorak’s Dilemma re: Web Access for Students
• Rich Boerner, Korea Internat’l School, Seoul
• KIS’ Open Web Access for Students
• Factors Favoring Relaxed Filtering at KIS
• Toorak Librarain Jenny Luca: Toorak Change Agent
• Jenny’s Views on the Value of Blogging to Learn
• Toorak and KIS Connect thru Project Global Cooling
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur, Intro (Hawaii Student)
• Student Lindsea Teaching the World
• Lara H., Intro (Australia Student)
• Sustainability at Our Specific Schools
• Broader Issues of Connecting Schools for Learning
• Lindsea on Youthnet: Student-Initiated Global Collaboration via Twitter and Wiki
• How Clay in Korea has Known Lindsea in Hawaii for Almost 2 Years
• Getting Teachers to Accept Student-Led Collaborative Projects
• Getting Students to Rise to the Challenge of Laptop Learning
• KIS Student Patrick Nam as Model of Networked Learning
• Noel’s Approach to Keeping Students Responsible Online
• Jenny’s Approach to Pulling Students In
• Clay on the Importance of Same Time-Zone Partner Schools
• Rich on Importance of Collab AT SCHOOL, not home
• Acceptable Use Policy
• Toward an Eastern Hemisphere Schools Network
• Spreading the Word to Students about Youthnet
• Lindsea as Model for Student Imitation
• Lara: PGC Should Be Easy in Australia
• Difficulties with Projects in Korea
• Media Interest in Project Global Cooling
• Clay’s Parting Shot: This Tech is EASY
• Parting Shots
• Closing Comments: Project Global Cooling Growing: Seoul, Hawaii, Australia in, and Beijing, Los Angeles, and Bangkok Nibbling - Add Your School This Year or Next
• (Name Your Bug)

Links Referenced in Podcast:

• Jenny Luca’s Lucacept (Australia)
• Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed
• Project Global Cooling
• Bill Farren’s Education for Well-Being blog
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur’s Love and Logic blog
• Chris Watson’s WatsonCommon blog
• Lindsea’s Youthnet post on Students 2.0
• Jabiz Raisdana’s Intrepid Teacher (stay intrepid, Jabiz)
• Jabiz’ Global Issues class blog
• Youthnet Twitter page
• “Natural” Global Collaboration (my networked learning elective class)
• Youthnet Wikispace
• The 1001 Flat World Tales global collaborative writing project
• KIS Sophomore Patrick Nam’s blog and podcast

Recorded on 3 March 2008

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[Update 2: The Ustream recording of the wedding is now embedded below. Thanks to all who dropped in and added magic to the day. Words fail.]

Take this however you want: wedding 2.0, cultural anthropology, surrealism (that Ode to Joy in Presbyterian Korean, I swear, is an artifact worthy of cultural studies), or just a sincere openness to considering many of you as in some strange way a part of my life, and thus really just plain invited.If the gods smile, the Ustream will go live here for the wedding (I’m late on that bandwagon, aren’t I?). When? This might help. The date is today in Seoul, i.e. Saturday 8 March 2008. The time:

Now lets see if I can embed the Ustream player and chat:

Okay, so far, that was easy. Go to the linked Ustream page above if it doesn’t work when the time comes. It should, though.And here’s the invitation, if Scrib’d works on this pdf I made with Apple Pages (so easy!):

Read this doc on Scribd: Wedding Program final

Time for bed now.

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