Beyond School

Scott McLeod from Dangerously Irrelevant tagged me with this interesting meme, so here are the rules, followed by the last five educational podcasts I listened to and/or watched:

Meme guidelines

1. Choose five of your favorite education podcasts. Any kind of education podcast is okay – students, teachers, administrators, professors, etc. – feel free to pick ones that you’ve made yourself! Try and pick specific podcasts, not podcast feeds.
2. Tag others for the meme. Feel free to participate even if you haven’t been ‘tagged.’
3. Please use a Technorati tag of educationpodcast or podcasteducation.
4. Please add your selections to the Moving Forward podcasts wiki page (and create categories as needed) so that others can benefit too!

My Last Five Podcasts or Videopodcasts:
1. David Warlick’s K12 Online Preconference Keynote, 2007: More on that in a later post, as a follow-up to this immediate take-aways post (just a k12 chatroom copy-paste) from a few days ago. You can also read the conversation about the keynote in the comments to the K12 page linked above.

2. David Warlick’s K12 Online Keynote, 2006: I loved watching last year’s keynote right before watching this year’s. I’m so new to the edublogosphere (only 10 months old), I didn’t know about last year’s event. Doesn’t matter: I went back in time 12 months and caught myself up on the K12 website.

3. Jessica Yun’s “audiobook” of “Roots,” her published 1001 Flat World Tales story: (from last year’s first edition – more to come from new schools and writers at the end of this school year, and every school year following). Jessica was 15 when she wrote this story, and podcasted it. She tells her stories as well as she writes them. Watch out for this one – she’s got a future as a writer, if she wants it. (And check out her blog, and tell her to get back to writing. Actually, she won’t have a choice: we’re launching our re-tooled schoolwide student blogging program in two weeks.)

4. Wesley Fryer interviewing Scott McLeod: Podcast 151: Dr. Scott McLeod on Administrator Idea-Sharing on Blogs, [etc], and Educating Others for the Transition to 21st Century Schools: on school 2.0 and school administrators 1.0: I sent this one to my admin. Wonder if they listened to it. Interesting on many levels, from Scott’s perspective on ivory tower educator-leaders’ oblivion and/or resistance to the edublogosphere’s vibrant and up-to-date discourse, to Scott’s own thoughts about the growing – but by no means new – irrelevance and inconsequentiality of much peer-reviewed academic publishing. (Lucky you, Scott: I’m not making this up. A free plug )

5. Robert Green Ingersoll: “Improved Man”: (Ingersoll podcasts channel on iTunes): Ingersoll was a late 19th century secular humanist – a better word than that strange “atheist” word (am I also an “a-horoscopist”?) who wrote powerfully and elegantly about all the ways in which religion is most often a tragically misguided attempt to “be and do good.” It’s frustrating to think that America and much of the rest of the world have only gone backwards in their heroic “March into the Middle Ages” since Ingersoll wrote his passionate, erudite, and “radically sane” critiques and visions a century and a quarter ago. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Friedrich Nietzsche readers really should subscribe to these podcasts. My favorite educational quote from Ingersoll:

“Schools should be today’s churches, and teachers, today’s preachers.”

He wrote this around 1890, and today I’m watching America’s Intelligent Design proponents attempting to expand their virulent attacks on science and reason around the globe – including here in Korean international schools. So I can’t say I’m hopeful about the future of reason in education. It seems America – the majority of its people and its disastrous political leadership – is intent on praying for an end to Global Warming (or indifferent to it, since heaven is the real world anyway), while at the same time continuing to ignore or attack science – and good, hardworking, life-saving, true miracle-working scientists.

It’s not easy, and certainly not fun, risking alienating my religious readers out there. But a commitment to science, enlightenment, education, and the fate of our planet make me feel it’s a duty. As a former Baptist and lifelong student of religious texts and religious history (see my LibraryThing widget in sidebar), I feel more qualified than most to confidently take on that duty. I’m just trying to do good by my own lights, not tradition’s.

More on Ingersoll from James Carr’s Ingersoll Podcasts page on Podcast Directory – a magnificent resource, with dozens of Ingersoll’s works, which Carr delivers with sterling quality:

Robert Green Ingersoll was an eloquent spokesman for free thinking, reason, and science in 19th century America. His intelligence, logic, humor, and clear thinking still speaks to us today. This podcast will include readings from his speeches and writings. Robert Ingersoll has an important place in American history, although, due to the weakness and politicization of our educational system, most of us have never heard of him. [emphasis added]

I tag (and apologize to, if inopportune):

Darren Kuropatwa (nice to talk to Darren for the first time in Warlick’s Fireside Chat)
Stephen Downes
Wesley Fryer
Will Richardson
Kim Cofino
Vicki Davis
Clarence Fisher
Doug Noon
Graham Wegner

Scott, this meme is a good idea. I’ll be checking out that wiki for human-filtered podcasts by the minds I admire the most. Thanks for the opportunity.

Technorati Tags: educationpodcast, podcasteducation, k12online, k12online07

We expect my presentation to start around 7.30 p.m. That would make it:

• Thursday 11 a.m. in London
• Thursday 12.30 a.m. (ouch) in Hawaii (sorry, Chris! I owe you! Or you can send me a YackPack voice message?)
• Thursday 4.30 a.m. (carrumba) in Denver (Karl, how about a YackPack message?)
• Thursday 5.30 p.m. in Bangkok
• Thursday 8.30 p.m. in NSW, Australia
• Thursday 6.30 a.m. in New Jersey
• Hey Vivek in India – you game?

The actual Skype talk itself would probably come about 15 minutes later, but I’ll give you a heads-up call at the times above. Please confirm I got your times right?

Patrick Higgins Shows the Love (Nice poster skills!)

So I’m hanging out with Mac last night, late, in Korea, doing homework for my (sorry) pretty uninspiring UCLA online workshop, and then Mac said: Brrrrriiing.

It was Patrick Higgins (of the excellent Chalkdust) in New Jersey, on Skype. He was giving the second day of his workshop to interested teachers in his school, and had invited Konrad Glogowski (Canada grade 8 teacher and writer of his Blog of Proximal Develpment), Carolyn Foote (librarian in Texas and writer of her Not So Distant Future blog) and, apparently desperate for a third guest, this writer of the B.S. blog in Korea.

(I thought it was going to be a video, so I put on a shirt for the occasion. It wasn’t, though. All that energy – standing up, buttoning down – wasted….)

Because we all read each other regularly, we all knew each others’ minds somewhat, though we’d never heard each others’ voices. It was nice to connect this way, in real time.

Patrick set it up nicely. His faculty had questions, and we all gave our two cents.

The subjects? Classroom blogging and edublogs as professional development.

It was strange, fun, and stimulating. As Konrad said, we three guests were really learning alongside the teachers in Patrick’s space. And, oh yeah – it was free. I wish I could say the same for that USD $500 UCLA workshop, but can’t, honestly.

(Check out Patrick’s prof dev wikis – Connective Writing and New Teacher Geek Day – worth a look. Especially for the goofy photos!)

Here it is (and thanks for a good time, Patrick. It’s an excellent way to connect teachers in workshops instead of talking at them about connecting):

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Ben Wilkoff Podcast: “The Most Change for the Most Kids” Annotated

• Ben’s dealing with the same conflict I am: He’s leaving the classroom to become a Tech Integration Specialist in his district next year. He articulates the hardship of that decision in much the same terms I was planning to write about.

  I at least have the consolation of “keeping” two AP Lit sections for the year, and a writing workshop for the second semester. Maybe I’ll be able to implement some of the things there that I’ve been talking about here. Implement. Do. I hope so, because I don’t expect much success in trying to get other adults to do them instead (and shouldn’t expect that).

  Anyway, it’s 10 minutes worth listening to. Ben’s asking for input on how he can still reach the young people without being a teacher, or needing to rely on other teachers – very resonant for me – so I hope some of you will give him suggestions there.

  Because it’s a good question. When we leave the classroom, how do we ensure we’ll make more of a difference? A difference not to other web 2.0 infatuated adults, not to Ning networks, not to NECC conferences, not to the edublogosphere, but a difference in the lives of the next generation?
  – post by cburell

[Series: Preface: The Seed--an Idea; Part 1: The Bud--a Concept; Part 2: The Blossom--a Project; Part 3: The Pollen--a Call; Part 4: The Honey--a Pedagogy; Part 5: The Bees--a Community]

Big ideas start small, and will grow unless you quit. And we’re not going to quit. To do so in the Web 2.0 Age (and the Age of Global Warming) would be too blind. It’s all too possible with the tools we have now.

My guest on this podcast: Suzie Boss, a founding director of the Learning Innovation and Technology Consortium, a nonprofit organization that promotes sustainable community change.

Ms. Boss is also the co-author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age (to be published by ISTE, November 2007).

The topic? Our “real-world project for the digital age”: a global “Concerts for Global Cooling 2008″ Earth Day campaign, organized, promoted, and executed by students around the world–and web-hosted with the best student rock bands all on the same website for “streaming concerts,” and student-produced digital works explaining global warming’s causes, challenges, and solutions. (Yes, I’m now totally willing to use “Live Earth” as a model. You should check out its website — and students should learn values, both human and digital, from it by imitation.)

The podcast is a 15-minute enhanced m4a file with “chapters” for easy navigation, images, and links to all the ideas and resources we discuss. These features only work if you download it to iTunes, and select “View > Artwork”. The images are shoddy, I admit, but I mainly did this at all to model enhanced podcasting for the students involved in this project, since they’ll all have MacBooks when we go 1:1 next fall. I want them to see some possibilities.

Many thanks to Ms. Boss for her permission to podcast this excerpt of our conversation. And read the subtitle of her forthcoming book again. Love it.

Click here to get your own player.

On Sunday, 11 March 2007 (oh wait–that’s Korea time. It was Saturday in Hawaii), Chris Watson was nice enough to invite three of his students in Hawaii to join us in a Skype conference call/podcast. And Lindsay, Eddie, and Blake were nice enough to accept.

His two sophomores and one freshman did most of the talking, and Chris and I listened. What they had to say (and the relaxed, intelligent way they said it) was, I hope you’ll agree, worth the listen. The talk was long and wide-ranging, but focused mainly on their experience of writing on blogs and wikis in the Language Arts classroom.

I have to add this: class discussions inside classroom walls–and tyrannized by classroom “factory bells”–don’t hold a candle to what we did on Skype. There was no clock-watching, no hierarchy, no policing. We were just five people talking about writing and learning in this new world.

It was enough to make me consider getting a Ph.D. in administration–something I’ve never been interested in–simply to have the credentials to find funding to create a school without bells and factory rules, and with more conversations like this.

The podcast, if downloaded to iTunes, is extended with a time-stamped Table of Contents. For your convenience (I know I never have time to listen to hour-long podcasts), I’ve copied it below the podcast player.

Click here to get your own player.

00:00:00.000 Intro
00:01:31.000 Opening Questions on Student Blogging
00:02:31.484 Lindsay on Student Blogging
00:03:16.326 Chris’ approach (Lindsay) and privacy
00:04:49.000 Frequency Eddie
00:05:27.333 Content Eddie and Lindsay EssenQs
00:06:25.000 Pitfalls: Rambling diaries
00:06:42.000 Reading other sts blogs
00:07:42.250 Lindsay: Reading Adult blogs for inspiration
00:09:47.375 Blake joins: reading blog habits
00:11:57.000 Lindsay’s blog recommendations
00:12:26.250 Assigned to read/comment on others?
00:13:37.625 The Art of the Title
00:14:46.625 edit and revise, or just post?
00:19:34.875 Finding ideas
00:20:42.375 On sts who DON’T like blogging
00:26:35.625 Will you keep it after class is over?
00:26:59.875 Blake on 1001: Don’t want it to end
00:27:52.375 Permissions and School restrictions
00:31:12.750 My school’s “fresh start”: anagrams and anonymity change writing?
00:34:49.375 On MySpace writing v. blogging
00:38:38.139 Does Blogging Feel like Homework?
00:42:20.526 How Teachers Can Ruin Blogging
00:44:37.838 Blogging Across the Curriculum
00:47:15.750 Students on Best Assessing
00:52:39.500 Flat World Time Management
00:54:01.969

Tomorrow (Sunday) morning, some of my students want to give their views on how blogging feels for them so far. They’ve been blogging for three or four months now.

I know I’ve been less than perfect in trying to set up blogging to make it seem real and valuable for them. So I look forward to hearing them sound off–and sharing it with you on a podcast.

[Cross-posted from 1001 Reflections]

Terry Smith of Hannibal, Missouri, USA, Jeff Dungan of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and I (in Seoul, Rep. of Korea), have a “virtual faculty meeting” to plan the first elementary school writing workshop for the 1001 Flat World Tales Project.

It was the most efficient team meeting I think I’ve ever had. Length: 20 minutes.

(Download to iTunes to see extended podcast Chapter Markings.)

Click here to get your own player.

[Cross-posted from 1001 Reflections blog.]

Chris Watson, HS English teacher at Punahoe High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, and Clay Burell of Korea International School in Seoul, Rep. of Korea, discuss the following topics in relation to their cross-world classroom collaboration on the 1001 Flat World Tales wiki world-wide writing workshop:

• Student publishing process
• Effective student blogging
• Diigo
• “This I Believe” podcast project
• Informal Prof Devt through Skype
• Using Library Thing for English classes

1001teachers: Chris Watson, part 2: Language Arts and the Read-Write Web

Click here to get your own player.