Academic Aesthetic #179: On 4th Grade and Conversations

Show notes:

• Download .mp3
• Edmodo.com
• Wordle.net
• Episode transcript (Posted to my Tumblr account)

Academic Aesthetic #178: Problems and Solutions

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This is an episode about problems and solutions as I look ahead to next year's curriculum.

Problem

9 week curriculum needs revising.  This is a course that can be repeated every year.  Even if I didn't need to change the lessons to keep it interesting to ME, I would still need to change the lessons to keep it interesting to my students.

Solution

Change the "plot" of most projects.  Instead of building a tree using 3D Tin, build a flower (or something else)!  Projects too simple for a "plot" change can be retired, replaced by new assignments.

Problem

Major curriculum needs a large overhaul.  There were many projects that worked well, but others that did not.  Some were based on specific time-sensitive events, like our school's Fall Drama production.  In addition, the majority of the class (I have 7 students moving on to High School) will be in the course next year.  This can't just be a repeat, I need a full year's worth of new projects.

Solution

Don't reset points, levels, or projects completed.  Incoming majors will still be Level 1.  Returning majors (7th and 8th grade) will be whatever level they were in June. This will require more levels to be added (Current cap is Level 5) with more complex assignments to accommodate returning students.  Current thought is to include assignments that involve more than one media file.  Instead of "Record an .mp3" they may have to "Create a podcast series with no fewer than 5 episodes."

Problem

Film Festival projects are cutting it close - very close - to our deadline.  With 5 weeks to go many students still have not finished their scripts.

Solution

Spread Film Festival projects out through the entire year.  Script/Storyboard due Q1, Final Movie due Q3, Trailer due Q4, and a new "Making of..." project due Q2.  These projects will reside OUTSIDE of the Levels format existing for the other projects, and can be handed in regardless of the level of the student.

Problem

5th Grade curriculum relates to the 9 week curriculum much more than it does to the Major curriculum.  Incoming Majors have experience with technology but there is much room for improvement.

Solution

Redo 5th grade curriculum to follow gaming model.  Move some "retired" 9 week lessons to 5th grade to give them a feel for the program, then simplify some Major lessons and introduce them has higher level 5th grade projects.

Problem

Site design could use an overhaul.  (This seems to change every year.)  I used MediaWiki for Middle School's class sites because I wanted to teach myself how to use MediaWiki.  Now that the challenge is gone I am seeing MediaWiki's shortcomings.  My options are to install plugins to give MediaWiki the functionality that it lacks OR to move on to something else.

Solution ... ?

Hand coding, Google Sites, WordPress, Drupal, Wikispaces, Tumblr, ... something else?  I am still looking into all of my options.

Problem

Many of my tutorials must be redone.  Some are no longer relevant as better techniques have been developed, others need to redone now that websites and or apps have been upgraded.

Solution

Nothing to it but to do it.  The kinks for this have already been worked out, the rest is just time management.

Problem

Technology can be lacking.  We have more cameras this year than any previous year, yet I do not have enough cameras to provide one to each student.  Many students do not have technology at home needed to complete assignments.  This has been partially solved by creating "low tech" projects that relate to technology but don't require it for an A.  More can and should be done.

Solution

Donors Choose for cameras?  Create a "recommended purchases" page on the class site?  (I cannot "require" anything more than a flash drive, but I can "recommend" anything.)  Provide weekly lab time after school to any students that wish to work on something.

Reaching A High Score Presentation

Last year I rewrote my curriculum to make it into a game, and doing so helped my students master the content.  This is my presentation on what I did, as given at this year's Powering Up With Technology Conference.

PUWT Conference

Presentation (Hosted on Google Docs)

Class page

Apologies for the poor audio quality, I was projecting (using my "teacher voice") to the participants and that tended to overwhelm my mic every time I was next to the computer.

Academic Aesthetic 177: 404 VOICE NOT FOUND

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This episode of Academic Aesthetic is brought to you by antibiotics and  cough drops.  You see, early last week a combination of lots of talking (occupational hazard of teaching), and post nasal drip caused by a sinus infection made me lose my voice.  It's better now, but can only talk so long before my agonized squeaks become a source of amusement for all around me.

So submitted for your approval is an interview of me done by Dr. Kavita Mittapalli, someone whose name I most likely just mispronounced horribly so I won't try to say it again.

The good Doctor visited one of my 1st grade classes last week, before the whole AWOL voice incident, and recorded a conversation with me afterwards.  I rambled on, and then made the bad decision of requesting a copy of the interview.

And I still haven't learned, as I'm now making another bad decision and playing it for you.  Enjoy.

Academic Aesthetic 176: Games in Education Part 3

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So where was I?

Oh yeah, games in education.  I started in Episode 174 by giving a background of what I'd done up to that point, which I suppose means that's not when I started at all, but that's the post I named "Part 1" so I'm just going to leave it at that.

In Episode 175 I discussed my current thoughts about turning my own Middle School curriculum into a game, including several problems and solutions I'd encountered.  Some problems had multiple possible solutions, and I'm not quite sure which ones I'll pick when I'm done.

Now we're up to the errata, the extra things, the little details that help the big picture idea without making or breaking it.  Also, keep in mind the disclaimer I offered in Part 2: All of this is not yet implemented and is subject to change based on whims as well as school policies.  If my principal glares at me and says "Mr. Smith, stop being an idiot," I've no choice but to salute and about face.

(FYI: My wording here is for effect.  My principal might tell me "No," but she would word it in a much nicer way than I did.)

Quest Types

When adopting a game-themed teaching strategy, assignments become known as quests.  My students who have played any RPGs (A.K.A. Role Playing Games, such as Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc.) will already be familiar with the terminology, and those who have not will still hopefully be able to make the adjustment.

Projects = Standard Quests

The word "standard" is used here only to differentiate these from other quests.  Students select these, attempt them, and if they fail they can try again.  When they succeed they get the points attributed to the quest and move on to their next chosen quest.  Students cannot get credit for completing the same Standard Quest twice, though they can attempt to redo a failed quest as many times as is necessary.  The only thing they miss out on is time.

Homework and Warm-Ups = Daily Quests

Some RPGs have a quest type known as a "Daily Quest."  This quest is repeatable - you guessed it - once per day.  Rather than have the students copy/paste their work from previous days, these quests would be worded so that the work done would vary each time.  Sample quests could include "Write down two things you learned in class today," "Listen to this audio file and write down what you think is the main idea," and "Leave a comment on Mr. Smith's blog where you ask one question about your current project."

The quest text could be the same each day or be selected from a pool of quests, but the point is these quests are meant to be repeatable with different results each time.

Oh, and like Standard Quests, these can be repeated if failed.  They just can't be successfully done more than once per day.

Quizzes and Tests = Boss Battles

In the "real world," so to speak, a boss is an employer - someone who tells you what to do and (hopefully) pays you for it.  In most video games, a boss isn't your employer.  Instead, they're bigger, nastier enemies for you to take down.  This is compensated by earning better than normal loot and XP (experience points, remember) when you win.  My quizzes and tests fit well into this category.  Quizzes and tests as a whole are worth only a small percentage of my students' final grade, but as I give far more projects than quizzes each assessment becomes worth more individually than any single project.

As with the quests, these boss battles should be repeatable.  If a student takes a test 20 times to pass, but then passes, then they're showing they've learned the content being covered.  Getting it right the first time becomes less important than getting it right eventually.

Content Management Software

A component that has been part of my course since my first day on the job has been the submission of work online.  I just don't see the need to require an assignment to be created on a computer, then be transferred to a dead tree, then have its grade placed back on a computer.  That middle step seems pointless and, considering the days where my wife's health issues have kept me out of the building, a major road block at times.

I've tried multiple solutions for online assessment, including Drupal, Status.net, WordPress (the self-hosted version), and Edmodo.  I've been quite happy with WordPress, as it solved several problems I had last year with Edmodo (I'll get into those in a little bit), is simpler to use than Drupal, and doesn't allow the students to send private messages to each other like Status.net.  Unfortunately WordPress lacks an addon that will manage points the way I want to manage them.

Fortunately, Edmodo does that part perfectly.  Using my old grading system I chafed at the way Edmodo totaled up points when I graded assignments, but their method of counting up all the points equally will fit right in with the new standard for my class.

A previous issue I had with Edmodo, where students submitted the wrong file for a project and had to wait for me to delete their submission so they could try again, has been resolved.  Students can resubmit a project as many times as they want until I grade it.  As I won't grade them until they've completed the quest, this works out very well.

My only misgiving with Edmodo at this point involves student profiles.  They have the ability to change their profiles, including their avatars to whatever they want.  This could give rise to issues ranging from inappropriate imagery to students changing their names to attempt some form of anonymity while they harass someone.  I've dealt with one student this year already who thought nothing of insulting other students online, and that was on a site that afforded me a lot more control over student accounts than Edmodo ever did.

That issue makes me think of proceeding with caution, but unless I find a better, more controlled solution, we'll be using Edmodo when I start using my Game strategy.  After all, I can always set an offending account to "read-only" until the issue that made me take action is resolved.

Classes

In most RPGs, players are able to select different classes, or archetypes for their characters.  Common class examples in existing RPGs are warriors, mages, rangers, hunters, rogues, priests, paladins, and so on.  While I'm not planning on implementing this idea right away, I'm toying with eventually allowing my students to pick a class while  ... um ... taking my class.  Since I teach at a Creative & Performing Arts Academy, classes can align with the majors that are available.

Students could choose to be bards (for the music-themed or drama majors), artificers (visual arts), performers (drama or dance), or go with the catch-all technologists.  Each class could have specific requirements (Mandatory quests? Specific boss battles?) and / or perks (Bonus points when completing quests that align with their class?).

Naturally something this complicated will take a lot of planning to use in an effective manner, so I'm starting to think about it now, long before I intend to try it out.  With luck I'll be able to work out the details over the summer and have students selecting classes when they take my course next year.

Well this concludes my brain-dump for now.  Rest assured there will be a Part 4, but don't expect it right away.  I'll write that one out when I have enough new content to make it worthwhile.

Academic Aesthetic 175: Games in Education Part 2

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(Music for today's show provided by Bre Pettis.)

Yesterday's post was not meant to be as long as it was. My initial goal was the content of today's post, but as I sat down to write it I thought I'd start with an overview of where I was coming from.

Apparently a 2 paragraph introduction can be stretched into a 7 minute podcast.

In any case, as I wrapped up my "story so far" it was painfully obvious that I'd crossed the fine line between not enough information and too much detail. I saw a good stopping point and hit "Publish."

Which brings us to today.

I've had people say wonderful things about my classes, but what I mainly see is room for improvement. If 90% of my kids are on task. that means a full 10% of them are distracted somehow. I need a hook to reel in that 10%, 5%, 50%, or whatever percentage that isn't learning in my room.

And so we look at video games.

Keep in mind that this is a "behind the scenes" view of my thinking process. Nothing here has been implemented by me yet. I may think of something better. I may find out that there's a policy preventing one facet or another. This post is a snapshot of my thoughts as of right now.

What do games have that my curriculum is lacking?

The most engaging games are ones that have some elements that are simple enough to pull you in, but others that are challenging enough to build you up.

The most engaging games have levels of progression. These levels can be different zones, game maps, scenarios, or character power. Angry Birds and World of Warcraft are not that different when you dig down deep enough.

The most engaging games forgive failure. You can play a level over again, or fight that boss battle one more time. This is very different from the current academic strategy of allowing a student only one opportunity to pass a quiz.

Make the class a game.

Something I'd heard of last year was the idea of using a points system instead of traditional grades. Students earned points (called XP, short for Experience Points) by completing various tasks and assignments, and earning certain numbers of points allowed students to "level up." One story about a college professor was republished a lot, but with little information on how it was specifically implemented.

The WoW in School teachers implemented a system with 2,000 XP per level, so a student with 0 XP would be level 1, at 2,000 XP they would earn level 2, 4,000 would get them to level 3, 6,000 for level 4, and so on, then assigned grades at the end based on levels reached. Assignments all had point values - Journals = 250, Forums = 250, Projects 500+, and so on.

What's the incentive?

1. Competition: Some students will want to show they're "better" by maintaining the highest score.


2. Clear Progression: If a student gets an A on their first project, they have nowhere to go but down. Maintaining a grade is not as exciting as building one from the ground up.


3. Choose Your Own Adventure: Linear lessons are all well and good, but different students have different interests. When I'm playing Warcraft I can often pick and choose which quests I want to work on. Why not let students pick between different projects that address the same objectives?


4. Level Perks: "Congratulations, you reached Level X! You've earned a homework pass!" "… You've earned the ability to listen to YouTube while you work!" "… You've earned the title 'Master Technologist!'" "You've unlocked an extra credit project!"

Not every one of these incentives will work with every student, but not every facet of Warcraft appeals to every player. The goal is to have enough varied incentives to appeal to a wide demographic.

Align the new standard with the old requirements.

And so we get to the tricky part. My employer uses online grading software that has very specific requirements in place to force teachers to stay on task with their grading. I'm not about to complain about this software, as I think having something that allows students and parents to stay on top of student progress throughout the school year in addition to Progress Reports and Report Cards is a fantastic idea.

It does, however, present a challenge. How do I make an XP grading system compatible with an A B C D F grading system?

One grade per week.

Teachers in my county are required to enter one or two grades per week based on how often they see their students. As my school is on an A Day / B Day schedule, I fit under the one per week category. The grade can be anything: homework, quiz, test, project, warm-up, etc., and I can always put in more than one grade per week, but I need that minimum.

The solution I came up with was to stop naming my Projects in the grading software. Instead, they'll be "Week 1 Project," Week 2 Project," and so on. I'll still require students to complete at least one project per week, but which they pick first will be up to them. When I grade the work, I'll list the name of the actual project in the comment section in the grading software.

What's an A?

The WoW in School teachers have said the most push back they got was from parents who still wanted to measure student progress by traditional letter grades. Saying "Well your daughter's a Level 5 Technologist" can get looks of confusion compared to "She has a B."

One solution to this is to assign grades based on levels. Let's say for example that the maximum level possible from doing all the work is 20. I could say that all students that are level 18, 19, or 20 have an A. All students that are level 16 and 17 have a B, and so on.

The second option, and perhaps the one involving the least amount of work, would be to just let the grading software figure it out. Let the students pick their quests (projects), if they complete them they get the points. I hesitate to use this system as my limited math skills tell me that everyone who participates will simply get an A regardless of the effort put forth.

Another possibility is to let the students reach whatever level they can to determine the maximum level possible (less math for me), then have the top 10% have an A, the next 10% down have a B, and so on. Everyone will still have the chance to earn an A if they all get within that top 10%. The down side will be that it's grading on a curve, and in the past I've disliked any grading system where one enterprising student could "wreck the curve" by outperforming the rest of the class. To prevent that from happening I'd have to include some form of weekly XP cap to prevent someone from hitting level 300 in the first week and therefore demotivate the rest of the class.

Well once again I've reached the point where my own eyes are beginning to glaze over and my ADD is kicking in. I'll include the rest of my thoughts in Part 3.

Academic Aesthetic 174: Games in Educaton Part 1

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Introduction and Reasoning
Those who have read my blog or listened to my podcast for any length of time are no doubt aware that I'm a fan of using games as a conduit for learning.

I'm not talking about the "Educational Games" market, that will certainly dominate a large part of the Vendor area at this year's MSET (I'm presenting again, yay!), though some of those are good too.  No, I'm talking about the games that kids (and adults)  choose to play because of compelling content.

Don't think those games have educational value?  Well I didn't think art would help me with my math skills either, but I've learned and retained more about measurement, geometry, fractions, and graphing from my years as a visual artist than I ever did in a traditional math classroom.  True, the information wasn't crammed into me the same way in my art classes as it was in my math classes, but I think that was part of the problem.

An engaged student (of any age) is a learning student.  Once that hook is in deep, it's the teacher's job to facilitate the learning.  How the student gets engaged is the tricky part, but fortunately game companies have been working for years on churning out all kinds of games that people love to play.  Why? Because failure there leads to bankruptcy unless you're making educational games and can convince people to buy your products anyway "because it's educational."

(Please note that is not a jab at all educational games.  I have seen many good ones and use some of them in my classes, but I've seen enough bad ones to be somewhat spiteful that those products have neither improved or gone away.)

So ... games as a conduit for learning.

This is not an original idea of mine.  There's some really cool people who are thinking the same thing.  The problem, however, is that it's a new idea, and the realm of education is a slow, lumbering beast that learns new skills slowly.  Many textbooks still say Pluto is a planet and that Bush is still President of the United States.

I'm not the first to think of using games more in my classes, but my work isn't even cut out for me.  It's time to grab my scissors.

Early experiments:

I started off three years ago in my last position by introducing select students to Sploder.com.  Their age and other factors had us only use the free demo that did not allow for the work to be saved, but the results were promising.  My students did not just design easy games or hard games, but instead set out to create a game that was just challenging enough to be fun.  When they tested their games they evaluated the difficulty levels of their creations based on their own abilities, and added or removed monsters, power-ups, allies, and so on to make the game better from their own viewpoint.

Sure, some started off making a level they could win instantly, but they found that just wasn't fun after the first couple of plays.  They weren't engaged until there was a challenge.

WoW In School

I sort of hovered around the "Sploder" level of expertise until late last school year when I learned about the World of Warcraft in School Program.  Here were teachers using a commercially popular game to engage their kids and use it to teach mathematics, language arts (They're reading The Hobbit as a parallel assignment to in-game tasks), and internet safety.

I won't go so far as to say that Warcraft is the best choice for every classroom, or even one classroom per school, but the gains they've made in their program are noticeable and the comments from their detractors have clear and measured responses.  (Example: Those against WoW in school because of the violent nature of the game have never seen a football player in high school require multiple surgeries on his knees after several in-game accidents.)

Be that as it may, I'm not quite ready to push for a Warcraft themed curriculum in my building.  This is more from my wallflower-ish nature (and some legitimate budgeting concerns) than any argument I've seen against the program.

Minecraft

I first learned about Minecraft several months ago when a few videos made using the game went viral, but did not try the game for myself until one of my students started talking about it in class.  I waited until the weekend, tried the free version, and within two hours had paid for the full version.  On Monday I yelled at the student for getting me hooked on another video game.

He laughed.

So cruel.

I even made an effort to include Minecraft in some of my lessons, as I showed in a recent podcast.  They were fledgling attempts to find out what would work, but the results were promising.

Now I've expanded my lessons around the game to include creating a "skin" for a Minecraft avatar and using other web based 3D editors to plan out what they intend to create in the game.

The Next Level: Make the Class a Game

This is my latest endeavor.  I'll talk about this in Games in Education Part 2.

Academic Aesthetic 172: Minecraft Lesson Video

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This is  a brief overview of Minecraft Classic (minecraft.net), how I related it to my curriculum, and some student examples.

Apologies for the size of the download (Nearly 50 MB, ouch!), but I unfortunately couldn't make it smaller without losing a lot of the quality.  Video is like that.

Academic Aesthetic 171: STEP Team Groupcast with Mr. Feagans

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Before our break officially started Mr. Feagans and I got together to talk about what we've been doing with podcasting this year and what we intend to do with it after Winter Break.

Academic Aesthetic 169

Moving right along.  In today's 'cast, I ramble on about:

• My county's Sharing Technology with Educators Program, or S.T.E.P.


• My new favorite Android App (still), AndRecorder, which I keep calling "AndRecord" because long names are abbreviated below my little phone icons.


• Gimp.org, because it's free and awesome.


• SumoPaint.com, because it as well is free and awesome.


• Frames, because while it is not free, it is still awesome.


• A rant against looking for things because they "work in the classroom."  That's great if we're preparing our students for spending the rest of their lives in our classrooms, but there's that "real world" thing going on outside.  Getting something to work in the classroom is good and necessary, but we should be finding and using things that will work outside of our classrooms as well as in them.

Academic Aesthetic 168: Quarter End Reflections

Today I teach my last classes of the Quarter, so as I reflect on the first 9 weeks I've asked my students to do the same.

Next quarter will be different.  Why? Because it has to be.

Oh, and the programming language I couldn't remember? Scratch.

Academic Aesthetic 167: It's ALIIIVE!

It's about time I started publishing these again.

Show Notes:

• Today is Day 3 with no intranet in my computer lab.  More like this and I'll start showing withdrawal symptoms.


• Replacement Technology = switching pencils for pens, but having students write the same things.


• Disruptive Technology = throwing out the pencils and pens to do something that pencils & pens would not help with at all.


• Even with only replacement technology in your lessons, you can be very dependent on technology.


• Always have a Plan B.

How 2.0: Building a PLN, Part 2/4

Due to popular demand (2 people asked), here's part 2 of my 4 part series on PLNs.  As before, I've cross-posted it to two locations:

Discovery Educator Network's Maryland Blog

Teachers 2.0

Audio and text only this time, sorry - I've been swamped.

How 2(.0): Personal Learning Networks, 1/4

It occurs to me that I posted this here and here, but totally neglected to put it on my own site.  Oh well.

If you haven't seen my latest creation yet, here it is.  I'm hoping to record part 2 (or more, time permitting) this weekend.

Academic Aesthetic 166: Audio vs Video

Warning: The following podcast contains words which, when placed in a particular order, can be used to convey ideas.  People who are set in their ways should listen at their own discretion.

So this weekend I actually got caught up on my audio podcasts.  This was no small achievement, as I had several gigabytes of downloaded but unplayed podcasts on my hard drive before I went to the DEN National Institute, and while there I didn't really listen to any of them until after I got back home.

That being said, I still have 43 video podcasts waiting for me to watch them.  There was a time when video podcasting was unheard of, due to a combination of bandwidth, storage, and equipment costs.  Times have changed since then, and while audio podcasts still outnumber their video cousins, there seem to be a lot more .mp4 files showing up in my podcatcher these days.

Unfortunately for me, my method of experiencing these podcasts hasn't changed much at all.  I mostly play them when I'm in the car, playing video games, doing dishes, researching art lessons, folding laundry, and playing video games - you know, activities where my eyes are required to be actively engaged in something other than watching video.  It's this ability to multi-task that drew me in part to podcasting in the first place.

But with video - good video - your attention is demanded.  You might still be able to multi-task, but as you can't look at two things as well as one you'll always be missing something.

And that's my inspiration for this episode - a comparison of the pros and cons of video and audio formats.

Cost

Audio podcasts have a much lower entry cost, both for creating them and carrying them on portable devices.  I can spend $50 or less and get a half decent mp3 player, but it won't do video at that price.  Add to that the fact that all I need is a phone to record an episode and I don't even need a computer with a working microphone to get started.

Video podcasts have gotten cheaper over the years (due in no small part to the iPod's video capabilities and competitors' desire to give more value for a lower price), with portable video players selling for $100 or less.  Recording equipment is coming down in price too, with decent digital video cameras selling for $200 or less.  Digital still cameras are actually able to record half decent video nowadays,  and let's face it, lots of laptops have built in cameras so you might not even have to buy anything new at all.

Work Load

Audio is, in my opinion, easier to edit than video.  A lot easier.  I can very easily remove hums, haws, ers, ums, yawns, and so on without the listener ever knowing those things were in there, provided there are no visual cues.  When I cut something out of video using the same process, you notice.  Yes, there are ways to cover these things up, but they're not as simple to do as the tried and true "select, delete, and move on" method of editing audio.

Of course I suppose you could always go with the "I don't edit my podcasts" method that some people have adopted, but I'm not willing to go there ... yet.

Multi-Tasking

I've already covered this a little bit.  When recording or listening to audio, it's very easy to be doing something else at the same time.  With video this is only possible if you don't care much for at least one of the things that's demanding your attention, and I for one don't want to put the extra work into a video podcast if no one's going to watch it.

Wow, I'm really hammering the video format in this episode, aren't I?  With all of these drawbacks, is there any reason to choose video over audio?  You bet there is!

Multiple Learning Styles

Using an audio only format appeals the most to people who learn that way, but some of us (myself included) are visual thinkers.  We can still digest information by hearing it, but it's so much easier if you show us as well.

And by "show," I mean it.  Talking heads add very little to a presentation, but you can still insert slides from a PowerPoint, images of examples, and the like to keep your viewer's interests.  It's true that many of the video podcasts I've made myself had that very problem (even if the times I waxed theatric helped a little bit), but I eventually came to realize that my audience wasn't getting much more out of it through the video I was including.

That's why I'm back to audio only for the most part, saving video for special occasions.  I think the only reason I got away with what I was doing was because video podcasts were still somewhat new at the time, and the "wow, this is new!" factor gave me a bit of an edge.

The problem is, newness doesn't last.

Now there are people out there that are doing it right.  If you ever get a chance to see one of Lawrence Lessig's presentations you'll see what I mean.  They're simple, true, but every slide reinforces the message he's trying to convey.

A recent presentation on the culture of YouTube (found via Will Richardson) would make another excellent, if a bit long, video podcast.  There's a lot of talking heads in it, but the scenes are varied, mixed with images and video from a variety of sources, and even the inserted still images move across the screen in a way to support his message.

Academic Aesthetic 165: Twitter vs Plurk

Warning: If you're sick of hearing about micro-blogs like Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and Plurk, today's podcast might not be for you.

Those of you who've been listening for a while (at least since show 128) may recall how enthusiastic I was over a website called Twitter.  I found micro-blogging to be incredibly addictive in spite of its 140 character limit because the conversations were worthwhile.  I quickly established a PLN (or Personal Learning Network) of fellow educators and thoroughly enjoyed the learning (and joking around) that ensued.

Then Jaiku came along, and I hoped with all my heart that the people in my PLN would all jump ship and move over to there.  Alas, while some did, most didn't bother, so I eventually abandoned Jaiku and reluctantly returned to Twitter.

Fast forward to the creation of Pownce, and history repeats itself.

I loved Pownce for many reasons, most of which I won't go over here.  It's coolest feature however was the ability to have threaded conversations.  Reading through the posts of everyone I'm following on Twitter is like standing in the middle of a crowded room.  You hear snippets, but not always a complete conversation.

Ok, usually not.  The problem was while I would often see people responding to other Twitter-ers, I wouldn't see what was being responded to unless I was also following that other person.  Through the creative use of putting "@" in front of user names I could find that individual, but if they were prolific with their tweets then it would still be hard to follow the conversation.

And remember, it was conversations that made Twitter cool in the first place.

The best way to solve this seemed to be following everyone that everyone else in my PLN followed, but there is a physical and mental limit to how many people I can follow so I merely replaced one problem with another.

I  still think Pownce is among the best micro-blog formats out there, but the only times my PLN moved over there were when Twitter was down. Granted, that meant they were there a lot, but never to stay.  Most conversations on Pownce could be summarized as follows:

"Oh, Twitter's down again."

"Is Twitter up yet?"

"No.  It's so annoying that it's down so often."

"I know!  I'm about ready to - hey, it's back up!"

And that's the last I would see of them on Pownce until the the next Twitter outage.

So once again, I abandoned a better service for Twitter.  As much as I liked Pownce, I had to stay with my PLN.

And then came Plurk.

Plurk has a few annoying things about it, most notably a lack of text messaging support and a right-to-left scrolling "timeline," but every post can receive threaded responses so my main problem with Twitter is already solved.

Plurk also has something called "karma." This has nothing to do with reincarnation, it's simply a score for how well you're interacting with others.  I'm not too certain about the algorithm used, but I do know that your score goes up more for posting only a few "plurks" that generate responses from others than it does from posting 1,000 "plurks" and getting few, if any, responses.  Your karma can go up as you gain followers, but the method I've seen on Twitter of going through and following hundreds of people in an attempt to get them to follow you in return will actually hurt your score.

That's something cool that I didn't expect to see in a micro-blog.  In my opinion one of the cancers of Web 2.0 sites has been the large number of people who treat it as simply a game where whomever has the most followers wins.  I'd first heard of this happening on MySpace when a friend complained that her brother had more "friends" than she did, even though he didn't really know most of them and she knew all of hers.  (I think she wanted me to create an account so her score would go up by one ... I still didn't.)  I've since seen this problem on Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Youtube, and even to a limited extent on Pownce.

But I've yet to se it on Plurk.  They've essentially replaced one score, your number of followers, with another score, karma.  There are still ways to game the system, I'm sure, but I'm not getting 20 friend requests a day from people who are already following over 1,000 others on this service, and I like it better that way.  (I often block those people when I see them on Twitter.)

On top of that, Plurk's karma score encourages more meaningful conversation than Twitter did.  Posts itemizing everything you're doing from minute to minute can actually lower your score, as you won't get many responses to "Hey, I just made some hashbrowns."

Plurk also has something else: Steve Dembo.  Steve's taken a liking to Plurk himself, and as a result many of those in my PLN have either made the switch or are now active in both. My one reason for staying on Twitter is gone. If I check only Plurk I feel that I have a sufficiently large and knowledgeable PLN.

Or do I?  There are enough people who haven't made the switch to make me wonder, so I did a little three part assessment of my PLNs on both services.  Using Ping.fm I posted to both sites simultaneously, setting up a series of hoops to jump through.

Round 1: "Is this thing on?"

This was simply to test the waters to see who was not only listening, but willing to respond.  I wasn't too surprised that my first response came from someone on Twitter - after all, I have more followers there, so at any given time it's more likely that someone's loading their Twitter client right after I've posted something.  What Twitter didn't have was staying power.  Responses there tapered off after only 6 responses out of 273 followers.

Plurk, on the other hand, had 18 different people respond out of a much smaller pool of 68 followers, some of them responding more than once.

These numbers included some people who were unbiased and used both services, and therefore responded using both services.

It should be noted that when I posted the round 1 results, at least two people on Twitter complained and more than one person on Plurk thought the result was very unexpected.

Round 1 Winner: Plurk

Round 2: "I have a question." (a: Work b: Play)

One of the reasons for having a PLN is to use it as a resource when looking for answers.  With that in mind, I asked two questions.  The first one asked for useful online tutorials for the free, open source Photoshop replacement known as GIMP.  Responses were limited to one on each side, but the one from Twitter was to a page that listed multiple tutorial sites, including the one that the Plurk responder provided.

My second question was for people to "waste my time" by letting me know what their favorite web based games were.  Chris Craft posted a creative game involving Google searches on Twitter, but on Plurk the same question got me two very well designed Flash games and one reference to building up one's karma score.  Oh yeah, and someone complaining that after they read the answers they wasted some of their own time playing those games.

On top of that the conversation in that thread continued on Plurk even after I posted the results, hammering in the solid win for Plurk.

Round 2 Winner: Tie (a: Twitter, b: Plurk)

Round 3: "Convince me."
For the third and final round I simply asked for people to tell me why their micro-blog of choice was better.  I received just one answer on Twitter, though it was concerning Twitter's compatibility with text messaging services so it was a darned good argument.

On Plurk I had several responses, ranging from short and sweet to links to full fledged blog posts on the subject.

Round 3 Winner: Plurk

So there you go, my take on the micro-blog battleground.  I don't expect Twitter to go away ay time soon, but apparently I'm getting a lot more out of Plurk than Twitter these days.

And hey, whether or not you agree with my somewhat subjective results, I'd love to hear your opinion in 140 characters or more.  You could always leave a comment here, but I'd much rather see you write your own blog post or record your own podcast on the subject.  If you link back to me when you post it, I'll be sure to see it when I search Technorati or Google.

Academic Aesthetic 164: DEN NI 08

Academic Aesthetic 164: DEN NI 08

In today's show I interview a bunch of people here at the Discovery Educator Network National Institute for 2008.  (I decided to not put the full name in the title.)  See how many faces you can recognize.

Also, my voice is giving out and I feel sick.  Yay for conferences!

Academic Aesthetic 163: Communication

The following was written back in June, but I've been sitting on it until now because I wanted to be able to take a step back and look at my writing first before posting.

One would think that sleeping until noon would be one of life's simple pleasures afforded to teachers during the summer months. While I've nothing against prolonged inspection of the backs of my eyelids, I'm still dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 AM at least three days a week to help my wife get ready for dialysis.

I won't go into any great detail on her medical condition here (that's a subject for a different podcast), but it does leave me with several hours of alone time while she goes through the procedure. On days when I drive her to the dialysis center, gas prices are high enough for it to not make sense for me to drive home and back - making my period of solitude also one where I lack any ability to contact the internet. (UPDATE: I've since purchased a BlackBerry Curve, so now my addiction to the internet has reached the next level.)

Now granted, I've been incredibly lax in posting things on this site. I could go through lots of excuses, but the one I think I'll stick with is that it's a lot harder for me to do one of these entries when I'm not online, even though I feel most inspired when I can't get online.

Usually when I'm writing out my scripts I'll have three or four tabs open for reference purposes. Either I'm responding to someone else's blog post, or linking to another site that further explains a concept, or even looking for just the right picture to insert into the entry. I can't do any of these things without the internet at my fingertips.

But here I am in my car, in just such a situation. I can do whatever I want, so long as I only use the software and files in my little magic box. Cloud computing? Ha! That's no good to me here.

This very much reminds me of a job interview I went to a few weeks ago. The position was for teaching technology to students and teachers in a Pre-K through 5th grade school, something that on the surface is really right up my alley. Still, I went in with more questions for them than they had for me.

And everything I encountered made it look like a dream job come true. The school was fairly new, so there weren't any old computers on the verge of breaking down. The computer lab, the ceiling mounted LCD projectors in every class, the three (THREE!) mobile labs that teachers actively fought over, the school-wide wi-fi, everything about it looked awesome.

Everything, until near the end of my visit when I started asking about wikis, blogs, and podcasts.

Oh, they don't do those.

In fact, anything that remotely resembles a blog or wiki is actively blocked. The school administration was very forward thinking, but the district had adopted a "walled garden" approach that would have prevented me from visiting even my own website from school.

Contrast this with my current employer, which isn't throwing as much cash into tech programs but is actively encouraging teachers to use resources available to them on the internet - including workshops on blogging, podcasting, and wikiing.

"Wikiing?" Is that a word? Nevermind.

Long story short(er), I'm not pursuing the job. I only went to the interview because it sprung up at the last moment, and I felt I needed to dust the cobwebs off of the old portfolio. With the way technology is advancing, and the skills that I see successful people using right now, I feel I could do more to prepare kids for the real world with a lab of salvaged computers running linux and my current employer's filtering policy than all the high tech gadgetry in the world but no way to use it properly.

Because while the tech is cool, it's really not about the tech. It's about communication. It's about collaboration.

And it's about teaching students how to use these things responsibly, because locking kids in their rooms for fear that they'll go to the mall and something scary will happen will not prepare them for when they finally move out and go there themselves. Instead, we should take them there, hold their hands at first, and show them how to react in that environment.

Anything else is a disservice to the generation that will be running our nursing homes when we retire.

Academic Aesthetic 162: Corporate Shill

Today's episode is brought to you by Sound Waves™

<announcer voice> That's right, in today's modern world there are many kind of waves, but only Sound Waves™ are capable of taking this podcast and transferring the information from your speakers to your ears in a format that you, the listener, can comprehend.

Sound Waves™: helping you hear quality audio ... and this show, too.</announcer voice>

...wait a minute, who wrote this ad, anyway?

But seriously, lately I've been thinking a bit about commercialization on educational websites. It's a topic I've visited before, though I think it bears revisiting.

I don't know exactly why I've been thinking about it recently. It might be because of some recent large purchases I've made. It might be because sites like Tips From The Top Floor and Twit.tv are doing pretty well with ads in their podcasts. Perhaps it's because Professor Bob from the History According to Bob podcast is able to sell CDs of things he originally gave away for free on his website, and even the great and powerful David Warlick and Will Richardson sell their books and/or ask for donations to their Starbucks cards on their websites.

Maybe its because sites like Makezine.com, Craftzine.com, and DiscoveryEducatorNetwork.com are essentially advertising models for their parent companies - though I'll be the first to tell you that they're brilliant ad models because they draw in visitors with high quality content that makes them worth visiting repeatedly.

Or ... perhaps ... it's because of some emails I've seen over the past few months. You may have gotten them too, in fact.

"I represent [insert company name here] and we'd like to pay you to blog about [insert product name here]. We're going to assume that [insert product name here] fits with the general theme of your website because you're a blogger and right now you're probably just happy that someone, anyone, has managed to find your little corner of the internet. We're certain that you'll be satisfied with the meager amount of shiny coins in exchange for linking to us repeatedly in your blog post and thus increasing our ranking on Google, even though it will most likely destroy your integrity and make you lose the small collection of loyal readers you've worked so hard to build over the years."

Well, they went something like that, at least. I might not have remembered the emails word for word, but I think that's an unbiased representation of what they said. You might even think that this posting would discourage future offers of a similar nature, but I don't think those people actually read the blogs they contact so I'm out of luck, there.

I've also gotten at least one offer from someone who wanted to be a "guest blogger" on my site. It was essentially very much like the previous email, except she offered to take the hard job of writing the post that would destroy my reader base off of my hands.

Not all emails from businesses were that bad, however. I've received at least one offer to sponsor my podcast on a repeated basis with a short audio ad placed in each show, which I politely turned down because while the product was educational in nature I hadn't used it myself and therefore felt uncomfortable promoting it.

I even went so far as to hand out some books at this year's MICCA conference, but only because after looking through them I felt they were useful resources. The copies they provided for me to keep as "payment" were also given away, but that was because I already knew a lot about the subject mater already.

I've toyed now and again with turning my website into a moneymaker, but this was mostly through the addition of Google Ads - and those tend to mostly work on the kind of people who aren't likely to visit this website. Over the years they've been on and off of the site, but in all that time I still haven't earned enough for them to cut me a single check. To be perfectly honest, even if they did pay me all of my earnings right now it would be a drop in the bucket compared to what I've paid for domain name registration, hosting (my hosting is cheap, but not free), and equipment.

I've also included Amazon affiliate links in posts from time to time, but those have made even less revenue than the Google Ads - mainly because I've only ever done that for products I've owned, and zero minus the price of said products equals a negative number.

I'm not saying this to complain, mind you, but to prove a point that I'm not blogging or podcasting for the money. If I was, then I would have quit a long time ago. I do this because it's fun, and I enjoy it when I can become part of a conversation that is truly global in nature.

And then the bills come in, and I begin to think about how I can supplement my teacher's salary.

So, (and I hate to admit this,) I'm going to try a little revenue building experiment. No, I'm not going to be embedding ads in every podcast. Nor will I be placing flash banners where you get to shoot chickens or pick the next president all over the site either. I'm going to try something a little more low key than that.

On my site I'm creating a new page. That page will have links to things where if you buy them I might get a buck or two sent my way.

Maybe.

I think.

If you don't like seeing ads on education themed sites, then don't go to that page. If you don't mind, and throwing me a bone is something you might consider doing, well then you can go and check it out. My intention is to only become a corporate shill for products I've owned/used and enjoyed myself, so while I may be destroying my integrity here it shouldn't burn quite so bad.

And who knows - maybe I'll end up writing a book and promoting it there, eventually retiring from teaching to run around the world giving lectures and working as a freelance consultant.

... or, maybe I'll just make enough to pay some of my server costs.

Academic Aesthetic 160: Flickr Video

Wow, 160 ... that's almost a milestone, isn't it?  I suppose I should take the time to try out something new then, huh?

In any case, here's a quick rundown on my opinions concerning Flickr's decision to host videos:

• Flickr's video hosting is to most online videos as Twitter is to most blog posts.


• 90 seconds is very short.


• If you edit well, 90 seconds can be enough. (Remember, most commercials are 60 seconds or less.)


• The first time I tried to cut one of my ramblings down to a minute and a half, it wasn't easy.


• I say in the video that I cut 10 minutes of footage out to make it fit. I was exaggerating.


• It wasn't more than 8 minutes. Honest.


• Still, editing out everything except the core points took much longer than I thought it would.


• Flickr Video ≠ YouTube


• Flickr Video = Neat little toy


• You can supposedly embed the videos as easily as the photos.


• "Supposedly," because copy/pasting the provided HTML code did nothing but place a blank, black box in this blog entry.