Something about this 1953 instructional video on communications theory gives me warm fuzzies. I love this stuff, and the way it was presented makes me long for instructional videos produced this way.
(Embed no longer working for this video, click here.)
“A Communications Primer†is an instructional film created in 1953 for IBM by Ray & Charles Eames with music by Elmer Bernstein. (via Laughing Squid)
Jordan (a former student of mine) and I were briefly interviewed for a short CBC piece about Twitter. It is interesting to see the increased interest in the service by mainstream media, especially in the past several months.
Additionally, here’s an older piece from the CBC (March 2002) that discussed the implementation of highspeed Internet in every Saskatchewan school (was quite a big deal at the time). While there is a shared focus in the two pieces around connectivity, there is certainly a shift in what this means. In 2002, the focus here was in retrieving content/information. Now, the focus is much more on establishing human connections and social interactivity.
One of the videos I showed last night during my Media Literacy presentation was the recent “David After Dentist” video. The scene is of a seven year old boy who just left the Dentist’s office and was still feeling the effects of sedation. I’ve posted the video to Twitter, and while most people report it to be quite funny, others were more critical of this scene being posted to Youtube for all to see. The original video (posted below) was posted January 30, 2009, and has already been viewed over 7 million times.
Boing Boing, a highly influential group blog, posted the video on September 3. At that time, there had already been a few remixes. Since the Boing Boing mention, the number of remixes has exploded. Two of my favourite are found below:
Remix:
Chad (Vader) After Dentist
There are dozens more!
How does this relate to media literacy? During his state of sedation, the boy asks “is this forever?” While the dad reassures him that it isn’t, in the (digital) media sense, it is forever. Whether the boy likes it or not, he is now an Internet star. The scene will likely follow him into classrooms, into careers, into relationships; it will forever be part of his identity. Whether he accepts his fame as mostly positive (see Gary Brolsma) or especially negative (see Ghyslain Raza) is yet to be seen. What is certain is that the distribution of this video, a piece of David’s identity, is no longer in anyone’s full control.
Tonight I presented “Popular Issues in (Digital) Media Literacy” to my EC&I 831 students. The presentation covered various topics such as: offensive content (bad taste, sexuality), viral videos & memes, misinformation (satire, hoaxes, scams, phishing), safety & cyberbullying, hate (racism & violence), social networks & privacy. It was very much a survey approach to the topic in hopes that my students will understand the broad scope of related issues.
The slide deck is available below:
While I do not agree with all of the assumptions regarding human connectivity in this article by Neil Swidey, the main point of this article has me thinking. Are our tools of ubiquitous connectivity “dulling our very capacity to ever be alone, or alone in our thoughts”? I know it’s not a new idea, but certainly one I am becoming much more sensitive to. Maybe you are experiencing similar feelings?
If you are interested, I would recommend the article and viewing the supporting video (below).
And, I’m thinking. Currently I’m leading a group of students toward greater connectivity and networked interactions. I strongly believe that connections and the supporting network are important for educators to experience, and can be potential transformative for teaching and learning. For most of these individuals, the concepts and practices are quite new, and critical resistance is anticipated and supported. As educators, we should wonder if we will find ourselves 10 years from now teaching courses on how to disconnect from the masses, and reconnect to one’s self, and to our local communities. Let’s try to avoid this future. Teach critically, adopt cautiously, and reflect constantly.
See also “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz.
I find that one of the most useful features of Twitter is the resource sharing. With a well-established network of educators, it seems easy to solicit responses from educators who are willing to share favourite resources on various topics. Today, one of my undergraduate students Krystal (@tealek) inquired about digital story telling resources. I sent out a tweet, and many good people within my network sent back their responses. I have collected these below (sorry if I missed anyone):
– @pcwoessner sent me to David Jakes’ excellent Digital Storytelling resources.
– @CherylDoig offered Jason Ohler’s resources.
– @lloydcrew sent me to the Images4Education site, and a great article by Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine.
– @cheritoledo offered a link to the Center for Digital Storytelling.
– @clintlalonde sent me to his long list of Delicious bookmarks tagged as digitalstorytelling.
– @plowenthal linked to a techheds podcast on digital storytelling.
– @sammora sent me to the resources at Montclair Public schools and their digital authoring initiative.
– @MagistraM led me to Langwitches blog and the various resources offered there.
– @bcdtech offered her Diigo list/digital storytelling category.
– @jorech sent me his Wikispaces page with a long list of resources.
– @shyj offered her list of Delicious bookmarks tagged on the subject.
– @barbaram sent Krystal her wiki of resources on storytelling and other activities.
– MtnLaurel offered her Diigo collections of resources.
Again, sorry if I missed anyone or screwed up any of the links. Do let me know.
This is one of my favourite uses of Twitter. Through the generosity of educators, it can be easy to gather a substantial list of educator-recommended resources on topics like this. And, I’m happy that through this post, I can give back a little to my network.
It was our great pleasure to have had George Siemens as our guest in EC&I 831 on January 20, 2009. As requested, George gave us an overview of the changing views of knowledge in society, talked about Connectivism, and described the recent CCK08 experience.
The full Elluminate session was recorded and is available here. However, I have extracted George’s session (minus some of the course-specific conversation) into both a video file, and an audio only version. See below.
I want to take this opportunity to thank George for once again offering his time and expertise on these very challenging topics, and for engaging us in this presentation.
Enjoy!
Yesterday, I received an email notice saying that a few of my Flickr photos had been favorited. These particular photos were of my children, mostly of my daughter. Every time this happens, I go to see who the Flickr user is, and most of the time, it is a family member, a close friend, or someone I know through Twitter (or other social network). I did not recognize the user in this particular case, and when I went to see their photos, the Flickr message alerted me that none of the user’s photos were available. Seeing as my photos had been favorited, I went to see what other photos had been marked as favorites by this user.
My jaw dropped to the floor.
What I saw was three pages of favorited photos of preteen girls, most shots in bathing suits or with little clothing. Had I viewed any of these photos individually, isolated from the others, I am sure that this same feeling of disgust would not have come over me. But these photos, viewed together, favorited by some anonymous user, told a very different story. These photos of these girls were without a doubt being sexualized, and my four-year-old daughter was amongst these images.
Note: The images I include below are the actual screenshots. My daughter does not appear in these images, and she was the only girl in these photos that was well clothed. I have included these screenshots because I think it is important to get a sense of what happened here. However, I have significantly reduced the size of this image for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
These photos are legal. The actions of the user who favorited these is also legal (although incredibly disgusting). I did not want photos of my child to appear here. So, this is what I did:
1) Blocked the user. This means my photos would no longer appear in the list. However, if your photos are viewable to the public, this means they can still be viewed, just not favorited.
2) Contacted Flickr: I reported this user, and within a couple of hours, the user was taken down.
End of story? Nope.
I get another email, telling me that more of my daughter’s photos had been favorited. Same story. I check out the user, no photos, but many favorites. It gets worse.
This time, there were four pages of girls favorited by this user. The girls were a bit older, but in the majority of the photos, the subjects were handcuffed, often in sexually provocative poses. Again, my daughter’s photos appeared. I blocked the user, contacted Flickr. Same deal. But obviously, that’s not enough.
I admit, I live my life (in the) Open. I have been lucky that I have never had to block a person from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc., before this time. Sure, there has been the odd griefer here and there, but usually, these problems resolve themselves if you deal with them appropriately, or in some cases, ignore them. My belief is that in all aspects of life, we should not have to live our lives in fear. I’m an idealist. I believe in the power of good people, and I have been lucky enough to have been surrounded by good people in both my temporal and virtual realities.
But these types of incidents shake up everything one believes. So now, rather than provide answers, I want to provide some questions for anyone willing to respond. Here are some of my questions.
1) What must parents know about the realities of the Internet in regards to how we deal with the photos (and identities) of our children?
2) What are the benefits of an open vs. a closed reality? Are the benefits of openness (e.g., in regards to our families) worth the risks? And, what are the credible risks?
3) What precautions should we take, or perhaps, what precautions do you take in the presentation/development of your family’s digital identity?
4) What rights and responsibilities do we have as parents to protect the digital identities of our children?
5) How do we proceed from here? How do we help other parents to understand these important issues?
I’d love to hear from you. While openness will be a continued theme in my educational life, I continue to rethink these philosophies on the most personal of levels. It is also my belief in openness that guides me in telling this story. I believe that we need to face these issues head on, inform others, raise awareness, and work to solve these problems together.
This is a really nice video that deals with issues around tolerance, diversity, and acceptance.
Do watch this. I think you’ll enjoy it.
I am currently writing a chapter regarding open and networked learning. I have used the term Personal Learning Network (PLN) dozens of times over the last few years, and have seen it mentioned countless times in blog and microblog posts, and other forms of media. However, I cannot seem to find a solid reference or definition for the concept of PLN. I sent out several email messages asking people if knew of an existing article or reference for the PLN definition, and I have yet to receive a response. About the best lead I could find was a post from Stephen Downes that mentioned “Dave Warlick has taken the concept of the Personal Learning Environment, renamed it (to Personal Learning Network).”
I thought it was appropriate to ask the question to my PLN (or what I perceive as my PLN) via Twitter. I asked if anyone had a definition for a PLN, or if they knew the difference between a personal learning network and personal learning environment (PLE). I received varied responses, and the majority of these are pasted below. To make more sense of this conversation, read these from the very bottom to the top as they are in reverse chronological order.
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There were a number of interesting perceptions revealed regarding PLNs and PLEs. Participants of this conversation seem passionate about these topics, and there are some very interesting research questions that begin to emerge. If anyone has suggestions for existing academic research that relates to PLNs and PLEs, please let me know.
And this conversation itself seem to have sparked some creativity around these questions. For instance, @bookjewel posted this conversation to Plurk, where @catspyjamasnz (Joyce) developed and shared this diagram (below) that describes her current understanding of the differences between the PLE and PLN.
I also received a Twitter direct message from @BlancheMaynard who shared this important distinction:
PLN is organic; PLE is mechanic. You can use ‘tools’ like Twitter within your PLE to access your network, but the tool isn’t the network.
And, I received a very thoughtful email from @jrichardson30 (Jeff) that helped to give me insight into PLNs and this very conversation. I have included only a small piece of this message as I am hoping Jeff posts his thoughts in their entirety in his own space.
I have a PLN but really haven’t tried to describe it. I have talked about PLN’s with the teachers at my schools but I really haven’t defined it in any certain terms…much less in 140 characters (actually, 132 characters by the time I added in the @courosa to respond on Twitter). So I distilled out what I thought was a somewhat thoughtful response and tweeted it. Well, just like any good steward of Twitter, Dr. Couros quickly responded to my answer. But his response was another question! Isn’t that what good teachers do…use good questioning techniques to get students thinking on higher levels? Of course it is. And he must be a good teacher because his question led me to closely examine what a PLN really is…to discover what it means to me personally. It’s not that defining a PLN has been a pressing issue for me or something that I have lost sleep over. It’s the fact that I entered into a conversation, shared my thoughts and then the conversation didn’t just end. It was been furthered by another person’s response and question…a true conversation.
This conversation has become a learning opportunity for me, my chance to create meaning and gain a better understanding for myself…a meaning and understanding that I can then share with others in my PLN. Maybe I can further this conversation or enter into a new one, but the difference will be that I have something NEW to bring to the community because of my personal discovery as a result having a PLN. Isn’t that our goal for our students…for them to authentically engage in the learning process so as to create/discover meaning that is useful to them personally and then hopefully to contribute to the larger society? Isn’t that what a good citizen does? I believe that is what a PLN is all about…To act as a source AND catalyst for this sort of thought-provoking conversation and authentic experience mentioned above that leads us to a point where are required to engage, to reflect, and ultimately to contribute instead of just consuming.
Beautiful!
From a simple question on Twitter, I received dozens of twitter replies, direct messages, and email responses. While I am still having trouble defining exactly what this is, I know that what I observe to be my PLN has dramatically changed the way I view teaching, communities, and the negotiation and formation of knowledge.
So let’s keep the conversation going. What are your thoughts?
An exciting new Youtube music project has been announced. Tan Dun, the legendary classical composer, wrote a piece specifically for this project that asks you to download the available sheet music, practice your piece, and submit your completed piece to Youtube. I imagine this could be very motivating for young musicians, and for me, something like this would have likely kept me interested in music (rather than kicking myself years later). Take a look for yourself.
Play your part in music history and join the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. You just need to upload two videos: your contribution to the Tan Dun piece and a general audition video. Good luck!
