Where I'm From

I am from a mountain town,

where big snow falls with plum flower blossoming.

I am from a lake as blue as sapphire,

where a little girl giggled in a pedal boat.

I am from seven splendid waterfalls,

which hide within clouds and rainbows and rocks.

I am from bed-time folk stories,

where a fairy meets her earth lover on a magpie bridge,

I am from Heidi's straw bed and Alps village,

from a drop of golden sun and a long long way to run.

I am from Gone with the Wind,

where Scarlett winks --

Tomorrow is another day.

I am from a Chinese Youth Palace,

where a little girl was practicing "penguin dance".

I am from dreary violin classes,

with neighbors wearing earplugs.

I am from painted faces in Chinese operas.

I am from sketches of apples, aliens, and giant pandas.

I am from grandpa's warm study room,

with moments of laughter and moans

I am from mom's chrysanthemum garden,

with all colors budding in ardor.

I am from steaming rice cakes and dishes of nostalgia.

I am from a continuous apprenticeship,

challenged with academic practices.

I am from my world of equity and love,

from a universe of discoveries and believes.

I am from where I stand,

with you all.

We Will be on Stage!

An Autumn Morning

Trends in Ed, 10. 27. 09

Economy and Internet Trends

Mary Meeker delivered a presentation to Web 2.0 conference recently looking at the state of the economy and the Internet. This presentation quickly looks back over the last few years:
2004 – China Internet – Opportunity is Immense 2005 – Broadband – Becoming Pervasive, Driving Growth in Communications / UGC
2006 – Online Video – Building Momentum
2007 – Social Networks – Proliferating, Driving Platform Changes
2008 – Economic Recession – Creates Challenge + Opportunity for Web Companies
2009 – Mobile Internet – Is and Will be Bigger Than Most Think

It further forecasts the huge growth, and increased integration, of internet-connected devices (see the following slide). The iPhone and social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) figure prominently in her assessment.



The Theory of Connectivism in an Information Age

George Siemens recently presented “Roots of Connectivism” to an open graduate course named Social Media & Open Education, at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Based on a basic understanding of various theories of knowledge & learning (e.g., behaviorism, cognitivism, social constructivism, constructionism, neuroscience), the presentation briefly introduces his theory of connectivism. Siemens and Stephen Downes have developed this theory which uses a network as the central metaphor for learning, focusing on knowledge as making connections.

Roots of Connectivism

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Getting tired of phone calls? – Try Google Voice

Yesterday Google announced that we can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Also notably, we can now add Google voicemail service to any of the mobile numbers linked to our account. It is a bit like Gmail for voicemail.

Trends in Ed, 10.20.09

ScribbleLive, is a free tool for live blogging with audio and video embeddings. This tool can be accessed via any of your accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MSN, etc. The content of live blogging can be further embedded on multiple interfaces such as personal blog site.

Mobile Blogging in WordPress

Writing and viewing blogs have become even more convenient via mobile devices since WordPress just issued two new mobile themes. Check here for more details:

For smartphones with top notch mobile browsers, like the iPhone or Android devices, the theme will be a tweaked version of WPtouch, while other devices will sport a variation of the WordPress Mobile Edition.

Call for Session Proposals - 1st Annual Digital Media and Learning Conference: "DIVERSIFYING PARTICIPATION"

February 18-20, 2010

Submission Deadline: October 30, 2009

Details of the conference can be viewed here.

Henry Jenkins is the Chair of the Digital Media and Learning Conference and our Keynote Speakers will be Sonia Livingstone and S. Craig Watkins.

We encourage sessions that describe, document, and critically analyze different forms of participation and how they relate to various forms of social and cultural capital. We are interested in accounts of the challenges and obstacles which block or inhibit engagement to different forms of online participation. We also encourage session proposals that engage with successful intervention strategies and pedagogical processes enabling once marginalized groups to more fully exploit the opportunities for learning with digital media. Conversely, we are interested in hearing more about how marginal and subcultural communities find diverse uses of new and emerging technologies, pushing them in new directions and navigating a complicated relationship with "mainstream" forms of participation.

E-books and the Reading Debate

Check out this great NY Times piece which gives voice to several sides of the debate around reading and the influences of e-books:

Right now, networked digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention. We swing between two kinds of bad reading. We suffer tunnel vision, as when reading a single page, paragraph, or even “keyword in context” without an organized sense of the whole. Or we suffer marginal distraction, as when feeds or blogrolls in the margin (”sidebar”) of a blog let the whole blogosphere in. - Alan Liu, English Professor

Paper retains substantial advantages, though, for types of reading that require flipping back and forth between pages, such as articles with end notes or figures....The reading speed reported in academic studies does not include delays induced by clicking away from the text to see the new email that just arrived or check out what’s new on your favorite blog. In one study, workers switched tasks about every three minutes and took over 23 minutes on average to return to a task. - Sandra Aamodt, Editor

For my greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now,perhaps, videos (in the new vooks). - Maryanne Wolf, Child Development Professor

I assume that technology will soon start moving in the natural direction: integrating chips into books, not vice versa. I might like to make a book beep when I can’t find it, search its text online, download updates and keep an eye on reviews and discussion. This would all be easily handled by electronics worked into the binding. Such upgraded books acquire some of the bad traits of computer text — but at least, if the circuitry breaks or the battery runs out, I’ve still got a book...The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in. - David Gelernter, Computer Science Professor

I wonder about young people, who do not know of a life before the Internet, and who, growing up “digitized,” might not prefer reading online where they are the pilots of their own information pathways. More and more, studies are showing how adept young people are at multitasking. But the extent to which they can deeply engage with the online material is a question for further research. - Gloria Mark, Informatics Professor

Does a class divide exist in online social networks?

Latest research suggests yes to the above question asked by CNN.

Check out this article regarding the specific statistics.

• Almost 23 percent of Facebook users earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to slightly more than 16 percent of MySpace users.
• 37 percent of MySpace members earn less than $50,000 annually, compared with about 28 percent of Facebook users.
• MySpace users tend to be "in middle-class, blue-collar neighborhoods," said Mike Mancini, vice president of data product management for Nielsen.
• Even more affluent are users of Twitter, the microblogging site, and LinkedIn, a networking site geared to white-collar professionals.
• Almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year.

The Revolution of Email is Coming?

Google Wave (see a previous post) released an updated version with photo and video embedding functions at the end of last month.

The new open-source Google application -- open to 100,000 users for testing on a wider scale -- which a Googler describes as "magical" in the video below -- promises to offer a new way for people to interact and work on the web.

Google Wave blends e-mail, instant messaging, social networks, and workplace collaboration. by CNET.

Google is granting access to the Wave to 100,000 users, although more than 1 million people clamored to be in the test group.

Interesting Update: A Google Wave invite was found for sale on eBay, and had attracted 19 bids, pushing the price up to $70, according to Mashable. If you want to try this new version, please feel free to let me know. =)

Trends in Ed, 10.13.09

Solar Powered E-book Developed by LG
After the release of the world's first solar powered cell phone (by Sharp), LG has recently unveiled the world's first solar powered e-book reader.


Parallel Archive - A Place for Digital Scholarship

Parallel Archive is a space where scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences can upload, store, study, and share their digitized archival sources. It is designed to facilitate individual scholarly research and publication; cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration; and a critical approach to documents. Compared with Mendeley which helps to store and share academic references, Parallel Archive is not only an academic networking site but also envisioned as an alternative space where scholars can store online and make public their digitized copies of material from archives (at this point similar to PocketKnowledge).

Weebly - The Creation of More Personalized Blog Entries

Weebly has recently become the new favorites of a large number of bloggers. One salient feature of it is that users can freely design their interface during blogging without any technical skills required. It also offers a few interesting user-friendly design functions. The following video will give you more details:

The Release of New ELA & Math Standards

The new standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics were announced last week:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board. Governors and state commissioners of education from across the country committed to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.

I had a glance at the ELA standards which are further divided into categories of reading, writing, and speaking & listening. In general, I feel the standards are specific, practical, and well written, from a pedagogical standpoint, trying to promote more scientific/logical thinking and argument skills in language arts. I cited the following standards which seemed interesting and “controversial” to me and began with some questions:

Reading:

Support or challenge assertions about the text by citing evidence in the text explicitly and accurately.

Q: What evidence is determined to be “explicit and accurate”?

Discern the most important ideas, events, or information, and summarize them accurately and concisely.

Q: What content in a fiction book is determined to be the “most important ideas”? Is it test-oriented content? How can the “standard content” be set for every book/reading?

Writing:

Use technology as a tool to produce, edit, and distribute writing.

Q: What types of technology will be included? The traditional WORD or ways of online publishing?

Speaking & Listening

Make strategic use of multimedia elements and visual displays of data to gain audience attention and enhance understanding.

Feedback on the standards is welcome until October 21st.

DE Announces Student Video Contest

To get students invested in their education, President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have announced a new video contest, asking students to "inspire" them with their stories. Advocates for educational technology say the contest is a great way to reach the digital generation and help students develop key 21st-century skills.

Check here for more details.

Leveraging Online Professional Development

The recent issue of the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: Leveraging Online Professional Development is now available on Education Week. This issue looks at the potential of digital technology to enhance teacher learning options and increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Here are some interesting highlights:

• MetLife Inc.'s 25th annual survey of educators found that the proportion of teachers saying they are “very satisfied” with their careers increased from 40 percent in 1984 to 62 percent in 2008, while more teachers today (66 percent) feel respected by society than their counterparts did back then (47 percent).
  
• the percentage of teachers agreeing that they can earn a “decent salary” has nearly doubled since 1984, to 66 percent, and far more teachers today (75 percent, compared with 45 percent in 1984) say they would recommend a career in teaching to a young person.
• two-thirds of today’s teachers affirm that they were well prepared for the profession, compared with 46 percent in 1984.
  Some other survey results:
• Have you ever taken an online course for degree or professional credit?

Recommended Teacher Groups on Ning:
Classroom 2.0
The English Companion Ning
3-D Fieldtrips