Google Apps for Education: Is It the Right Choice for Our Students?

I went to Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation (2010 Edition) on Saturday. Scott Elias, Deanna Dykstra and team (with a special shout out to the students that did the streaming) did a great job putting on a worthwhile event.

I think I was a little distracted during the morning sessions for some reason and didn�t contribute much, but settled in during the afternoon. The day ended with some round table discussions, and I participated in one centered on Google Apps for Education. This allowed me to continue a conversation I had been sporadically having with Bud Hunt via email and I brought up a couple of issues that had been troubling me. Now, to be clear, I don�t think anyone else at the table completely shared my concerns, but since they are still troubling me I�m going to share them here on the blog in order to help my own thinking (and perhaps yours).

My first concern is what happens to our students� stuff when they graduate (or leave the district before that)? Because of the nature of Google Apps for Education, all student work (Docs, Gmail, Sites, Groups, etc.) is tied to their Google Apps domain login, which is very helpful and convenient as long as they are students in our district. The problem comes when they leave � what happens to their stuff? Most � if not all � districts are going to delete student accounts after they leave � which will delete all their stuff.

Now, I know there are ways you can get some or all of your stuff out of Google Apps. It�s fairly easy to download all your files, and I know there are ways to get your emails out. And � depending on the settings in your domain � you may be able to transfer ownership of documents (although we haven�t had any luck with Sites yet) outside of the domain (to your non-apps Google account, for example). But, from my perspective, there are major issues with this. What�s the likelihood of the majority of our students successfully doing this on their own? Either because they don�t think of it (or don�t think of it in a timely fashion before things are deleted), they have technical difficulties, or they can�t imagine wanting to keep any of it in the afterglow of graduating.

The second major issue is their digital footprint. If out students produce stuff that�s worth keeping, and stuff that�s remarkable (employing Seth Godin�s use of that term), then we would hope that other people will have taken note of their work and will reference it. They�ll bookmark it, Diigo it up or Evernote it, use it as a reference, etc. When we delete their account, we delete their footprint. The Google Sites they�ve created? Gone. The Google Docs they�ve published to the web? Possibly gone. (If they transfer ownership outside of the domain I think the URL will stay the same. If they download all their docs it will not.) All the links and digital conversations centered on that work? Broken and incomplete.

Can we address some of those issues (give them directions and procedures for downloading/transferring their docs, talk to them about why they might want to keep their stuff)? Sure, but it seems like a pretty clunky solution to a possibly serious problem, one that we should address before jumping on the Google Apps bandwagon (and still doesn't address the footprint issue). If your school/district is using Google Apps for Education, do you have plans and procedures in place to deal with this? If not, shouldn�t you have had that before you put your students in there?

I know a lot of folks will suggest that not much of what students do in K-12 is worth keeping. There is certainly some truth to that, but I would hope that it�s not completely true. (And that perhaps if we were doing a better job that would change, as what does it say about what we do now that none of it is worth keeping, but I digress).

This all leads to the second question I asked in that round table session: Why go to Google Apps for Education at all? Bud Hunt gave a very good answer, one that I agree with about 80%. I can�t do it justice, but basically he said that it gave our students a platform to work and publish, and to keep that work from year to year throughout their schooling, and that we can manage it as schools/districts, all of which is a big advance over what many of us have now. (Even with three hours of sleep, Bud is much more articulate than I am.)

But my current thinking it that the advantages of going to Google Apps for Education do not necessarily outweigh the disadvantages. In addition to the �worth keeping� and �digital footprint� issues above, add in that their Google Apps domain login doesn�t give them access to all the other Google tools that a non-domain Google account gives them (Reader, Blogger, YouTube, etc. etc. etc.). So if our students want to use those (and I certainly want them to), then they�ll have to create a separate Google account anyway, which adds a layer of complexity and also negates some of the supposed advantages of having a Google Apps domain (ability to manage accounts/passwords; kids have one place to go to get their stuff).

I just can�t help thinking that we�re putting in all this time and effort (including on-going management) to go to Google Apps for Education, when really it gets us less than what we have if we don�t. Not only does it give us less, but it may actually undermine what we want to do with students. If we want them to be safe, effective and ethical users of the Internet, let�s not create a semi-walled (and only temporary) garden that limits their ability to learn, create, publish, distribute and interact. Let�s not hamstring their ability to create a digital footprint that they�ll be proud of. Let�s not put additional barriers in their way that make it more difficult to manage the artifacts of their digital learning and their digital life. (And if this sounds like many of my arguments against many of the Internet filter policies that are currently in place, the resemblance is purely intentional. I wonder if the popularity of Google Apps for Education is at least partially due to the increased level of control it gives us over our students?)

How about instead of spending all this time and effort setting up and managing Google Apps for Education, we spend it teaching our students how to responsibly use the full suite of Google Apps themselves? How about we teach them how to manage all of their digital work, whether it�s with Google or somebody else? How about we teach them backup plans and exit strategies for all these �free� Web 2.0 tools? How about we help them think more intentionally and purposefully about the work they are doing and the footprint they are creating? How about we model the behaviors we�d like to see them imitate?

Which do you think is going to be better for our students in the long run? (I'm truly asking that question, not just making a rhetorical point.)


Photo Credit: Sand Footprint Texture, originally uploaded by Lars Christopher N�ttaasen

The Invention of Air, PLNs, and School Transformation

I just finished reading Steven Johnson�s The Invention of Air. It�s the story of Joseph Priestley�s scientific discoveries, religious and political thoughts, and his influence on the founding thinkers of the United States. But it�s also a history of his Personal Learning Network (starting with �The Club of Honest Whigs,� which included Benjamin Franklin and Richard Price), and, combined with Richard Florida�s work, has me thinking again about the optimal conditions for learning at our point in history.

Consider this quote from page 51:

Ideas are situated in another kind of environment as well: the information network. Theoretically, it is possible to imagine good ideas happening in a vacuum . . . But most important ideas enter the pantheon because they circulate. And the flow is two-way: the ideas happen in the first place because they are triggered by other people�s ideas. The whole notion of intellectual circulation or flow is embedded in the word �influence� itself (�to flow into,� influere in the original Latin). Good ideas influence, and are themselves influenced by, other ideas. Different societies at different moments in history have varying patterns of circulation: compare the cloistered, stagnant information pools of the European Dark Ages to the hyperlinked, open-sourced connectivity of the Internet.

This describes nicely how I think about my Personal Learning Network, and how social and professional networking in general can help circulate, discuss, and refine ideas. Ideally, this would also describe schools; places that were not defined as much by prescribed curricula, but by a climate of intellectual curiosity and a culture of ideas, where good ideas influere other good ideas.

He continues on page 52:

The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group. . . .But Priestley was a compulsive sharer, and the emphasis on openness and general circulation is as consistent a theme as any in his work. . . No doubt Priestley saw farther because he stood on the shoulders of giants, but he had another crucial asset: he had a reliable postal service that let him share his ideas with giants.

The label �compulsive sharer� describes quite a few of the folks in my PLN, and tools such as blogs, delicious, Twitter, rss feeds and Skype help enable that compulsive sharing. Priestley�s aversion to proprietary secrets also seems to apply to the folks in my PLN, where the ethos is �the more you share, the more you learn� � and the more we all benefit. I think Priestley would also appreciate Creative Commons. But I wonder how many of our schools � and the educational processes we have in place - really encourage compulsive sharing, either in-person or virtually?

Johnson continues on page 53:

The open circulation of ideas was practically the founding credo of the Club of Honest Wigs, and of eighteenth-century coffeehouse culture in general. With the university system languishing amid archaic traditions, and corporate R & D labs still on the distant horizon, the public space of the coffeehouse served as the central hub of innovation in British society.

. . .You can�t underestimate the impact that the Club of Honest Whigs had on Priestley�s subsequent streak, precisely because he was able to plug in to an existing network of relationships and collaborations that the coffeehouse environment facilitated. Not just because there were learned men of science sitting around the table � more formal institutions like the Royal Society supplied comparable gatherings � but also because the coffeehouse culture was cross-disciplinary by nature, the conversations freely roaming from electricity, to the abuses of Parliament, to the fate of dissenting churches.

Again, sounds like PLNs, and specifically tools like Twitter � �conversations freely roaming� and a �network of relationships and collaborations.� And I wonder if our current education system might be �languishing amid archaic traditions.�

Later he returns to the idea of compulsive sharing and documenting not only the product, but the process (page 63-64):

Part of this compulsive sharing no doubt comes from the fact that one of Priestley�s great skills as a scientist was his inventiveness with tools. He was a hacker, not a theoretician, and so it made sense to showcase his technical innovations alongside the scientific ideas they generated. But there was a higher purpose that drove Priestley to document his techniques in such meticulous detail: the information network. Priestley�s whole model of progress was built on the premise that ideas had to move, to circulate, for them to turn into better ideas. . . . It was a sensibility he shared with Franklin:

These thoughts, my dear Friend, are many of them crude and hasty, and if I were merely ambitious of acquiring some Reputation in Philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, �till corrected and improved by Time and farther Experience. But since even short Hints, and imperfect Experiments in any new Branch of Science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good Effect, in exciting the attention of the Ingenious to the Subject, and so becoming the Occasion of more compleat Discoveries, you are at Liberty to communicate this Paper to whom you please; it being of more Importance that Knowledge should increase, than that your Friend should be thought an accurate Philosopher.

This resonates for me in relation to my own blogging, where I often think of blogging as �rough draft thinking�, or �thinking in progress,� and where I count on commenters and linkers to help me refine my own thinking. I believe one of the big hurdles for getting folks in my building to blog professionally is their fear of not having a polished piece of writing, or of being not completely correct about something. (These are both things I�ve obviously overcome!) But that seems to fly in the face of how so many of the scientists and philosophers that we revere in this country did their own thinking and sharing and, with the amazing ability we have to share today, it saddens me to see how few of us are really taking advantage of this capability (both professionally and with our students).

Further into the book, on pages 73 and 74, Johnson takes up information networks:

The true shape of an idea forming looks much more like this:
That network shape is one of the reasons why external information networks (the coffeehouse, the Internet) are so crucial to the process of innovation, because those networks so often supply new connections that the solo inventor wouldn�t have stumbled across on his or her own. But the long life span of the hunch suggests another crucial dimension here: it is not just the inventor�s social network that matters, but the specific way in which the inventor networks with his own past selves, his or her ability to keep old ideas and associations alive in the mind.

To me, this describes tagging and the digital archiving (and sharing) of thoughts, so that not only can you learn from others, but you can go back and reflect on and learn from your own �past self.� I believe we miss so much, and our students miss so much, because we view so much of what we do as transitory, and not worth keeping or revisiting. What is it about self-reflection (again, both professionally and with/by our students) that worries us so?

Toward the end of the book, on pages 204-206, Johnson makes the connection again to modern information networks:

More important, though, the values that Priestley brought to his intellectual explorations have never been more essential than they are today. The necessity of open information networks � like ones he cultivated with the Honest Whigs and the Lunar Society, and with the popular tone of his scientific publications � has become a defining creed of the Internet age. . . . An idea that flows through society does not grow less useful as it circulates; most of the time, the opposite occurs: the idea improves, as its circulation attracts the �attention of the Ingenious,� as Franklin put it. Jefferson saw the same phenomenon, and interpreted it as yet another part of nature�s rational system: �That ideas should freely spread from one another over the globe,� he wrote in an 1813 letter discussing a patent dispute, �for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.�

, , , Building a coherent theory of the modern world without a thorough understanding of [the Internet] would have struck Priestley as a scandal of the first order.

This speaks to me so much of our often misguided Internet filter policies, the idea that by restricting the flow of ideas we are somehow protecting our students. And, again, it reinforces the concept of openness, and the sharing of student and teacher work, and that through this sharing, this cross-pollinating of ideas, we progress and improve not only as teachers and students, but as a society (see Mark Pesce�s Capture Everything, Share Everything, Open Everything, Only Connect)

He brings it home at the end of the book on pages 213-215:

The faith in science and progress necessitated one other core value that Priestley shared with Jefferson and Franklin and that is the radical�s belief that progress inevitably undermines the institutions and belief systems of the past. . . . You could no longer put stock in �the education of our ancestors,� as Jefferson derisively called it. Embracing change meant embracing the possibility that everything would have to be reinvented. . . .One thing is clear: to see the world in this way � to disconnect the timeless insights of science and faith from the transitory world of politics; to give up the sublime view of progress; to rely on the old institutions and not conjure up new ones � is to betray the core and connected values that Priestley shared with the American founders . . . How can such a dramatically expanded vista not make us think that the world is still ripe for radical change, for new ways of sharing ideas or organizing human life? And how could it not also be cause for hope?

I think this is one of the huge struggles we�re facing as we try not so much to reform education, but to transform it. Schools as we know them are comfortable, and safe. But if �progress inevitably undermines the institutions and belief systems of the past� and we should �no longer put stock in �the education of our ancestors,�� then we will have to face the uncomfortable and deal with disruptive innovation.

We are going to have to seize on the current crisis to make transformative change and conjure up new institutions � or least new learning paradigms. One of our core values must be to seize these "new ways of sharing ideas or organizing human life," to be compulsive sharers and utilize these tools and our learning networks to transform our schools, our communities and our world.

Will that be difficult? Sure, but it�s necessary and it�s time. And, while perhaps difficult, �how could it not also be cause for hope?�

I Just Want to Say One Word to You: Collaboration.

With apologies to The Graduate . . .

Mr. Chambers: I just want to say one word to you � just one word.
Me: Yes sir.
Mr. Chambers: Are you listening?
Me: Yes I am.
Mr. Chambers: Collaboration.
Me: How do you mean?
Mr. Chambers: There�s a great future in collaboration. Blog about it. Will you blog about it?
Me: Yes I will.
Mr. Chambers: Shh! Enough said. That�s a deal.

The December/January issue of Fast Company has an interesting article on Cisco and its CEO John Chambers. Here are some lengthy excerpts (emphasis added by me).

He has been taking Cisco through a massive, radical, often bumpy reorganization. The goal is to spread the company�s leadership and decision making far wider than any big company has attempted before, to working groups that currently involve 500 executives. This move, Chambers says, reflects a new philosophy about how business can best work in a networked world. �In 2001, we were like most high-tech companies, with one or two primary products that were really important to us,� he explains. �All decisions came to the top 10 people in the company, and we drove things back down from there.� Today, a network of councils and boards empowered to launch new businesses, plus an evolving set of Web 2.0 gizmos � not to mention a new financial incentive system � encourage executives to work together like never before. Pull back the tent flaps and Cisco citizens are blogging, vlogging, and vitualizing, using social-networking tools that they�ve made themselves and that, in many cases, far exceed the capabilities of the commercially available wikis, YouTubes, and Facebooks created by the kids up the road in Palo Alto.

The bumpy part � and the eye-opener � is that the leaders of business units formerly competing for power and resources now share responsibility for one another�s success. What used to be �me� is now �we.�

Cisco is moving from �me� to �we.� What about your district? Your school? Your classroom?

An avowed Republican (and a cochair of John McCain�s presidential campaign), Chambers politely ignored my observation that Cisco�s new regimen feels a bit like a socialist revolution. But Chambers did kick off the analyst conference with a slide that read, COLLABORATION: �CO-LABOR�; WORKING TOWARD A COMMON GOAL. In language and spirit, Chamber�s transformation is a mashup of radical isms and collectivist catchphrases. Of course, with analysts suggesting that the �collaboration marketplace� could be a $34 billion opportunity, it�s radicalism of a reassuringly capitalist bent.

Cisco is emphasizing working toward a common goal and developing the collaboration marketplace. In your last staff meeting did you discuss a collaboration learning-place, or did you discuss moving borderline students up to the next cut score?

Trust and openness are words you hear a lot in the endlessly optimistic world of Web 2.0, but at Cisco, it seems to be more than a PowerPoint mantra, even to my jaundiced eye. As Mitchell and I settle down to our conversation in an open space not 25 feet from Chamber�s office, I can hear the CEO chatting on the phone with customers. Mitchell, who is charged with encouraging the company�s rank and file to adopt new technology, is undistracted. �We want a culture where it is unacceptable not to share what you know,� he says.

Cisco wants its employees to share. And share some more. It�s unacceptable not to. How much opportunity do you give your staff to share? Your students? Is it an expectation that they share? Or are they punished if they share?

So he promotes all kinds of social networking at Cisco: You can write a blog, upload a video, and tag your myriad strengths in the Facebook-style internal directory. �Everybody is an author now,� he laughs. Blog posts are voted up based on their helpfulness. There are blogs about blogging and classes about holding classes � all gauged to make it easy for less-engaged employees to get with the program.

Cisco provides resources and training opportunities so that less-engaged employees can �get with the program.� What is your school � or district � providing?

So that Facebook-style directory at Cisco serves not just as a way to make lunch plans or find a second baseman for a softball game. It is a real-world, real-time sorting apparatus, designed to help anyone inside the company easily find the answer to a question, a product demo, or precisely the right warm body to speak to a waiting customer or present at a conference � in any language, anywhere around the globe.

Sounds a lot like what GE is doing, as I blogged about previously. So GE and Cisco are embracing social networking, is your school? Are you?

Most of the videos are short product reports, sales ideas, and engineering updates, all created deskside and published directly to the network with the click of a mouse. No filter, no lawyers. It is a petri dish for ideas and exchange.

Cisco is open, no filters, no lawyers, in order to foster the creation and exchange of ideas. Compare that to your school. How open is your school? Your classroom?

�Collaboration this way helps a world community solve big problems,� says vice president Jim Grubb, Chamber�s longtime product-demo sidekick. �If we can accelerate the productivity of scientists who are working on the next solar technology because we�re hooking them together, we�re doing a great thing for the world.�

Cisco believes that seamlessly connecting people to others fosters innovation, problem solving, and productivity. What have you done to foster seamless connectivity for your teachers? Your students?

Executives are now compensated on how well the collective businesses perform, not their own individual product units. (Playing well with others is also an increasingly important part of rank-and-file employees� performance reviews.) . . . Without buy-in or even permission from Chambers, they brought in 15 people with relevant skills � turning down an invitation to collaborate is not an option � and built a product called StadiumVision . . . A multimillion-dollar business came together in less than 120 days.

Cisco believes in empowering their employees and measuring their performance at least partially based on their collaborative abilities, and refusing to collaborate is not an option. What portion of your assessment program evaluates collaborative abilities?

---

So, if you�re an administrator, what are you doing to foster collaboration among your staff, and especially your teachers? And I�m talking more than just PLC�s, although that�s not a bad start. What are you really doing to fundamentally change the structure of your school(s) from one of isolation (close the door and teach), to one of sharing and collaboration (knock down the walls)? Is it unacceptable to share in your institution?

If you�re a teacher, what are you doing to foster collaboration among your students? And I�m talking more than putting them into groups of four and having the students create a PowerPoint presentation together. What are you really doing to fundamentally change the structure of your classroom from one of isolation (do your own work), to one of collaboration (work with others)? What are you doing to build their skills to succeed in a corporate environment that requires them to collaborate on a global scale?

If you're a student, what are you doing to improve your own collaboration skills - and those of your peers? What are you demanding of your schools, your teachers, your administrators to help prepare you for the collaborative marketplace that is your future?

Mr. Chambers: Are you listening?
You: ?

Let�s Get Rid of Acceptable Use Policies

Note: I ran across this idea sometime in the last two weeks somewhere in my PLN. Unfortunately, I can�t remember where. It might�ve been on Twitter, or in the ADVIS PLP, or on a blog somewhere, but I can�t recall nor can I find a link. So, if someone knows where I stumbled across this, please leave a comment and I�ll update the post.

Most school districts have Acceptable Use Policies (AUP�s), usually for both students and staff. These policies are often a laundry list of things that you can�t do with technology and on the Internet. (So are they really UUP�s � Unacceptable Use Policies?) Instead of having AUP�s, or even UUP�s, I propose we have RUP�s � Responsible Use Policies.

Instead of making a list of all the things you can�t do with technology and on the Internet, what if we made a list of all the things that not only can you do, but you should do? What if students and staff had to sign an agreement that stated these are all the ways that a responsible student or staff member should be using technology and the Internet if they are to be a functional, literate, contributing member of society?

Do you think that might change the conversations we have with students? And with all of our stakeholders?

Briefing 2.0

To add on to my earlier Democracy 2.0 post, it turns out the U.S. State Department is already doing Briefing 2.0, allowing anyone to submit video questions via YouTube:

Good afternoon, everybody. I wanted to welcome you to the first edition of Briefing 2.0. Let me first start off by thanking everybody who submitted questions to us, who placed some trust in us, and the fact that we�re going to try to answer your questions. So here we are. We�re going to answer your questions.

I want to respond to one thing up front. In some of the write-ups about this, kind of in the run-up to this briefing, a couple folks remarked on, in my video I said, you know, this is going to be fun. And they said, well, you know, it�s foreign policy; there�s nothing fun about foreign policy. And I just wanted to explain what I meant.

It�s fun for me because this is part of something I started three years ago when I first came in here, and I have a great team that�s been working with me. And it�s one of the things that we want to do is use technology and its applications to try to change the way the State Department communicates, not only with the press but also with the public. And this is an opportunity for the public to directly ask me questions, and maybe somewhere on down the line other people questions, and for you to get answers back.

And I think this is part of a general trend in the way that government and its publics communicate with one another, and it�s going to change over time. I think, inevitably, there has to be more interaction. There can�t be all this change and ferment going on outside the walls of government, and then government kind of continuing to operate as it has for the past 200 years. So that has to change. It�ll change eventually, and hopefully this is one small part of that change.

I�ve brought in a piece of paper. I just want you to know, all it has is the names and the locations of the people asking questions. I don�t know what the questions are, so I�m going to see them for the first time along with you.

Here's the intro video from the U.S. Department of State's YouTube Channel:




And here's the first briefing:




Very, very interesting. They also have a blog.

Brings up a few questions:

1. Social Studies Teachers: Don't you think this gives you some ideas for some assignments? Shouldn't you have your students submitting questions to the State Department?
   
   
2. District Internet Filter Czars: If you're blocking YouTube, isn't this yet another argument why, if you don't unblock it altogether, you at least need teacher overrides for the filter?

Intellectual Freedom: Where Do You Stand?

This week is banned books week. From the ALA website:

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one�s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

Courtesy of Doug Johnson, we also might want to celebrate Blocked Bytes Week:

As Doug says:

Americans need the freedom to read more than just books.

As Doug has suggested before, I think many schools interpret CIPA incorrectly (read: too stringently). (Also see these three earlier posts on The Fischbowl.) He then shares some very interesting information in the comments:

Yes, we do block some sites - those specifically required by CIPA - basically pornography. We trust our filter settings to make accurate judgments about this.

What keep us from being "censors," I believe, is that for any non-pornographic site to be blocked requires a formal process be followed similar to a reconsideration process for banning a book.

Ahhh, now that�s an interesting idea. The default in Doug�s district is that a non-pornographic site is accessible, and they have to go through a process to block it. In other words, somebody in the district has to show cause and make a case for blocking a particular site, as opposed to allowing a filtering company to make that judgment (typically based on categories) from afar. That lines up pretty well with what I�ve said before about my own school:

Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don�t, they know we�ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don�t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.

This filtering approach is the opposite of most districts and brings up an interesting philosophical discussion: should access to information generally be considered a good thing and therefore the default status is allowing access? Or should access to information be considered a bad thing and therefore the default status should be to block it? How much power should schools have to "censor" information and prevent students from accessing it? And who makes that decision? What are our schools' core values regarding intellectual freedom?

And, no matter where you fall on those questions, how do we best prepare our students for the unfiltered world they live in when they step off the bus? (Or open their cell phones? Or pull out their laptops with their own unfiltered connection to the Internet?)

(For the record, my district has a relatively open filter compared to most school districts, and we have a clear process where we can request that sites be unblocked. We also have a teacher override that gets teachers to many - but not all - blocked sites. Of the sites listed on Doug�s graphic, only three of them are currently blocked for students: Twitter, Ning and Second Life. Other sites that are blocked include YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and all sites deemed pornographic by 8e6, our Internet filter company.)

Update 9-30-08: Heard this related story on NPR this morning. Talks about the intial banning of The Grapes of Wrath, so more about books and less about the Internet, but interesting nonetheless.

GE, Social Networking, and Collaboration

Just a quick post to point out an article in the 7-21-08 issue of Fortune Magazine (not online yet). It has an interview with Gary Reiner, CIO of General Electric, and there were two quotes that I thought were particularly interesting.

We�ve gone out of our way to call it professional networking rather than social networking. We�ve been building a professional networking capability that allows everybody to put in the organization directory the skills that they bring to bear. It�s very searchable, so if someone is looking for a particular skill, they can go to that site. That gets about 25 million hits a day so it really is becoming sort of a heartbeat of the company. (p. 78)

I found that quote interesting for two reasons. First, it seems obvious that whether you call it social networking or professional networking, this is a skill and a habit of mind our students are going to need in their professional futures. I think it�s going to be harder and harder for schools to simply block all access to anything that smacks of social networking, both for the educational uses and the preparation for its use in students� future careers.

Second, I found it interesting in light of some of the ideas in Clay Shirky�s Here Comes Everybody. I�m just starting to re-read it and digest it more thoroughly, but I wonder about the capacity we all now have to create similar professional networks without the necessity of the organization. GE is using this to tap into the skills and potential of all its employees, but that doesn�t depend on GE being in the equation anymore. Individuals (or even software algorithms) can now make those connections without the overhead of the institutional dilemma.

The second quote that intrigued me was this one.

Over the next five years there will be distinct change in the man-machine interface. We�ve all grown up with keyboards and mice, but I�d be surprised if five years from now we didn�t all interact with our computers via multitouch gestures . . .

Another big change is going to be OLED, organic light-emitting diodes, which are extremely thin screens that will start out as TV�s but will quickly become available as computers. They have better resolution than either LCD or plasma, and they�re so thin that you�ll be able to roll them up or fold them up and carry them. This will happen within the next five or six years: You�ll be carrying around the screen, you roll it out, and it�s got multitouch capability, and that�s all you�ll need.

Something that has already grown dramatically but will continue to grow even more and ultimately become core to enterprises, as well as consumers, is what�s known as cloud computing � having all the applications centrally located. If you ask what percent of the documents you create are just for you, it�s almost zero. Almost every document you create is for collaboration in one way, shape, or form. So why not start by building it on the web and providing permissions to people that you expect to view it and edit it and leverage it? (p. 78)

That�s the first time I�ve heard anyone who should know what they�re talking about go on record that multitouch and roll-out OLED screens will be mainstream in only five to six years. If accurate, that has a host of implications for what schools are doing now and will have a tremendous impact before any student currently in elementary school graduates from high school.

The emphasis on web-based applications and collaboration is not surprising to me, but I guess it�s surprising that he�s so open and forthright about it. It�s a given for him, and therefore for GE, so that also has many implications for schools � and, again, our filtering policies. If arguably the most successful company on the planet thinks that everything they create is for collaboration in one way, shape or form, why is it still so difficult for schools to incorporate that into our thinking (and policies)?

ADVIS Presentation Questions and Feedback

Anne Smith and I had the pleasure of presenting alongside Will Richardson today to the good folks at the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools. This post is a place to leave questions or feedback for Anne and me. I apologize for the delay in posting this, but we didn�t anticipate that Blogger would be blocked at a Country Club (note to self: always ask about the filter ahead of time, even in non-school venues).

Here�s the wiki that the network built in response to a tweet by Will. In addition, several folks asked about some classroom examples from our school, so here are some we�ve demoed previously (the top part is about our staff development efforts, scroll down to see the examples). (As always, these are a work in progress and not necessarily "exemplary" work � we feel it�s important to share what we�ve tried even when the results weren�t all we hoped for.) Feel free to leave a comment and/or contact Anne or me if you have further questions.

Thank you to Barbara and the other folks at ADVIS that invited us out and treated us so nicely. Thank you also to Will � �twas a privilege.

NAESP's Vision 2021

The National Association of Elementary School Principals has a video posted on YouTube titled Vision 2021 (also embedded below). You can learn more about the vision:

The mission of VISION 2021 is two-fold:

1. Understand the drivers that are shaping teaching, leading and learning; and how the future is changing for pre-K-8 principals; and
   
2. Envision strategies, models, structures and relationships that will realign NAESP with the future.

NAESP also has a blog.

A few things about the video bothered me. First, I just don't think the video is done that well. I know I'm one to talk, since my presentations aren't exactly high quality either, but I'm also not the NAESP creating a public service announcement. And - except for Did You Know? 2.0 where XPLANE took care of the higher quality - I wasn't originally intending them for the world. But the part where the four of them are on screen speaking in unison didn't inspire me to think of 2021. (And, yes, I know, I should go back and improve my presentations now that they do have a wider audience - so this is a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.)

Second, in the About This Video section they do a nice job of describing their video, but they don't link to their website. I know they list the main NAESP site at the end of the video, and the vast majority of folks would be able to find it, but I would've thought they wanted to make it easy to click through directly to Vision 2021 to learn more.

Third, and I don't think this is just because they take a shot at 2020 Vision, but - for me - the tagline of "Hindsight is 20/20" doesn't quite work with the title of Vision 2021. 2021 doesn't have much of a ring to it, and I don't follow the logic of 2020 is hindsight, so therefore 2021 is the future. If you're looking back at 2020, wouldn't that mean you were in at least 2021?

Fourth, in their blog entry about the YouTube video, they don't link directly to the video. They link to YouTube, but they tell their readers to:

access the video on the YouTube Web site by typing �NAESP� into the search engine.

Finally, I just can't help noticing the irony that they posted it on YouTube, when presumably a very high percentage of K-8 schools can't get to YouTube because of their Internet filter. I couldn't find it on TeacherTube, so they must think YouTube is special in some way - has some quality that inspired them to post it there. (In their defense, I did eventually find it on the Vision 2021 site in RealPlayer format).

As I read over the above, it sounded pretty negative, so I almost decided not to post this. I do think it's good they are taking a look at the future and trying to figure out what our students need, and I don't want to knock them for their effort. I just wonder if they could've made their video - and associated posts - just a bit more appealing.

YouTube 101

Over on the EMAC blog I learned about a class being offered at Pitzer College on YouTube. It�s a media studies class learning about YouTube and often using YouTube to teach the class. Where can you find out more about it? Well, on YouTube.



You can also read more about it at Inside Higher Ed. So, UC Berkeley and USC now have YouTube channels, Pangea Day will be on YouTube, and now this media studies course. But students in my district have to watch this at home, and my staff has to use their override. Hmm.

Here's a bunch more about the class.

Two More Conversation Starters

Thanks to an email from Darren Draper, who pointed me to this post on Jeff Vandrimmelen�s blog, and then a reminder from an all too rare post from Bud, I wanted to share these two videos from Michael Wesch.

You can read much more about the first video, including how they created it:

This video was created by myself and the 200 students enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in.

The second video

. . . explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Sorry LPS students, you�ll have to watch these from home because they�re blocked by the filter. LPS teachers, you can use your filter override to watch these. Click on either of the following links, which will give you the access denied screen, then use your override (if you haven�t done this yet, I can show you how). Once you override the filter to watch the first one, you should be able to watch the second one right after it without typing in your override again. (BTW, when the override is in effect, you should also be able to see the embedded videos above, although you may have to refresh the page before they show.)

Direct link to A Vision of Students Today

Direct link to Information R/evolution

Even More On Filtering

Okay, I�m about done with this topic, I promise. But I keep finding more and more thoughtful folks talking about filtering and responsibility and what/how/why we should be teaching our students about this, so I just wanted to add to my previous two posts by pointing to a few more resources.

First, Kimberly Moritz over on LeaderTalk (if you�re not subscribed to LeaderTalk, go do it right now):

How do we do more to educate our parents and students about the danger of this sort of personal exploitation while encouraging teachers and students to utilize all that is good about the web? In my experience, the response is often that adults conclude the web is a bad thing all together, because if its misuse in a case like this one.

As an adult learner, I have no problem discriminating, considering the source, looking at the possible bias. I have no problem avoiding the million and one websites out there that focus on nonsense. I don't think blocking access to the web at school is going to teach our kids how to do those things. I'm certain that opening it up completely to students who are still developing their good sense and judgment isn't the answer either.

Carolyn Foote adds to her earlier thoughts:

ALA quotes the National Research Council whose report insightfully points out:

�Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms. All these measures are helpful, but by far the most important thing that one can do for one�s children is to teach them to swim.�

So, what can we do? Some ideas (feel free to add to these):

1. Create a committee to collaborate on the filtering decision-making process. While the day-to-day decisions will probably have to be made by one person, the general policy decisions can be reviewed quarterly to make sure that the responsibility for the decision making is shared. This removes pressure from one individual, as well as taking into account differing philosophies and experience in the district. (I think such a committee should include teachers, tech directors, librarians, an administrator, IT people, etc.) Gathering all the parties also has the added benefit of starting a shared conversation about technology use.

2. Develop a quick and timely process for responding to teacher requests for unfiltering sites. If the process is not timely, teachers will �give up,� thus essentially �censoring� the site.

3. Advocate a professional approach for staff. It is likely to be appropriate to provide less filtering to staff than to students. Most filters allow for this. No more than we would penalize an entire class for 2 misbehaving students should we penalize an entire staff or student body for a few who do not observe the AUP policies.

4. Understand that there is a difference between classroom management and filtering. (This is part of the purpose of having a committee approach or a process for unfiltering sites.) If students are misusing computer resources, this is a discipline problem, not cause to discipline all students by filtering a site. If students are giggling and hiding a book on sex education in each other�s backpacks as a joke, I don�t remove it for the whole campus. I deal with those students.

5. Develop a policy and atmosphere that treats students and staff with respect. Again, the majority of your students and staff deserve that.

6. Become very familiar with the laws involved. For example, the law does allow for the filter to be unblocked so teachers can use sites for bona fide research. In how many districts is this policy not being followed? or is so time consuming and slow that the point of need passes?

7. Promote the idea of intellectual freedom on your campus. Your librarian can be an ally in that.

And in the comments on Carolyn�s post, Doug Johnson points us to an article he wrote back in 2005. I would hope that the filters have improved since the research the led to the following statistics was done, but I wonder if anyone has any more recent studies that would be helpful as we think about this.

Studies, like those of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (2003) that examined nearly a million web pages, fueled our concern. The researchers found the following:

* For every web page blocked as advertised, blocking software blocks one or more web pages inappropriately. 97-99% of the web pages blocked were done so using non-standard, discretionary, and potentially illegal criteria beyond what is required by CIPA.

* Internet blocking software was not able to detect and protect students from access to many of the apparently pornographic sites that appeared in search results related to state-mandated curriculums.

. . . Another study of Internet filtering conducted by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (2002) revealed some other interesting numbers:

* Schools that implement Internet blocking software with the least restrictive settings will block between .5% and 5% of search results based on state-mandated curriculum topics.

* Schools that implement Internet blocking software with the most restrictive settings will block up to 70% of search results based on state-mandated curriculum topics.

Another study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School (JAMA, 2002) examined how well seven Internet filters blocked health information for teens at settings from least restrictive to very restrictive. They found that at the least restrictive setting only 1.4% of the health information sites were blocked and 87% of the pornography sites were blocked. At the most restrictive setting, 24% of the health information sites were blocked with still only 91% of the pornography sites blocked.

Doug delineates some of the decisions they made to try to protect intellectual freedom yet still protect their students.

1. We based our choice of filters not on cost or convenience, but on features and customizability, and chose the least restrictive settings of the installed filter.

2. We generously use the override lists in our Internet filter; and we make sure media specialists can override the filter or have access to a machine that is completely unblocked in each media center so that questionably blocked sites can be reviewed and immediately accessed by staff and students if found to be useful.

3. We treat requests for the blocking of specific websites like we would any other material challenge.

4. We take a proactive approach to ensuring good Internet use by students.

He expands on all this in that article, so I�d highly recommend you visit and read the entire article.

Overall, my district has done a good job with this, implementing many of Doug's suggestions above. I obviously disagree with the decision they�ve made about YouTube and similar video sites, and I think we have some issues with �timely� responses since our committee only meets quarterly, but those are relatively minor complaints compared to what folks in most districts are going through.

But I still have a basic concern over the idea of the filter (in its present incarnation) in the first place. That some outside, not-educationally-focused company that must answer to its shareholders, not our stakeholders, is making decisions about what is appropriate for our students to see and not see � and then implementing those decisions with a tool that�s not up to the task at a granular-enough level.

And I also question the basic assumption that so many folks are apparently making that our students are not capable of making good decisions on their own, that if they see an inappropriate thumbnail on YouTube that one of two things will happen. Either they will be irreparably harmed by seeing the thumbnail itself, or they will feel compelled to click on the thumbnail and watch the inappropriate video, and then be irreparably harmed.

I think our students can handle more responsibility than that, that more often than not they will make the right decision. As I�ve said before,

Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don�t, they know we�ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don�t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.

At my school, at least, that approach seems to work well in many, many different areas, so why should we treat this one differently?

Finally, to go back to Doug Johnson�s words:

There is long held belief in libraryland that one selects a resource on the basis of it having some things of value rather than censor a resource based on it having some parts without value or which might possibly cause offense.

I guess I still fall firmly in the camp that believes we shouldn�t block an entire site simply because some of the content might cause offense. I believe that not only disrespects our students and compromises their education, but is also a very slippery slope . . .

More Thoughts On Filtering

My last post finished with a tame (for me) rant about Internet filtering, and specifically that YouTube and other similar sites are currently blocked in my district. Carolyn Foote � in the comments � pointed me to some parallel conversations going on. (Thanks, Carolyn, since I�m way behind in my aggregator.) For those of you who are interested in this topic, let me point you to a few of them.

First, Doug Johnson has a self-described rant of his own:

There is long held belief in libraryland that one selects a resource on the basis of it having some things of value rather than censored a resource based on it having some parts without value or which might possibly cause offense. In choosing to block YouTube, you are a censor. You violate your staff's and students' intellectual freedom, their rights to view. By arbitratily blocking other sites, you are violating your staff's and students' right to read. You are denying them their rights accorded by the First Amendment.

Doug�s post appears to have been spurred at least in part by this post by Miguel Guhlin:

Over the last two weeks, there's been a rash of emails from Texas Tech Directors asking, "How do you handle the use of YouTube videos by instructional staff?" Often, YouTube is blocked in school districts, but teachers (and others) find they want to use the content in their lessons. I enjoyed responding to these questions by other tech directors by pointing them to different resources they could use to get YouTube videos and save them to their computers.

You should also check out Miguel�s post for one way to fairly easily save videos from YouTube and similar sites locally. I have found several ways to do this, but this may be the simplest and the one least likely to get broken by updates to the hosting site (since Zamzar will presumably respond quickly to changes). (Note that you still have to be able to access the video site to get the URL of the particular video you want, so that requires accessing from home or overriding the filter at school if you have that option.)

A related post by Miguel then led me to two posts, one by Tim Stahmer:

In my spare time this week I�ve been submitting requests to have a long list of sites unblocked (fortunately, my boss approved them) but it�s not that effort that bothers me.

It�s the totally inconsistent classification and blocking of web sites which is very much symptomatic of the arbitrary, sometimes knee-jerk rules we often impose on students in the name of keeping them safe.

Instead of using the electronic filters sparingly (there are certainly sites that need to be kept out of the classroom) and then teaching the kids how to evaluate and filter the rest for themselves, we throw up a porous chain-link fence, offering administrators a false sense of security.

And, from a comment on Miguel's post, this post by Kurt Paccio:

I am a primary decision maker for web content filtering in a school. We continually see comments with the groans, and the sighs about schools who "over filter" or block entire sites. We also hear the frequent "they don't get it!" label slapped onto the decision makers.

I'd like to point out something of interest. Not one of those who sigh or are critical of filtering decisions has their job on the line should Johnny access inappropriate content. Would those who are frustrated sit beside me in court or defend me in the court of public opinion? They certainly would not have to sit in the principal's office and explain to the sobbing mother who is clutching her book of faith.

For those who can't believe that YouTube is blocked, have you approached the Superintendent and volunteered to assume liability for the District should a student, parent, or family launch a lawsuit? As it stands today, many AUPs identify the Technology Coordinator, Technology Director, or Superintendent as the individual responsible for safeguarding students.

The comment that led me to Kurt�s post was by Jim Gates, who adds to the conversation (coming full circle by talking about my post) with this post:

What's that? Allow teachers to override the filter? HERESY? An OUTRAGE? Impossible?... WONDERFUL! FANTASTIC! Imagine giving control of the internet to those people with whom we are entrusting our children and assuming that they will use good judgement in their choices. What's the worst consequence of this great idea? You might have a teacher who uses poor judgement, or you may have one who decides to follow her stocks all day long or to monitor their ebay account. What then? I liked what one principal said in a meeting recently. He said, "I want to KNOW which teachers are doing that when they should be teaching a class. At least that way I can get rid of them. But, to restrict the Internet to such a point that it interferes with the education we're trying to provide to our students just to protect the teachers from themselves doesn't make sense."

And then this article came to me in the old fashioned way via email (yes, email delivery of a link to a web page is now �old-fashioned,� if not downright quaint):

The University of California, Berkeley, is posting course lectures and other campus happenings on YouTube.

Finally, Carolyn herself had a post recently where she talked about similar issues:

I find it upsetting because there are teachers out there who are committed and excited about education, and who really want to bridge the gap between the world many of their students live in (wired, connected, �on all the time�) and the world of education(me being one of those teachers). These teachers are pushing the envelope, eagerly trying new things, and trying to use the best tools they can find to connect their students with a world beyond the classroom walls.

Yet too many of these teachers are met with roadblocks, and an ever mounting frustration at being unable to convince administrators or their IT department, or their district leaders..or someone in their district, that what they are doing can be done in a safe manner and is valuable, very valuable for their students.

So my fear is, naturally, that we are going to lose some of the best teachers we have in the country. Because you can only stand expending half your energies �convincing� people for so long. And no one finds it rewarding to have their genuine love and enthusiasm for teaching reined in and constantly met with roadblocks.

And I�m sure there are many, many others. But this is just one set of examples of the many good conversations going on as we try to figure out how best to meet the needs of our students.

Two Steps Forward . . .

It seems like a recurring theme in my school and district, two steps forward and one (or sometimes 1.8) steps back. By the end of this month, my school will be offering access to our wireless network to �personally owned devices.� Anyone who owns a device that uses the standard wireless protocols (802.11 a/b/g right now) will be able to connect to our wireless network and access the Internet (although not our file servers and printers). This access is still filtered by the same filter that school computers use, but is not password protected or restricted in any other way. Users have to accept an agreement each time they launch their browsers, and teachers have full discretion over their use in classrooms (much like we handle cell phones and iPods right now).

For those of you paying very close attention, you may recall that we had this briefly last fall until we realized that the licensing for our Internet filter did not cover these personally owned devices so it was switched back off. Over the summer the district purchased a new filter (8e6) and this was part of that agreement. This means that our students (as well as staff, parents, and other visitors to the building) will be able to bring their laptops, or iPhones, or Palms, or iPod touches, or whatevers and be connected. We have theoretical wireless coverage for about 95% of the footprint of the building, although I suspect that we will find quite a few dead spots as students start bringing more and more devices. We may also have density issues, although we did put extra wireless access points in our media center and cafeteria, figuring those areas would see heavy usage. (Because of our variable schedule, our students have a fair amount of unscheduled time at school to work on assignments, seek out teachers for additional help, meet with counselors, and use our media center � including the computers. While we currently have 35 computers available in our media center, they are still often all being used, so this will begin to help students have access whenever they need it, not just when the computers are available.)

The second step forward has to do with the filter itself. One of the reasons my district chose 8e6 was because of its ability to include overrides. There are actually two levels of override, an Active Directory override and a Building Level override. The Active Directory override allows all staff members to enter their login credentials and override many of the sites that the filter blocks. This allows them to use their discretion about using a site that may be blocked but is still educationally appropriate, and also allows them to get to a site to evaluate if it is appropriate. The Building Level override then gives an even higher level of access. I�ve questioned whether there is a need for two levels of override, using the seemingly incontestable argument of why would they trust me more than my staff. Those discussions are still ongoing, but I�m hopeful that they will eventually give all staff the same override rights as the building level override.

This is a huge improvement over last year, where we did have a building level override but no individual overrides, making it much easier for teachers to do their jobs �just in time.� If you are using 8e6 in your district and don�t have these overrides, you might ask (nicely) why not. This is built-in to 8e6, so I don�t think there�s a huge technical hurdle to implementing it. Keep in mind that it does keep a log of all overrides, and that log is attached to the login override that�s used, so there is still some �tracking� that can be done.

So, what�s the one step back? With the implementation of the new filter over the summer, they had to re-setup the categories of what was blocked and what was allowed. As part of that process, we now have lost access to YouTube, Google Video and other similar video sites. Previously we had had full access to those sites, and many teachers and students had used them effectively. Now, they�re somewhat crippled. Yes, teachers can access them with their override, which is annoying but still workable if they want to show a particular video to their classes. But what they can�t do anymore is have their students watch videos on their own, or find videos, or work on presentations that include videos, or upload their own videos. With our variable schedule, this is something that teachers had asked students to do in the past, but now we can�t.

I�ll spare you the long, drawn out arguments I made, as most of you can probably make them better than I did. But I will say this much. This completely contradicts the philosophy of my high school (and I thought my district). Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don�t, they know we�ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don�t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.

It appears to me that the basic problem is that the filter, as much as I like some of its features, still cannot do what it purports to do � which is block inappropriate content (however that�s defined and whoever is doing the defining, which is a whole different rant). As it is, the filter is only capable of blocking categories and all of YouTube, not just inappropriate content on YouTube. While I understand that that is technically daunting, I don�t really care � that�s not my job, that�s the filter company�s job. Until they can do that, I think we should stop calling it by the euphemism �Internet Filter,� and instead call it what it really is, an �Information Censor.� It still amazes me that schools are so willing to abrogate their responsibilities and turn over control of the resources their students are allowed to access, the information and ideas their students are exposed to, to a third-party, for-profit company that does not hold education as its primary mission. What's next, are we going to start buying textbooks? OK, so maybe I shouldn't be so amazed.

So, as one example, our students won�t be able to learn from and participate in Pangea Day while at school. From the TED blog:

On May 10, 2008, Pangea Day, sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, supplemented by visionary speakers, and global musicians.

The purpose: to use the power of film to promote better understanding of our common humanity. A global audience will watch through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones. Yes, of course, movies alone can�t change the world. But the people who watch them can.

To start the process, a short Pangea Day trailer (2:30 min) has just been given front-page exposure on YouTube, inviting anyone to submit their films. Pangea is seeking films "that provoke, entertain and inspire". "Images are powerful to divide, but also to unite", says the trailer.

Here�s the trailer. Note that while the trailer can be viewed on the Pangea Day website, films are submitted to a group at YouTube, meaning our students won�t be able to view them, or submit their own.



Sorry, LPS students, you won�t be able to view this at school. Please go learn � and change the world - at home.