Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Mashup Edu: Research on K-12 New Media Literacy

I am pleased to announce that the book chapter that I co-authored with Dr. Mercedes Fisher, "Pedagogical Mashup: Gen Y, Social Media, and Digital Learning Styles," has officially been accepted for publication in the Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges, to be published by IGI Global later this year.

Dr. Fisher and I wish to thank the co-editor of the book, Professor Subramaniam at the National Institute of Education at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, for his hard work and direction during the writing and peer-review process.

In addition, we appreciate all the members of the peer-review committee for their feedback, suggestions and collaboration on this chapter. It's been a wonderful experience to work with members of the international education technology/media community.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in the book chapter over on the social bookmarking tool delicious, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

Related Publications by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles

Web 2.0, Networks & Gen Y

“Putting organisations like that into a network instead of running them as walled hierarchies is a massive step. At the moment it’s only beginning to happen, and that’s just in marketing.

“It’s gotta be another twenty years [until things really start to change]. The people in their twenties now who’ve grown up with computers, they’re the ones who are going to do all this [web 2.0] stuff naturally.”

--Dominic Campbell, via Interactive Know How

Related Resources

• Study Looks At the Psychology of Facebook
• Older Web Users Catching Up
• Social Media Hits Critical Mass

Pew Research on Teens, Video Games & Learning

A few days ago the Pew Internet & American Life Project released the results of a national survey of U.S. teens (survey sample: 1,102 youth ages 12-17) and video games.

The study, a project of the Pew Research Center and the MacArthur Foundation,  shatters many of the previously held beliefs that video game obsessed teens lead socially isolated lives devoid of interaction with other people.

In fact, the Pew study found that "virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement."

Among the key findings:

Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day.

• 97% of American teens ages 12-17 play some kind of video game.    
• 99% of boys say they are gamers and 94% of girls report that they play games.

Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories.

• A typical teen plays at least five different categories of games and 40% of them play eight or more different game types.    
• While some teens play violent video games, those who play violent games generally also play non-violent games.

Game playing is social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time.

• 76% of gaming teens play games with others at least some of the time.    
• 82% play games alone at least occasionally, though 71% of this group also plays games with others.   
• 65% of gaming teens play with others in the same room.

Game playing can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.

• 76% of youth report helping others while gaming.    
• 44% report playing games where they learn about a problem in society.

Game playing sometimes involves exposure to mature content, with almost a third of teens playing games that are listed as appropriate only for people older than they are.

• 32% of youth 12-16 in this sample play games that are listed as appropriate only for people older than they are.    
• 32% of gaming teens report that at least one of their favorite games is rated Mature or Adults Only.    
• 12-14 year old's are equally as likely to play Mature and Adults Only rated games as their 15-17 year old counterparts (source).

Related Resources

• Video Games Teaching Diplomacy & Social Justice
• Gen Y Update: Video Games 101
• CBS News > Gen Tech & Wired Teen America

Animoto for Education

A few months ago I blogged about Animoto, a slick new web app that takes your pictures, mashes it with audio, and creates a music video that can be exported to YouTube or embedded in a variety of social media platforms like a wiki or blog.

The service proved to be so popular among the education community that the Animoto team just launched a new micro site just for educators: Animoto For Education. The Animoto Education site is full of case studies, FAQ's on how to get started using Animoto in your classroom and information on how to get a classroom account.

I have no doubt that your students are going to continue to create some really amazing projects using Animoto. So take a look at Animoto for Education and think about the many ways it can be integrated into your curriculum this year.

And be sure to share what you create with both the Animoto For Education site and the AnimotoEDU Group on YouTube.

Related Resources

• YouTube Group > AnimotoEDU
• Animoto: The Buzz
• Creative Commons > Audio
• Animoto Blog
• Education & Copyright

Hurray for Dizzywood: Virtual World with a Purpose

Dizzywood is a new virtual world for tweens created by the folks over at ROCKETpaperscissors.  Like other virtual communities geared for the tween set (I'm talking Doko, Webkinz, Neopets, Moshi Monsters) users can create an avatar, connect with friends, play games and activities that earn them unique super powers and other rewards.

The team behind Dizzywood have designed a virtual environment that "encourages kids to engage in challenging activities and cooperate with others, while developing important cognitive skills. I had my pre-tween nephew give Dizzywood a go this afternoon and he was instantly hooked. He loved the animation and said that the games were "really, really fun."

Beyond the element of online play, Dizzyworld is using their virtual world to teach kids about the environment and other life skills like honesty, digital citizenship and respect. Dizzyworld recently joined with the Arbor Day Foundation on a promotion that allowed Dizzyworld citizens to plant a virtual tree to reforest a damaged area within the online world of Dizzywood.

But here's the really cool part: when you plant a virtual tree in the Dizzyworld forest, a real tree is planted on Earth. And as the virtual tree grows, kids are able to see how the tree is able to clean pollution from the skies above Dizzyworld. This is a great way situate the lessons learned in a virtual world, into a real world context and provide kids with a sense of empowerment and a purposeful gaming experience.

Dizzywood's ability to successfully mash together virtual games, social responsibility and collaborative skills has caught the eye of the YMCA of San Francisco has announced plans to integrate Dizzyworld into their education technology curriculum.

Here's more from the Press Release on the partnership:

"The YMCA is using Dizzywood’s virtual environment to reinforce its program emphasis on activities that promote values such as caring, honesty, respect and responsibility.

Children also learn about important issues relating to virtual worlds, such as digital citizenship and online safety, as well as complete storytelling and team-building exercises that emphasize creativity, writing and reading skills, and working together to achieve goals."

Almost every week it seems like there is a new virtual world being launched with no real purpose other than shopping or fun-based gaming activities. It's refreshing to see a product like Dizzyworld that has a strong educational component cleverly woven into the practice of play.

Creating an educational and fun virtual learning environment that kids will actually use is no small feat. It looks like Rocketpaperscissors team is well on their way to finding that magical mix between learning, technology and community.

So give Dizzyworld a whirl, plant your virtual tree and have fun!

Related Links

• Dizzywood Parents Guide
• Facebook > Become a Fan of Dizzywood
• Dizzywood - Arbor Day Foundation Partnership
• Teens, Virtual Goods and Real Money
• Dizzywood's Arpajian Talks Motivating Kids Play

DOE Study: 71% of Districts to Expand eLearning Programs

The results of a joint survey conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and U.S. Department of Education (DOE) were released earlier this month and provide more insight into the totally wired world of Gen Y students'.

The survey, "Technology-Based Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2004-05, provides policymakers, researchers, and educators with data about web-based education courses in public elementary and secondary schools nationwide.

The data for this report was compared to data gathered in the 2002-2003 report and used as a baseline against the 2004-2005 findings. You can read the full report by clicking here.

Among the key findings:

• 37% of public school districts and 10 % of all public schools nationwide had students enrolled in technology-based distance education courses during 2004-2005;

• 26% of school districts that existed in both 2002-2003 and 2004-2005 had students enrolled in technology-based distance education in both school years;

• The number of enrollments in technology-based distance education courses increased from an estimated 317,070 enrollments in 2002-2003 to 506,950 in 2004-2005; 61% of technology-based distance education enrollments at the high school level;

• 71% of districts with students enrolled in technology-based distance education courses in 2004-2005 planned to expand their distance education courses in the future.

The success of any distance learning program is contingent on the ability of the instructors to utilize a blended approach of face-to-face with social technologies in order to foster social support, provide technical support, and design courses which allow students to explore and develop their intrinsic learning goals.

As online learning continues to expand and new instructors deepen their understanding of the online learning environment they will be able to focus on students learning and supporting their needs in this environment.

In the end, successful web-based learning comes when instructors and designers recognize first the importance of cultivating relationships, and then carefully balance the symbiotic relationship between social technologies, community, and constructivist learning as a means to provide avenues of opportunity for students to achieve their full potential.

Related Resources

• Report on Technology, Learning & Gen Y
• Fisher & Baird: Social Media & Online Course Design
• Education, Innovation & The Future of Learning
• MashUp Edu: A New Digital Pedagogy

Report on Technology, Learning and Gen Y

A new report from Blackboard and Project Tomorrow provides new insight into the sociological impact online learning has had on education.

The report, Learning in the 21st Century: A Trends Update, was conducted in fall 2007 and included input from 250,000 K12 students, teachers and parents from 3,000 schools across the United States.

Among the findings:

• 84% of principals and administrators believe that technology increases student achievement;

• 41% of students say that online classes have the greatest impact on their learning;

• 33% of students said they wanted more social media tools (blogs, wiki, social networking) used in the classroom to support learning;

• Almost half of the students surveyed (46%) would like to have access to tools that help them organize and collaborate on school projects.

As students utilize social technologies to share their thought processes and provide feedback to their learning community, they are able to help each other work through cognitive roadblocks, modify their perceptions, and negotiate their own views while simultaneously building a collaborative peer support system.

In addition, collaborative learning environments help students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills—both essential skills for students to compete in a global knowledge-based society. This research should help bolster advocates of infusing the curriculum with technology.

Moreover, it's important to remember that there are still many schools who don't have access to technology and getting every school in the country wired should be a priority so that all students can have access to online learning opportunities and resources.

Related Resources

• Project Tomorrow
• Learning Styles 2.0: Digital, Social and Always On
• Classroom 2.0: Online Professional Development
• Global Trends in Youth, Social Media & Ed Tech

Free Cartoon Animation Software

via Open Source on LearnHub: "There are many cartoon animation programs available that offer free trial downloads. Here are three cartoon animation programs that are completely open-source, which means they are free for you to use.

Though they vary in complexity, ease of use and features you will likely find one that best suits your animation needs."

Related Resources

• LearnHub
• Pencil
• Synfig
• Creatoon
• Pixton: Learning with Comics

Summer Camp Goes Virtual

Remember when summer meant running around the neighborhood, hanging out and getting your top lip stained by orange or grape soda? That may have been how we spent our summer, but Gen Y has its own ideas of how to spend summer vacation--and naturally, it involves technology.

Camp Fatal1ty was developed by pro-gamer Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel and is run by iD:Gaming Academy. The Fatal1ty camps are held at Emory University, Stanford University, UCLA and Villanova University and provides teens with "an immersive experience in the dynamic worlds of game development and professional gaming, our video game camp courses are geared for beginning to advanced teens aged 13-17."

Cybercamps Academy provides teens with the opportunity to learn more about web technologies, including Flash, graphic and video game design. The Cybercamp Academy sessions are held at over 50 universities including Duke, UCLA and Stanford.

They also have a virtual camp track where kids can learn how to do everything from game design to 3D modeling. According to research conducted by Cybercamps Academy, this type of camp "significantly increases higher-order thinking skills in kids."

This seems like a fun and active way for kids to get engaged in science and technology while providing them with the opportunity to develop both critical thinking and problem solving skills.

These tech camps provide an environment in which kids get to use technology in a context that allows them to learn how to work in a collaborative environment.It's too bad that these types of active learning experiences aren't more common during the regular school year.

Who knows, the next MySpace, Facebook or Flickr gazillionarie might be sitting in a VirtCamp right now.

Related Resources

• Technology Encourages Active Learning
• Seymour Papert
• Logo Programming Resources

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2008

The Constructivist Consortium is sponsoring a four-day institute focusing on "intensive computer-rich project development with peers and a world-class faculty." The conference will be held at the Radison Hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire.

This isn't a typical conference where you get to sit and passively listen to the speakers. This is a hands-on conference where active participation is not only encouraged, it's expected. There's also a great line up of thought leaders from across the education space--including, Dr. Gary Stager.

I had the great honor and pleasure to have Dr. Stager as one of my grad school professors at Pepperdine University. What I love most about Dr. Stager is that he really makes you think and defend your positions, ideas and theories.

This sounds like a great event and I'm sure that anyone who attends will leave the conference full of ideas, resources and new insight.

Related Resources

• Constructing Modern Knowledge Program
• Constructivist Consortium Bookstore
• Social Networking: Learning Theory in Action

Ecto: Learning Made Social

Ecto is a social, collaborative, global learning community where teachers can organizing class content for students to access online. Ecto also allows you to share content and connect with others globally using the "best of breed" Web 2.0 social networking technologies.

And best of all, access to EctoLearning is free.

Related Resources

• LearnHub
• Technology Encourages Active Learning
• Learning 2.0: Digital, Social and Always-On

Animoto: Learning Made Musical (and Fun)

Animoto is a slick new web app that takes your pictures, mashes it with audio, and creates a music video that can be exported to YouTube or embedded in a variety of social networks or blog.

Here's a Animoto short video I created using moblog pictures I took on a recent trip to San Francisco. I uploaded my pictures from Flickr, picked a slick track by The Dimes, and Animoto did the rest!

There are lots of ways you can use Animoto in the classroom. Animoto is a natural fit for project based learning activities. This is a great way to get students actively interested in history, literature or even science.

And unlike the open web, Animoto provides teachers and students with a controlled environment for them to create and share video. Other sharing options include email to a friend, downloads (for Pro accounts) and some sort of iTunes integration.

Creating a music video with Animoto is also a great way to open the conversation about copyright and Creative Commons. One of the barriers for educators using this type of technology is fear about using music and all the copyright issues that pop up when using an audio track in a video project.

Animoto has done the education community a great service by providing a wide variety of music that can be used by students and teachers. Creative Commons also has a wide selection of music that can be used in an Animoto movie.

You can import your images from all the major photo sites, including Flickr, Facebook, Picassa Web Albums, and Photobucket. Film shorts are free, and full-length videos are $3 bucks. All in all, Animoto sports some really amazing technology.

I have no doubt that the education community is going to create some really amazing projects using Animoto. And towards that end, I've created a public YouTube group, AnimotoEDU, where you can share your classroom project with other educators.

Related Resources

• YouTube Group > AnimotoEDU
• Animoto: The Buzz
• Creative Commons > Audio
• Animoto Blog
• Education & Copyright

ERGO: Teaching Students How to Research

The State Library of Victoria (Australia) just released, Ergo, a resource designed as a "practical guide to research, essay writing and studying shows you how to find resources, write great essays and prepare for exams."

In addition, the site contains original documents, images and maps from the archives of the State Library of Victoria that students can use in their reports. I learned about this exciting new initiative from Australian uber blogger Judy O'Connell.

One of her colleagues from the State Library of Victoria, Andrew Hiskens, was involved in the development of the project.

Judy posted a snippet of a conversation she had with Andrew explaining the background behind:

"Ergo took about 18 months to develop. It was designed to be a tool to assist secondary students in learning to research (hence pared back words, images with rollovers for visual learners and short video clips from writers, historians and scientists). We then coupled that with unique resources form our own collections largely around the history of Melbourne and Victoria. 

The site is a practical guide to research, essay writing and studying and shows how to find resources, write great essays and prepare for exams. It also has a huge range of original documents and images.

The idea of the site is to help students make their work the very best it can be! And we know that that means excellent research, writing and study skills.

The site includes:

• easy to follow guides to research, essay writing and study skills
• over 500 digitised resources from the State Library’s collections
• worked examples available at point of need, illustrating bias in primary sources, how to understand an essay question and much more
• video interviews with prominent authors, historians and artists including Helen Garner and Nobel Laureate, Peter Doherty
• teacher  and student resources with a focus on critical literacy and thinking processes."

This looks like a fantastic project for both students and teachers. It will be interesting to hear how students respond and what type of feedback they provide the ERGO team.

Congratulations to Andrew and his team on the launch of ERGO. And thanks to Judy for sharing this information with the edusphere.

Related Resources

• ERGO > Choose the Best Quotes
• Flickr + PictureAustralia
• Canberra Institute of Technology > mlearning blog
• Tutor Linker
• Inside A Dog

PBS & WIRED Science Student Video Contest

WIRED Science and PBS are sponsoring a "WIRED Science Student Video Contest" that is open to all students in grades 9-12 (contest is also open to home school students).

This is an opportunity for students to work with their teachers to create a video explaining a science concept, ideas on the future of science, or--well, anything else you think will help you snag the prize. Yes, there are prizes.

You can learn more about the contest, find the application form, along with all the details over on the WIRED Science Education page.

Don't forget that Jumpcut has free, easy-to-use video editing tools. And if you need a refresher on copyright, be sure to check out CreativeCommons or the Microsoft MyBytes for more information.

But hurry. Application and videos are due by April 1st, 2008. So hurry--get those creative juices flowing!

Related Resources

• WIRED Science Contest > Gallery
• Science Commons
• Twitter > WIRED Science

Update: Schwab Learning

Last summer I blogged about Schwab Learning, a philanthropic foundation set up by Charles and Helen Schwab dedicated to providing resources, information, and research on learning difficulties.

Late last year, The Schwab Foundation announced that it would shift its focus from their website and resources to providing grants. The good news is that they have found good homes for their parent/teacher communities and SparkTop site for kids.

SparkTop is now part of the Professor Garfield family of educational media. In addition to SparkTop, Professor Garfield has a wealth of resources for educators in their Teachers Lounge community.

The parent and teacher resources on learning difficulties are now a part of Great Schools, "a nonprofit dedicated to helping parents make informed choices, become actively involved in their kids’ education, and advocate for high-quality teaching and learning."

I'm thrilled that these phenomenal resources have found new homes on the web and will continue to help students, teachers and parents navigate their way through an educational ecosystem that doesn't always understand that "no two brains spark alike."