Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Weekly Wrap: Twitter & Social Media in Education, Television 2.0, Social Gaming, Boomers & Social Media, Virtual Worlds Growth Spurt, BackTweets & TwitterCal

Higher Education is Stuck in the Middle Ages: In this article Don Tapscott, youth guru and author of Growing Up Digital, outlines the clash between the model of learning offered by big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital learn. The entire U.S. education system is woefully behind when it comes to using social media (and mobile devices) in the classroom. [AlterNet]

The Hidden Problem with Twitter: Speaking of the Middle Ages, this article stirs the pot by asking if the texting and Twitter habits are "hurting" the English language. Perhaps we need to take a cue from our Aussie friends and look for a way to use social and mobile media to help educate the Net Generation.  [HigherEdMorning.com] [University of Melbourne]

More on Television 2.0: Is the TV business dying or does it have a second act? Television networks are actively looking for ways to hold onto Gen Y by interjecting more social media and even 3D television features into their programming.

In an attempt to hold on to younger viewers, MTV is launching It's On with Alexa Chung, while the BBC is placing its bets on a new interactive TV studio. Or will 'traditional' TV networks be replaced by young upstarts like Halogen TV which is featuring both webisodes and traditional distribution outlets for its content?

Virtual Worlds Booming: Market research firm Strategy Analytics released its forecast for growth within the virtual worlds sector and said it sees the global population of virtual world users growing from 186 million today to almost 640 million by 2015 -- that's almost one hundred million new players a year, a nearly 25 percent compounded annual growth rate. [Virtual Worlds News]

Boomers Crashing the Social Media Party: According to iStrategy Labs, Facebook's seen its 35-54 demo membership blow up by 276.4 percent between June 2008 and January 2009. The 55-and over contingent grew 194.3 percent in the same amount of time. In comparison, that ever-so-sought 18-24 group bounced just 20.6 percent.

The total number of Facebook users aged 35-plus in October 2007 totaled just fewer than 845,000, while as of this past January, their combined might totals just less than 8 million - 18.9 percent of the total Facebook pie. [MediaPost]

Young Obama Official Helped Keep Twitter on in Iran: According to The New York Times, there's a steady flow of information on Twitter largely thanks to the efforts of a 27-year-old State Department official named Jared Cohen, whose job is to advise the department on how to use social media to promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. [MTV News]

One More Thing: According to experts social gaming is the next big thing, use Backtweets to see which tweets link to your site, mobileYouth has a list of youth marketing & trend Twits on Twitter (thanks Graham!), get a sneak peak of Josh Shipp's new tv show--"Jump Shipp", tweet to add appointments to your Google Calendar, more on Millennials and Twitter and an Iranian Gen Y writes about Revolution 2.0!

Also, thanks to all of you who took part in Operation 55 Zebra! Go David Go!

Weekly Wrap: Education Embracing Twitter, Student Wikipedia Hoax, Advice for Tweens, Social Media Squatters, Social Music & Youth Marketing Tips

Economic Slump Slows Down Summer School: "The economic downturn has prompted many school districts to reduce funds for summer school. That's bad news for students who need remedial work and for those who are taking summer classes to advance a grade." [NPR]

Embracing the Twitter Classroom: Huffington Post blogger Jessica Gross takes a look at the battle over the use of social media going on in our schools between kids, parents and teachers. Jessica has a brilliant observation: "This argument is akin to that for abstinence-only education. Kids with access to the Internet are going to use it whether or not their parents decide they're "ready."" Amen. Also, check out my previous posts on using Twitter in education. [Huffington Post]

Student Uses Wikipedia to Punk World Media: Looks like the mainstream media (MSM) need to take a course on digital literacy and basic research techniques. I think this also points out that youth have a better understanding of web credibility that adults give them credit.  [Irish Times]

Stars Dish out Advice for Tweens: A new tween survival guide, 113 Things to Do By 13 written by 14-year-old blogger Brittany MacLeod features advice and tips from young Hollywood stars. Wonder if Brittany will be at the 2009 National Tween Summit in DC?  [Yahoo! OMG]

Noika to Launch 3G Phone for Emerging Markets: Nokia has announced the Nokia 2730 classic, a phone that includes 3G data connectivity and tools for emerging phone markets. This should be a boon to educators to deliver content and instruction via mobile learning platforms. [MobileBurn]

How to Handle Social Networking Name Squatting: Julia Angwin lays out some steps that may, or may not work when someone is social squatting on your name. [WSJ]

5 Messaging Tips When Talking to Youth: Great youth marketing tips from the folks over at Campus Media Group. [Campus Media Group]

The Rise of Social Music: Mashable has a great post tracing the history of audio on the web and the rise of social music services like Last.fm, Blip.fm and MySpace. It also takes a peek into the future and looks at the rise of mobile music. [Mashable]

The Latino Initiative: Between 2005 and 2006 the teen birth rate increased 3% - the first increase in 15 years. This increase occurred among most ethnic groups - among Hispanic teens, the increase was 2%. The National Campaign’s Latino Initiative focus on helping the Latino community in its efforts to reduce continued high rates of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing. Plus, Bristol Palin talks to People Magazine about teen sex and life as a teen mother. [People Magazine]

ContactPoint: Database of UK Children Launched

As part of the Every Child Matters initiative and in effort to protect children the government has launched ContactPoint, a database containing the personal data of every child under the age of 18 in England. Here's the official program description:

"ContactPoint is an online directory, available to authorised staff who need it to do their jobs, enabling the delivery of coordinated support for children and young people. It is also vital to help safeguard children; and to ensure that the right agencies are involved at the right times, so children do not slip through the net.  The programme's goal is to improve the health, well-being and safety of all children."

While I applaud the efforts of the government to act in a proactive manner to protect children, I feel that a database containing sensitive information--including the address, date of birth, parents work info and social services history---of minor children is somewhat misguided and ripe for abuse.

Schools, teachers, parents, non-profits and other children advocacy groups have spent a great deal of time and energy working with children and developing digital literacy and safety programs designed to teach children not to give strangers their personal information.

A skilled hacker can bypass trying to cull information out of children over the web and go directly to the mother lode of personal information. What's even worse is that parents do not have control over what information about their children is in the database and are unable to remove content that they feel is inappropriate or too personal. Moreover, don't have the right to remove their children from the database.

Sadly, in many ways the damage has been done. Even if the government, under pressure from parents and other child safety advocacy groups were to scrap ConnectPoint, the information has already been collected and is floating around in the ether of the Internet.

Much like Pandora's Box, once the information has been released, it will be nearly impossible to get it back, especially when already over 390,000 people already have access to the database.

Related Links

• Digizen
• UK Teens Say Violence Doesn't Have to Happen
• Social Safety
• Wikipedia > ContactPoint

Weekly Wrap: Twitter King Ashton, Oprah Backlash, Social TV, Music Pirates, EuroITV2009, Glee Buzz & iPhone EDU

Did Ashton Get Punk'd? Simon Dumenco from AdAge explains how the mainstream media -- and Kutcher himself -- got wrong about his "win."

High School Musical(s): An evangelical, anti-gay Kansas-based church plans to protest the staging of the musical "Rent" at a Newport Beach, California high school. Also, Ypulse reports that "Spring Awakening" is moving from Broadway to the Sliver Screen. And Fox's Glee hasn't aired yet, but it's already getting lots of buzz--both good and bad (ouch!).

Wonder if the RIAA Got This Memo? According to research, those who download 'free' music are also the industry's largest audience for digital sales and are actually 10 times more likely to purchase music.

Social TV & Multiplatform Media Consumption: New research from IMM finds that "watching TV" is no longer a one-way, passive experience--viewers are increasingly surfing the web while they watch TV and demanding more social networking features.

Conference on Social & Interactive TV: In June EuroITV2009, an international forum for media professionals from all over the world who are interested in, work with and do research on all aspects of interactive and mobile television, will hold their annual conference in Leuven, Belgium, from June 3-5, 2009. Also of interest is a workshop at the conference that will examine ways to integrate social game play into the TV viewing experience.

What's up with the anti-Oprah Twitter Backlash? A great Mashable post by Pete Cashmore on the strange Twitterverse backlash after Oprah introduced Twitter to the masses.

College Life, MTV Style: The interns over at Unigo.com, the uber cool college review site, share their thoughts on the new MTV reality series College Life. Oh, be sure to follow @Unigo on Twitter! Also, with the economy in shambles new college grads flocking to national service programs.

iPhoneEDU: Here's a great list of free or really cheap iPhone Apps for educators. Thanks to Ben Wilkoff, 2007 Ypulse Totally Wired Teacher, for sharing this link. Don't forget: Nominations for the 2009 Ypulse Totally Wired Teacher Award are due by May 15th!

Chirping about Twitter: More ways you can use Twitter in an educational setting. Features my pal Josie Fraser -- the brains behind lots of educational & social technology projects including Digizen. Follow @josiefraser on Twitter.

Another Yahoo! Bites the Dust: Yahoo! is closing its very cool video editing and hosting service Jumpcut. This is really sad. Jumpcut had a great following in the education community as a free alternative to iMovie. RIP Jumpcut, RIP.

Ypulse 2009 Totally Wired Teacher Award

The Ypulse 2009 Totally Wired Teacher Award (sponsored by Dell) will honor a trailblazing teacher who has successfully pioneered the innovative and educational use of technology, mobile technology, social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing) in the classroom.

The award is inspired by Ypulse founder Anastasia Goodstein’s book, Totally Wired: What Teens & Tweens Are Really Doing Online, and the challenges she observed around integrating technology into public school classrooms. We will recognize a teacher who has overcome these challenges and is inspiring both students and other educators.

The award-winner likely had to overcome challenges from parents and administrators in order to use the technology, but because they understand how students use social media outside of school, they persevered with their initiative and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and knowledge with the larger teaching community.

Representatives from Ypulse and Dell will choose three finalists to interview by phone. The selected teacher will be honored in person at the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup June 1-2 in San Francisco.

All three finalists will receive a IT solution from Dell to use in their respective schools. Teachers can nominate themselves. You can get all of the details about how to nominate a teacher (or if you're a teacher, how to nominate yourself!) over on Ypulse.

Related Links

• Dell > EDU4U
• Follow Dell Education on Twitter
• Totally Wired Teen Book
• Ypulse Interview: Josh Shipp, Advice Slinger, HeyJosh.com
• Video > Anastasia Goodstein on "Totally Wired" Teens
• Follow YPulse on Twitter

NCSS Position Statement: Media Literacy is an Imperative

In February the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) released a position statement on media literacy, social technology and learning in the digital age. Their conclusion?

"These changes in society and the experiences the students bring into the classroom challenge social studies teachers to change both how and what we teach. One reaction is to fear these changes and try to protect our students from things we don’t understand or appreciate. Such an approach is neither helpful nor pedagogically sound.

Another response is to take advantage instructionally of the wealth of experiences that young people have making media choices by respecting those choices when consistent with democratic principles. Whether we like it or not, this media culture is our students’ culture.”

Today's Students Are Experiencing a Different Childhood

• The digital age requires new skills for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages within a digital, global, and democratic society.

• The ubiquitous and mobile nature of information and communication technologies has resulted in a world far different from that of those of us whose childhood was once surrounded by large box televisions, rotary dial telephones, and transistor radios.

• What was once characterized as a digital divide has transformed into a digital disconnect. Outside of the classroom young people regularly engage with music and videos via MP3 players, constantly text their friends with their mobile phones, check the latest videos on YouTube, and even upload ones themselves. But, upon entering the classroom they are expected to disengage from this interpersonal, producer-oriented, digital world.

Media Literacy

• Canada, Australia, and Great Britain have taught media literacy for several decades, while the US, the world’s leading producer of media, is far behind.

• These changes in society and the experiences the students bring into the classroom challenge social studies teachers to change both how and what we teach.

• Teaching students to think critically about the content and the form of mediated messages is an essential requirement for social studies education in this millennium.

• Media literacy integrates the process of critical inquiry with the creation of media as students examine, create, and disseminate their own alternative images, sounds, and thoughts.

• Media literacy includes the skills of accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages as well as the cultural competencies and social skills associated with a growing participatory culture.

• Media literacy also includes analysis of ideology and power as students learn how media are used to position audiences and frame public opinion.

• In the 21st century, media literacy is an imperative for participatory democracy because new information/communication technologies and a market-based media culture have significantly reshaped the world.

Media Literacy & the Social Studies Classroom

• Teachers need to expand their notion of “legitimate texts” and realize that it includes popular culture, advertising, photographs, maps, text (SMS) messages, Twitter, movies, video games, Internet, all sorts of hand-held devices and information communication technologies (ICTs) as well as print.

• Students should be presenting their research and learning through interactive multimedia presentations, as Internet blogs, videos, podcasts, Facebook, etc.

• The ability to differentiate between primary and secondary sources or distinguish fact from fiction is now intimately connected to the ability to analyze and create media.

• Social studies educators should provide young people with the awareness and abilities to critically question and create new media and technology, and the digital, democratic experiences, necessary to become active participants in the shaping of democracy.

Related Resources

• NCSS Media Literacy Statement
• Learning Styles 2.0: Digital, Social, and Always On
• mobileYouth: 100 Million Mobile Youth in USA
• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles
• Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy
  

Teacher Encourages Students to Twitter in Class

"Cole W. Camplese, director of education-technology services at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, prefers to teach in classrooms with two screens — one to project his slides, and another to project a Twitter stream of notes from students.

He knows he is inviting distraction — after all, he’s essentially asking students to pass notes during class. But he argues that the additional layer of communication will make for richer class discussions.”

— Wired Campus: Professor Encourages Students to Pass Notes During Class — via Twitter | Chronicle.com


Related Resources

• Twitter College Directory
• Twitter Handbook for Teachers
• UK Students May Be Required to Master Twitter
• Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter
• Yahoo! Partners with Universities to Advance Cloud Computing Research

Using Twitter to Engage Students in Learning

What’s the point of Twitter? Should educators incorporate Twitter into their curriculum? What difference does using Twitter and other types of social media make in the learning process?

High School students at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis are using social media tools and unblocked access to the Internet and as a result are engaged in the learning process in a whole new way.

In this video, put together by the University of Minnesota, a teacher explains how having discussions about their English class online has increased their level of attention and engagement in their studies.

Related Resources

• Twitter Handbook for Teachers
• Nine Great Reasons Why Teachers Should Twitter
• Twitter College Directory
  
• UK Students May Be Required to Master Twitter
• Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter
• Tweeting about Twitter
• Knowledge Essentials Media > CBS News 9 > Should Your Teen be Tweeting?

2009 Game Based Learning: Kids, Gaming, Virtual Worlds, Social Networking & Learning

The Game Based Learning Conference, held March 19-20 in London, is one of the largest events in the world that delves into all aspects of utilizing video games as a learning tool.

The main theme of Game Based Learning '09, a conference primarily focused on game based learning research and development in the U.K. and Europe, was on the impact that video games, virtual worlds and social networking are having on learning and teaching practice both in and out of formal education environments.

The other thing worth noting about this conference is the remarkable degree of cross-discipline collaboration between members of the digital media, parents, education, consumer electronics, virtual worlds and video game communities.

Maja Pivec | Games in Schools | 2009 Game Based Learning Conference

At the conference, Dr. Maja Pivec, one of the co-founders of ENGAGE (European Network for Growing Activity in Game-based learning in Education), shared an in-depth look at the latest research and trends in Game-based learning. Dr. Pivec has put together a really good presentation and I encourage you to take a look at all the terrific research she shared at the conference.

Given that American companies like Disney, Nickelodeon, and Microsoft/Xbox are among the leading producers of kids gaming and virtual worlds, it seems only natural that there should be a similar US-based effort to connect the dots between games and learning.

So here's my question: why aren't we holding a similar conference where we can collaborate, share research and explore game based learning?

This is not to say that US-based companies involved in the kid new media space aren't doing research. In fact, Microsoft recently announced that they would invest $1.5 million dollars in educational video game research. The investment is part of a larger, NYU led initiative to "to find scientific evidence that supports the use of games as a learning tool."

All of this comes on the heels of a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that found that, when it comes to video games, "playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day."

It's vital that all of us involved intersection of kids, new media and education work together to develop pedagocially sound opportunities to incorporate gaming, social networking, and virtual worlds--tools and spaces that students are already using--into their formal and informal learning practice.

Related Resources

• More on Maja Pivec
• Stewart Butterfield on Games & Learning
• NASA Developing Virtual World for Kids
  
• Amy James > Video Games, Learning & Critical Thinking

UK Students May Be Required to Master Twitter, Wikipedia & Podcasting

According to a story in today's Guardian, a UK school curriculum reform commission has proposed that primary students should be required to become proficient in web-based and digital tools like Twitter, Wikipedia, blogging and podcasting.

Here's more on the proposed curriculum changes:

"Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.

However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.

The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.

The proposal would require children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell."

Related Resources

• The Mobile Internet Generation
• Lessons from the Most Successful Schools Abroad
• Forget the chatter about Twitter, plans for primary schools may inspire a passion for history
• Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level

Educational Game for Microsoft Surface

UK educational software company RM has released a demo of their game Finguistics. What makes this so interesting is that this educational game is being designed to work on the Microsoft Surface platform. 

As you can see in the video, these kids are actively engaged and probably don't even realize that they have formed a community of practice, started to exchange information and learn from each other.

Related Resources

• Microsoft to Fund Video Game Research
• Microsoft Wants to Help Families Get Game Smart
• Gary Stager > Learning with Logo

Henry Jenkins on Kids, Video Games, Education Reform & Learning

Here’s a clip from SXSW 2009 on YouTube where Henry Jenkins, Professor at MIT (and soon USC) and author of Convergence Culture, is interviewed by The Guardian about learning and video games. Dr. Jenkins further asserts that every game has an online community and it’s there where people start to trade information and learn from each other.

Henry also argues that there is "a learning ecology that takes place outside of the classroom and that schools cut themselves off from this learning by blocking games and YouTube - leaving students disconnected with the best ways of learning. This hinders students from becoming technically literate and be prepared for the future." [via]

Related Resources

• Pew Internet Research on Video Games & Gen Y
• Microsoft Wants to Help Families Get Video Game Safe
• Give Girl Gamers Some Props!
• Amy James > Video Games, Learning & Critical Thinking

Mozilla, Peer 2 Peer University & Creative Commons Launch OER Program for Educators

The Mozilla Foundation, in collaboration with ccLearn/Creative Commons and the Peer 2 Peer University, launches a practical online seminar on open education.

This six week course is targeted at educators who will gain basic skills in open licensing, open technology, and open pedagogy; work on prototypes of innovative open education projects; and get input from some of the world leading innovators along the way.

The course will kick-off with a web-seminar on Thursday 2 April 2009 and run for 6 weeks.

Weekly web seminars introduce new topics ranging from content licensing to the latest open technologies and peer assessment practices.

The course is targeted at educators who want to help shape the open education future. Participants should have some knowledge of web technologies, or open content licensing, or open pedagogy (or all three), but don't need to be experts.

You can learn more about the course by clicking here.

Additional Resources

• Open Yale Courses
• Didactics World > Bridging the Digital Content Divide
• Creative Commons > Education
• Video: Wanna Work Together?
• Education Guardian Weekly > Reading Poetry at Yale...
• Didactics World > Open Content Provision Through ccLearn

MobileStudy.com: Mobile Testing for Moodle & Facebook

Mobile Study is a platform that allows teachers to easily create a multiple choice quiz and other content via a mobile device. The finished multiple choice quizzes can be downloaded to a mobile phone from a computer, by visiting a URL with a mobile phone browser, via an SMS message or by using a QR Code.

If you prefer web applications to mobile ones, it’s also worth noting that quizzes can be made for Facebook or imported into Moodle. The Mobile Quiz module allows you to create versions of your Moodle quizzes that can be installed on mobile phones. The quiz can then be used anywhere, anytime.

The Mobile Study website and phone quizzes also provide a unique way of getting students in remote location or studying by correspondence involved with their teachers and fellow class mates.

You can take a look at some sample mobile study quizzes by clicking here.

According to mobileYouth, by 2010 American mobile owning youth under 30 will number 100 million, so it makes sense that more and more formal education opportunities will be migrating to the mobile phone space.

Related Resources

• Joan Cooney Ganz Mobile Learning Study
• Mobile Study > Facebook App
• Fisher & Baird: Making mLearning Work
• The Mobile Internet Generation

Gen Y Entrepreneur: Jordan Goldman, Unigo.com

Unigo is a platform for college students to share reviews, photos,videos, documents, and more with students on their campus and across the country.

It’s also the best place for high school students to find out what life is really like at North America’s colleges, and to make friends who can help them find the school that’s right for them.

Related Resources

• Twitter > @Unigo
• Youth Marketing Mashup East
• Youth Entrepreneur: Derek Johnson, Tatango.com
• UK college begins testing facial recognition attendance system
• Teens in Tech