National Standards - It's About Time!

Thought you guys might like to see this: National Educational Standards

Bloggers Unite for a FREE IRAN on Mon. June 29th

A request of the blogging community... A compendium site illustrating the use of digital media to promote Human Rights: Bloggers Unite for a Free Iran
Source: http://www.bloggersunite.org

Objective:
Bloggers Unite for a FREE IRAN on Mon. June 29th.

Bloggers Unite to support Human Rights in Iran on Monday June 29th.

Violence, arrests, crackdowns and media blackouts continue to increase in Iran in the aftermath of the recent presidential elections.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_election_protests

To discuss this event: http://www.bloggersunite.org/discuss/entry/what-can-we-do-to-help-in-iran

Tweeting? Use Hash Tag #FreeIran

Reflections On This Class and My Project

I posted some final thoughts about the class and my project on my blog. Its been a pleasure interacting with everyone. Thanks for giving me so much to consider in my own use of Digital Media!

Alyson - I also posted info on my project to your "inbox" on the class web. Thanks for all your help and insight!

Dan

Wrapping Up "Digital Media in the Classroom"

Here is my last entry specifically tied to this class. Enjoy!

Print vs. Blog: The Many Faces of Cultural Journalism

This event is tomorrow at the 92nd Street Y at 7pm. Thought any of you who are in the city might want to go. I would love to but not sure I can make it in tomorrow.

Print vs. Blog: The Many Faces of Cultural Journalism
Village Voice Publisher Michael Cohen, Voice editor-in-chief Tony Ortega, Alana Taylor of Mashable.com and Jake Dobkin, publisher of Gothamist, discuss the current state of arts and cultural journalism. Has the rise of online periodicals and cultural blogs eroded arts reporting? Will alternative print newspapers survive the economic downturn? What will arts aficionados read in the years to come? Join us for this fascinating look at the changing landscape of arts journalism.

Political Twittering, Kindle Snobbery & more

Hi guys,
My latest blog post is here. I'm beginning a series called "This Week in Social Media". Today's topics are Political Twittering, Kindle Snobbery and more...
Enjoy!
-Robin

A Twitter Love Story

This blog posting is both funny and relevant to our class. I think it reflects not only Twitter, but any Social Networking tool that we've discussed.

A Twitter Love Story

Blog postings

Hi there,
Here are my last two blog postings.

This is the video I created in class on Saturday: me on Digital Media in the Classroom.

This is my posting that I created based on my shadowing experience yesterday: My Life as a Shadow - Part IV.
-Robin

Class Videoblog Entry

YouTube Symphony Observations

Hi everyone -

Posted some observations on last week's YouTube Symphony concert at Carnegie Hall. Looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday.

Dan

Cloud Computing...

I stumbled across this cross-platform "cloud-computing" OS. This is something we've not discussed or tried out. I tested it briefly and it seems promising... Any thoughts?

http://www.glidedigital.com/

Social Media Part 2: The Effect on Education

Hi guys,
The second installment of this post is now up. Check out the Social Media Effect on Education.
-Robin

Social Media Part 1: In the News

Hi guys,
My latest blog posting on Social Media. For our Music Ed teachers, there's a little something in it just for you... Please use IE if you want to view the embedded video. It doesn't seem to work in Firefox.
-Robin

Exercise Your Right To Vote

I think we talked about this a few weeks ago. Facebook, in response to the discontent of it's members, revamped it's governance documents based on all sorts of user feedback. They are now offering members a chance to vote on the new documents. This is participatory Internet at it's finest. Do your digital civic duty and vote on Facebook's proposed governance documents. You must vote no later than midnight tonight.

Webby WebQuests

My latest blog post is all about WebQuests... I believe it's relevant to this class because it's a good way to include digital media in a specific inquiry-based learning experience. Check it out...

Webby WebQuests

Facebook Music Video

I think you'll like this video clip about Facebook. Just a little fun for now. I'll be writing more posts tomorrow on my blog...

Thoughts on the class and final project ideas

We’ve devoted the last several weeks to the (hopefully) collaborative investigation of a group of Web 2.0 related tools for collaboration and communication. We wanted to experiment with social networking tools and learn to locate specific audiences in order to critically experience and discuss the possibilities and limitations for personal use and within an educational setting.

Now whether we as individuals used these tools consistently or sporadically, we thought it important that through collective inquiry we would not only collaboratively explore but question the meaning and the organization of our thoughts over these past weeks. From speaking with most of you privately and in our live sessions we learned this has been a real challenge! We had hoped to use this blog as a collaborative ‘classroom’ space to discuss various questions posed from week to week, and to have you use your personal blogs to develop your final projects, spurred by the readings, sites given at the outset, and your visions for the potential of these tools. In not all cases did it seem clear to everyone where comments should be posted or what the differences were(even when we’d say reply here to the weekly classroom questions!). So organization of our content on the class blog was our clear challenge to explore for future classes.

In addition, as TC doesn’t offer a robust enough online learning/dissemination space, our use of tools was relegated to those in a commercial domain (Facebook for social networking has gone commercial, and Blogger is owned by Google, though Twitter for status updating is not for profit and there were many more possibilities for platforms discussed in our latest online session). School teachers face the same issues and more…some school districts entirely ban these tools from their networks which causes real barriers to those early adopters among you who want to teach using them. So a project which explores tools and barriers to their use would be a helpful project exploration.

In last week’s email, Howie sent invitations to try our site on Ning, and hopefully some of us will be able to contribute their thoughts on the differences, benefits and drawbacks. (This would be an appropriate project too by the way.)

We also thought it might be helpful that this part of our investigation and project follow through should give consideration to the initial questions posed in the syllabus based on the following premise; that a broadened spectrum of digital learning technologies brings along new possibilities for transnational education across cultural boundaries. Which of these tools holds the most promise to you? … this topic was the essential question with which to explore on your blog as a project foundation.

Social Networking and Communities of Inquiry

If social networking spaces such as facebook, Second Life, G-Chat, IM, Twitter, and YouTube, alongside handheld devices, cell phones, text messaging, email and voice mail -- have become an integral part of the lives of young people looking for new ways to engage in online digital sociability, we asked how education might tap into that collective and devoted this blog space as a community of inquiry to discuss this and other issues.

A community of inquiry depends on sustained communication and collaboration so that participants can share their insights- it is both a collaborative and iterative experience that prepares students for planned as well as unintended paths. Collaborative inquiry goes past simply accessing and incorporating information , and this concept seems a bit out of the comfort zone for many. One of the first articles by Prensky may have at the outset seemed to describe any number of us as digital natives. At the end of this class are you still in agreement with your initial opinion of where you fall in his continuum? Those of you who are interested in reconsidering might want to explore counter arguments to Prensky’s paper from David Buckingham in Children of the Technology Age? an article in the Electronic Journal of Communication (1998), Beyond Technology (2007) and Neil Selwin’s article Digital Native, Myth and Reality: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9775892/Digital-Native for your final project.

According to Dewey, educational inquiry is an iterative process of investigating problems and issues, not just memorizing solutions. Inquiry focuses on intended goals and outcomes that are self guided, self directed and task based. Our task at hand for the project asked us to:

1- Define the question(s) posed in the original syllabus as they pertain to your own experiences with Web 2.0 and social networking tools.
2- Search for relevant information and use the tools as an experiential base
3- Formulate new solutions, assimilate the uses you see modeled elsewhere
4- Apply those solutions as appropriate to a lesson plan or concept for using the tools
5- Reflect on solutions through discourse here and on your blogs

We also began and will end with the following quote from educational philosopher Maxine Greene:
“Passions, then engagements, and imagining. I want to find a way of speaking of community, an expanding community that will take shape as people speaking as who, not what they are, come together in speech and action, as Arendt puts it, to constitute something in common among themselves.” (Maxine Greene as quoted in Baldacchino, 2008)

As Greene’s notion of community implies taking the risk of imagination it was hoped that this class would be that imaginative space for inquiry and for sharing your ideas. What were the successes or challenges for you?

Referenced information on collaborative inquiry from: Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines
D. Randy Garrison, Norman D. Vaughan

Old Growth Media and the Future of News:

Fascinating speech entitled Old Growth Media and the Future of News: (From StevenBerlinJohnson.com
http://tinyurl.com/bq2tu8 and then the update to the speech written recently:

An excerpt: today’s media is in fact much closer to a real-world ecosystem in the way it circulates information than it is like the old industrial, top-down models of mass media. It’s a much more diverse and interconnected world, a system of flows and feeds – completely different from an assembly line. That complexity is what makes it so interesting, of course, but also what makes it so hard to predict what it’s going to look like in five or ten years.

You Tube and Colleges: Link to the Net

On the Net: College too expensive? Try YouTube
College classroom doors open on YouTube, offering free taste of higher education

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/On-the-Net-College-too-apf-14891018.html

The Facebook Revolt

"Do you own Facebook? Or does Facebook own you?" in this week's New York Magazine is particularly relevant to our class discussion. On my blog, I've posted the reasons why I think so.

Live Mobile Blogging Application on BlackBerry App World

CellSpin Launches 'Video, Audio, Photo & Text' Live Mobile Blogging Application on BlackBerry App World for All Major Social Networks and Blogging Platforms

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/CellSpin-Launches-Video-Audio-prnews-14868918.html

Latest Post

Hello All,

My week 4 posting are up as well as a lot of catch-up postings.

Reflections on Readings

Hi all -

Please visit my blog for current reflections on the articles in the NY Times. Thanks!

I'm Still Here

Hello class. After somewhat of a lull in my online presence, I just wanted to call attention to my blog, where I have responded to some of the class readings and discussion topics.

How Tweet It Is

How Tweet It Is
I found this article and thought you would all like to read it, especially those of you who are still unsure about why you would want to use Twitter. It's an interesting read about how Twitter was founded and what it is has become. For me, the most compelling line of the article is this: "To its loyal users, Twitter is an invaluable part of their daily lives." I'm not quite there yet, but I can see myself using it daily as an educator.

Thoughts on Readings - Week 4

Hi everyone,
Here are my thoughts on the readings for this week.
-Robin

Text messaging vs. phone calls

Heres something interesting as a followup to our concept for this class: Not only are older adults using text messaging more, but a survey from Opinion Research Corp. found that text messages are quicker: kids typically respond to a text message within a minute. The survey found that not only are users under the age of 30 more likely to answer a text sooner than voicemail, but also adults 30 and older are more likely to respond to a text in a few minutes rather than a voice message.

A few thoughts... as text messaging of lots of teens can approach and exceed 1,000 texts per month and minutes are limited to 450-600 per month are we now implying that speaking and verbal person to person communication are going to fall behind?

What is it about this kind of immediacy that might lead to some out of the box thinking about the propensity to use these types of devices for communication?

So if you want to get important information to someone fast you know what to do! http://tinyurl.com/6kvkgg

Week 3

Hello Everyone,

My thoughts on week 3.

Weeks 1 & 2 are soon to come.

-Derek-

Facebook in Reality

You've probably seen this but it's really funny :)

Latest Entry

Hi everyone,

Here is my latest blog entry with some responses. I would appreciate your feedback!

The 6 stages of Twitter media coverage hell

I hope this one will make you laugh! If you're a media buff it definitely will!
The 6 stages of Twitter media coverage hell

http://burnurl.com/CaZVuq

Next Online Session Scheduled for Tuesday April 7th

The next Adobe Connect session is scheduled for Tuesday April 7th. In the meantime, keep up your posts with this week's prompt!

This week's social media thoughts

This week there were no fewer than 4 great articles in Sunday's NY Times about social media, (styles section: celebrity Twitter ecosystem) and three others I'm attaching below. One of the comments that came out of the facebook article was about a teacher who wanted to friend his whole class to talk about rehearsals from a dance where parents thought it was 'creepy.' In Tuesday's online session we might envision another way he could have pulled off the same thing electronically without invading their facebook lives using another of the tools we've been using.

Also, in the same Facebook article, regarding facebook's connectivity, Mr. Zuckerberg recalls the story of Claus Drachmann, a schoolteacher in northern Denmark who became a Facebook friend of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister. The teacher invited his Prime Minister to speak to his class of special-needs children; and the prime minister did just that.

Do stories like this illustrate facebook’s power to cut through arbitrary social barriers or are they just good fodder for publicity ? Zuckerberg says “This represents a generational shift in technology,” and adds, “To me, what is interesting was that it was possible for a regular person to reach the prime minister and that that interaction happened.” Do you agree that this is more than a random exception or does this medium really allow for the public to get closer than ever to representation?

For other articles about participatory media this week in Sunday's NY Times you might want to check out 3 articles: the Wikipedia story from the Week in Review section, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html

the one about the fact that widespread anger and collective passivity exist side by side: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29venkatesh.html

and and the article on Facebook's growing personality... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/internet/29face.html

Adobe Connect session

Hi guys,
Is anyone else having trouble logging in? It keeps giving me a message that the host has ended the meeting...
-Robin

What about the Prez Virtual 'Town Hall'?

Webcasting interactive press conferences- are our expectations changing? Is this virtual Town Hall the White house as Gatekeeper and simply another staged performance or is it participatory Media and government by 'advocacy'?

Is it the same message or different way its put forward that makes it important?
Is it what President Obama says or are the nature of the questions asked more important because its the public asking the questions instead of the media?
Can they discern the central interests of the public via questions posed on the internet?
Is it a 'sense' of participation or is it true participation?
What does the internet offer that network television doesn't? Is this 'transparency' in government?
Does the president risk overexposure?
Based on the Network television election coverage can you make comparisons to our discussion this week on Web 1.0 vs. 2.0?

What can we learn from this online virtual Town Hall experience? Is learning more interactive this way and how can we convert this experience to our own practice as educators?

Watch it on http://www.whitehouse.gov/ and lets hear from you!

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

I found this article to be extremely insightful and relevant to some of my own thoughts about Facebook newsfeed, Twitter etc. Indeed, there are more than one ways to look at this phenomenon. On the one hand there is a sense of reliance on those mediums instead of real, immediate communication; on the other hand, one cannot say for sure that the absence of such mediums would lead to any direct communication in the first place. Therefore, while it is true that personally, I don't care about 3/4 of the posts I see on those sites, there is this 1/4 that connects me to others, makes me feel like I have an outlet to discuss things, express opinions, promote creations through vids and links etc. Also, the term ambient awareness does capture this new, contemporary style of connection amongst people. We are close enough to feel part of a whole and removed enough so that we are not forced to share if we don't want to. 

More on Web 2.0 tools

My latest blog post. More on the tools we were asked to look plus many others...

You can also check out my entry all about Twitter.

Week 3 Web 1.0 vs. 2.0

Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0 : “More than information, an experience”

Web 1.0 is more a technology of static web-sites; one
supplies many.

Web 2.0 is a participatory read and write s in practice based on open-source software, where content is provided by the users and the platforms on which to share it comes from Web publishers.

Differences between Web 1.0 and 2.0:
http://leighhouse.typepad.com/advergirl/2007/10/web-10-vs-web-2.html

A graphic representation:
http://www.sizlopedia.com/2007/08/18/web-10-vs-web-20-the-visual-difference/

A Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BAXvFdMBWw&feature=related


Thoughts to ponder on the class blog this week:
The range is from ‘accessible’ to ‘personal’ and ‘expert voice’ to ‘peer credible’ – the web learning that’s available and can be categorized Web 1.0 and 2.0 each have its benefits and its drawbacks. Using the examples from Advergirl, the graphic and the video above, as well as your knowledge gained from using various sites, share your thoughts on the positives and negatives for the concepts behind web 1.0 and 2.0.

Figuring things out

Hello Everyone,

Here is a link to my first ever blog.

http://www.derekcressman.blogspot.com/

Derek

A small digression about Twitter

Internet celebrity/wunderkid Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) launched his Twitter directory service WeFollow at SXSW. Interesting. Link to original article here.

Marc Prensky- Digital Natives

Though I am not in the field of education, I have experience teaching and have experienced the dichotomy between what Prensky calls digital immigrants and natives. I consider myself to be a native, however, as with any skill, there is often a blurry line between proficiency acquired at a later stage in life and proficiency developed form an early age. In other words, one can learn something because they have to, as they are being thrown into it or they can learn it because of some motivation to do so.
In terms of legacy and future, a classroom can benefit from the introduction of new learning techniques that rely both on the utilization of philosophical reasoning, abstract thinking and logical analyses, and visual, fast-paced, immediate-goal-oriented techniques.
Social networks can facilitate the process of feedback from peers, exposure of ideas etc. Inter-connectedness can lead to the development of knowledge and skills that belong both in the legacy and future category. Social networks and interconnectedness can be the means and the end in themselves. Means to the spreading, feedback and exposure or traditional/nontraditional types of thinking and the end of improving the quality of communication.

Feedburner

Hi,
Last night we had a great online chat. For those of you who missed it we suggest checking out the recording here:
http://webconf.tc.columbia.edu/p97183472/

Among some of the questions that came up, from this week's activities a few might have become overwhelmed by all the things feedburner offers .

On Saturday April 25th we are all meeting live, and our guest Richard Jochum will illustrate the benefits of feedburner. This program becomes an important addition when using video and audio podcasting because it helps them syndicate correctly through a program called 'smartcast'. Hopefully the assets of feedburner will register with everyone when he does these elements together.

For a sneak peek at this go to http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/000812.html and look for the FAQ's

On Prensky article's

Hi everyone,
After reading the 2 articles by Prensky, I was inspired to add a post to my blog. Why? Because I don't believe that there is a clear line that defines a digital native versus an immigrant. In fact, I believe that I am in fact a digital nagrant. I put together a little chart to show you why I think so.

Click on the image to go to my blog and read more...
-Robin

Random thread for random yet great info on social media to pass on

We'll use this as a thread to post interesting relevant links we randomly come across. To subscribe or to add a link to this, just click on comment.

here's one from the WSJ online: Mars Snackfood says it redesigned the site to better connect with its core teenage audience, which spends a lot of time using social media. "The teen audience relies heavily on their peers for advice on products. This is a unique, unexpected way to engage and to be a part of the conversation," says spokesman Ryan Bowling.
Skittles Cozies Up to Social Media
Candy's Site Is Built on Consumer-Created Content From Twitter, Facebook on WSJ site: http://tinyurl.com/dcoc32

Sunday March 8-14 Lesson 2

Sunday March 8-14 Lesson 2

This week March 8-14: ‘Feedburner’, ‘Add This’ and ‘RSS Feeds’

We will subscribe to a number of other blogs and ‘feeds,’ and allow others to follow and subscribe to our sites.

What are RSS feeds? I see "RSS", "XML", and "Atom" out there, but I don't know how I might use these links when I find them.

Activities: to sign up for RSS feeds, making blogrolls and for this week's specific readings have been mailed to your columbia email accounts. Postings to these questions are due by Thursday morning March 12 so we can use them in our conversation March 12 evening. Please adhere to deadlines.


1. For this week, questions to respond to are based on some of the questions that come up with respect to creating blogrolls and using RSS feeds. How do they work and what are the benefits of adding them to my site? How can i use them as a classroom resource and to my blog's best advantage? Reply to this question after engaging in the readings and signing up for them.


2. Question 2 comes from classmate Brownie (http://djb44tc.blogspot.com/) who is posing his based on increasing student collaboration in the teaching of Music. Suggestions and responses to his questions and comments posted on his very thoughtful blog should be posted here as a reply:

how can we help one another to envision "collaboration with students to develop a model for online communication and reflection that gives students a more active role in the direction of daily rehearsals."



(please note, the following week March 15-21 there will be no formal lecture/activity for spring break though you may continue to post here and to your blogs)

Introduction

Hi All:
My name is Javon. I'm a in the Intensive Masters program for Technology and Education. I'm taking the class to get up to date and learn the various sites that people are using for personal and educational reasons. I'm not currently teaching, but when I get back into the classroom I want to be well equipped to teach my students. We are living in a age where this is part of their daily socialization so to be able to use it in an educational form is great.

A couple of interesting videos on social networks

Interesting short vid:

Social Networks: Everyone Knows Everything About Everyone:

http://fora.tv/2009/02/18/Conversational_Marketing_Conference#Social_Networks_Everyone_Knows_Everything_About_Everyone

Danah Boyd on Social Networks and Immersive Environments:

http://fora.tv/2008/07/04/Danah_Boyd_on_the_MySpace__Facebook_Phenomena_1_of_3#chapter_01

Oops

Hi -

brownied again -

Here is the link to my blog so you don't have to copy and paste...

http://djb44tc.blogspot.com/

My Blog and Intro

Hi, everyone -

Dan Brown (brownied) here, and I recently set up my blog.

http://djb44tc.blogspot.com/

You'll find my intro there. Look forward to working with everyone!

My Blog...

I almost forgot...

http://eap2103mstu5814.blogspot.com/

My blog for this class... Enjoy...

Facebook vs. Twitter: How will you stream your world?

Here is an article I found on Facebook AND Twitter about which will become the preferred platform for social notification...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10189959-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

EAP