Join the Secret Revolution
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Opening keynote for the 2010 Canadian eLearning Conference, Edmonton, Alberta. Tell everyone to join the revolution at http://secretrevolution.us
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Join the Secret Revolution
- 1. Alan Levine Canadian eLearning Conference 2010
- 3. How?
- 8. You are on stage
- 9. cc licensed flickr photo by bookgrl http://flickr.com/photos/bookgrl/1290565748/
- 10. A Quiet One?
- 12. Change, Please?
- 13. cc licensed flickr photo by Eisenvater http://flickr.com/photos/sabineschmidt/2507284/
- 15. Burn, baby, burn
- 17. cc licensed flickr photo by lrargerich http://flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/3371192248/
- 18. Sell out
- 19. Thousands of Stories cc licensed flickr photo by Matthew Field http://flickr.com/photos/matthewfield/2306001896/
- 20. Working from the cc licensed flickr photo by Quinn Ryan Mattingly Inside Out... http://flickr.com/photos/terminalnomadphotograhy/2851260192/
- 21. Game Software Evaluation 1995 http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/sw/games/
- 22. Successful?
- 24. Evil.
- 27. ahem
- 32. pekka what?
- 36. sucks
- 38. “Do not be surprised to see the Blackboards and WebCTs out there beginning to add RSS tools to their systems. Consider what would happen if these course management systems could syndicate synopses of all course offerings or just the assignments I might be enrolled in. The same RSS aggregator I might use to stay in tune with news could also feed me a summary of my pending projects or assignments.” mcli forum, fall 2003 http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/fall03/rss.html http://cogdogblog.com/alan/archives/000031.html
- 41. They Stole OUr Learning Environment - Now We're Stealing It Back http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/blogarchive/007429.html
- 42. “Moodle VLE is generally locked down, the wiki scrapes every flavour of embed, script and embed are not allowed in resource pages... but - if all you put in an HTML resource page is a single iframe, it seems to get through... So I can actually embed whatever I want in an inframe container within the VLE...” The Amazing Tony Hirst, Open University, http://ouseful.info They Stole OUr Learning Environment - Now We're Stealing It Back http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/blogarchive/007429.html
- 43. not a programmer
- 45. “I’m a one man army, like many of you. This project wasn’t the result of the effort of a team of a dozen people over 6 months. It was me, a couple weeks, and a lot of lost sleep. To do this, I committed to the idea that it would be a pet project... Part of me feels that you have to be willing to take those risks though when you’re in web development. Playing it safe means you’ll only ever be average.” Michael Fienen, Pittsburg State University http://doteduguru.com/id5292-mobile-pittstate-how-we-did-it-with-no-money-or-resources.html
- 46. http://www.mojopac.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/Aliandrews/second-life-in-your-pocket-presentation
- 47. “Although the organisation I work for supported and paid me to develop a project using Second Life, we weren't able to install the software on our organisation's computers (not approved - it takes 10 months for software to be approved!) so we used USB sticks and software called 'mojopac' to circumvent the system and we were able to do demos to teachers without the organisation ever knowing” http://www.mojopac.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/Aliandrews/second-life-in-your-pocket-presentation
- 48. clever
- 49. Stepping Outside cc licensed flickr photo by GeekMom Heather http://flickr.com/photos/heatherweaver/3171294458/
- 52. “I had students in Grade 10 Personal Planning do some of their work on a private ning network. For mid term & final report cards students did a self evaluation with a self prescribed mark that we discussed one-on-one while looking at their work and comparing what they did with what I thought was exemplary work... Didn't ask permission from the school or parents to add these students to Ning... that's why I just kept it private.” David Truss http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/beg-for-foregiveness/
- 53. risky business
- 55. “I used Yammer and created an account for our district. Didn't ask or think to. I slowly began inviting people who I thought might find it useful. After I had about 10 folks using it, I told everyone to start inviting others. We now have about 70 people using it (total teaching staff of about 500), that includes board members and superintendents. ” Dean Shareski, Prairie South School Division http://yammer.com/
- 56. what if?
- 59. “The apps were largely developed out of time and in stolen time, and it seems that things are likely to continue in this way (which is both a plus – freeing us from constraints of interminable committees wanting to plan strategies rather than jfdi, and a minus – @liamgh is the only person we trust with the code which means any maintenance falls to him ;-)” Tony Hirst, Open University http://blog.ouseful.info/2010/03/10/ou-facebook-apps-reprise/
- 60. University of Mary Washington Blogs http://umwblogs.org Jim Groom, http://bavatuesdays.com/20-examples-from-umw-blogs-part-1/
- 61. expertise
- 62. Looking for Whitman http://lookingforwhitman.org/
- 63. “Utilizing open-source tools to connect classrooms in multiple institutions, the project has created a collaborative online space in which students will be able to research Whitman’s connections to their individual locations and share that research with one another in a dynamic, social, web-based learning environment.” Looking for Whitman http://lookingforwhitman.org/
- 64. Want to Join? secretrevolution = us
- 65. flickr photo by Linus Gelber http://www.flickr.com/photos/linus/168956768/
- 66. party, party
- 67. Must be open and shared... cc licensed flickr photos by Ryan Wolf and ryancr http://flickr.com/photos/re_wolf/3615800599/ http://flickr.com/photos/ryanr/142455033/
- 68. Tag the Revolution Share anything revolutionary by tagging in delicious as secretrevolution http://delicious.com/tag/ secretrevolution flickr photo by Laurie | Liquid Paper http://flickr.com/photos/96221617@N00/121545675/
- 69. Tag the Revolutionaries And also tag specific examples with the “secret” tag s3cr3trev http://delicious.com/tag/ s3cr3trev flickr photo by Laurie | Liquid Paper http://flickr.com/photos/96221617@N00/121545675/
- 70. cc licensed flickr photo by David M* cc licensed flickr photo by doug88888 http://flickr.com/photos/d_a_v_i_d_m_/102953776/ http://flickr.com/people/doug88888/
- 71. the point
- 72. cc licensed flickr photo by Markybon http://flickr.com/photos/markybon/13298546/
- 73. cc licensed flickr photo by Howard▼Gees http://flickr.com/photos/cyberslayer/2482919523/
- 74. cc licensed flickr photo by bufivla http://flickr.com/photos/bufivla/2559402015/
- 75. cc licensed flickr photo by Karen Eliot http://flickr.com/photos/kareneliot/4565196571/
- 76. cc licensed flickr photo by Xosé Castro http://flickr.com/photos/cibergaita/62711050/
- 77. cc licensed flickr photo by SiamEye http://flickr.com/photos/puppydogbites/2445384572/
- 78. cc licensed flickr photo by SiamEye http://flickr.com/photos/puppydogbites/2445405768/
- 80. me too
Editor's Notes
- Hello Canada! I hail from the southern Canadian province of Arizona... I just want to say I am sorry if our state's immigration laws have affected you, we love our Canadian visitors. I’m very honored to have been invited to open the Canadian eLearning Conference, my first visit to Edmonton.
- After I was invited to speak here, I was intrigued by the theme of this conference- Revolution. It conjures many things- change, boldness, but also disruption, and perhaps, even something threatening. Is there another way to look at this? So up here on the podium, I aware that with an audience like this, there's likely not much I can tell you that is "new". What I am to do is ask questions, provoke hopefully some discussion, and perhaps even entertain you. There is a chance I will miss all the marks. So what is this "Secret Revolution" my talk refers to? Let me tell you what I had in mind. [twitter]And here goes nothing, launching into The Secret Revolution http://secretrevolution.us #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: How can it be a secret if you are telling everyone? [twitter]Uh oh, there are unexpected sounds coming out of my computer #celc2010[/twitter]
- Woah, where did that sound come from? (look worried, fiddle with computer). I apologize, this is embarrassing, I think there is an issue with my audio settings.
- Voice: There is nothing wrong with your sound. Okay, I'm a little stumped, and my presentation, feels de-railed. D'Arcy Norman, are you hacking my laptop??
- Voice: Do not blame D'Arcy. He is innocent. This is rather weird. So if nothing is wrong with computer... Mmmm, so who are you? Do I have to enter the code (I have been watching Lost a bit too much)
- Voice: I am your inner voice of questioning and criticism. Consider me your inner Techno Soul. Wow, I never knew I had one of those. I wonder why we have not spoken before... [twitter]I am Alan’s inner voice and have taken over his presentation and his twitter account #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: Very nice. But shouldn't you continue for these nice Canadian folks? Yes, yes, you are right. And you might even be handy. Let’s roll with the presentation...
- Yes, the Secret Revolution... is not really much of a secret-- and well, to be honest, I have no idea how this presentation will go. It’s more of an idea, and a way of “being” with technology and communications that I want to highlight.
- Voice: Perhaps "Quiet Revolution" would have been a better choice? Hey, are you going to let me explain? Kudos on your hindsight, but yes. For anyone in eLearning, you know that each day what you know and the tools you use to stay up to date change continuously.
- I’m going to talk about a lot of websites, and you will find a full list (and more) at this URL. [twitter]Web sites mentioned (and more) http://secretrevolution.us/links #celc2010[/twitter]
- And more many educators, there are feelings that the institution of education needs change, some, like Postman, have been saying it a long time.
- It's a big task, to say the least. And I don;t know about you, but I mostly get overwhelmed and wonder, what can I really do as an individual?
- On the other hand, there are people out there calling for radical revolution, burning down the house. My friend Jim Groom, one of the chief secret revolutionaries, ignited something with his call for “edupunk” and celebration of a DIY approach to teaching with technology. [twitter]Summoning edupunk... #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: Yeah, burn baby burn. Burn the mother down. Burn is an option, but we better have an idea what to rebuild in place. And that seems unclear,
- Yet while I applaud the vigor and energy, again I feel lost as to what to do. After all, most of us make our livelihoods working for the institution, and there are things in our institutions we value--- which is not to say we sold out.
- So my idea of a "Secret Revolution" is a middle ground that I feel comfortable at. It is something we can do as individuals, we can spread to others, at a grass roots level, and make a difference. We are not powerless after all.
- Voice: That does sound like a cop out. What kind of revolutionary supports The Man? It’s not about being a radical, what I am talking about, maybe is an Innovationary, a practical revolutionary? Maybe that’s not possible to you, but I’m going to make a case for it.
- And there are thousands, tens of thousands of stories out there- many of them right in the room here. Can we know them all? No, I can’t, but we are not alone in this. So I’m just picking a few out from the crowd...
- It's actually something most of you do all the time, so I'm not really telling you anything new. So there is no secret. But let's celebrate anyhow. What I hope to do is to pull some relevant stories from my own experience, point out some revolutionaries that are doing this, and invite you to tell me more stories, and to join in the revolution.
- First, an old story. Back in the mid 1990s when I was at the Maricopa Community Colleges, we had the idea to run a faculty evaluation of game software, this in the period where the first wave of the SIm games were taking off. We asked our faculty reviewers to think of creative ways they might use the games. One of them, a language teacher, looked at the immersive game Myst and suggested an idea to give her students instructions in Spanish of a location to find the Library, and it was their task to describe how they got there, and what the room looked like. [twitter]Reliving game software project 1995 at Maricopa #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: But what came of this? Was it successful? It is not that this became part of a course or anything; its just an example how looking a bit sideways at an environment, and not thinking that all the learning has to be built into the software, can lead to a novel idea. Another teacher, a Math faculty, thought if having his students find ways to say, calculate the area of the island or the volume of a tower.
- Another example- we all know as a software, Powerpoint is responsible for the many bad presentations we have been subjected to, right? Powerpoint is bad...
- Voice: Powerpoint is Evil, we all know that. I heard that it caused the BP oil spill. That might be a stretch. But a statement that something is “Evil” suggests it has intent, that it exerts an influence over us. No one sits down at a blank powerpoint file and says, “Now, how can I create something that will dull people senseless? Maybe I should use tiny text and cheesy clip-art?”
- The example of the story of Cinderella told in PowerPoint, available on Slideshare, as well as the version of the Gettysburg Address, clearly provide humorous non examples of efficient ways to use PowerPoint, but also ones that are in many ways, not too different from ones we still see happening. As a bit of perspective, the Cinderella powerpoint was created by Rowan Manahan, a Dublin based consultant, to mark the 20th Anniversary of PowerPoint; it was 1987 that Microsoft released the first version, but it is actually older, as it was created by Bob Gaskins in 1984 as an Apple based program called “Presenter”. So it is more like 26 years old-- and so, yes, it is remarkable that we seem to not have evolved too much in our use of it. [twitter]Powerpoint has been around for 26 years, our use of it.. Still, claims of it being evil are over-reaching #celc2010[/twitter]
- So I refuse to believe we can blame the technology, we are responsible. And there are more than enough resources to become better, from Presentation Zen to the sites that dissect and evaluate what makes Steve Jobs effective as a presenter. But there is more to PowerPoint as a container to do things then lecturing to an audience.
- Voice: which.. ahem you are doing Shhhh, let me get to the point, will ya?
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Some examples of using PowerPoint from the inside out, includes a variation of looking at “bad powerpoint” versions of well known speeches- this example from Presentation Zen serves an example of listening to Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech while viewing a bad powerpoint version of it. An activity for students is to then redo the bad powerpoint in a way that might better match the tone and excitement of the speech. And powerpoint need not go “next... next.. next...” it does have a built in hyperlink ability to move around in a non-linear fashion, so that people have created templates that run more like a game, most commonly Jeopardy, but it moves PowerPoint out of a presentation only mode. And musician David Byrne did a 180 degree opinion on PowerPoint. After blasting it in a blog post, we went back in and started using it as a way to create powerful visual art, eventually publishing it as a book. So instead of thinking of PowerPoint in its worse case execution, think about ways you can subvert the stereotype, and expose using it in a novel way. Or not at all. There are tons of other options. And people are looking at more than the file of presentations, and varying with the format, one well known is pecha chuka (“pecha coo chah”)
- Voice: Pekka what? Is that some kind of sushi? No, but it comes from a Japanese word for “chit chat” or “sound of conversation”- it was conceived by a pair of Tokyo architects who were tired of seeing so many bad PowerPoint presentations in their line of work.
- It’s a way for presentations to be to the point and move along at a steady pace- it is 20 slides presented using the auto slide advance every 20 seconds, so it forces presenters to be more succinct, and also, more lively. It’s not that this is the best form for every presentation, but makes for an interesting variant of the standard monotoned click and read. It has become a movement, spread around the world, and a way to convene people for gatherings and discussions. [twitter]Getting brave, am going to try to say “pecha kucha” out loud first time ever #celc2010[/twitter]
- Educators have been experimenting with pecha chuka, some as a way for students to present project reports, and in this case, the University of Minnesota made it a format for having a discussion of emerging technologies. Again, this is a way to use PowerPoint as not dictated by the software.
- Let’s talk about Course Management Systems. I know many in the audience use them, and most of the big vendors are here. Like PowerPoint, it’s easy to rap them for the ways we see them used. Back in the late 1990s, the young turks who built Blackboard, WebCT were sort of like the Web 2.0 crowd of that era... I have to admit I’ve not seen the inside of one for maybe 7 years. But it’s my belief that even with perhaps limiting structures and capabilities, that there would be some clever ways faculty have, like my Spanish teacher you looked sideways at Myst, done some creative activities inside the CMS. I talked to a number of colleagues... and came up short of these kind of examples. I wanted to believe there were classes doing games in discussion boards, multibranching stories in created pages, etc. What I heard was they are used for what they do well- tracking students, doing assessments, assigning grades, distributing materials, but a lot of courses than jump to the open web for activities. So I do have a few examples to share, but am hoping some of you at this conference can clue me in. [twitter]And now, looking for ways people creatively use course management systems... #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: Yeah, the CMS sucks! It is so restrictive and cumbersome. Talk about cop outs? You are not even allowing your creativity to get working. The only restrictive thing is your thinking, that it is defined by software.
- In 2003, I was excited about tinkering with RSS; the notion that one could created web pages that dynamically updated as feeds form other sites changed, was powerful- I saw way too many teachers spending time manually making web pages with lists of links. So borrowing from an approach I saw elsewhere, I hacked a script to embed content from an RSS feed, and showed how it could be done inside of Blackboard (and WebCT). I thought that eventually, the Course Management Systems would build this into their tools... Are we there yet? [twitter]Write code in 2003 for embedding RSS into blackboard; still being done now with http://feed2js.org/ #celc2010[/twitter]
- My script evolved into Feed2JS, a free service for embedding content into any web page. It’s used by thousands of web sites, and many of them are people using it to do this inside of course management systems, where they allows the insertion of JavaScript code into web pages.
- My script evolved into Feed2JS, a free service for embedding content into any web page. It’s used by thousands of web sites, and many of them are people using it to do this inside of course management systems, where they allows the insertion of JavaScript code into web pages.
- Other people have found even more clever ways to bring web content inside a CMS- Tony Hirst is a brilliant magician of code at the Open University; in this 2006 post he describes use of browser scripting to add content to Moodle pages. Tony us never limited by the rules of the system! [twitter]Paying homage to the openly shared expertise of the amazing @psychemedia #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: I'm a teacher, not a programmer. Well heck, I often cannot dissect all the stuff that Tony creates. No one is asking you to do what he does- in fact, he explains it extraordinary detail and builds tools to make it easy to leverage his ideas. It’s not about turning into a programmer, its just keeping your mind open that you may not be as limited as you think you are.
- Other secret revolutionaries blurt out their secrets in public (which is part of this not secret secret revolution). Michael Fienen described here what it tool to roll out a mobile version of his university's web site, doing it on his own, borrowing code from elsewhere, and then documenting his work in a blog. So not everyone will go to the level of effort he has done... but that’s what makes average, average. Being a secret revolutionary is about having this edge, this fervor to do what we think is right.
- What can you do when IT department’s are reluctant to try new software? A story shared by a colleague shared that his organization had financially supported development of a project in Second Life, but he was unable to carry it out due to an inability to get the software installed. He did an end around that did not violate any IT rules; by using technology known as “portable apps” he was able to run Second Life from a USB thumb drive, and it did not need to be installed in the university computers. The notable things about this is that people from different organizations contributed ideas, code, on how to do this via informal channels. [twitter]Circumventing locked down computers with portable apps on USB drives #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: Wow, that was clever. Everyone wins. Now we are in total agreement, oh questioning inner voice.
- Now I am switching gears from working from within the constraints of systems and technologies that are in place at your institution to ways people are cleverly using outside technology and services to do things perhaps not quite possible inside. Now of course using outside resources is nothing new or revolutionary, but these are ones that are perhaps marginally close to bending rules or norms... for good cause. Or ones that are just using outside technologies in ways perhaps not directly intended.
- YouTube is no secret. Yes, it’s the place for odd cat tricks and viral memes about going to the dentist. But as a platform, there are more things teachers are doing then just dumping videos- there are multibranching stories. This example shared by John Rodgers, uses the annotation feature as an exercise for students to try to explain the processes being played out in the video. [twitter]Clever use of YouTube for student annotation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg0trSjx4AM #celc2010[/twitter]
- For many, myself included, David Truss seems on or over the line of perhaps what many of us would choose to do. But his rules make sense- put the learner’s safety first, do it because it is sound, and seek out support from within. It goes back to the risk taking mentioned earlier- “Playing it safe means you will only be average” and I’d like to think we aim higher than average.
- Voice: That seems more than a bit risky. I agree, but it’s our choice, you know the weighing of venture/gain, and David still has his job.
- A number of educators are using alternative services to twitter to provide a more private or cordoned off area for communications. Dean Shareski, a great Canadian Secret Revolutionary from Saskatchewan, just went ahead and set up a site on yammer.com for his school district, and got people engaged and on board. [twitter]A nod to the Great @Shareski for his example of using yammer #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: But what if it did not go well? What if my supervisor calls me on the carpet for violating our protocol? We ought to steer towards mistakes to learn from them, not away. If you are thinking ahead of the risks, you can make rationales, and make a case. As long as you bend rules (and don’t break laws) you should be able to stand behind your decisions.
- in 2008, Jon Beasley-Murray, a professor at the University of British Columbia, looked sideways at WikiPedia- going beyond it as just a place of content, but getting his students involved in creation. Noting a lack of information for several Latin American writers, he not only had his students research and create them, but gave them a challenge of writing something so good to earn “Featured Article” status, something that less than 1% of the articles on WikiPedia earn. In doing so, his students tapped into an underground networked group of volunteer consultants who gave them advise as needed so that 3 of the articles did achieve that goal. [twitter]I always like telling the Murder, Madness, Mayhem WikiPedia success story of @jbmurray #celc2010[/twitter]
- Many of us see the sheer volume of people in Facebook (is it 500 million? 600? everybody?) and cannot help but wonder if it is a place to extend learning activities, or at least do something for learners beyond Farmville. At the Open University, Tony Hirst and some colleagues decided to develop some experimental applications for students to be able to connect around their courses, locating study partners, getting course recommendations, etc. Their success with these experiments led to some more serious consideration at their University for more development/support.
- Perhaps the ultimate example of success in the outside was the blogging initiative spawned at the University of Mary Washington; where, with internal support, set up external hosted web sites and blogging platforms for faculty to experiment with new technologies, sand boxes if you will. With this experience, their team of instructional technologists developed the externally hosted UMW Blogs service for faculty and students and has become a central platform for teaching, learning, and student activities. And they have freely shared their expertise with others. [twitter]Biggest, baddest Secret Revolutionary of all is @jimgroom and the UMWBlogs crew #celc2010[/twitter]
- Voice: That seems like way more expertise than we have here. You do not have to do this alone. Most of what you see at UMW has been elevated from tools, tips, blog posts, open sharing done elsewhere. And you would be amazed that they have helped other schools and groups install the same infrastructure for the small investment of a domain name and an external web host. The technology is not even the hard part...
- Again, using free, opensource technologies, a group of four universities created a space where separate courses teaching a common topic where able to connect and collaborate in a way conventional courses don’t.
- So are you part of the revolution? Do you want to be?
- It can be more fun than committee meetings.
- Voice: So it is just one big party? Yep, it is as big as the internet.
- The key ingredients are that revolutionaries share their works, ideas with others, as it is a means of community bootstrapping. Almost every example listed is based on people taking ideas that are out in the open, doing something new, and sharing it back again. How you do this does not matter, blog it, tweet it, YouTube it, but the more we have out in the open, the more our individual actions can, ideally, reach critical mass levels. [twitter]To be part of “Secret Revolution” you must be in the open and sharing space; ironic, eh? #celc2010[/twitter]
- [twitter]Tag the revolution http://delicious.com/tag/secretrevolution #celc2010[/twitter]
- If I were in the audience, my question would be, “So what?”
- Voice: Yeah, what is the point? This is all stuff we do regularly. Hmmm, some keynote. Let me try and show you some heat.
- Turn on the heat. We can always do more, and whatever temperature our passions for teaching burn, we can turn it up. So maybe it’s rethinking what we do in PowerPoint...
- Or we ditch software packages and use web apps- Google docs and prezi and ...
- Maybe we find a new way to leverage group tagging, or use flickr notes for marking up images
- Maybe we devise an alternate reality game that starts inside our CMS but blazes outward...
- Or we start dabbling in creating web widgets or greasemonkey scripts
- Or we find collaborators in other continents and create new learning spaces. [twitter]The point is we are *all* part of the [Not So] Secret Revolution. We can always turn up the heat, more, more #celc2010[/twitter]
- Who knows how much heat we can generate?
- So for this conference, I hope you all get the chance to find the heat, and increase your own. Turn it up.
- Voice: Thanks too, from me! This was fun. Let's do it again, Alan.