Archives: August, 2007

I am reading "Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles: Implications for Investments in Technology and Faculty" (Chapter 15 of Educating the Net Generation) written by Chris Dede. Seems like maybe it is time to try again with a visit to the virtual worlds. My first attempt was in Second Life and I kept crashing, plus I couldn’t find my way anywhere… I can’t say that I persevered. It was just not interesting enough to me.

Dede mentions Whyville in his article. I just joined and so far I have been able to figure out how to do everything I want to do. If you join, look for me. My name is mrstebo.

I happened upon the 7 Things You Should Know About… series a while ago and shared the handouts about Blogs, Instant Messaging, Facebook and Social Bookmarking at some of the conference presentations that touch on Web 2.0. ELI continues to produce two-sided pdf handouts about new technologies and has even begun to revisit some of the applications covered previously to update the documents. Despite the fact thatt the target audience for these resources is higher education, the handouts are very relevant to K-12 teachers interested in Web 2.0 applications.

In addition to the 7 Things You Should Know About… series there are also some resources for delivering professional development in timely topic areas like Information Literacy and Net Gen Students as well as some guides to specific technologies like blogging or podcasting. (I wonder if we could use this for the pre-conference workshops in October?) The ELI Discovery Tools are action-oriented, modifiable, modular activities and the site offers screen cast overviews of the various topics. These items require a username and password to access but as UNC-Chapel Hill staff we are members of EDUCAUSE — register by creating an EDUCAUSE profile for full access.

I happened upon the New Media Consortium this week (and signed up as UNC TLT is a member organization!) and a report that may be of interest. The 2007 Horizon Report identifies key trends that and projects the adoption of various technologies in classrooms. The trends identified include increased importance (and unfounded assumptions) about information literacy skills, increasing globalization in the way we work and communicate, the interdisciplinary and collaborative aspects of digital scholarship (and the slow adoption of this in academia), the evolution of the read-write web (called collective intelligence and mass amateurization in this report) as an important contribution to scholarship … these validate the work we are doing at LEARN NC. The report also projects the top emerging technologies that will effect education in the next 5 years. This year’s report includes user-created content, social networking, mobile phones, and virtual worlds as the technologies to watch first. For more info, check out the attached report.

In the August 2007 issue of American Libraries there is a brief article by Laura B. Cohen called “A Manifesto for Our Times.” The gist is that response to the revolution in the way people create, edit, search, evaluate, organize and share information is the key — here is a chance to transform processes, break down barriers, give users a trusted, participatory role in shaping the future. How will we respond? A positive response to this shift in the nature of library services can result in a collaborative, personalized and open information culture.

Though the focus is on libraries and librarians, I think there are a lot of places where this could be tied to education… swap out “user” and “library” for “student” and “classroom.” Libraries aspire to be user-centered and meet the needs of all users; classrooms demonstrating best practices are student-centered and meet the needs of diverse learners. As networked communities are more pervasive, will our classrooms evolve to encourage the activities that lead to conversation, collaboration and sharing?

See the Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto for yourself…

Read the blog posting
http://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/2006/11/a_librarians_20_manifesto.html

or watch the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZblrRs3fkSU

What will the Teacher’s 2.0 Manifesto include?

As a state employee we are accountable to all the citizens of North Carolina. This idea becomes reality in public record law. “Public records shall mean all documents… regardless of physical form…, made or received in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government….” — in other words, most of what you write must be made available to any NC citizen upon request… it is a matter of public record.

So what does that mean to you? It means that you should always conduct business professionally and with careful consideration. Use discretion in all written communications including email. Legal counsel for the University puts it this way… “Imagine the News and Observer is cced on everything you write.”

Words to live by…

Some important links:

UNC Provost’s Office Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Reports http://provost.unc.edu/policies

UNC Campus Policies and Procedures http://www.unc.edu/campus/policies.html

North Carolina General Statutes Chapter 132: Public Records: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/Statutes/StatutesTOC.pl?Chapter=0132

North Carolina Open Government: Public Records Law http://www.ncopengov.org/publicrecordslaw.html

Guidelines for Public Records from the NC Government Records branch of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/records/guidelines.htm