THERE IS NOTHING WRONG HERE

Well I did it, sent in my proposal for a workshop at the M.A.S.S Technology Conference. I have been telling everyone that will listen about Wikinomics and Here Comes Everybody and that these are two books educators need to read. So when the RFP for the conference showed up in my email I decided to go for it. I have had my own doubts about who am I to bring this to a superintendents convention, I am just a teacher. But, in the spirit of wikinomics anyone can contribute to the knowledge of the many.

I decided to use the power of the wikinomics concept to help me write the proposal and posted it on the edubloggescon.com wiki and asked for feedback, no one responded. It is mid-summer and many educators are taking time to relax and recharge for the next school year. I will keep the wiki page up and ask for feedback from educators who have read either book.

I just got (9/10) an email about the superintendents tech conference and I did not get chosen to present. Looking over the list of presenters it should be a conference worth going to, too bad I can’t. I plan to keep developing this topic because it is important that educators understand the “perfect storm” of changes that are happening due to technological changes that make it easier to share, peer create, and act globally.

Download

At Harvard Feb, 2008

I was one of about 80 people that tuned into the Will Richardson interview of Clay Shirky today. Will used Ustream to conduct the interview so that it would be streamed live and recorded for later viewing. Of course a chat was going on along with the interview, and Will invited questions from the “audience”. As most Internet technologies are today, it was glitchy and at one point Will lost his Internet connection and had to reboot.

The interview only lasted about 40 minutes and Will only got to two questions. Clay is a very practiced speaker and was to the point in the discussion. The topic of the discussion was about how the concepts in his book affect education. The main point I got from the interview, which I plan to watch again, was that we have had a revolution in the way knowledge is transferred or taught.

If you wanted to learn from Plato you had to go where he was and speak directly with him. After he died there was no way to easily access his teachings and his knowledge died with him. As writing further developed a limited number of book were written, but they were still difficult to access and not many people could read them. Transfer of knowledge was still limited in time and place. When the printing press was invented it made books more available and time and space became more flexible. You had access to knowledge from people who were not even in your country or alive, but direct access to the alive person was still very limited. It could be years before a book became available new knowledge may have been developed by the time the book was published. The telephone, film and TV has made access to knowledge and education even more immediate and accessible. But, from most people the access to knowledge still happens in an education setting.

Clay is suggesting that the reason for physical schools is that it is the most cost effective way to distrubite knowledge to the greated number of people. He goes on to say the a “tectonic shift” is occuring in the way groups are formed, business is conducted and knowledge is trasnfered because of the Internet and social network tools. Today’s interview is an example of the breaking down of the time/place/access to knowledge. Clay was in New York City, Will Richardson was in New Jersey, I was in Belchertown, MA, and the other 80 participants were all over the world. We all participted in a live event that was coordiated by one person for free. Beside observing the interview we were able to ask Clay and Will questions and there was a chat going on with the 80 participants. I did not have to sign up for a class with Clay Shirly at NYU or travel to London to attend a lecture. I am reading his book now and I have read his blog and watched two recordings of lectures he has given. I doubt that I would have had access to the video recordings of his lectures before the Internet. Even if a televison station would have thought it was worth their time and effort to record his lecture, the recording would have been show once or twice and then put in a vault some where at a university for some curious grad student to view it in 10 years.

As the the cost of orgaizating access to distributed knowledge decreases, will students be satisfied with having to travel to a central building to sit in rows and listen to a one-way conversation of a pre-determainded curriculum?

IMGP1113

Originally uploaded by vievetrick

The citizens of Amherst, MA were very supportive of our group.

I participated in my first 4th of July parade today in Amhert, MA. I have recently become involved with a group of Vets for Peace and Iraq Vets Against the War. These two groups had signed up to march in the Amherst’s 4th of July parade and I joined them.

Amherst has to be one of the most liberal town in the most liberal state, yet there is still controversy over who can march in a 4th of July parade - crazy!!! I live is a neighboring town, but I do pay some attention to local politics in Amherst. It turns out that the parade is funded by local business, so it is considered a private event and they can decide who can march and who can not. The business community in Amherst is more conservative and they are more likely to support conservative agendas, which means peace and anti-war groups have not been welcomed to march in the parade. The citizens of Amherst are know for speaking their mind at town meeting so this question of who can march has been a heated debate. This year, as best as I can understand, groups with a political message can march under their banner, but can not carry any signs expressing a political opinion.

So the Vets for Peace and Iraq Vets Against the War were granted a place in the parade. There were about 8 marchers and we carried banners announcing our groups. From the very beginning of the parade we were getting cheers, clapping, and V signs. I had a feeling that we were getting two reactions from the crowd. One was for us showing up and saying we were there and we do not support the past war (Viet Nam) or the present war. The other reason was because we were there despite the effort to keep us out. There was one final effort to keep us out. At about the center of Amherst a police officer approached us in the middle of the parade and told us we were being video taped and if we were not officially in the parade we would receive a court summons. I informed him we had been given permission to be in the parade. I saw one man turn his back to us, but we received a very warm welcome from most of the people in the town.

After the parade we discussed what had happened and we all agreed that the support was quite a surprise. We all felt that the police officer was heavy handed. We must have passed 10 parade officials, all with orange shits, who wished us well.

July 4th should be the day of the year when citizens are encouraged to speak their minds, not silenced to commercial interest.