Taste of Tech

World Have Your Say is a call-in radio program. There’s nothing special about that. Nearly every station on the AM dial has one. The hosts talk about current events, and people can call in to give their opinions. WHYS, though, takes the idea of talk radio several steps further.

First of all, it’s a global show. Originating in London, it actively seeks participation from the global audience. They regularly have callers from the middle east, and Africa, and Asia, and places where you’d think they can’t even listen to the BBC. And the perspectives of these people can differ drastically from the media we’re fed by CNN and AP and even Reuters.

The other neat thing WHYS has done is to embrace some of the interactive web technologies. They blog about the topics discussed on the show, and encourage site visitors to comment. They also solicit discussion and debate topics through the web site. And, of course, you can listen live to the show online or catch the podcast version later.

Recently, they’ve begun using Twitter to let people know about the topics they’re going to be discussing on the show. In addition to giving people a heads-up about show topics, it provides a nice, concise list of world events and issues. Here’s the recent list:

• Do you want your leader to go to Olympics?
• What’s it like being white in Zimbabwe at the moment?
• Are you worried about rising food prices?
• Should your boss know your family plans?
• Are protesters ruining the Olympics?
• Should women dress modestly?
• Can Muslims take a joke about Islam?

Nearly every day, they have a compelling question or two, and they seek input from the global audience. If we really want our students to have a global perspective, and to be able to work with people from different cultures, this is the kind of thing they should be listening to.

World Have Your Say is broadcast on weekdays at 1700 GMT. If you’re in the North American Eastern time zone, that’s 1:00 PM. You can listen online or find a station near you.

How’s this for a goal?

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about all life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.

All key information about all life on Earth? That’s a lot of information. There are 1.75 million documented species on Earth. So far, they have about, umm, 25 more-or-less done.

It’s an admirable goal. They want to meet the needs of everyone who has an interest in things that are alive. That includes the first grade class studying amphibians as well as scientists doing original research in biological fields. Eventually, the site will contain detailed textual information and statistics, as well as images, audio recording, video, and drawings for each species. A unique slider on each page allows you to control the amount of detail you see about each species.

The project’s organizers are estimating that it will take ten years to completely build the database. Later this year, users of the site will be able to contribute their own materials to the database. These will be added to a separate section of user-submitted content. Curators of the species pages will examine this data, moving some of it over to the authenticated species pages. So, like Wikipedia, users will be able to add to the content. But unlike it, there will be a separation between user added content and professionally verified content.

Cornerstone institutions for this initiative include the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Smithsonian Institution. Funding is also provided by the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.

I received our Asus eeePCs yesterday. After playing with a couple at the tech conference last week, I thought it would be worth the investment to try a few out in the district. I bought one for each building, plus one for my techs to share and one for me to play with. That’s a total of eight.

I purposefully didn’t pre-configure anything. I simply put two lists of questions in the box, and delivered them to the tech team members in each building. The first list was a list of questions that already have answers:

What is this?
This is an Asus eeePC 4G Surf. It’s a small, low end laptop with a 7” screen. There’s no hard drive – just 4GB of flash memory that holds the operating system and applications. It has 512 MB of RAM. You can save data to an SD card or to a USB flash drive. It has a productivity suite (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.). It also has a web browser and can access the network wirelessly or wired. It has an external VGA port, so it could be connected to a larger monitor or to a projector.

Can I keep it?
For now. One was purchased for each of the schools, the technology coordinator, and the tech department. By the end of the school year, we hope to have determined what role (if any) these devices can play in our schools. At that point, we may decide to collect them all and put them in the same place so students can use them.

In the meantime, use it. Share it with teachers and administrators and students. Figure out if it’s a useful tool or just a gadget. Try to think about the questions that need answers. We’ll be discussing them at the April (and maybe May) tech team meetings.

Will it run Successmaker / Kid Pix / Accelerated Reader / Keyboarding software?
No.

Then what good is it?
This device will do most of the things we need computers to do. You can word process, create presentations, use the web, and access network resources (file servers, printers, etc). When you think about what most people use computers for most of the time, this little laptop can do most of it.

How much does it cost?
It costs $367.37. Price-wise, it’s about half the cost of a desktop computer and a third of the cost of a traditional laptop. Compared to the Alphasmart Neo, it’s about 50% more expensive. So for the same cost as 30 Neos, you could have 20 of these. At the secondary level, it’s about 3 times the cost of a graphing calculator, and only slightly more than an ebook reader.

It seems like this little machine has a lot of value given the things it can do and the relatively low price point.

The second list was a list of questions that need answers. I fully expect this list to grow, but right now, this is it:

Does this device work well enough to have a place in our schools?

How could this be used effectively with students?

What limitations are there that would affect its usefulness?

Are there solutions to overcome those limitations?

What technical hurdles would have to be overcome to make the use of these devices successful?

If we were to start using these computers, what could they replace? What could we buy fewer of to make this cost effective?

Are these computers durable enough for student use?

Is Linux too complicated / different / cumbersome / annoying to be used in this environment?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

This morning, Mrs. Hricik’s first graders presented their gingerbread stories. After their presentation for local senior citizens got snowed out earlier this week, they hastily adjusted schedules and invited parents in today. With the help of Jeff Lebow, EdTechTalk, and Ustream, we were able to stream audio and video of the presentations to family members who couldn’t come in to school. We had a maximum of 23 viewers at one point, with people from Colorado, Kansas, California, and Florida.

Special thanks to the students and to Mrs. Hricik for letting us share their stories.

It’s a different kind of social network. These students aren’t on Facebook talking about music and relationships and fashion and popular culture. While they’re probably interested in these things, their new network, Students 2.0, has a higher purpose. They want to be taken seriously by adults. They have opinions on technology and learning in the 21st century. As the silent majority, they offer a perspective not often heard in education circles — the perspective of the student.

The introductory video puts the education world on notice: “Be prepared. We won’t be raising our hands anymore.” While they’re generally respectful of adults, and empathetic about current teaching practice, they’re also making it clear that some things are going to need to change. Their site, which launches December 10, is described this way:

Administered, designed, edited, and written by a global mix of students of varying ages, interests, voices, and points of view, Students 2.0 will feature content written by both staff writers and guest contributors. From Hawaii and Washington, from St. Louis and Chicago, from Vermont, New York, Scotland, Korea, and other points on the globe, these writings will be united in one central aspect: quality student writing, full-voiced and engaging, about education.

The moment for a student-centered edublogosphere has come. The staff at Students 2.0 invite their adult partners in education to treat their posts as they treat all others: as serious writing, as invitations to their readers to listen, reflect, agree, disagree, extend ideas - and above all, to create new possibilities, understandings, and insights in education.

They’re doing this by starting a blog. The eight student contributors will each write a few posts per month. All posts will be peer-reviewed prior to being posted. Everyone involved with creating, managing, writing, and editing the site is a student between 12-18. They’re encouraging comments and discussion about their posts, and hope to create a conversation where students, teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders can rationally and openly discuss issues facing education and technology in our time.  If you’re using RSS, you can grab one of their many feeds. If not, visit the site and see what these students have to say.