Shikshantar & Udaipur As a Learning City

Many among us who are parents and teachers often wonder about the meaning of education and the purpose of schooling, and whether we can reconcile our philosophy of education with the current systems of formal education. Most of us (for various reasons) simply don't act on our instincts to step away from the mainstream to give our children a better, meaningful education.

An increasing number of parents, however, are opting for alternative schools or home schooling in order to better meet the needs of their children; and then there are those very few who are actually taking concrete steps to support their children in real shiksha or natural learning (not simply alternative schooling) which is in keeping with their philosophy of sustainable and just living. One such family and organization is that of Manish Jain, who with his wife, Vidhi, has decided to adopt a unique approach to the education of their daughter Kanku. Through their unique organization called Shikshantar: The People's Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, Manish, Vidhi and a band of "learning activists" are also transforming the face of education in the "learning city" of Udaipur.

educatorslog.in recently shone its 'spotlight' on Shikshantar and Udaipur As a Learning City (ULC).

Here's a youtube video on ULC that Manish shared with me recently --

Hope Springs Eternal

[The links to the following 2 stories about the proliferation of technology in rural India were forwarded to me by my friend, Uma Chandru, a cultural anthropologist, environmental designer and educator, who recently concluded a fellowship at the Smithsonian where she researched democratic policies and practices that accord respect to and foreground the values and agency of indigenous visual artists and artisans in India with a view to safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural heritage.]

The first was about FM radio stations in Bihar schools, and the second about 100% broadband connectivity to the Internet in Gujarat (every village is now connected!)

Here's the note she attached to the first story -

For those interested in educational technology and design in state
schools in India---

The Bihar government has some lofty aims in its plans to set up Frequency
Modulation (FM) radio stations in schools

- to make education more effective and user-friendly.

- use information technology in schools for easy access to knowledge

- to provide entertainment

- to educate and inform students about community development, health and
disaster management

what I find most interesting is the aim

-- to help revive local and folk music and art and provide opportunities
to local people to generate employment, particularly in the rural areas.

It is interesting how state policies in the education arena are getting so
technology centered-and also to see such ambitious plans on what can be
achieved through introducing FM technology in schools.

Not clear if they have the people trained for this in such schools and who
will generate the content and how govt school teachers will utilize this
in their teaching and whether this will do good or make things worse for
the children in such schools or the bearers of the "folk" art and music
traditions.

While I am all for appropriate technology and content, given 4-5 hours of
such FM programming which will also include entertainment, to be aired
each day presumably during school hours, what will the govt school
teachers do during this time? Will they be capable of choosing and
integrating appropriate content in their classroom and facilitate new
and meaningful learning through this technology ?

Or will it merely become a substitute for the teacher who hardly comes to
the school anyway, at least in govt schools in rural areas.

I may be wrong on this, but the state officials also seem to be over
estimating the costs of the equipment etc-I thought I had read somewhere
that they cost much less these days.

Big Question is - Will the ministers and the technology company that is providing these FM radios and some mega content generation company benefit more from this more than the teachers, students or the culture bearers?

Good questions, Uma. Unfortunately, one cannot help being skeptical, given Bihar's poor track record in development. One also wonders about how Gujarat villages and schools will leverage broadband connectivity, what with so much electricity shortage!

That said, such stories make my heart soar. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and one looks forward to an India - and not just urban India, but rural India as well - that has truly turned a corner with respect to access and connectivity, and subsequently leveraging the Internet and other technologies to better the lot of the average Indian, not just with respect to education, but quality of life in general as well.

U.S. Wants YOU! (If you're a Hindi teacher, that is)

Hindi is the new Mandarin. Just as Mandarin is being learnt by youngsters all over the world to give them a strategic advantage with the emerging China, Hindi too is being sought after as the language of the other Asian tiger.

Some schools in the US have decided to introduce Hindi as a foreign language with staples like French, Spanish and German.

"We're going to teach our kids how to speak important languages. We will welcome teachers here to help teach our kids how to speak languages," US President George Bush had said during a National Security Language Initiative in New York"

This excerpt from an article titled India Shining: US Headhunts Hindi Teachers.

Hindi is considered a "critical foreign language" in the US, hence this need to hire Hindi teachers and teach Hindi as a foreign language in schools.

Unfortunately the remark above - about Mandarin being learned by children all over the world to prepare them for China - does not apply to India. No school in India that I know of is offering Mandarin as a foreign language. Why do Indians not consider it important to prepare their kids to compete globally in the decades to come? Are we too smug in the knowledge that the world is "preparing itself for India" - like in the series of TV ads being aired these days?

With this kind of thinking and attitude, India won't be "shining" for too long.

[Cross-posted on educatorslog.in]

Arthur C. Clarke & Wiki - pedia & phobia

Another insightful look at the Wikipedia culture on Ewan Macintosh's blog post - Arthur C. Clarke - proud of his Wikipedia legacy or late to his own party?

While on the subject of wikipedia, check out reviews of 3 books that analyze the web 2.0 wiki culture - Wikiphobia and Web 2.0

Remember the pre-Google days?

Lest we forget what web 0.5 or web 1.0 looked like - what with the speed with which the Internet has burgeoned over the last decade, and the growing clamor around web 2.0 (and web 3.0 seemingly around the corner), here's a video that takes you back to the early-mid 1990s. Great piece of history that we were witness to - usenet, newsgroups, IRC, gopher, mosaic, lycos...

Imagine a world today without the Internet! Enjoy (courtesy waxy.org)...

educatorslog.in, Slideshare & Web 2.0 for education

A good slideshow on slideshare - W(e) e(ducate) b(etter) 2(gether).0 - talks about several specific tools available in the web 2.0 arena that can be used (appropriated?) by educators...and guess what! in slide # 23 titled "Global Network Connections", educatorslog.in has been listed (along with Classroom 2.0 and Wikieducator)!

The slideshow has been created by Cheryl Capozzoli, an Instructional Technology Specialist in the US. Thank you, Cheryl!

Custom Searches for Educational Content

I've been playing around with Google's Custom Search Engine tool, and am currently experimenting with CSEs for Math resources on the internet. I've created a couple of them - one for elementary and middle school level Math and another for high school math. You may follow the links or use the boxes on the top right of this blog.

These are still works in progress, so please do try them out and let me know how well they work (or not).

History Comes Alive in the Classroom! (Courtesy YouTube)

If I were a History teacher today, I would probably be spending every spare moment on YouTube scouring the collections for videos relevant to my curriculum, to make History truly come alive in the classroom. I would probably teach history through watching those videos and discussions before and after.

[In case you don't have (convenient) access to the Internet in your school or classroom or if your school has blocked youtube, see my post here on Anytime, Anywhere Access to YouTube Videos so you can download & burn the videos for sharing with your students.]

Take the Social Studies curriculum in middle/high school in India, for example. The broad themes deal with -

• Indian History - Ancient (Indus Valley, Guptas, Mauryas, Alexander), Medieval (Muslim & Mughal Empires) & Modern (British Rule & post-independence)
  
  
• European History - Ancient (Roman & Greek empires), Medieval (France, Byzantine, Crusades, Renaissance), Modern (Nationalism in Europe, and the world wars
  
  
• (Rest of the World) History - Asia (Mongols, Indochina, Vietnam War, China, Russia), America (Discovery, colonies, Independence, Civil War)
  

For almost each of these topics, YouTube has a wealth of videos made from credible sources (although that may be open to debate, perhaps in a Social Studies class itself!) such as BBC, History Channel, Discovery Channel, and others.

I've been building a pretty comprehensive database, and will share it as a Youtube playlist sometime in the not-too-distant future. For now, here's a sampling of topics on which I have found great material on youtube -

* Indus Valley (Harappa, Mohen-jo-daro)
* Mughal Empire (including separate episodes on Babur, Akbar & Shah Jehan)
* The last Days of the Raj & Partition
* Real footage from the days of the British Rule (including 15th August 1947)
* Alexander in India
* Ancient Eygpt
* Huns & Mongols
* South Indian Temples
* American Civil War
* The Crusades
* Byzantium
* The French Revolution
* World War I & II

21st Century Teachers & "Technological Literacy" (or as I would prefer it - "Technological Fluency")

John Norton's Are Teachers Ready for 21st Century Learning? and Karl Fisch's question in what was voted the "Most Influential Blog Post" in the 2007 EduBlog awards - "Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" raise some questions that are obviously very near and dear to my heart. These are questions that are being raised and discussed, in the context of India, on educatorlog.in as well.

My stand on all of this is pretty categorical, and obvious, but I see a link - and perhaps it's only a tangential one - to this issue of technological (or digital) "literacy", (as opposed to "digital fluency"), and fundamental questions that are being raised even today about the role of technology in improving education!

I have long maintained that digital "fluency" is what is needed for teachers to use technology meaningfully and effectively in the classroom. While digital "literacy" is a necessary step on the road to digital "fluency", mere"literacy" will never cut it, if the goal is to leverage new technologies meaningfully for better learning.

Here's what I mean by "digital fluency" and why questions about technology's impact in learning will continue to be raised if teachers who are trying to integrate technology in education are simply digitally "literate" (lifted from my response to the 2 aforementioned questions) -

"Just as fluency with a language takes one beyond mere literacy and helps one understand the nuances of a language, digital fluency also helps one handle the unexpected when it comes to technology – which, as it turns out, is quite often the case. This does not mean that teachers need to be trained computer professionals. It does mean, however, that teachers should move beyond viewing the computer or any other piece of hardware as a mysterious object that only the very exalted can handle. They should be able to playfully explore a piece of technology (be it a digital camera or a new piece of software) without fear or intimidation. Unless they achieve this comfort level with technology, they will constantly be faced with situations where they have to abort a technology-based lesson due to a problem that they could have handled with some fearless ‘poking around’.

Mere digital literacy will also keep teachers from moving beyond naive (or even gimmicky) uses of technology in their classrooms - (powerpoint presentations, superficial use of the Internet for topical research and such). In today’s networked world, digital fluency also means teachers harness the power of technology (the internet in particular) for communications and collaboration through the many, varied, mostly free tools of the new web (blogs, wikis, podcasts, in addition to good ole' email and e-groups).

A good teacher who is also technologically savvy will know when good old fashioned teaching techniques will work, and when a tech tool will serve the teaching and learning process better. She will always use technology as a means to an end, and not and end in itself. She will appreciate the value that pedagogies like Waldorf bring to a learning environment, but she will also be aware of tools like Scratch that aid problem-solving, creativity and collaboration and sharing.

It is not necessary to use every new tool out there, and not all the time either. A technologically "fluent" teacher will be able to strike the balance and mix it up and design the learning experiences effectively with appropriate technology tools, or without any technology tool at all, depending on the particular learning situation and need. I doubt that a teacher who is only digitally "literate" will be able to do that. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the teachers who use technology in their classrooms, probably all over the world, fall in the latter category.

I believe that that is a big reason why questions are still being raised about whether technology can truly impact learning!"

The Story of Stuff

If you have not seen this already, The Story of Stuff is a must-see amazing, entertaining, informative 20 minute animation video by Annie Leonard.

"From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Here's a teaser from YouTube---

To F2F, or not to F2F,..or how much (or less)... that is the question...

As an educational technologist, my livelihood depends on spreading the gospel of the advantages of leveraging technology for better teaching and learning. "Technology as a means to an end...and not an end in itself" is of course, the mantra that I impress on teachers and schools, but I have spent a large part of the last couple of years touting the advantages of web 2.0 tools for communication, collaboration, and community experiences.

Every now and then, however, one is faced with a viewpoint that counters or questions the usefulness of the pervasive trends of 24X7 online interactions, and raises concerns of where things may be headed if they continue in the current vein, and cites the dangers of interaction that is only restricted to typing on a keyboard as opposed to talking - face to face (F2F) or over the phone.

One such viewpoint was offered by Greg Philo in the Guardian article titled "Let's take the digit out of digital" who writes "Facebook is not the same as face to face and, as our virtual skills increase, I wonder if our ability to communicate using speech is on the decline". The article unfortunately digresses into a condemnation of excessive use of Powerpoint and OHPs in conferences and inside classrooms, to support his assertion that "The ability to communicate face to face and hold the attention of others is a vital human skill. Beware of a technology in which the speed of our fingers is more important than the quality of our voices."

I found this observation particularly fascinating -

"The great tragedy, of course, is that the phone was invented before the computer. If it had been the other way around, internet forums would now be buzzing with the exciting news: "Have you heard (type, type, type)? There is this amazing new gadget (type, type). Now you can talk directly with people (type, type, type). And they can, like, hear your voice. Without all this flipping typing."

Relentless marketing would do the rest and colleges would be rushing to develop new courses in telephone skills."

"

School Admissions Redux - Homeschooling an answer?

There has been a spate of articles in the international media in recent days about the sorry state of admissions to private schools in India and the attendant stress for the Indian parent due to an extremely warped demand-supply equation. Sample these 2 from the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

About a year ago, really early in the life of educatorslog.in, Beena Babu wrote an elog that generated a lot of discussion among the members of this forum. It was titled Grey areas of school admission policy- A search for new assessment ideas and it took an educated look at the what/why/how schools should assess young children during the admissions process - if they should be "evaluated" at all!

A massive movement in the US and the West, homeschooling in India is still in a very nascent stage with numbers probably only in a few hundreds or thousands (not counting children with disabilities who are home schooled due to lack of educational institutions that cater to their needs). If issues with school admissions continue to grow at the current rate, I personally feel that a lot of educated parents may look to home schooling their children as a viable, even sensible alternative. Given the increasing violence in schools and the pressures of regular schooling today (I could list out several - just commuting to/from school in the metros has become a source of stress, fatigue and ill-health for many urban kids), homeschooling and alternative education may make sense for a variety of reasons for many urban families.

Thoughts?

Try Podcasting!

I'm all fired up after creating my first podcast on a session from the High School English seminar at Mallya Aditi International School, Bangalore. It's now up on iTunes too!

It was such a thrill to create one; and with teachers asking me about what podcasts are, their relevance in an educational context, and how they could go about creating their own, I've been thinking about sharing some basics on Podcasts and Podcasting - what it is, and how teachers can get started with this fairly simple technology for sharing audio artifacts - interviews, personal reflections, seminar sessions - with students and the world at large. The great thing is that one can do this with minimal technology investment (an audio recorder is probably all you will need to spend on if you do not have one already. Most laptops come with a built-in microphone).

Fortunately for me, just as I sat down to write this article, I stumbled upon this fabulous site that contains all the information one needs to get started - from a simple, easy-to-read-and-comprehend article on what podcasting is, to a step-by-step guide, and several other relevant links thrown in for good measure, such as those on "Podcasting in Education", and "Podcast for Teachers".

If you do take the time to go through the articles and links on the site, and give podcasting a try, please do share your thoughts and experiences.

Science 2.0

Yet another space that admits to a web 2.0 avatar is Science!

Here's an amazing Scientific American article I came across this morning - Science teachers, please take note! It's called 'Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?' which is not just an article but a web 2.0 "experiment" in "networked journalism", since the article itself will be re-written with views of all those who comment on it. Probing the role of open, collaborative technologies such as blogs and wikis within an inherently "secretive" research communtiy, the issues that the article is urging readers and contributors to look at (in the context of scientific journalism) --

• What do you think of the article itself? Are there errors? Oversimplifications? Gaps?
  
  
• What do you think of the notion of "Science 2.0?" Will Web 2.0 tools really make science much more productive? Will wikis, blogs and the like be transformative, or will they be just a minor convenience?
  
  
• Science 2.0 is one aspect of a broader Open Science movement, which also includes Open-Access scientific publishing and Open Data practices. How do you think this bigger movement will evolve?
  
  
• Looking at your own scientific field, how real is the suspicion and mistrust mentioned in the article? How much do you and your colleagues worry about getting “scooped”? Do you have first-hand knowledge of a case in which that has actually happened?
  
  
• When young scientists speak out on an open blog or wiki, do they risk hurting their careers?
  
  
• Is "open notebook" science always a good idea? Are there certain aspects of a project that researchers should keep quite, at least until the paper is published?

Creative Web 2.0 Learning

[I posted this on educatorslog.in and hence the rather long drawn-out intro to Web 2.0]


Web 2.0 is a buzzword that many of you may have come across in your wanderings around the Internet. In fact educatorslog.in, too, is using Web 2.0 technologies like blogging and tagging, to facilitate bringing people together to discuss issues, share and organize (through tags and categories) resources, and participate in a common space.

Among the common Web 2.0 technologies are blogs, wikis, RSS, tag-sharing (folksonomies) tools like del.icio.us, mashups (bringing together information from various sites to create a more "unified" or "integrated" experience, like in Google Maps). Social networking sites like Facebook & Orkut, and video/photo sharing sites like Flickr & YouTube which bring together elements of the aforementioned technologies are all part of the "Web 2.0" revolution.

Probably the most important "affordances" of Web 2.0 are sharing, collaboration and the ease with which anyone can create/publish content (text, audio, video, or a combination of these) on the internet. This new generation Web is a great leveler, in some sense, where one does not have to be a web developer or geeky programmer to publish his/her thoughts, stories, artwork, stories, photos, video clips, on the Internet.

(You can find tons of information on "web 2.0" on the Internet, including videos on youtube. I found this slideshow and this one interesting, although someone completely unaware of the concept may find it hard to get it without any accompanying commentary or notes, but they may be worth a viewing, anyway).

After that rather long drawn-out introduction, I guess I should come to what I really wanted to share - an interesting slideshow titled "Creative Web 2.0 Learning" which focuses on the idea of "Library 2.0" but also describes in several interesting slides the meaning of web 2.0 technologies in education.

Slide #8 is referring to this impressive youtube video - The Machine is Us/ing Us which provides a definitive look at the web 2.0 interaction paradigm. I think slide #16 is a good description of web 2.0, and slide #24 provides a wonderful look at where education is, or should be, headed in this century, especially when we have at our disposal these great technologies of the "read-write" web (another way of describing "web 2.0") --

* Formal Learning Spaces --> Informal Learning Spaces
* Mass Learning --> Personalized Learning
* Competitive (or I would call this "Individual") --> Collaborative learning & assessment
* Restricted & Constructed --> Creative & Extended
* Instruction --> Personal Author & Innovator
* Content --> Knowledge & Understanding

Podcasting with Purpose

I've been thinking of venturing into the realm of podcasting for a while now. I even created an account on a podcast sharing site called PodcastPeople about 6 months ago. When the English Language department head at Mallya Aditi International School approached me to document the High School English Seminar held on Dec 10 and 11th, I was presented the perfect opportunity to give podcasting a try.

I worked in Garageband to add a jingle and a short 'podcast-style' intro to the audio recording of the first session of the seminar, and created my first podcast 'episode', which I then uploaded to PodcastPeople.

Check out this episode in which high school students discuss the issue of rising violence among affluent youth in urban India....

On PodcastPeople.com: MAIS High School English Seminar - Session 1 Podcast

On iTunes: MAIS High School English Seminar - Session 1 Podcast on iTunes

India Video Portal

Another source for excellent videos that can be used in the classroom - this one specifically on videos of India.

indiavideo.org is a 'Video Encyclopedia' on India created by Invis Multimedia in association with United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), New Delhi Office. "The site is an online culture atlas with professionally made high quality video clips and movies of the life, culture, heritage, festivals and traditional art forms of India. Well researched texts and useful India information and content are the unique features of this leading India website. The site has got tourism, travel and tour related films."

The videos I saw were rather short, although well-shot. There are ratings, tagging and comments features although I saw no videos that have been rated or been commented on, and the tag cloud is pretty sparse - maybe it's early days yet. Videos have been classified into various categories like Architecture, Art, Festivals, Heritage, flora and fauna, land and people. Each video has a paragraph of text describing the video - a very useful feature.

Currently the only states that seem to have been covered are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Hopefully the project will continue long enough to cover the rest of the country as well :)

Perhaps the videos could have used some high-quality voice-overs instead of the soothing Indian elevator music that became quite tedious to listen to after a few videos!

Here's a link to one on the Southern Hill Myna. Enjoy!

Seminar on Raising 'Teaching-Learning Standards to Global Norms'

I had the pleasure of being a part of this seminar held yesterday in Bangalore - I was invited to speak on issues of introducing and integrating technology in teaching & learning. The event, which was organized by Education World magazine as part of the Chinnara Habba children's festival, had a panel of 6 speakers -

* Shukla Bose, Founder of Parikrma Humanity Foundation, spoke on "Quality Education for All"
* Dr. Augustine F. Pinto, Founder Chairman of Ryan International Schools, Mumbai, spoke on "Scaling Up Education Enterprises"
* Prof. V.S. Prasad, Director, National Assessment and Accreditation Council, Bangalore, spoke on "Institutional Self Assessment and Measurement of Outcomes"
* Shuchi Grover, Educational Technologist, spoke on "First Steps in Technology Integration"
* Dr. S.N. Uma, Sr. Vice President, NIIT, Chennai, spoke on "Integrating Technology in School Education"
* Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, Pro. of Child Psychiatry at NIMHANS, Bangalore, spoke on "Creating Stimulating Learning Environments"

The speakers spoke on varied topics, in fact other than some fundamental commonalities in Dr. Uma's and my talks on technology issues - we complemented each other fairly well on how technology should be leveraged for meaningful teaching and learning.

All in all, I think the participants got some great ideas and inputs; their questions at the end of the session were thoughtful and related to practical realities of implementing these ideas in the classroom. If only there was more time. Thanks to Education World for organizing an event to bring together educators to network and exchange ideas on improving school education in India.

[Here's another perspective from an attendee of the Seminar.]

Google SketchUp and Autism

[Also posted on educatorslog.in]

I have had the good fortune of being peripherally involved in efforts in India to explore the use of technology to help children with Autism. It is with much excitement, therefore, that I share this YouTube video I stumbled upon last night, which adds a new technology tool to the wealth of resources already amassed on educatorslog.in to help teachers, parents and care-givers of children with Autism in India.

Google SketchUp has already been talked about in the past here, in the context of a good design tool that is freely available. However, this YouTube video uploaded by Google shares some inspiring stories of how SketchUp has helped kids with Autism (who are known to often have advanced visual and spatial thinking abilities) express themselves. There appears to be an entire research project (Project Spectrum) that is devoted to studying this.



As a matter of fact, Google SketchUp has great potential in any classroom setting. It's "a powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design." It's a great companion tool to use with Google Earth - once you've built your models, you can place them in Google Earth.

Download it, and try it out!

Some Convenient Lies in 'An Inconvenient Truth'?

An Inconvenient Truth is all over the news again thanks to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Al Gore (and the IPCC) recently. We had a discussion on educatorslog.in after I posted an elog about 8 months ago, about this great teaching resource for Environmental Education and Science.

You may have have already shown this movie and discussed it with your students, but for those who plan to show this movie to their students and discuss the facts shared in this Oscar-winning documentary by Al Gore, please be sure to also share with your students some "corrections" that have been highlighted by a British Court which recently passed a ruling that this movie can be screened in schools in Britain (people actually went to court with this?!!).

Read this Washington Post article to find out about the "nine significant errors" in the movie, and do share these with your students when discussing this film.

"After listening to government witnesses, environmental campaigners, and skeptics on global warming argue their case, the judge described Gore's film as "broadly accurate" in its presentation of climate change. At the same time he also listed nine significant errors in the movie which, he said, reflected a general context of "alarmism and exaggeration" surrounding climate change."

The important thing to note, however, is that the film has proved to be "broadly accurate" and these factual errors don't affect the main argument that the film is trying to make - that climate change is a real threat, and that it is up to us humans to reverse the dangerous trend and save our planet.

I guess there is an important media literacy lesson in here for all of us (and our students) - to take with at least a pinch of salt, scientific "facts" and reports of events when they are stated not by a scientist or witness, but by an ex-politician... and to listen to all sides of a story.

Itching to Scratch!

It's everywhere around me these days - every elementary and middle schooler at Aditi, where I spend a day every week, is itching (pun most certainly intended) to create a fun project on Scratch - the exciting new programming environment that has emerged from MIT Media Lab (and can be downloaded for free). I have blogged about Scratch here before, and of course am a huge fan of the tool myself, so it's great to see the current buzz on Scratch these days.

I had the pleasure of watching some grade 4 students yesterday proudly present their "Stories of Invertebrates" created in Scratch as part of a Science unit. I offered them some useful suggestions to help them make their stories even better, and also suggested to the teacher to create a class account on the Scratch community website and upload those wonderful creations there. The kids are excited at the thought of uploading their projects - a great incentive to polish up their stories and add titles and credits (one of the suggestions I made to them).

My 11-year old son just finished creating a quiz in Scratch (for 1st-3rd graders) on an Indian Panchatantra Classic (which he has also made into a movie using iMovie, to be shown to the kids before the quiz) in honor of the upcoming International School Library Day that will be celebrated at his school on Monday, Oct. 22.

I recently discovered a community of "Scratchers" on Facebook as well, discussing new Scratch ideas and sharing notes on how to engage kids with this new technology tool that has such tremendous potential in any learning context.

I have had the pleasure of knowing and meeting many of the people at the Media Lab who are working on this project. The great news for us educators in India is that this environment, which currently supports some European languages in addition to English, will soon be available in Indian languages as well. I have actually been helping to build and test a beta Hindi language Scratch environment. It's such a kick!

Anyway, back to BLC07 (see previous post) - I was surfing YouTube and found a sweet little movie uploaded by Ewan Macintosh, from the Scratch preconference workshop at the MIT Media Lab during the Building Learning Communities conference in July this year.

So here's Scratch and Playing a "Banana Phone" for your viewing pleasure...

BLC07 on YouTube

More on the Building Learning Communities conference... Marco and his brilliant students (of cine de la gente fame - who were armed with microphones, cameras and video cameras throughout those memorable 5 days) have polished up some of the vodcasts they captured and created in the course of the July conference from the November folks ;). They're up on youtube now, and here's one of them...

Social Bookmarking Within A School Community

This workshop was a long time coming...It had been cooking in my head ever since I posted the article - "On the Social Side of Bookmarking" - on this blog well over a year ago. [That article serves as a good guideline for anyone who'd like to set up something along similar lines for their school (or department or any other group or community, for that matter)].

40 teachers of Aditi participated in what was a good intro to the idea of tagging and bookmarking for easy storage, retrieval, organization and sharing. Discussion around common del.icio.us accounts for the school to share bookmarks among teachers and between teachers and students, and finally developing a common vocabulary, and shared rules for tagging - by grade and subject especially, made for a useful, productive session that will hopefully mark the beginning of efficient internet searching and sharing of ideas among teachers and students.

The idea of folksonomies demonstrated by clicking on users who had bookmarked the same website, and then going through their bookmarks -and finding some useful sites in the process - was truly a 'wow' moment during the workshop.

Browser del.icio.us buttons for tagging and viewing have now been installed on every machine in the school. 20 new bookmarks have been added to the school del.icio.us account in the 1 day since the workshop.

It's working :) Go del.icio.us!

The Lexicon of Learning

A handy tool for educators, this dictionary on the ASCD website contains an alphabetical list of words/phrases that will tell you "What Educators Mean When They Say... "

The focus seems to be on school (K-12) education. Unfortunately, the list is US centric with terms like "Brown v. Board of Education", "California Achievement Tests", "Channel 1", and " church-state separation". I think about 30% of the words/phrases are not of relevance to educators outside of the US.

A handy reference nonetheless.

Anytime, Anywhere Access to YouTube Videos

[As posted on educatorslog.in]

Ever wondered if you could download YouTube videos to show to your class or to people where you did not have Internet access? Well, read on...

I'd written a post a few weeks ago titled "YouTube...TeacherTube...Video in Education" where I discussed the use of YouTube and videos in education, and wrote that all a teacher needed was a computer with access to the internet. Well, that's still true, but guess what! that access does not even have to necessarily be in the school or classroom. There are ways, and really EASY ways, actually, to download YouTube videos into pretty much any format for viewing on a Windows or Mac or any other machine.

The most convenient tool that I have used is called vConvert - which allows you to do the conversion to a desirable format right on their site at http://vconvert.net, (all you have to do is copy-paste the url or 'web address' of the YouYube video) and then download the output to your machine which you can then carry on a pen/thumb drive (or 'memory stick') to your classroom or any other room where you could play it on a computer! It couldn't get easier than this!

[I found this useful tip on this blog. Bob Sprankle, the author of the post is an enthusiastic teacher and "Technology Integrator" in Maine, who has kids as young as third-graders creating videos and audio broadcasts (called podcasts) that can then be shared with the world on iTunes or any other podcasting site on the Internet. Thanks, Bob!]

Kid-Safe Internet Browsing

[Here's another one on Google searching, kid-safe Internet browsing, critical thinking, "topical research" on the internet...Click on the appropriate tags below to see other posts on this topic]

Tired to having to monitor your children's Internet activity? Unable to monitor your child's time on the Internet? Concerned about what your child may run into on the Internet?

Consider installing a "Safe Internet Browser" for your child. Instead of trying to control what sites your child visits on the Internet via google searches; or being worried about inappropriate ads and other windows "popping up" on the screen, just rely on an Internet browser which automatically restricts the sites your kids can visit, and what your kids can do while on the Internet.

Buddy Browser (which happens to be one of a few "children's Safe Internet browsers" available for free), boasts of the following features (among others) --

• Secure and Safe Kids Browser without popup windows (No spyware or adware)
• No Internet Chat Rooms
• Safe Buddy Messenger for Kids
• No Internet Surfing
• Kids Safe Search
• Individually Reviewed Quality Sites for Kids
• Educational Learning Channels - Science, School, Nature, Animals and More
• Privacy Assured
• 100% Free!

I think this could be a useful option for young kids (elementary school), not just from a safety point-of-view. Kids spend (waste?) a lot of time doing aimless Internet searches ("researching a topic") as they put it, which is not effective and that requires a lot of critical evaluation of websites and material that kids are usually incapable of doing. Having a list of pre-approved sites to go to for "Internet research" (the sites available through Buddy Browser are exhaustive and kid-friendly) would not be such a bad idea anyway!

Perhaps it could be argued that kids need to learn how to sift through the vast amounts of information and make sense of it - as a 21st Century skill. I agree with this need, but also think that kids only above 12 years or so - (i.e. starting in Middle School) should be taught this skill and made to hone it through their various projects.

Until that age, a kid-safe browser such as Buddy Browser should suffice for exposing kids to the Internet

Is Google Killing Intellect?

The latest Businessweek has a discussion/debate on whether "the search engine makes it so easy to get data that users forgo deeper study?"

Sure, Google can deliver facts and figures at lightning speed. But is it turning users away from other avenues of learning such as books, scholarly magazines, lectures, and classes? Hear experts Jakob Nielsen (FOR) and David Alan Grier(AGAINST) discuss the question "Is Google Killing Intellect?", and respond to student comments.

(I have to preface whatever I write with stating that I am a technophile and I usually embrace technology in every shape and form... ) I personally have started to push my children and students more towards the library these days simply because I am beginning to get leary of the whole "Wikipedia culture" of getting information that is unfiltered and very often grade- & level-inappropriate. I ask my sons to first browse all the encyclopedias and other reference books we have at home for "basic" information on a topic and go to the Internet (which to them is synonymous with going to the Wikipedia most of the time) only for specific pieces of information that they don't find in books/magazines. The richness of the images that accompany the text in most encyclopedias and the fact that the information is somewhat "contained" is something I find comfort in. (Finding a decent alternative website to WIkipedia is also oftentimes high on my agenda and I strongly suggest teachers of kids in elementary school, if not middle school as well, to do the same.).

But the truth is that kids today do need to learn how to scout cleverly for the information they need, and make sense of huge amounts of information, evaluate the information critically, and to use the Internet and Google to their advantage. Little kids (younger than 12-13 years of age) are incapable of performing effective searches anyway, so the process must be scaffolded for them.

Clearly, there are pros and cons to extensive use of Google, which is why it makes for an interesting debate!

"Digital Natives" are not geeks, they're just "interested" in technology

[Also posted on educatorslog.in]

This article that I came across on rediff.com today was a bit disappointing, if not totally surprising.

A recent global study spanning 16 countries undertaken by MTV and Nickelodeon, in association with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions found that "Despite their technological immersion, digi-kids are not geeks." The study challenges traditional assumptions about their relationships with digital technology, and examines the impact of culture, age and gender on technology use.

The study, 'How Kids and Young People Interact with Digital Technology', found 59 per cent of 8-14 year-old kids still prefer their TV to PCs and only 20 per cent of 14 to 24-year-old young people globally admitted to being 'interested' in technology.

They are, however, expert multi-taskers and able to filter different channels of information."

My own personal take on this is that although they have been found to not be "geeky" in the traditional sense i.e. program and hack "code" with ease, they are comfortable enough with technology to be creators of digital content (without realizing it at times, I guess). Every time a kid shoots a picture on his/her camera and posts it on the net or remixes a piece of music for an MTV competition, s/he is treading into realm that was the domain of geeks before...simply because technology has progressed enough to allow them to do these things without much trouble.

An India-related report in the study - "Young people in India are among the fastest in Asia today to embrace digital technology to express themselves and connect with multiple communities. While the growth of mobile and digital technology in India is driven largely by the urban youth, we will gradually see this trend move beyond the urban youth and involve the youth in the rural regions of the country."

The study also found that - "friends influence each other as much as marketers do. Friends are as important as brands. Kids and young people do not love the technology itself. They just love how it enables them to communicate all the time, express themselves and be entertained and digital communications such as IM, email, social networking sites and mobile/sms are complimentary to, not competitive with, TV and that TV is part of young peoples' digital conversation"

Hardly surprising, given the statistic that MySpace had 100 million registered users as of December 2006 and that the average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day!

The study apparently looked at 21 technologies that have impact on the lives of young people: internet, email, PC, TV, mobile, IM, cable and satellite TV, DVD, MP3, stereo/hi-fi, digital cameras, social networks, on and offline video games, CDs, HD TV, VHS, webcams, MP4 players, DVR/PVRs, and hand-held games consoles.

So what are the implications of these findings for educators in India? Should these tools not be leveraged for learning as well? And why are only media companies concerning themselves with these trends? Why not our boards of education curriculum planning committees and policymakers and NCERT as well?

November Learning in July at BLC 07

The November Learning conference was titled Building Learning Communities, but this time around was mostly about “Education 2.0” I think i.e. “Leveraging Web 2.0 Tools for Education”.

I was/am familiar with several of the technology tools discussed, and have used them to varying degrees – blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, vodcasts, digital storytelling, social networking, and such. So what was great for me was meeting people from all over (there were educators from Ireland, Scotland, England, Australia, Guatemala, El Salvador, in addition to the majority that was from all corners of the US including Alaska! It was great to share my story from India on educatorslog.in and my other work - during my session and elsewhere.

The biggest take-away for me was making real world connections with the likes of Marc Prensky (in pic here), Will Richardson (of weblogg-ed fame), Marco Torres (more on him and his amazing students later), Howie DiBlasi (of the “Did you Know” video shared on this blog), Bob Sprankle (serial podcaster), and Ewan McIntosh and of course, Alan November (the force behind this conference); and forging friendships with teachers from far-away places like Alaska, Alabama and Australia.

The keynote address by Dr. Yang Zhao on the final day was rich in wit and examples (mostly from China/ Singapore/ Taiwan/ Korea) that reflect the stark realities of the dual lives (real and virtual) of today's cyber-kids! Tim Tyson and Angela McFarlane (and Mitch Resnick – see my blog post about his address) were the other keynote speakers and all had interesting stories to share – Tim Tyson shared his awesome student podcasts from Mabry School, and Angela, some interesting insights from her Asian doctoral students’ research work on online communities.

Alan November’s ideas on School Redesign (aimed specifically at restructuring the US schools) made a lot of sense – in his truly unique, wacky style he provokes and debates in a way that makes you sit up and listen! He put together this fabulous event for people to connect and meet and create new learning communities that straddle the real world as well as the Web (2.0) world.


My fondest memories are those of Marco Torres’ 4 students – Miguel, Rosa, Consuela, and Isaac. These young college students brought such “young energy” to the conference, and the work they have produced as film-makers – ever since they were high school students of Marco – is simply breathtaking (see the iCan series here). They captured this conference in their innumerable videos and vodcasts, and even did a session for educators! Marco, your students must do you proud!

All in all, an interesting, enjoyable week at BLC07 replete with learning, sharing, connecting and community-building!

Shift Happens: Implications for 21st century teaching and learning

An amazing video that's been played during more than one presentation at the November Learning conference that I'm at currently in Newton, MA. [I present tomorrow...]. Its import in the context of educating the 21st century child will be apparent when you see it...


An slightly different version of the same video. This one's titled Did You Know 2.0 (I like the background music better in the other one, though...)

The Lifelong Kindergartner

I have, on several occasions over the last few years, interacted with Mitch Resnick of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT Media Lab. I finally had the opportunity of seeing him in his element on a larger stage (literally) at the November Learning conference where he delivered the keynote address this morning. The audience loved his demos of the PICO cricket kit and Scratch. His enthusiasm is/was catchy. His group is christened "Lifelong Kindergarten" at MIT Media Lab - and I don't think there can be a better proponent than Mitch of the "spirit of kindergarten" - learning through imagining, creating, playing, sharing - that his group is attempting to bring to learners of all ages (5-99) through their creations and products.

Mitch shared the philosophy of learning that drives the work of the Lifelong Kindergarten group - a philosophy that is so evident in the Mindstorms kits, the PICO Cricket kits, and now Scratch as well.

As Alan November remarked at the closing session of Day2 - this framework of learning could well drive all teaching across all grades in schools. An idea well worth mulling over...The devil, as always, will be in the implementation, I suppose!

YouTube...TeacherTube...Video in Education

[As posted on educatorslog.in]

In the process of checking out Varni's video link on YouTube for "School Chale Hum", I also found a link to the "Ek Chidiya" film which I posted as a resource just now.

It got me thinking about the use of YouTube as such an easily accessible resource for the classroom. I'm sure there are a lot of useful video clips already up on YouTube - we have posted some ourselves and shared some others here whenever we've discovered them.

A little bit of "googling" on "youtube in education" led me to "TeacherTube" - a site dedicated to YouTube-like sharing of videos that are all entirely aimed for use in education! Here's what I got on them from their site --

"After beta testing for almost two months, TeacherTube officially launched on March 6, 2007. Our goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill."

Videos are a powerful medium for teaching and they don't not need much investment on the part of schools. The barriers, I think, have been the lack of good films for use in the classroom - especially in India. In the US and other Western countries there is a huge repository of good educational videos produced by National Geographic, PBS (Nova series) and others. Schools use them on a routine basis. These are not so easily accessible in India and are pretty expensive too, for use in India.

With YouTube and TeacherTube (and even Google Video where you can put up longer films) now, one does not need much to use videos in teaching - a teacher does not even need a separate video/cd/dvd player - all one needs is access to the Internet - which schools should certainly look into investing in, if they have not already...and not just for use in the principal's office, but in teacher staff rooms, special A/V screening rooms, student computer labs, and even classrooms, as well.

educatorslog.in on YouTube!

Here's a movie I made over the weekend that introduces educatorslog.in and also incorporates video and audio clips of member feedback. It's up on YouTube now...

iMovie is fun to play around with. This is still a work in progress, but I'm pretty pleased with this effort! :)

Enabling Conditions for Effective Use of Technology in Schools

My article has been published in the "Teacher-to-Teacher " section of the June issue of Education World magazine. If you do not have a subscription to the magazine then you can read the article online...

"Tech to the Aid of Children with Autism" - Report on India Together

Wrote up a formal report on the workshop described in my previous post. You can read it here on 'India Together'.

Leveraging Technology to Aid Children with Autism (and other disabilities)

[Also posted on educatorslog.in]

Following from the success and lessons from their workshop in Dehradun where they used technology to help kids with autism, Dr. Arun Mehta and his colleagues are currently conducting a similar workshop in Bangalore (May 26-30, 2007). The participants include children of various ages with autism, their parents, special educators, volunteers (from IBM and some independent - like me).

I registered my interest (and shared some software ideas and links) with the group following a comment to this post here on educatorslog.in which announced the workshop and the googlegroup that had been set up to exchange emails, in the weeks leading up to the workshop among the various people interested in this event and initiative. I have had the pleasure, over the last couple of days to volunteer my time - attend some sessions and share my ideas on how some technologies such as Scratch (see my previous post here) could be used as a simple iconic, visual introduction to programming (to create games as well as explore shapes and other ideas around space and geometry).

Computers and other digital technologies with their multi-media affordances, have been known to serve as learning and communication aids for children with disabilities such as autism. Little has been tried out in India, though, and Dr. Arun Mehta and Vickram Crishna (of the Hawkings project and eLocuter fame) and their colleagues are probably the first in India to try to help parents and special educators become familiar with hardware and software that they can use with children with disabilities based on each child's specific needs and condition.

Among the software being discussed and shared at this workshop-

• Natak - a role-playing and drama-making software by C-DAC
• Jaws - software for the visually impaired (audio feedback for keyboard input, screen-reader for audio version of everything on the screen)
• e-Locuter - computer "talks" for a non-verbal user and allows user to give computer inputs through one key. Read this 2004 article by Frederick Noronha.
• Dasher - for keyboard-less typing - user can type using only mouse movements (without clicking)
• Scratch - a fun, simple introduction to programming (see my previous post here)
• Basic photography, image and sound manipulation - preparing powerpoint slide shows with images and sound
• Edubuntu - a complete Linux-based operating system, (freely available with community based support) specially for children - packaged with tons of educational applications and games

Most or all of the software being shared and discussed is free and open source. Dr. Mehta is in fact planning to customize eLocuter with specific vocabulary lists of everyday words for all the children who have participated in this workshop!

To see technology being leveraged to help children with disabilities has been such a learning, and an eye-opener for me. Kudos to Dr. Arun Mehta and his collegues who are organizing the workshop - Vickram Crishna (of Net Radiophony), Dr. Veronica Mathias (Autism Society of India) and Dr. Nalini Menon (Spastics Society of Karnataka)!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some related articles:

Article on the earlier Dehradun workshop
A write up on A for Autism... M for Mouse - a film on this initiative
Use of video modeling to help teach children with autism
A for Autism... M for Mouse

Scratch officially released by MIT Media Lab

[Also posted on educatorslog.in]

You may recall my earlier post here - Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas about kids and programming. I'd mentioned Scratch - a great programming environment for kids of all ages to get creative with computers that was due to be released by MIT Media Lab. Well it's here! Fun, easy, colorful, wysiwyg, lots of features, great online community for sharing your projects.

Check out this MIT press release as well as links to Mitch Resnick's videos about the product that are linked from the site and go ahead and download this free, fantastic product...

---------------------Mailer from Mitch Resnick announcing Scratch-------------------------

New software from Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab

As you may know, our research group at the MIT Media Lab has been
working for several years on a new programming language, called
Scratch, that enables kids to create their own interactive stories,
games, music, and animations.

This week, we are officially releasing Scratch and launching the
Scratch website (http://scratch.mit.edu), where people can share
their Scratch creations with one another.

Scratch builds on our group's previous work that led to the LEGO
MINDSTORMS and PicoCricket robotics kits. Just as the MINDSTORMS and
PicoCricket kits allow kids to program and control physical
creations, Scratch lets them program and control media-rich creations
on the screen. As kids create and share Scratch projects, they learn
important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a
deeper understanding of the process of design.

I hope you'll go to the Scratch website at http://scratch.mit.edu,
where you can download Scratch software and share projects created
with Scratch.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences with Scratch. If you
have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Mitch Resnick
Professor of Learning Research
Lifelong Kindergarten group
MIT Media Lab

Creativity in the Classroom

[Read more on this at educatorslog.in]

Creativity & Innovation seem to be buzzwords today, not just in the world of design, but in the corporate world as well as in education today. I wrote a couple of posts about a year ago on the idea of "possibility thinking" - in this post and this one.

I attended an immensely fascinating workshop on Creativity at the recently held TAISI conference in Bangalore (where I also held a session - on "Technology Tools for Collaboration" - see previous post here). This workshop conducted by Dr. Susan Baum of the International Center for Talent Development was called "Creativity 1,2,3", and was centered around characteristics of creative thinking and creativity in children, and how to nurture these in the classroom.

I found the presentation slides to this workshop. Some slides relating to participant involvement & action during the workshop may not make sense, but there are several slides dedicated to what "creative folks" do and look like, "divergent thinking", brainstorming strategies in the classroom that encourage kids to be creative, and "problem finding (not problem solving) and discovery in science."

The big take-aways for teachers were --

• to provide ample opportunities in the classroom for play and "problem finding" (a more important skill than "problem solving"),
• to teach divergent thinking skills and integrate them into the curriculum, and most of all,
• to model creativity and spontaneity in the classroom.