Being a Pitchman in the 21st Century Classroom

Malcolm Gladwell, kicks off his most recent publication, "What the Dog Saw" with a brief biography of Ron Popeil, the pitchman known best for his infomercial sales of the Ronco "Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ." Over the first thirty-one pages appropriately titled, "Pitchman" Gladwell shares short stories encapsulating Popeil's great success. One such story refers to how Popeil understood what it took to 'sell' an innovative product (in this case, the Chop-O-Matic) to his prospective buyers:

"[the product] was, after all, an innovation... it required consumers to rethink the way they went about their business in the kitchen. Like most innovations, it was disruptive. And how do you persuade people to disrupt their lives? ... You have to show them exactly how it works and why it works, and make them follow your hands as you chop liver with it, and then tell them precisely how it fits into their routine, and, finally, sell them on a paradoxical fact that,  revolutionary as the gadget is, it's not at all hard to use." (Gladwell, 15-16)

Personally, when introducing students to new technology, I feel a bit like a pitchman. I show students how to use it, often times over and over to students who miss a critical step or are struggling with applying the new features on their own. The pitch does not stop there. The technology must then be used again in the future to allow students to practice using the tool and introduce other ways in which the technology might be applied. My 'sale' is complete only when the student recognizes how the tool can benefit him or her in their own ways, and 'buys-in' to using the tool independently to improve their own lives and productivity.

I'm curious to know how others feel about this assessment. Does "selling" the technology take this charge of tech integration too far? Is our mandate to get students to buy into the technology or instead simply introduce it as a possible tool? How much do we push the students to use technology, particularly those who are already showing great capacity and results as students without the technology?

What Would a Social Media Middle School Elective Look Like?

"Web" by Kurtxio. Uploaded 1/9/2008. CC License

I spent sometime this evening reviewing some bookmarks I had not had the chance to fully explore and came across a link to the wiki of @TeachPaperless for his Johns Hopkins University Social Media graduate course. I poured over the syllabus and assignments listed, hoping to gain more insight on what @TeachPaperless (real name Shelly Blake-Plock) identified as the most critical pieces of social networking for educators and in general.  The semester starts with a focus on developing a PLN, first of those within the classroom, then beyond. Topics then move to blogging, Google for Educators, Google Scholar, wikis, social bookmarks, Second-Life and a variety of other web tools I am less familiar with such as Animoto and XtraNormal.

Reviewing the syllabus got me thinking. What would the similarities/differences be between a graduate level social media course and a middle school level elective on the same topic? With thirteen and fourteen being the prime age for students to enter the social networks of Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, what would be the fundamental need to know conversations and learning that would have to take place for students to buy-in and to have meaningful conversations?

My first inclination is to start with a focus on personal data. Google profiles, social network profiles. The main idea would be to "own your online identity" but also avoid publishing so much information that it would compromise safety (I'm thinking more about identity theft here over shadow stalkers, a threat that has been established as very low over cyberspace but still catches headlines.)

After that my direction wavers. It is easier to start with students thinking about PLNs in spaces like Twitter and Facebook, but maybe treading deeper into blogging (everything from writing skills to linking and elements of style) would allow students to flesh out their ideas more on such forums later in the course. Then there is the whole social bookmarking and Second-Life. Its tough to personally envision how wide and deep to cast the net.

I'm hoping to receive some feedback on this from my PLN. Where or what would you focus your attention toward? What are the key elements that flow through all we do with our social networks that our children must begin to understand in order to master their own social (and learning!) networks in the future?

Grant Application Wordle

Many of us have likely seen Wordle in action on a number of different technology education blogs. I know for a fact that my Expanding Boundaries member Diane Davis, and former member Steve Olivo have used them in their own classrooms. Wordle is self described as a "toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

I find Wordles have a functional use in analyzing a document for trending ideas or to help identify what a blogger focuses their content on (you can paste an RSS into wordle and it will analyze the writers blog posts.) To create this Wordle I copy/pasted all of the original text (no quotations) from our six presentations to help me identify some common themes.

Most of my predictions were on target. Words such as technology, 21st century skills, teachers, and professional development were large and therefore more frequently stated in our presentations. The term 'students' was not as prominent as I had expected, but still one of the top 10 terms used.

What does this wordle tell you about our presentations and ideas? Are they out-of-the-box enough or are we still seeing the same education trends we've been charged to break?

A Student Blog Smattering

With colleague Kerry Gallagher (@KerryHawk02) presenting to her high school cohorts the values of student blogging, I offered to share with her a few examples of our middle school students at work on their own Edublogs. The examples presented here are not necessarily the best, but ones that have some specific character to share. Currently all of my team's roughly 100 students are blogging, sharing their work from ELA and Science class with the world (or judging by the clustrmaps, their immediate friends and family.)

Robert's blog is a blend of classroom assignments from myself and ELA teacher, Steve Olivo (@SOlivo11), coupled with small snippets of his own storyline.

Kaylee's blog shows commenting in action, with a friend of Kaylee providing comments on her blog post that range from classroom assignments to her own interests as well.

Maddie's blog is a final example of some of the excellent writing a student can create and be proud of by publishing to the web.