(This is a text summary of the He Said She Said podcast from June 22, 2006. This is an occasional podcast that deals with a wide range of topics on Education and Educational Technology. The show’s host is Rob Reynolds and he is joined by Susan Smith Nash. A new He Said She Said podcast is available every week on Xplana Radio.)
In this podcast, Rob and Susan discuss for-profit universities and their role in driving the vision of distance learning in the United States and internationally. Both agree that for-profits continue to evolve and will be a central force in the ongoing growth of distance learning.
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With computers nerds quickly becoming a prized and sought after commodity in the world, more and more companies are warming up to the idea of pleasing said nerds. And since about 90% of these nerds are gamers, it should come as no surprise that companies are placing an increased emphasis on the gaming community.
In order to get a sense of the gaming industry’s increased power in teen culture, consider Square Enix’s recently-debuted movie based on its popular Final Fantasy series. Thousands of gamers across the states have lined up at their local movie stores for a chance ot watch the video. Hardcore gamers didn’t bother to wait for the American version to come out and, instead, yoinked copies from the net — this despite the fact that few, if any, of them understood any Japanese. Now, Blizzard has caught on to this new trend and has announced a World of Warcraft movie. When I heard this, my initial response was “Oh my gosh, who on earth would watch that movie?” All the boys around me, however, said in unison “I’d watch that movie.”
Even the music from video games has become popular. I actually own a CD with tracks of the different music on levels of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo64, and my brother and cousins once created a harmonized version of the Halo 2 song. There are bands beginning to tour the United States that simply play gaming music. At this point in my life, I might recognize more music from video games than the music of pop culture.
The point of all this? Well, the increased attention on gaming nerds by so many companies is creating a bunch of very happy nerds. And, considering that they’re going to rule the world someday, keeping them happy isn’t a bad thing to do.
This is Rob Reynolds’ weekly assessment of events related to technology, education, and culture. This week’s recap deals with recent developments in the VoIP world, other news from the phone world, and the continuing evolution of video on the Web. In addition, Rob talks about gaming events and, from the education world, treats news related to Intel’s $400 laptop initiative and Chinese blogging. In the eduublogging sphere, popular memes mentioned include assessments and podcasting.
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Here’s a summary of ideas and conversations from the edublogging community that have captured our attention in the past 48 hours.
Will Richardson has an insightful post on the global nature of the Web (using recent Technorati statistics)
“We need to be more expansive in our thinking. We need to be talking more about
the opportunities “out there” instead of how to make things incrementally better “in here.” (I’m serious, right now, all sessions on PowerPoint should be banned from conference schedules.) If educators who pay their way to ed tech events don’t at least leave with a sense of the changes and opportunities that the Web affords these days, they’re wasting their money.”
Also, Christopher Sessums has a nice summary of Social Software and how it is used to manage the Web.
“The Internet provides me an opportunity, or more precisely, an ecology to
connect, collaborate, and aggregate numerous ideas and contributions of others
which permits me to further my understanding and share it with others. In this
sense, social software like this blog contributes to my ability to co-create
knowledge that I will continue to draw from, reflect upon, and further refine. I
hope you find it useful too.”
Clarence Fisher continues to offer insight into the value of read/rite tools in the classroom. In his latest post, writes about the power of wikis for modifying knowledge through community editing. Also, Alex Halavais has a good article that lists his students reactions to blogging in a large class.
And George Siemens continues to develop our thinking about the connectedness of information and people. In this post on what knowledge looks like, he writes:
“The end product of knowledge is nice…but the process of acquiring (I like
“connecting” better) knowledge is where all the fun stuff happens (i.e. where knowledge gets “life”). The hierarchy of knowledge is much less intriguing than the life of knowledge. For example, it may be nice to know how beetles are classified…but for knowledge to be useful, I’m interested more in watching a live beetle do what live beetles do. Classifying is an example of what is wrong with our views of knowledge… actionability is critical.”
There were also a couple of good posts yesterday about assessment. Ewan McIntosh wrote that, “Assessment is nearly always seen as the main reason not to blog or podcast or wiki… Just listening to Wes’ recent brilliant podcasts reinforces this idea - in the USA at least - and no doubt elsewhere. But in France, Le Web Pédagogique is making its blog the main way for students to revise for their baccalauréat.” Doug Johnson also had an interesting piece related to the fact that Minnesota is at the bottom of states when it comes to educational technology spending yet ranks at the top in academic testing. Finally,. Vicki Davis gives her take on why are SAT scores declining.
Under the broad category of educational technology and tools, there have been a number of great posts:
Here’s our take on news that matters for Thursday, May 4. Today’s theme is it’s still going around , and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.
- Gaming — You have only to look at the World of Warcraft to see some potential obstacles for MMORPG’s. In this case, users are complaining about delays in getting in the game and other interactive hiccups that occur during game play. As an educator, these remind me of complaints associated with online learning. Could it be that education was actually at the front of a technology wave? Also, Cory Doctorow links to his interview with Danny Hillis on how theme parks are different than games.
- Blogging, mediacasting, and online creations — CBS has announced that it will follow ABC into the Web broadcast trend. Interestingly, the service is a combination of Web-only productions and popular prime time shows.
- Mobile Computing and Cell Phones – Intel has been pushing its way to the forefront with its new $400 laptop and other aid for developing countries. The Intel folk are critical of the MIT $100 laptop program saying it is giving the less fortunate last year’s technology. Or perhaps, Intel just wants to take everyone’s mind off of AMD? At any rate, here’s more on Intel’s low cost laptop solution. Nice pictures too. Also, I mentioned the new Helio phone earlier this week. Well, the folks over at Engadget Mobile have a nice review of the hardware. Finally, Opera has released its new Opera Mini 2.0 browser. “Users can download mp3s, pictures and videos directly onto their phones. This
feature, along with buying content via sms automatically were missing from 1.0.”
- Social Networks – Robin Good has a great review of Skype’s new Skypecasting service. And, not to be outdone, AOL has announced its new plan to offer its AIM users (41 million of them) a free phone number that will allow people to call them from regular phones while they are online. The new service will also feature more traditional Skype-like services as well as AIM Pages that will extend AIM into the MySpace territory.
- Technology Talks — Microsoft announced yesterday the launch of its new proprietary adCenter. “AdCenter will now be the sole platform serving up advertisements on MSN, Windows Live, and other Microsoft Web sites, Microsoft said. Microsoft has previously relied on partners like Yahoo to sell advertising on its behalf, said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research.”
Here’s a summary of ideas and conversations from the edublogging community that have captured our attention in the past 48 hours.
Jeff Utecht posts this article about the challenges and opportunities involved with getting faculty to do new things. “If teachers knew about blogs, understood how they could be using and how to
integrate them, would they become as popular as PowerPoint? What if teachers had
as much training on blogs, wikis, and web 2.0 as they have had over the last 5
years in PowerPoint. Would we see the same use?”
Albert Ip links to this demonstration by Ric Canale on converting Harvard Business case studies into role-playing simulations. As Ric points out, role-playing simulations have grown more popular in education over recent years and an increasing amount of study is being conducted on their pedagogical effectiveness. This presentation, while somewhat specific in its application, provides a nice overview of some of the possibilities related to this online teaching form.
And, Wesley Fryer writes about school governance and what it will take to change the way school administrations view new ideas and threatening concepts. This is in line with Stephen Downes response to Albert Ip’s post “What if Everything We Think About School Is Wrong?” Stephen writes, “Albert Ip also quotes some comments - this one struck me: “The world is not run by democratic process, and you usually CAN’T do what you want to do…” Well, yes, most of the world is undemocratic. But this is the problem. And we will not counter this by silently acquiescing to authoritarianism, either in our schools or in our lives. ”
Here’s our take on news that matters for Thursday, May 4. Today’s theme is it’s still going around , and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.
- Gaming — More good news for consumers in the console wars. A lead developer for Starbreeze AB — best known for their critically acclaimed title Chronicles of Riddick — says that it will be virtually impossible to distinguish game quality between the Xbox 360 and the PS3.
- Blogging, mediacasting, and online creations — John Dvorak reports that the New York Times has standardized all of its inside blogs on WordPress. More validation for that excellent platform. Says Dvorak, ”
The New York Times’s blogs are much slicker than the in-house blogs that I’ve seen from other newspapers and online publications. WordPress is the reason; it’s real blogging software.”
- Handhelds – According to this report, “Over 16.7 million ’smart mobile devices’ (including smartphones and other handhelds) were sold in the first quarter of 2006, a 55% increase over the same period last year.” And, Nokia started shipping its Blackberry-rival phone — the E61 — yesterday.
- Social Networks – . The Technology Review has a nice article on Wallop,
“an online social space that promises to redefine the notion of social networking, by focusing it on conversations and media tidbits, such as songs and photos, rather than on members and their profiles.”
- Technology Talks — Admitting when you’ve made mistakes is usually a good thing. In the case of Microsoft, it might even be scary good. Yesterday, Bill Gates admitted that the Redmond company had made mistakes recently but that they would improve and start keeping their competitors honest. Yes, they’re backing it up with $2 billion, but the important thing to note is the attitude. I think they’re finally taking this Web thing very seriously. Not a bad thing for consumers. And, in case you thought the build-it-yourself movement was dead in computing, think again! Wal-Mart will start selling build-your-own-computer kits in more than 1/3 of its U.S. stores this month. Finally, hats off to Intel for putting its money where its mouth is. The company is investing $1 billion in developing worlds. Initiatives include a $400 laptop and providing Internet connectivity and computing services to 300,000 Mexican teachers.
Here’s a summary of ideas and conversations from the edublogging community that have captured our attention in the past 48 hours.
Well, podcasting is certainly in the air this week. The EdTech Talk Podcast Academy is being webcast and is definitely worth the watch. This is great stuff. Also, Stephen Downes says that he’ll be podcasting more in the future and he links to posts from Alan Levine, Darren Kuropatwa and Mark E. Ott.
Tom Hoffman has this post about the passing of the Golden Age of edtech blogging and writes, “In the coming new age of blogging about classroom blogging, we’ll hopefully see the knitting together of a network which is much bigger and broader, with less pontificating and theorizing and more direct, close to the metal classroom experiences direct from the teachers’ mouths.” I agree that the loose joining of the many pieces will continue top evolve. What story will form the basis of that joining and who/what will serve to make the connections are the big questions.
Christopher Sessums asks some good questions in his post on social software and the co-creation of knowledge. He’s looking for comments and her is his dilemma:
“There are many examples of
href=”http://www.frappr.com/edubloggers” target=_blank>edubloggers who have introduced blogs and wikis into their classrooms with varying degrees of success. It would seem in this sense that social software was more of a top-down initiative, selected by the instructor instead of by the learner. In this light, is it still considered social software as I have defined it? Does it still support the desire of individuals to affiliate with others or is it another formal means for directing learning?”
Also, Jay Cross has this nice reminder about clarity in writing. “Write like your life depended on it, because your livelihood probably does.” Amen.
Finally, Vicki Davis has this post on authentic assessments, digital portfolios, and the real evolutionary process of learning. This is a candid article on how portfolios play out in the real world of Vicki’s classrooms and in the lives of her students. The eclectic approach does indeed seem to work best (or, in other words, always hedge your bets.) And, speaking of the “real world,” check out David Warlick’s article on how it’s not a textbook world out there.
“In textbook learning, we are taught one way to interpret the poem, one way to solve the algebra problem, one way to punctuate a paragraph, and one way to think. Perhaps that’s the way that some people like it. I think that the best learning for our future will happen when students are learning in authentic ways, from authentic information sources, and empowered to do something with what they are learning, to impose their learning on other people, to become individuals with value.”
Here’s our take on news that matters for Wednesday, May 3. Today’s theme is are you real? , and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.
Here’s a summary of ideas and conversations from the edublogging community that have captured our attention in the past 48 hours.
Stephen Downes is back from his hiatus and leads off with this response to Will Richardson’s post on why he is not reading as much in the blogosphere as he used to. Stephen writes:
“Why write posts? Why blog at all? If the content of what you are reading or
writing isn’t absorbing in and of itself, to you, then the blog just becomes a
vehicle for some sort of external reward. Let go of the reward; leave that for
the self-promoters and the shysters and the advertisers. And eschew these in
your reading. Invest in your passions and follow those of others; the rest will
follow.”
Ben Vershbow has an informative piece over at if:book on defining the networked book. As he points out, this concept has been getting quite a bit of currency of late. This article recaps recent discussion, offers up a definition of the networked book — “a networked book is an open book designed to be written, edited and read in a networked environment.” — and provides a list of projects related to networked books.
And, as George Siemens points out, it’s just not a one-way world anymore. “We may still control certification, but the learning act itself is quickly
moving into the hands of learners.” Indeed, education cannot and will not escape this evolutionary event.
Finally, check out Vicki Davis’ post on “interesting facts around the blogosphere.” She points to predominant language use, education opportunities, and a whole lot more.
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