So why might I jump ship?

Identi.ca is the new microblogging kid on the block, and at first glance, it not only seems similar to Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, etc., it actually seems like it has less to offer.  No replies buttons or tabs, no search bar, just a steady stream of messages and the ability to ’subscribe’ to one another.

What entices me about Identi.ca is the fact that it’s open source.  While Twitter has been having trouble staying on its feet lately (it has been better of late, to be fair), I wonder how long it would take for Identi.ca users with some technical knowledge to diagnose and attack the underlying problems.  Seems like a good thing to have “more hands on deck.”  There’s more to be said about it, but Mike Bogle covered it in pretty good detail in his post and follow-up comment here.  With add-ons and other contributions from the Identi.ca community, I’m seeing the potential for Identi.ca to play Firefox to Twitter’s IE – highly customizable and community-based.

I also like Identi.ca’s commitment to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol.  Essentially, conversations could take place across services, so there’d be no need for a Twitter account, Plurk account, etc.  One protocol to rule them all, so to speak.  There is already a plethora of services for cross-posting to multiple services, but nothing to aggregate responses and facilitate discussion.

To me, the discussions and exchanges of ideas that take place on Twitter are by far its most important factor, and why I won’t be deleting my Twitter account anytime soon.  Identi.ca may evolve into something great, and I’ll definitely stick with it, unlike a lot of other microblogging services.  Without the people who make up my network, however, it won’t be of nearly as much value as Twitter, broken down and everything.  Ultimately, it’s the people, not the tools, that give the network its value.

In the meantime, I encourage folks to try out Identi.ca and see if it suits you.  I’m @damian613 on both Identi.ca and Twitter; feel free to subscribe, follow, or just read.

File-hosting site Drop.io just added a “fax this” option – you can send any DOC or PDF file you store there directly to a fax machine (sorry, no ODF support yet). It’s similar to the service that FaxZero provides, but Drop.io’s restrictions are much more lax: 20 page per fax limit w/no stated daily limit on faxes sent, as opposed to FaxZero’s 3 page fax max, twice per day (with an ad on the cover page, too). There is a process by which you can receive incoming faxes to your Drop.io account, too, but the process is a little more involved (but still free).

Whenever I have to email important documents (e.g., my resume), I always prefer to send a PDF (no real justification; it just feels right). CutePDF offers a free utility that installs itself as a printer option. Just hit “print” from your document, spreadsheet, web page, etc., and select “CutePDF” from the dropdown printer menu. Your document will “print” to a PDF file that you can now send to Drop.io to be faxed (of course, if you were using OpenOffice you could just hit “Print to PDF” and not even need CutePDF in the first place).

My recent purchase of a scanner (finally, I know), along with these free utilities, has significantly reduced, if not eliminated, the odds of me having to send another costly fax from my local Staples’ dodgy fax machine ever again. It’s the small victories in life that make it worth living.

Next time, we’ll explore jailbreaking your iPhone to use as a corded rotary landline.

While the course is called “Honors British Literature”, in all honesty we skew very English in the literature we read. In addition to wanting to give my students some exposure to non-English British culture for balance’s sake, I also wanted to satisfy their curiosity at seeing some street signs in Welsh. I turned to fellow teacher, Twitterer, and ex-pat Englishman in Wales Dave Stacey for help.

Over the course of a few weeks, Dave and I corresponded via email and arranged for him to Skype into our class on 13 March, when he spent about 45 minutes speaking with my students. In preparation for the chat, they brainstormed questions for Dave, using a page on our class wiki as their “scratchpad”. Dave obligingly researched (and posted answers to!) every question my kids could throw at him prior to our chat. Dave and I had a test run to make sure both of our school networks could handle the Skype-y awesomeness, then linked up for the real deal at 11:15am EDT / 3:15pm GMT. Dave fielded questions from my students on the Welsh language and pronunciations, culture (popular and otherwise), and even his personal experiences moving from the south of England to Wales for university and eventually settling down and starting a family there.

I was impressed on a few levels: first, at Dave’s willingness to make himself available to a bunch of American high school kids long after his work day ended (not always easy for a new dad). Second, my students could very easily have sat there and been passive learners. They chose to engage themselves in the process, more or less interviewing Dave the entire time. They shaped the discussion, the lesson, and, ultimately, their own learning.

In our session debrief, I asked my students what the value of an experience like this was for them – not why it was cool, or new, but what value it held for them. Responses centered around these major concepts:

• first-hand access to a living primary source
• interactivity & having the ability to probe and ask for explanations & clarifications
• hearing a non-American perspective; combating ethnocentrism
• greater investment in preparation
• greater overall engagement due to all of the above

It was such a positive experience that when Christian Long contacted me to brainstorm some ways to link up our British Lit classes, Skype was my first thought. For this experience, my students will be leading his sophomores through discussion of issues pertaining to Hamlet and Shakespeare’s tragedies. They’ll be meeting each other in a few weeks; I’ll be sure to post reflections on that shortly thereafter.

How do you use Skype in your classes?

During the program, I became very enthusiastic about the potential for helping in this position, much as I was enthused about the potential for helping during my teacher training program. I still want to become a psychologist, and am looking for a position for the 2008-2009 school year, but here’s the rub:

I feel that this school year, I’m just starting to hit my stride in terms of connecting my students with a world much larger than their own. Some of that is thanks to “Web 2.0″ and the perspective shift brought about by my involvement in blogging and Twitter over the last 8 months; some of it just due to my own personal growth & maturation.

My question is one with which I’ve been wrestling for a few months now, but have been a bit timid to blog about: after 5 years and several tens of thousands of dollars in tuition & book fees, is there a place for psychologists in the School 2.0/Unschool framework? Is there anything my expertise can provide or help facilitate, or am I effectively signing away any ability to contribute once I am no longer in a teaching or administrative position?

Baby willing, I’ll be co-presenting a short (traditional-style, sorry) workshop on wikis at the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development headquarters in Monroe Twp., NJ on February 12. It will be a 40-minute section of a longer (9am-1pm) workshop entitled Infusing Technology into the Curriculum to Enhance Learning, which will also cover the curricular use of blogs, Skype, Moodle, and social networking. The presenters are teachers from different disciplines (English, Social Studies, Spanish, and Phys. Ed.) who all use these tools in their classrooms. There will also be an introductory piece from our Supervisor of Instructional Tech (I think that’s your title, Don; please correct me if I’m wrong).

It’s not my first conference presentation, but it is my first one involving this technology in which I’ve immersed myself for the past year or so. I’m quite excited about it, and will be putting all the preso notes up at (what else?) the official presentation wiki. The major points I’m considering so far are:

• Wikis as bare-bones content management systems
• Cost (free and ad-free for K12 educators via Wikispaces)
• User-friendliness
• Functionality & security
• Opportunity for students to publish to a global audience & contribute a meaningful product for public consumption
• Examples of student-generated wiki products

I’ll probably also start with Lee LeFever’s Wikis in Plain English, just for good measure. So what am I missing? If you had 35 administrative ears to bend, what about wikis would you want to convey?

It’s a work in progress, so like a bad steak, there are some areas that are more done than others. I’ll be working on this throughout the weekend, but if you have a sec, I’d greatly appreciate any feedback you can offer. Here are my three main goals for this site:

1. A demystification of some legal and practical information regarding special education in NJ via “plain English” explanations
2. Empowerment of special ed teachers through information dissemination (specifically w/r/t behavior management and curricular accommodations)
3. Building of community within the department through invitations to (eventually) collaborate and add to this document

You can leave comments here or hit me up at damian@apaceofchange.com with any constructive feedback – I would appreciate knowing what you think is helpful about the site as well as what you think needs improvement (or what’s missing that you think should be there).

Here’s the address: http://hcspecialservices.wikispaces.com     http://hcss-wiki.wikispaces.com

Thanks, network! Happy December!

I don’t hate taking time off from work, I just hate being absent. It’s far more work for me to put together sub plans and develop some sort of meaningful activity for the kids than it is to just come in sick and spread whatever disease I’ve got.

In an effort to make learning about grammar a lot more palatable to me my sophomores, I concocted a little research/creative project. Without boring you with details, we spent an hour or so today going over the assignment, talking about objectives, and critiquing models, with an eye to spending the entire block Tuesday researching and designing these projects. Naturally, my kids will have further questions, but I have to be absent; believe me, it’s not my preference.

As I’m writing my sub plans this afternoon, I get a flash of inspiration, and include the following:

I will be available during class time to answer questions. Students may email me at [redacted], or AOL IM me at MrBariexca. I will be online between 7:30 and 9 am, and will be able to answer student questions in realtime.

Oh, yeah. The filter.

I will be available during class time to answer questions. Students may email me at [redacted], or, if they can figure out how to get AOL IM working on the school computers, they can IM me at MrBariexca. I will be online between 7:30 and 9 am, so I should be able to respond in realtime, even by email.

I contemplated providing the sub with a list of proxies students could try to circumvent the filters, or suggesting that they try Meebo (I don’t know if our filter blocks that or not), but ultimately decided against it. After all, I wouldn’t want to put anything incriminating in writing.

I really shouldn’t complain; our filtering system is extremely progressive compared to what other folks deal with, and I have a great deal of respect for the job our IT team does, especially with regard to Internet access/content. I just feel that allowing kids to use these tools appropriately would a) allow my class to run a lot more smoothly in my absence, and b) be another chance to model non-recreational applications for our kids.

I shoulda just left them Christmas Vacation and been done with it.

*Lest anyone accuse me of sexism in my title, I’m just riffing on The Gipper.

Recently, Doug Belshaw linked to a fantastic social action project that manages to combine two of my personal passions: technology and football (is it putting on airs for an American to call association football by its proper name?). Kristian Still, a tutor at Taunton’s College in Southampton, England, started The Panini Project with his students.

The Panini Project takes its name from a company that produces, among other things, stickers based on professional football teams. Kristian’s project aims to collect a full team set of home jerseys for:

1. Each of the 20 teams in the Premiership (top level of professional football in England)
2. His local pro team, Southampton Football Club (for whom Kristian also works)
3. The England national team

This amounts to 352 jerseys, each of which retail for around USD 80 (that’s over USD 28,000 worth of polyester, folks). Kristian and his students will then donate these jerseys to needy school and community football teams from Third World countries.

If anyone ever questions the value of utilizing read/write & telecommunication web technology, point them in the direction of The Panini Project. Kristian and his students are using the world’s most popular game (sorry, MLB, it’s not really a World Series, you know) as a basis for social action, and they’re using a wiki and email as a means of spreading the word as far and as wide as possible. Kristian was even good enough to spend a half hour or so Skypeing with me this morning to talk about the project.

Even if sports aren’t your thing, think about the ramifications this could have for similar social action projects, global or local.

I know we’re a minority here in the colonies, but if you’re a footy fan and have any old home tops stashed away, dig ‘em out, give ‘em a wash, and send them to:

PE & Sport
Tauntons College
Hill Lane
Southampton
SO15 5RL
United Kingdom

Hey, Taunton students. You guys are doing great things for people you’ll never meet, but who will appreciate it more than you’ll ever know. Keep up the good work.

Update: Per Kristian’s comment, I should have made clearer that his students are seeking old, unwanted jerseys for this project, not brand new ones.

The other good news: I was one of three teachers at my school invited to present at the New Jersey Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. The four-hour (!) session will cover some basics on the teaching potentials in the Web 2.0 “standards”: wikis, blogs, Moodle, podcasts, etc., and will be part instruction, part hands-on workshop for attendees (mostly administrators, supervisors, and curriculum folks, but also some teachers). This conference will take place in Jamesburg, NJ on Feb. 12, 2008.

The conflict: Our first child came four weeks early, and my wife could really go at any time. I work about 45 minutes away from home; the conference takes place nearly an hour and a half from my house. If she hasn’t already delivered by the 12th, do I travel the extra distance so close to her due date? The return route to D-town requires traversing both the NJ and PA Turnpikes, for those of you who know the area.