Amazing Stuff … Digital Natives at Home

My parents just got a new 14″ iBook from Apple … I was at their house last weekend with my family and got it setup and gave my Mom some directions. They have had Macs in the house for about 20 years (we had the origingal 128k Mac back in the day), but they’ve never really become power users. Sure they could do email, browse the web, and use Word … beyond that it was a no-go and those tasks seemed to be tough.

Enter the new iBook and there has been this amazing transfermation! My Mom is on the thing half the day browsing the web wirelessly, looking up directions on Mapquest, booking rooms, invoking dashboard (her favorite part), using iTunes and her new Nano … all from an hour long hands on demo. The most stunning and unexpected thing has been that she and my Dad really seem to get it … it is wonderful to see. The coolest part for me? They are using it to communicate with me on my terms, using my modes — they have either texted me, audio chatted, or like today, video chatted me with iChat everyday this week. Now that is cool. I even have the screen shot to prove it.

RSS for Education

I have been an avid RSS user for quite some time now. I find it the only way to stay current with news, blogs, and the types of sites I enjoy. I think my reading habits have changed as a result of my RSS adoption … I read so much more stuff in such a short amount of time that it just blows my mind. I have tried all sorts of news readers — from web based sites like bloglines (my current tool) to desktop applications like NetNewsWire Pro (that I loved until they made me pay for it). To tell you the truth, the best part about using RSS to get news and information really has little to do with the tools you use, it is about the results.Yesterday I came across this report, “RSS Users Visit Three Times as Many News Web Sites as Non-Users” via Nielsen//NetRatings. It is a very simple look at how RSS effects people’s reading habits. If you look at it you’ll notice that they really looked at this in a very simple way. As simple as it is, it hits home the point — this technology has the potential to change the amount of content we are willing to browse. If I had to visit 10 news sites a day and slog through all the front page messes just to find the new content, I doubt I would take the time. Now jump up to the 130 feeds I have in my bloglines account … no way! In the RSS world, you subscribe and wait for the updates to be pushed to you. Simple. Effective. Quick.

This semester I am teaching and I have my students posting in a multi-user blog, the Blogs@110. Each student has their own blog and with it their own RSS feed. I can use the enhanced category/tag browser to create customized feeds that I can subscribe to. For example, I can see all items that are new that are “Assignments, Blog Entries, Podcasts” in a feed. That is such a time saver for me. In the past, I would have used a learning management system, some drop boxes, and a bunch of message boards to have stuents discuss and turn in work. To get to it, I would have to log in, navigate the system, and then get to the work. Fifteen minutes later I would usually find out that there isn’t any new content in the space. With the blog and RSS it just shows up in my bloglines account along with all my other feeds. Makes life so much easier.

What else is RSS good for? I’d love to know how it is getting used in your classrooms or in your lives in general. Drop a comment and let me know.

Sloan Semester Part III

Just waiting for students … check out the PSU press release.

Sloan Semester, Part II

I am scheduled to teach IST 110 during a special eight-week semester under the Sloan Semester project. I am one of two faculty at PSU who have come forward to teach courses so far. I am very happy we are participating … you can’t imagine the administrative overhead it seemed to cause. At any rate, being a part of it makes me proud. Also making me proud is that my alma mater, West Virginia University, is also participating. It looks like they are offering something like 15 courses. Good work WVU! I received what I believed to be a world-class education at WVU and it makes me so happy to see that there will be opportunities for others to experience that.

BTW, since I am teaching a special section of IST 110 (if anyone registers), I’ll want to try some different things. One thing I know I will focus attention on is how recovery efforts were bolstered by so many web 2.0 technologies — flickr, wikis, google maps, etc. While FEMA and other Federal responses were crawling around trying to figure out what to do, so many people jumped in and used information technology to help. I am sure focusing web 2.0 on that context will yield some amazing student perspectives. As always, I will share those and will encourage you all to join the conversation. I’ll keep you posted.

The EDU Bar Talk Podcast

I’ve been doing podcasts for quite some time … I had a podcast called From the Basement for close to 8 months last year … it was myself and several guys from the Solutions Institute sitting around having a few drinks talking about various items. It just got out of hand, so we sort of disbanded.

This week I got some very smart people from PSU together to sit down and try again. This time we went to the Nittany Lion Inn, setup our gear, and did a way too long podcast. It is about education, technology, beer, life, you name it … it is long, but you might find some of it interesting. Check it out! It features Cole Camplese, Chris Millet, Kyle Peck, and Brian Smith.

This first one was really a dry run and more to show the participants how easy it is to get lost in beer and talk. Great fun and we are working on a format that will really be great. For now, we are calling it the EDU Bar Talk podcast … sort of a rip off of the great Car Talk radio show. At any rate, go ahead and have a listen. We will probably be moving it to its own server soon, but for now jump over to the old FTB site and check it out.

ADCE Membership

Becoming a member of the Apple Digital Campus Exchange is free … a bit of a hassle, but I am hopeful it will be well worth it. Follow this link and find the become a member link. That’s it.

ADCE is Live

SO it happened today (again) … the Apple Digital Campus Exchange went live. I even remembered my login information to post over at my blog … sort of an invitation to party with us. So, if you have the time and the interest, head over, get an account (I know, an account … I am hoping it is worth it), and join the conversation.

BTW, sorry I have been so quiet. Things have been nuts … I’ll have more on that shortly.

Let’s Get it Started …

So the ADCE is finally going “live” … it has been an interesting journey getting to this point. Selecting technologies, discussing policies, and all the details of creating a community like this one. We had a soft launch earlier in the year and by all indications it appears as though this could become a very valuable resource for us all to utilize. For it all to really work, there needs to be a feeling by the community that they are in control of what goes on here … it is critical to allow us to play nice with each other. It sort of reminds me of what Adam Curry used to say about the Daily Source Code Podcast — it’s the place users and developers party together. What does that mean? Well, to me it means it is a place where people like all of us — educators, administrators, lurkers, thinkers, and others get a chance to hang out with the people who are actually doing this stuff, building our tools, and envisioning new opportunities. Apple has decided to help us all find a place to sit down, share some ideas, and chill … you know a place to start our conversations. That is important.Will this space be perfect the first day the doors open — no. Will it be perfect in a month, a year, or longer from now? Probably not. But at the end of the day, we have the ability to create what we want, what we need, and what we feel is the appropriate place to hold our virtual conversations. I’ll do my best to throw some things out there for you all to react to and I’d love to hear back from you. Drop comments on me … make me work. Let’s get together and talk about some things … the first step towards changing what goes on in and outside our learning spaces starts with discussion. I am hopeful that we will be able to come together and make that happen. It could be an amazing opportunity … seems to me like it is up to us.