technology integration

Recently, via a listserv where I participate, I learned about a site called StudyBlue. This site was touted as part of a new set of tools supporting networked learning; my response is reposted below.

My response

Hello, all,

At the risk of being a curmudgeon, we need to look at the terms of use of the services we are using/promoting.

The Terms of Use of StudyBlue, available at http://www.studyblue.com/Terms.htm, contain the following language:

"By posting Member Content to any part of the Web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

However, this site is one of the rare cases that has Terms that are worse than Facebook's (who at least pay lip service to respecting user's privacy decisions).

From the StudyBlue terms of service, from the link above:

"When you upload Member Content as Private the Company will not post the information to any other Member without your permission. However, upon leaving a class or course, any Member Content left uploaded as Private will be made Public for the life of the Web site. You may remove your Private Member Content from the Web site before you leave a class or course. If you choose to remove your Private Member Content before leaving a class or course , the license granted above will automatically expire. If you do not remove your Private Member Content from the Web site before you leave a class or course, the license granted above will not expire and will continue indefinitely."

So, if you create private content in a course/group, it will become public if you leave the course without deleting it. Moreover, on a quick read through, these terms say nothing about what happens if a user wants to delete their account. Under these terms, there seems to be no way for a user to delete their content, which is, according to these terms, licensed in perpetuity to StudyBlue.

Facebook recently enraged a portion of their user base by similar behavior: http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-... or http://is.gd/jDf4

The web opens up an array of options for teaching, learning, and connecting, but we need to remember that learning should be organized around the needs of the student/learner. The cost of joining a website should not be complete loss of control over your content, and as technology advocates we need to become more aware of the ramifications of data control and data portability within networked learning environments. In short, learners deserve better than the terms offered at StudyBlue, Facebook, Ning, etc. Why should a prerequisite of social learning be the loss of control over how your work is used/reused? By promoting sites that are predicated on an intellectual land grab of learner-created content, we perpetuate the lie that this is acceptable behavior.

In a recent thread on the ISED Listserv, there has been a thread titled "21st Century Computer Skills" -- the thread starts here, and continues for quite a bit.

While the thread meanders over a large amount of ground, it starts with the core question: Is knowing how to format a [column/paragraph/footnote/presentation/etc] in [Word/Excel/Keynote/OpenOffice/etc] an essential skill for a 21st Century Learner. At times, the conversation has veered into the usefulness/worthlessness of "computer" classes that teach typing, how to format docs in word processors, how to manipulate data in spreadsheets, or how to do function X in tool Y. Much of the conversation here has been fairly chicken/egg, with some people saying that students should be taught these skills in context (ie, In English/History/Math/Science/Art), and others saying that they aren't taught these things in context, and therefore won't know them without being taught them in a computer basics course.

This is an old conversation, and one that has been going on in schools for almost as long as technology has been in schools. However, this conversation is only part of the puzzle. In another response, a person describes the following scenario with Teacher 1 and Teacher 2.

Teacher 1: Assigns her class to submit an 8 page essay on "Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation".

Teacher 2 can allow her students to create podcasts of interviews with their own relatives, blog with/about interesting members of their faith, nationality or race, write a formal essay on a word processor, create a music video, assemble a photo montage, or anything else...

Scenarios like this are part of the problem with understanding what technology can or can't do within education. Creating a good paper on anything requires a solid grounding in process, aka, the basics. To create a good paper, a person will need to know/do:

• How to do preliminary research to gain any needed background knowledge
• How to differentiate between common knowledge (which does not need to be cited) and original thoughts/ideas/interpretations (which do need to be cited)
• Proper citation format as required by the context of the assignments (as these can be discipline-specific)
• Craft and articulate a clear thesis that will serve as the driving and organizing force behind the work -- and this step is an essential part of much academic work
• Edit for style
• Edit for content
• Edit for verb choice
• How to format/present the paper and any research
• Etc, etc, etc

These elements are key to doing good work, in any subject, from high school (and possibly earlier) on into a ripe old age. With these elements in place, a paper is a great learning tool.

Teacher 2 in the above example provides a more "21st Century" type of assignment. We will merely note in passing that the final result of this assignment ("Present in a form that you choose, a synthesis of how the struggle for freedom by one people, is a model and symbol of struggle for your particular race, nationality, or religion.") veers perilously close to requiring a student to speak for their race; instead, we will focus on some of the shortcomings behind this assignment.

First, this assignment doesn't require core skills that are any different than the paper assigned by Teacher 1. While this assignment is more active (ie, potentially involving first person interviews), and will likely take more time to complete, the core skills are very comparable. Interview questions will need to be written and planned, and material will be prepared in response to a clearly articulated thesis.

But more importantly, this assignment fails to ask one essential question: why is one medium a better choice than another? When should a podcast be used? When should video be used? When should a paper be used? When, and how, should a blog or a wiki be used?

Different mediums have different strengths, and until we can articulate why a specific medium makes sense for a given message, technology will be viewed as an unneeded bolt-on to existing curriculum. With the assignment for Teacher 2, technology can be seen as a bolt-on; while it might be useful, it isn't essential. Until technology advocates can explain how different mediums can be used to support the process of learning, they should return to basics.

One of the core issues that I have encountered is that people have an incomplete understanding of how different tools can be used as part of the process. A wiki or a blog can be used to store notes, impromptu podcasts can be used as ways of storing ideas when on the run, and these various components can be used as part of a working portfolio while developing a project. The notion that we need one tool for a project -- or that each student will use the same tool in the same way -- is as quaint as the idea that schools need to dedicate an entire semester to formatting cells in Excel.

And with that said, a blog post or wiki page can be used to share and distribute polished writing as well as notes. A podcast or video can be rough, or something that is scripted, edited, and crafted into a coherent work. In short, any medium, from writing on up, can be as rough or polished as we make it.

But until technology advocates can make a coherent argument that demonstrates how different online tools can be part of a more efficient learning process, the conversation will remain stalled as we discuss whether we should teach students how to create 1.25 inch margins. I hesitate to call this a skill, and I certainly hesitate to attach it to a particular century. The essential skills needed for any learner in any century will always be dictated by the task at hand, and the tools available to solve it.

There have been a few posts I've encountered recently that have resonated with me. If I had more time to write, I could probably get a response together in a more timely way, but I'm more like the socially awkward person you meet who interrupts a conversation to respond to a comment that was made ten minutes ago. I don't really keep pace with the ebb and flow of the blogosphere.

But with that said, I enjoyed reading Clarence Fisher's post on The Death of Big Ideas. I then encountered Chris Sessum's thoughts on Investing In What Works, followed by Deborah Meier's post over at Bridging Differences where she talks about how "we can learn even from people whose work we often despise."

I include these posts to try and give a sense of what was swimming around in my head when I read Miguel Guhlin's comment; Miguel's comment is short, but it provides a good jumping-off point for some of the trends I have been observing in both education and the educational blogosphere for a while -- at least the last two years, possibly longer.

In many ed-tech blogs, there is a lot of talk about open source. Some of the people talking about open source even blog about open source, even posting solutions or thoughts about the specific issues they face. However, very few educators get involved in meaningful ways within open source communities within the actual open source community -- and by this, I mean that very few educators spend time engaging within the actual infrastructure set up by the open source communities to support users of the various open source tools. And to clarify, I am definitely not saying that every person using an open source tool should be actively involved in the community behind that tool. That's unrealistic, and, frankly, unnecessary; not to mention the very obvious reality that teachers have limited time to start with.

However, implementors of technology programs would have a lot to both gain and offer. The process of open source development, and the conversations within these communities have direct implications for education. When I was teaching, I supported classes using Phorum, Moodle, and Drupal. Each of these applications has different strengths and weaknesses, but the process of learning from and within the various communities around these applications made me a better teacher. So, when Clarence Fisher says (in his post, linked from above), "Blogs are not new anymore. Neither is Voicethread or flickr or wikis. But what about curriculum design, and power and democracy in classrooms?" this resonates with me for two main reasons: first, the lack of any support for this type of questioning was one of the factors that led to me leaving the classroom; and second, this open structure that Clarence describes is precisely what exists within the Drupal community. It's an amazingly liberating experience to be able to work in this space, and the irony is that the experience many edtech bloggers describe as ideal (in general terms: openness, transparency, and a flattened hierarchy) have been humming along smoothly for quite some time as part of the open source ecosystem.

On a practical note: folks implementing technology in schools could learn/borrow from open source communities. For example, tech integrators could learn more strategies for end user training, and about effective means of documenting the systems they build. They would also be able to contribute to discussions on usability, and would be able to get more conversant with how to set these various applications up within their own infrastructure. None of this involvement requires any knowledge of how to write code.

The challenge: for most of us, we need to chart our own path through the knowledge that is already present in open source communities. But, given that many bloggers describe charting an individual path through knowledge as the ideal for students, it's hard to see where that isn't a good thing.

In his comment, Miguel says a couple other things that merit highlighting:

So, with 250 Joomla sites around my neck, Drupal seems interesting but you don't switch over to a whole new system overnight when no one else knows Drupal in your organization (and I'm ignorant of that, too).

If any organization has 250 of anything (and I'm talking in general terms, from web sites to Matchbox cars) then it implies that a significant amount of resources has gone into building that collection. If an organization has arrived at that place more or less by accident, then I would surmise that there are greater dysfunctions within the organization that need to be fixed before even the best web presence could be used effectively. But before any change should be considered, a solid needs analysis should be done, and at the very least this needs analysis should account for available staffing, in-house talent, budget, organizational priorities, strengths and weaknesses of the current site(s), and whether the sites are meeting the needs of the organization. After these (and likely other) items have been considered, an organization is ready to address any questions about change.

And: if your current technology solution is "around (your) neck" things could probably be working more smoothly.

But when the dust settles, Deborah Meier really says it best: "Enough already, let’s have the courage to rethink what we have wrought instead of just turning the screws tighter on an indefensible system we happened upon." This applies equally to educational reform and tech infrastructure maintenance. Mistakes or non-decisions of the past should not dictate the terms of the present or the future.

While I appreciate offers of help, it seems like Drupal is for a district that hasn't tried anything yet but is ready to make the plunge.

Any tool adopted by any organization will have barriers to adoption, ranging from data migration, end user training, reallocating or acquiring infrastructure, to organizational expectations management. This is as true of Drupal as it is of any tool, regardless of whether it is open source or proprietary. If you start looking at numbers of what it costs to implement and maintain a piece of software on your infrastructure, using an open source tool can bring real cost savings (along these lines, I love it when people describe Sharepoint as a free tool). Educators have spent too long chasing the elusive free tool, only to be surprised when the tool goes away or shifts license terms. It's not like the cost of free tools has gone unnoticed or unremarked. But more on that later.

The notion that Drupal in particular -- or open source in general -- will complicate data migration doesn't hold up. If anything, open source tools leverage open standards more thoroughly, and allow for greater access to data, than their proprietary counterparts. For example, Drupal is far more open than Ning, Whipple Hill, FinalSite, Blackboard, Blackbaud, Schoolwires, or any of the usual suspects.

Also, what about the argument that Drupal installs should be hosted by web providers (e.g. Siteground) that have Fantastico and can support upgrades/updates, etc. relieving the load from school district staff which lack that expertise?

Outsourcing the hosting infrastructure (ie, servers, server maintenance, firewall, and internet connectivity) can make sense in some (not all) circumstances. However, a school should NEVER have their site on shared hosting. On most shared hosting accounts, your site is one of hundreds or thousands competing for server resources. A school's infrastructure should be on a VPS at the very least. On a VPS, your site is guaranteed resources. More importantly, the level of support for a VPS is generally greater than for shared hosting.

As for using Fantastico to maintain a site, I don't recommend it. Drupal's install process is not enormously complex, and should certainly be within the reach of a technically competent individual. The same is true for code upgrades. If a school or district lacks the expertise to do this in-house, or is unwilling to devote resources to get time/training to learn how to do this, then they should probably rethink their relationship to their web presence. For what it's worth, the ease of upgrading has gotten progressively easier over the last several years. Four years ago, with Drupal 4.6, upgrades made me mildly nervous. Now, with Drupal 6, upgrades are much less complex, to the point where they are approaching routine.

Controlling Our Own Destiny, and Next Steps

As two widely read educational bloggers have noticed recently, using a free proprietary tool has some risks. The tool can go away, or it can change its license terms (For what it's worth, I like both Google and Voicethread, IMO, both companies are completely in their rights to do whatever they want -- within obvious ethical bounds, of course -- to have their businesses succeed). This won't happen with an open source tool, as when you install and run an open source tool -- even on outsourced infrastructure -- you can always access your data, and with Drupal, your data is accessible in a variety of open formats.

Perhaps 2009 will be the year when people turn the corner and begin to take student privacy and data control more seriously. Perhaps 2009 will be the year when the educational blogosphere begins to stop its crow-like pursuit of the shiny thing, usually in the form of some new free tool that will really! really! solve everything. Perhaps 2009 will be the year when we finally, truly, learn that the medium is not the message, and begin to move beyond the language of school and educational reform into the hard, timeconsuming, emotionally exhausting, risk-laden work of true reform (and again, hats off to Deborah Meier -- if you haven't read her piece, go there now). Drupal can be an incredibly powerful tool in helping support and drive educational reform. I have long believed that Drupal has been poorly understood within the edtech community, but that's a different, albeit related story.

The potential of the educational blogosphere is incredible, not in the sense of a unified movement, but in the sense of an incredible diversity of opinion, and a sincere desire to help people learn more efficiently. However, as Clarence Fisher notes: "I haven't seen a massive, new idea in the edublogosphere for a good long while now."

In the meantime, if there are educators who want to get started using Drupal, come on over to the Drupal in Education group. Ask questions. Get involved. Make mistakes with us. Learn. We're all here to help.

We are happy to announce the launch of the FunnyMonkey Commons a resource that is part intranet, part course management, part collaboration platform, part blog.

Using the Commons, people within your school or organization can:

Store files. Maintain a private journal. Podcast. Share videos. Create image galleries. Create and participate in classes. Share bookmarks. Author curriculum. Collaborate within informal working groups. Sort information with tags. Learn within classes. Learn from peers.

Work on the web the way the web works.

As Private As You Want

The FunnyMonkey Commons (or the FMC) comes with precise access controls. A site administrator can make a site fully private, thus ensuring that only people from within your organization or school can see what's happening inside the site. However, for sites that want to publish information on the web, finely grained permissions make it possible for users to blend public and private content. In short, people can publish what they want, when they want.

Tools to Support Communication, Teaching, and Learning

Using the FMC, people can publish text, audio, images, and embedded video.People can share bookmarks. People can send private messages, and collaboratively edit documents privately before sharing them publicly. People can create varying types of collaborative groups, ranging from a formal class to an inter-departmental faculty working group to a club to a study group, and different types of groups can be added as needed. Within the commons, people can connect as needed, and communicate using the medium that makes the most sense for their work.

Flexible Design

The base theme used for the FMC (as seen in the screenshots, here) has been designed for this platform. For the geeks, this means that we start with a framework that displays cleanly in all the major browsers (Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer), and that uses valid XHTML and CSS. For the aesthetically inclined, this means that we have a starting point that can be customized to match the precise look and feel you need.

It's Your System. Run It How You Want

When you set up the FunnyMonkey Commons, you are storing the work and the creativity of your community. The FMC runs completely on open source components; in practical terms, this means that you have full control over your data -- unlike other systems, there are no limits on where you can host your site, and no limits on getting access to your data. While we provide hosting for groups who want it, we also support organizations who want the Commons to run on their own hardware. It's your system. You set the rules.

The FunnyMonkey Commons is proudly and happily built using Drupal. For more information on the Commons, take a run through some screenshots. For information on purchasing the Commons for your school or organization, please contact us.

Drupal for Education and E-Learning is now available from Packt Publishing. This book covers Drupal 6, and describes how to build a community site to support teaching and learning. This book is designed for people new to Drupal, with no prior development experience. The hands-on, step-by-step instructions guide you through installing Drupal, configuring contributed modules and themes, and working with some of Drupal’s most useful and powerful modules, including CCK, Views, and Organic Groups. The book also covers site maintenance, upgrades, and backups – these essential steps, while not as fun as site building, are essential for keeping your site and data secure.

Additionally, the book covers some of the basics of when to use different types of resources in the classroom. Frequently, people talk about incorporating video, or audio, or social bookmarks, etc, into the classroom, but they never discuss effective uses of these tools. While this book is not exhaustive in these discussions, I attempted to create some context around creative and effective use of the social web in a learning environment.

On a related note, we have also decided to be more organized and systematic with regards to putting out occasional tutorials. They will be collected under the tutorials tag, and can be seen at http://funnymonkey.com/tutorials (or subscribed to via rss).

For people new to Drupal, Drupal in Education and E-Learning includes details on:

• Drupal terminology;
• User creation;
• Role based access control;
• Installing modules and themes;
• Using taxonomy to categorize posts
• Backing up and upgrading your site.

For more experienced Drupallers, the book covers:

• Using CCK to extend content types -- instructions cover sharing media, images, links, text, and files;
• An overview of Views 2, including adding new views, using the new access control mechanisms of Views 2, configuring multiple displays from a single view, and cloning and modifying existing views;
• An overview of Organic Groups, including instructions on how to use groups to support informal and formal learning;
• Extending user profiles to support connections between users;

Using the menu and block system to simplify and streamline the navigation of your site.

For more specifics on information covered in this book, the Table of Contents gives a solid overview.