doug belshaw – Page 2

Account Management

With Google+ adding to the myriad of online spaces in which I have a presence I am in the process of eliminating services and accounts that are offering me little return on my investment. So far, this has included:

Last.fm – If I’m honest I signed up because lots of other people were using it but it did little for my web presence and I ended up barely using it.

LiveJournal – I had a LiveJournal account for a long time which I actually never used as a journal but instead had signed up to access a bunch of communities that were sharing new music. I hadn’t logged in for a long time, so felt no pain in deleting that one.

Quora – I signed up for an account because I liked the concept, but I haven’t really used it. I can get the same sort of benefits out of Google search and now Google+.

Amplify – Google+ offers the same functionality and is likely to be better integrated with other Google tools that I regularly use. While the others have been relatively easy to get rid of, there seems to be no obvious way to delete an Amplify account. Quite worrying for someone who cares about his personal data.

[Update: 25.02.12 – This matter is now resolved due to the closure of Amplify.]

Twitpic – After the furore over Twitpic claiming ownership of your photos I cleared out my Twitpic account. I hadn’t used it in a long time any way having begun to use my Posterous blog as my Twitter photo service of choice. This keeps my photos within a space that I retain both ownership and control over.

Picplz – I’m adding this to the list in essence of full disclosure, even though to say that I used Picplz is a bit of a misnomer. In order to try the Android app you had to sign up for an account. I didn’t like the app nor did I ever upload any photos. However, every now and again I would receive an email indicating that someone was following me on Picplz. A short email quickly put an end to that.

Mobypicture and yfrog – Two other photo service that I used a couple of times when I began using Twitter was Mobypicture. Again, a short email saw the account closed.

If you have an account but don’t know how to close it, you should check out Account Killer. I came across the site via Doug Belshaw. Accounts and services are listed and then colour coded to indicate the ease with which you can delete them. Amplify is black listed as there seems to be no way to shut it down. Quora is grey as it involves sending an email requesting the account to be closed. Last.fm on the other hand is white listed as you can close the account yourself from the account settings page.

While I’m on this topic, there are two new tools that I have been using that I will be keeping as part of my (continually evolving) workflow.

Firstly, ifttt (if this then that) is an awesome way to push around and manage the various streams of information that you have coming in or are creating yourself. I currently use it to push a whole bunch of stuff out to Twitter including my Google Reader shared items, blog posts and Delicious bookmarks.

Secondly, Storify is a fantastic way to curate information and is super intuitive to use. Here are two ways that I’ve used it so far:

I would be interested to know how others are managing their incoming/outgoing information; work flows; and online presence.

Image courtesy of M i x y.

#mainedu: One module down, two to go…

Having begun the MA in Education, promising to blog my learning journey, I have found that time has been at a premium and thus blog posts have been in short supply. With that in mind, I have squared away a moment or two to provide an update.

As tweeted out earlier last week, I have completed Module 2: Assessment for Learning, achieving a distinction. I subsequently tidied up the corresponding page on this blog to include a summary of the unit; the texts that influenced my understanding and impacted on my assignments; and also added links to both my 1000 word critique of Black and Wiliam’s: ‘Inside the Black Box’ and Action Research Assignment.

While I may be finished with the module, AfL remains an area of significant interest to me. Particularly, because of the way that I have been using Google Docs with my students. Moreover, this is the focus of my School Based Enquiry, for which I continue to collect data.

Based on the feedback I received from my Module 2 tutor, I am planning a trip to Oxford Brookes University Library over the half term break to expand my reading; there are some texts that look useful but I am struggling to find in PDF format online.

Module 3: Developing eLearning began earlier this month. This module will likely prove to be the most enjoyable of the three. As an area of education that I am significantly immersed in, I hope that it will afford me the opportunity to broaden my understanding and refine some of my current practices.

In order to ensure that I don’t simply fall back on tried and tested tools however, I completed an audit of the technologies that are embedded in my current teaching practice and those that are not. It is my intention to develop a series of lessons wherein one of these technologies will be used to facilitate the learning in some way.

Reading for the module has also commenced and for me a number of the texts are old news but nevertheless I will revisit them, making the necessary notes in Evernote to use later in my assignment. We have been given the already well critiqued Prensky articles: ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’ and ‘Do They Really Think Differently?’ (Digital Natives: Part 2) to read. For some up to date debate on the concept of digital natives, these posts from Simon Bostock and Doug Belshaw are definitely worth checking out:

Finally, I hope that as the unit eveolves I will get the chance to tie in some of the material I have been reading and writing about recently with regards to learning technologies, taxonomies and literacies. Only time will tell.

Busting a hole in the wall (the purpose of education)

When Sugata Mitra put a computer inside a hole in the wall of the NIIT building in New Delhi, he took the first step in proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, that education was a universal connector craved by people the world over; and that the traditional notion of classroom education was by no means the only way to do it. Now, more than ten years on from the beginning of the HITW experiment, the lessons remain unheeded by many of the people involved in mainstream education. In fact, concepts such as ‘self-directed learning’ and ‘the student voice’ are still scoffed at as Dawn Hallybone was reminded this past week, attending a debate on the National Curriculum review.

Are there still that many people connected to education that truly believe, we, the adults know what’s best for the next generation and the one after that? Nick Dennis spoke of the need for us to focus on principles in this debate and at first I disagreed, as principles like ‘purposes’ are rarely universally shared. However, I now see where he was going, and while I appreciated Doug’s question about whose “better” was Nick referring to, I think Nick’s conviction was what was most important. He asked the big questions about what we want education to be and what we are doing for each other as a community, not as definable roles but as human beings.

It is make or break time for humanity and we have a responsibility to draw a line in the sand, admit our mistakes and create a system of education that can begin to undo the harm that we have done to the world. For all the talk over the last twenty years of the ‘global village’, it has not stopped us continuing to destroy our planet, to wage wars and to continue to ignore the inequalities in society. What is the purpose of education? Surely, it is to create unity by helping future generation to recognise the values that humanity share.

Fred Garnett grapsed this when he argued that new (social) media can foster “collaborative, discursive learning, the kind of learning that creates a healthy, open and participative society.” Is this the extension of Mitra’s experiment? Is social media the natural evolution bringing learners to the stream rather than the well? Some of us embrace change, recognising the merits of experimentation and creativity; others fear it, seeing new as dangerous. I’m not suggesting that we should plunge head first into wildly unstructured models of learning but if it were not for people who dared to be creative, who dared to experiment, we would not be able to stare into the vast ocean that is our solar system, or be able to listen to Mozart on a device, so small, it can fit into the palms of our hands.

When Mitra began his experiment he was giving education back to the people and his observations of the children showed happy, creative, collaborative learnings, the sort of learning Tom Barrett hopes his son will continue to experience. I’d intended to say that education is about more than opening doors; it’s about what you do once the door is open. Now I’m asking who needs doors? Why not work together and bust a hole in the wall instead?

Education has purpose but faces huge challenges!

I am not due to write my contribution to the #500words campaign for purpos/ed until Tuesday 8th March. However, I have woken this morning still thoroughly energised by last night’s #ukedchat special – hosted by one of the founders of purpos/ed – Doug Belshaw. As such, I felt that I should share a few thoughts here and now, lest they be forgotten amongst the myriad of ideas and notions swirling around my brain.

To paraphrase what I wrote on Doug’s blog last night after the discussion – one of my concerns about the state of education is that not enough people actually stand up and take action. They are happy (or not) to sit in the staffroom grumbling about the current governments stance; or to bemoan the limits of the curriculum; or feel that standards are slipping, yada, yada, yada. But they are not ready and willing to do something about it. And I don’t mean do something about it in the ‘take to the streets’ and ‘march on whitehall’, do something about it. I mean stand up and raise these issues with SLT; speak to the principal, parents, governors about how they believe education should be; ignore the heard and do something different in the classroom; have the conviction to believe in what you say in the staffroom and go and do something about it.

I do not believe that it was at all surprising to any of us involved in the discussion on #ukedchat last night that we are not happy with the state of education; that we feel the current government’s idea of what “good education” is does not fit with our own beliefs; or that most of us felt learning should be more student centred. I mean come on, most of us involved in the debate are edupunks – we break the mould everyday, whether its David Mitchell leading the Primary blogging revolution or Dawn Hallybone evangelising about the merits of games based learning. Of course we care, of course we’re engaged, of course we will stand up but that’s because we have been doing so for some time now.

We need to mobilise the educators who are not like us; who are, perhaps, more afraid than we are. Those educators who share similar beliefs and values but perhaps do not have the skills or the guts to go against the grain. Maybe they are an NQT and don’t want to be seen as an upstart still considered ‘wet behind the ears’; or maybe they are a veteran who doesn’t blog, tweet or Facebook and so feel that their voice will not be heard. How do we give these people the courage and means to be heard? To do something different? To challenge the status quo?

This purpose, this debate, this mission is bigger than those of us who are standing square and tall; spitting in the face of traditional Victorian education. It is about each and every child, parent, educator who faces many more years of a curriculum/education that is not fit for purpose; that is not forward thinking; that will not facilitate the sort of learning that will open doors for people. Instead it is closing them, firmly shut. How do we motivate young people to see education as something to be valued and something that is theirs not ours? How can we help them to claim it for themselves? How do we get parents to understand that education is about much more than grades and a getting a job ‘when the learning is over’? These are huge challenges; huge purposes that need to be addressed if the engagement and passion on display last night is to be turned into more than rhetoric.

What binds us all is the belief that education does have a purpose (although this is different for everyone) but in 2011, more than ever, it faces huge challenges.

686 words! Gah! How I am going to stick to 500 words, I have no idea?!? However, you will be able to read more about what I believe the purpose of education is on Tuesday 8th March, right here on James Michie “…a 21st Century Educator”.

Like me, just don’t poke me!

Announcement: James Michie “…a 21st Century Educator” is on Facebook!

As I write this I am hearing the word hypocrite echo around my brain. I have on numerous occasions expressed my disdain for the social network, mainly out of my lack of understanding when it comes to peoples’ need to update their status 24/7 with asinine information like “sitting on the loo contemplating the meaning of life” (I swear I did not make that up). The site aggravates me, owing to the fact that the signal/noise ratio is far too skewed in the wrong direction. Just spending time accepting and rejecting friend requests irked me. I mean, surely if I have not stayed in touch with you since I left high school, do you really think I want to be your friend now? And lets not forget “poking”, the sort of behaviour you’d associate with a much younger, rather annoying sibling, validated as appropriate behaviour. Yet here I sit, writing this post, my Facebook account reactivated, having deactivated it over a year ago.

So why, if I am no fan of the whole Facebook thing, would I have reactivated my account?

If you spent 2010 hiding under a rock then you may have missed this but there are (over) 500 million people on Facebook. In anyone’s book that is a lot of people. This blog has grown considerably over the past 11 months and as it approaches its first birthday I see Facebook as an opportunity and nothing more. Facebook is a tool that I plan to harness in order to increase my blogs reach. Amongst that 500 million I am certain I can find a new reader to two.

Reactivating my account was alarmingly simple (very convenient, the way that you’ve been hanging onto all of my personal info, Mr. Zuckerberg). Once I was back in, I set about editing my account, removing all my friends, wall posts, groups and apps. I then spent some time working through the privacy settings till I was satisfied that my profile was minimal and locked down. After a few other tweaks to the way my account works I was satisfied and ready to create a page for this blog. I don’t intend to friend anyone and will not be accepting any friend requests. Sorry to disappoint.

Setting up a page for my blog was very straightforward and I have included just a few elements of key information. I then added my blog to NetworkedBlogs (recommended by Doug Belshaw) and syndicated the feed with the page I had created. So, if you are predisposed to following feeds and websites via Facebook then you can do so by checking out James Michie “…a 21st Century Educator” here. You can like the page, add it to your page favourites and share my posts. To polish off the setup I have added a follow button to my blog sidebar and Facebook share button to the bottom of posts. I am ready to leverage Facebook to my advantage.

A year of blogging…

This all coincided with a few other tweaks I was making to the blog and a bit of cleaning up, getting James Michie “…a 21st Century Educator” ready for its first birthday (less than 10 days to go). I’m very satisfied with the design, features and content of my blog. And, I am more than happy with my blogging journey. It’s been a great ride from Blogger to WordPress; to understanding analytics and SEO; to learning HTML and Javascript; to finding focus – spending time on the writing – the most important part!

So if you are on Facebook, why not go ahead and Like me (the blog that is), but please don’t poke me!