Serendipity35

I had not heard of a book by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). Its title is a curmudgeonly play off the Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation book and video series.

I have been reading and writing about a number of non-fiction books lately that focus on the dangers of technology. This one is very school focused. Bauerlein feels that the immediacy and intimacy of social-networking sites has seduced kids and that their Internet focus makes what they study in school seem boring.

I'm not sure that the boring school versus engaging outside world comparison hasn't been around since schools began. But he thinks that because what we teach isn't happening in this moment and because it's not about (or seemingly relevant) to them and their friends, that school content loses.

I think he is right in saying that students more often use the Net today as a way to communicate and connect than as a learning tool. That is certainly more true now in Web 2.0 than it was in the early days of student Net use.

Besides teaching and writing, Bauerlein has also directed the office of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts.

In a Teaching & Learning Q&A, Bauerlein answered the question, "So what role (if any) should technology play in education?" by saying in part:

"...insert a few assignments now and then that prohibit the use of (technology). Have them do research that uses microfilm and archives, no Google. Have them spend 15 minutes each morning reading a print newspaper, not a news web page. The goal isn't to dispel technology, but just to preserve a small but critical mass of non-technological learning and inquiring.

For one hour after dinner, for instance, everybody reads (parents have to model this themselves - they can't just say, "Go to your room and read a book".) In the morning over breakfast, they might wheel a TV into the room and have the kids watch C-Span or some other serious programming."

Research without technology. A reading hour. Forced C-Span viewing.  Useful solutions?

Billed as "the world's first social magazine," Flipboard is a free app that allows you to flip through news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter in a "magazine" layout.

I heard about it and watched the video (see below). I put the app on my iPad but I can't add Twitter and Facebook until I get an "invite" from the company. (I'm not a big fan of beta teasers that require invites.)

Is it something we need? Will you discover fresh content using it? Will it make some people more comfortable by using the familiar layout of print media to view social media?

You don't scroll through lists of posts and links and you wouldn't have to switch between Twitter and Facebook (and other sites eventually).

Can it become YOUR own personalized social magazine? The idea of a home page for your social graph that brings it together in a more enjoyable way than a list or RSS feeds has some appeal.

I'll let you know - when I get my invite...

If you are an Open Web advocate, mark Saturday, August 7th for a meetup event where you can meet people and projects that are keeping the web open. (Plus, free pizza and beer.)

Mozilla Drumbeat asks "Will the web still be open in 100 years?" Mozilla thinks it can, and should, and must be.

That's why we're starting Mozilla Drumbeat, an invitation to everyday internet users to imagine ideas and projects that build a more open web. We want you to get involved! We are building a new community that includes teachers, artists, designers, filmmakers, writers, lawyers, and policymakers—not just open web geeks. Online, Drumbeat is catalyzing new open web projects that address critical needs and make the Web healthier.

Check out current projects or initiate your own at www.drumbeat.org/projects.

Drumbeat NYC will showcase cool projects and people that are keeping the web open. Come to Drumbeat NYC and learn how you can get involved, or show others what you've been working on. Drumbeat events aren't just for geeks. We're here to weave together local networks of creative, Web-loving people and start new projects to make the web better.

You can RSVP at Facebook or Eventbrite

Check out the agenda.

SearchCredible is a launch page for your search. You enter your search query and then you select what you think will be a a "credible" resource such as EBSCO Host, ERIC, Oxford Journals, Wolfram Alpha or others.

This might be a good site to use with students as a way to address the topic of what a credible source even means and then why these sites might be more (or less) credible in their link recommendations.

I did a test using the ever popular vanity search. I was surprised that putting my name into scirus.com turned up over 1300 hits. SCIRUS is "for scientific information only." I actually don't see myself as a really credible supplier of "scientific research" amongst the 370 million scientific items indexed there. So, why do I show up?

Most of the hits are connected to my time at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, so it's scientific by association. The few other links that are there are mostly presentations and association I have with tech organizations. Does that make me credible? That's a good topic for discussion.

The same search at http://www.sciencedirect.com turns up nothing. Does that make that site MORE credible?

These searches might be a good entry point into information literacy.

Last week there was an interesting Op Ed in the NY Times by David Brooks titled "The Medium is the Medium" that seems to give hope for the good old books.

It points to several studies about the presence of books in a student's home and the impact it has on their performance in school. In one study, disadvantaged students were given 12 books to keep and read over the summer break. In that study, they performed better in the fall than students who did not get the books. The study also points out that those students also had less of a "summer slide" - their term for the decline that seems to especially hit lower-income students during the vacation months. Just having those books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school. Brooks also points other research that shows that children who grow up in a home with 500 books stay in school longer and do better.

I am a book fan, but all this seems too easy.

Can just the mere presence of a home library make a difference? (Some of these studies are not looking at whether or not students actually read the books or even the types of books in the home. The new study gave $50 worth of paperbacks from Scholastic, so they were probably "age-appropriate.")

The new study (led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee) suggests that it's not just the presence of the books, but there's a change in the self-perception of the students who see themselves as readers.

Teacher/Blogger Brian Bachenheimer posted a good observation about the Brooks OpEd that focused on the idea that is pretty well accepted by many teachers that "literacy" now can take many forms including blogs, social literacy sites, wikis, and podcasts.

Sure, they are not books, but some educators feel they are better than books because they are participatory (read/write) and allow students (via links) to go beyond the document to images (photos, maps, art), audio (speakers, music), and related stories and research.

And anyone with a student at home or in their classroom knows that, for whatever reasons you want to list, the Internet is far more motivating than books.

Would a study that gave disadvantaged kids the Net and a computer over the summer show any improvement or any less summer slide? Would they see themselves differently - not as readers, but as connected?

Brooks' conclusion sound quite old-fashioned:

"But the literary world is still better at helping you become cultivated, mastering significant things of lasting import. To learn these sorts of things, you have to defer to greater minds than your own. You have to take the time to immerse yourself in a great writer’s world. You have to respect the authority of the teacher."

Although many teachers would still like to believe those sentiments, the reality of the classroom doesn't really support them.

(There area few hundred comments on the Brooks' piece online.)

More schools (K-12 and higher ed) are going to Google and others for their email and some other services. Now, Brown University has gone Google for its students, staff, and faculty.

You can learn more about why they made this decision, by registering for an upcoming EDUCAUSE Live! Webcast. It is part of their Spotlight on Cloud Computing Series.

It will feature Michael Pickett, the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Brown in a free, hour-long web seminar titled “Google Apps at Brown”  It will cover how Brown deployed Google Apps to 6,000 students and why they’ve decided to extend the service to include faculty and staff.

Register for Google Apps for Students and Staff at Brown University
DATE: Wednesday July 14, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. EDT / 10:00 a.m. PDT

GET MORE INFO ON:

• Google Apps


• Google Apps FAQ


• Outsourcing E-mail