Monthly Archives: September 2009

Sep 16 2009

links for 2009-09-15

Sep 15 2009

A Wordle Example

I have a new superintendent in the mix this year.  While he’s not my direct supervisor, he and I go back a long way and he’s charged with the responsibility for the Information Technologies Department.  One of his goals this year is to do a “Tech Ten” presentation to the principals monthly and he’s enlisted my help.

I think it’s a great idea.  It’s also a challenge trying to get something meaningful and worthwhile that can be done with a quick demonstration in 10 minutes. 

Things do come back to haunt you.  In a former life, he worked as a computer coach in our schools under my supervision.  One of the things that I was big about with that group was the creation of “One Sheet Wonders”.  They were simply a one page instruction/summary to illustrate a single concept and each person in the group would create and share with others as they went about their business.  It was a great way to build a content library to support the initial use of a new piece of software.  So, the concept has returned.

This month, he’s going to do a quick demonstration of Wordle.  It’s a powerful tool and certainly something that can be used as a quick demonstration of the power of technology.  But, what to use as an example to drive home the notion?

With the Taylor Swift / Kanye West event on Sunday night, I had my inspiration.  How about comparing the musical style and message from two currently popular entertainers from two different genres?  The content literally flew out the end of my fingers as I put together this wiki page.

The premise is pretty simple actually.  The songs were just picked at random.  Using the text from http://www.azlyrics.com, I created a Wordle for Taylor’s Swift’s “Tim McGraw” and Kanye West’s “We Don’t Care“. 


“Tim McGraw” as a Wordle

So, what is the real message?  I took some lesser known text of documents that we use here and plopped it into the program as well.  There was some interesting content and visualization that popped out.

How would it be used in the classroom?  If you’ve created a Wordle before, you know that the sky is the limit.  I offered the following as starting points.

  • Could we analyze a memo from a superintendent?
  • Could we analyze any of the world’s great speeches?
  • Could a student in a writing activity determine if they are using a word too often?  “Like, ummmm”
  • Could we create a “School Wordle” with every student’s first name appearing?
  • Could we create school T-Shirts based upon key concepts that we believe in?
  • Could we …

I’ll be interested to see what other ideas this concept starter generates.  If you’ve got an innovative way that you’ve used Wordles in the past, please feel free to let me know.

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Sep 15 2009

links for 2009-09-14

Sep 14 2009

Bad Guys Strike Again

Last night, we’re relaxing after a hectic weekend and watching a little television.  It’s a fight over the remote to watch the Bears/Packers football game and the Canadian Country Music Association‘s awards show from Vancouver.  So, we’re flipping back and forth, oblivious that there would be anything else of interest on the television.

I had Twitter open and noticed that Taylor Swift was a trending topic which I thought was odd as she’s not Canadian and not scheduled to perform at the CCMA.  It was only later when I checked into this that I found out what happened at th VMAs with Kanye West.

Embedded video from CNN Video

So, the bad guys bit?

Well, if you followed the trending topics, it shot you over to the search function on Twitter where people were commenting on what they had just seen.  Amidst the heart felt opinions about the event, the bad guys were at work.  Immediately, dummy accounts were created to phishing sites.  People selling stuff were including the #TaylorSwift tag to draw people to their web presence.

If you’re an internet novice, what are you going to do?  Yes, there will be those with unprotected computers that might end up in problems.

The postings continue into this morning.  In the time that it’s taken to create this entry, over 3000 tweets have queued up with the trending topic of “Taylor Swift”.  Related to this are the trends “VMAs”, “Beyonce”, “#teamtaylor”, and “MTV”.  Hopefully, the management of Twitter will apply their new Terms of Service and get things back to normal.

In the meantime, hopefully those searching for video of the moment will also see the high class move that Beyonce made inviting Ms. Swift onto the stage upon the receipt of her award to share in the moment.  Why can’t moments like that be the highlight of the event?  There’s something that you can be proud of.

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Sep 14 2009

links for 2009-09-13

Sep 13 2009

The State of Now

Jeff Pulver is a persona by Klout’s calculation.  With a whopping score of 83, a persona is defined as:

You have built a personal brand around your identity. There is a good chance that you work in social media or marketing but you might even be famous in real life. Being a persona is not just about having a ton of followers, to make it to the top right corner you need to engage with your audience. Make no mistake about it though, when you talk people listen.

I would encourage you to watch the interview with Robert McLin at the recent Gnomedex conference.  In it, Jeff explains his thoughts about “The State of Now”.  The focus is towards business, the Los Angeles 140Characters Conference, and the social web but those of us in education should be able to immediately hear and recognize the message.

Jeff talks about the evolving internet.  I really like his concept that the internet was in archival mode from 1993 until yesterday.  In education, we do a great job of archival.  Take a look at the old practices and materials that continue to live on.  Look at the dates and ages of the books.  Is all of this information accurate, contempory, and up to date?  My science friend Don always makes reference to Pluto when we talk about the difference between learning and simple fact recall.  Much to the chagrin of established librarians, we do have library swat teams that periodically purge the history that lives on the shelves in favour of more contemporary titles.

Jeff is quick to note that he’s not all about Twitter although it’s the current tool of choice.  He notes that, with the appropriate technology, the same information is available to everyone at the same time.  Where else in educational history have we been able to say that?  As Jeff notes later in the video, you can stick your head in the sand and maybe it will pass you by.

But, we must be aware that our students are not ignoring it.  They’re using this immediate information every day and in ways that we’d be foolish to think that we understand them all.

Recently, @danikabarker, a secondary school English teacher, posted this message to Twitter.

I would suggest that she’s absolutely correct in her approach.  I’d be more worried about parents that complain that the class is NOT using technology.
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Sep 13 2009

links for 2009-09-12

Sep 12 2009

Technology Checking In

Yesterday was another September 11, a date made infamous for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.  If you were anywhere near media yesterday, there were reports, remembrances, and opinions galore.

This report from Gizmodo really drew my attention.  (Warning, if you follow the link, there are comments containing profanity)


Image via Wikipedia

The article was very succinct and posted to show a new image from NASA, captured from the International Space Station, showing New York City after the attacks on the World Trade Centre.  By clicking on the image, you immediately zoom in on a larger image.

As with most cases of citizen journalism, Gizmodo opens the article for comments from its readers.

The image attracted a couple of comments but then the phenomenon of this type of interactive media kicked in.  Subsequent visitors began to make comments about the comments.  Then, as it happens in cases like this, it turns nasty.

Do we teach students how to react to these types of actions?  Do we teach them how to interpret the content?  The message?  I had a long conversation with a colleague yesterday whose opinions I value greatly about the role of Current Events in the school day.  Does it have a place?  If so, where?  What curriculum expectations are addressed by reading or viewing the news of the day?

If you believe that news articles like this have a place in the classroom, what happens to the comments from citizens who are actively commenting on the article first and then commenting on each other?  When technology and its functionality, the great enabler checks in, how do we handle it?

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Sep 12 2009

links for 2009-09-11

Sep 11 2009

Difficult to Tell the Bad Guys

It’s increasingly becoming more difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

When I went to university, I answered an advertisement in the newspaper for a sales job that promised profits of $400 per unit.  I did the math and very quickly determined that I could become a student millionaire and so went to the info session.  The job turned out to be selling encyclopedias by going door to door making the sales.  We were given the tips for how to get into the house and how to engage people with conversation and how to lay a guilt trip on the parents for not providing opportunities for their kids.  Shortly after I started listening, I started looking for the exit.  Part of the plan, I guess, when you’re delivering these messages is to apply the pressure to keep you in the room so I sat through the session and left, never to return.  But, at least I knew who the bad guys were in this scenario.  It could have been me.  I wonder if anyone ever made money on this product.

Times change and going door to door just isn’t practical and does reach enough people.  It was easier to reach a wider audience by using the telephone.  Whether it was a person making the call or an automated machine, you could make more contacts on the phone than the time consuming process of going door to door.  It’s easy to spot these bad guys too. “Good morning, Mr. Peterson, how are you today?”  Like you care.  Click.  With the purchase of a little caller id option, you can even avoid that opening line unless you’re feeling like taking someone on.

With the advent of email, it gets even easier for the bad guys to make more and more contacts.  With the appropriate software and mailing lists harvested from a variety of sources, the bad guys can hit most of us so easily.  I read an article that indicated that nearly 80% of all email is “spam” or unsolicited email.  Fortunately, most email providers filter this the best that they can so that you don’t have to deal with it all.  It’s still easy to spot the bad guys.  The “Dear friend” or the misspelled words are a dead giveaway.


Image by luc legay via Flickr

Now, with social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or even your friendly local blog, there’s a new opportunity.  These resources are more open and transparent than ever before and people are encouraged to befriend or get into a conversation with others.  Who knows if a friend of a friend is actually a friend?  Just yesterday, I had a reply to a blog post from someone who “found me on Google and really likes my stuff.”  Hey, cool, that’s how it’s supposed to work.  But the message continues “I can help you make money from at home just by …”.  Click.  This time, not the phone, but the mouse.

As we move through this chronology, we see an increasing ease with which the bad guys can reach more and more people.  It requires less effort with more contacts.  It’s also difficult to judge the messenger.  At university, I’d be the guy with blue jeans and a t-shirt.  Now, with social networking using forms for input and replies, there’s very little to discern between the good and the bad.  They all look the same.  If you have to stop and think about the content and who the messenger is, put yourself in the shoes of today’s youth trying to get online and making friends.  How do they know?

Yes, we’re back to the old media literacy discussion again.  Ontario teachers have resources for classrooms in Realty Check and for professional dialogue through the other licensed Media Awareness titles.  It’s an uneasy topic to discuss because we didn’t grow up in this current reality.  We don’t know all the answers.  There is no text book with answer key.  We, and our students, are growing up together with all this.  We should be learning together to keep all of us safe.

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