Dangerously Irrelevant

Britt
Watwood had a great post a few weeks back on student use of laptops in
university classrooms. I just found it and left
him a comment (as you can see, I was my usual restrained self!):

The whole issue is just goofy.

First of all, who in their right mind expects students to sit and listen to
them for 50 minutes (or longer) without EVER wandering off mentally? It’s
unreasonable and goes against how we know the brain works. You can’t fight
nature!

Second, as Seth Godin notes, if your target audience isn’t listening, it’s
not their fault but yours. Just like we tell K-12 teachers: classroom management
(i.e., student attention) stems from good instruction.

Finally, these digital devices – particularly in conjunction with the
Internet – are the most empowering things we humans have yet created. Why don’t
we start figuring out how to use them productively in class rather than banning
them?

Our K-12 and higher ed students think we’re totally clueless and they’re
right.

Be sure to check
out Britt’s post. I thought his scenarios were excellent.

I read with great interest the other day Jeff Utecht’s post regarding his declining Technorati authority. Although I agree with others that Technorati has some deficiencies as a blogging metric, it still can be a useful tool to help monitor conversations and online presence.

Like Jeff and the handful of other blogs that he mentions, I also have seen Dangerously Irrelevant’s authority decline, particularly in the past few months. I have been attributing this to:

• my less frequent posting this semester;
• a return in late September to the blog’s appropriate level after a temporary ‘authority boost’ from an unusually popular post last March; and
• the natural competition for comments and links that results from an ever-increasing number of high-quality edublogs.

Jeff hypothesizes that another factor may be Twitter. As many of us move our conversations that direction, fewer posts and/or comments are occurring in the edublogosphere. I’m an infrequent tweeter, so while Twitter may explain The Thinking Stick’s decline, it doesn’t really explain my own. In Jeff’s comments section, Sue Waters also notes that the decreases in authority may be due to the recent changes in Technorati’s indexing methodology.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on here. Probably all of the reasons above and more. I wasn’t losing sleep about my own Technorati decrease, but Jeff’s post intrigued me because I hadn’t thought about the fact that others might also be having a similar decline. I found the time this morning to extend Jeff’s quick calculations to the entire list of edublogs from my post in June. Here’s what I found…

[note: I simply worked with the list from June. I did not recalculate the ‘top 50’ nor did I determine if any new blogs should be included instead of those listed.]

1. Nearly all of the top edublogs (as measured by Technorati authority) saw a decline in their authority since June.

As the chart below shows, some edublogs had quite dramatic decreases. The average authority decrease was 88; the median decrease was 62. [click on the image for a larger version]

2. Using today’s numbers, the list would look like this instead.

3. Here’s the list ordered by gain/loss in authority rather than overall authority. Only six blogs saw an increase in authority since June.

4. Here’s the list ordered by change in overall rank (again, within just this list and not the overall edublogosphere).

5. Finally, here’s a graphic that shows each blog’s change in rank since June (ordered by overall authority). Red is a decline; green is an increase; blue is no change.

Last thoughts

• Like Jeff (and unlike many of you!), I find much of this fascinating. For example, think:lab’s rank went up 11 spots despite the fact that Christian Long quit blogging there in August. That was a neat trick, Christian (and, BTW, I hope your new gig’s working out well for you)!
• The top part of the list was pretty stable. Most of the movement occurred outside of the top 10 or so positions.
• Students 2.0 had the biggest drop in the rankings. Was it so high before because we liked the content better compared to now? Or were we simply giddy with the idea behind the blog but now have realized that the content is not as relevant to many of us?
• Is the TechLearning blog’s decline due in part to its general inability to accept comments?
• The K12 Online Conference blog rankings likely are cyclical. Up in the fall just before and after the conference. Down six months later as all of the traffic regarding the conference drops off Technorati’s radar. Time will prove if I’m right or not on this one!
• Kudos to the bloggers (Angela Maiers, Jennifer Jennings, Steve Dembo, George Siemens, and Chris Lehmann) who actually increased their Technorati authority in the face of steep overall declines. Wow.

Any of you have thoughts on this fairly esoteric stuff?

My annual review said:

Dr. McLeod’s work with schools is exemplary but inappropriate.

I knew then that, despite the fact that we liked each other a lot, it was time to change institutions. So I set out in search of a university that hopefully would see value in the work that I was doing with practicing school leaders. Below is a true tale from one of my interviews…

I said:

I believe in engaged, hands-on involvement with administrators around the complex work of school improvement. I’m trying to help educators and kids.

They said:

We’re concerned about your lack of scholarly productivity.

I said:

I will continue to publish in peer-reviewed journals. But I’m also going to write in this new space, a place that’s revolutionizing our entire global society.

They said:

That place has no reliability. How do you know if something is valid? Those people don’t have doctorates or work at universities. How can you assess the worthiness of their writing without peer review?

I said:

There are a number of ways to help you assess whether writing is worthwhile or not, including reading it and judging its worth on its face. For example, if you actually read some of my online writing, you’ll see that it’s not just a personal rant space. Most of my writing is about bringing issues of theory down to the practical level and/or expanding our leadership conversations to include practitioners and others in the field. Second, there is an ethos in the blogosphere about hyperlinking. If you want to check the credibility of an author’s sources, simply click on the link and see for yourself. It’s much easier than with print. Third, there are a lot of really smart people out there with whom we’re not intersecting. I’ve learned a ton from folks without traditional academic credentials. Fourth, the blogosphere has its own way of assessing worthiness. Tools like commenting, Technorati, subscriber statistics, and other web traffic measures help us know if writing has value to intended audiences. In many ways, it’s much more transparent and honest than the supposedly-neutral academic peer review system.

They said:

Why do you want to be a faculty member? Maybe you should just be a consultant.

I said:

When asked to explain his hockey success, Wayne Gretzky said that he skated to where the puck was going to be, not where it had been. Someone in our field needs to be out in front, exploring the possibilities that come with these new publishing mechanisms and figuring out what they mean for educational leadership scholarship. I’m trying to be that person, the one who’s skating to where the puck is going to be. Also, you may not know it, but these tools have tremendous reach. If you count up my subscribers and other visitors and multiply those by the number of posts, I will have nearly a million person-interactions in this year alone. I’m not sure I could ever write an article in a traditional academic journal that would reach that many people in its lifetime. And did you know that this online video I’m affiliated with has reached many millions more in just a few months? For someone like me who’s trying to actually impact schools, these tools are awfully difficult to ignore.

They said:

You sure are stubborn. Why don’t you just play the game?

I said:

I’ve got 30 more years in this profession. I don’t want to be miserable for three decades. If I wanted to solely publish in journals that – let’s be honest here – are never read by the people that we’re supposedly trying to reach, I would have done so and stayed at my current university. I like it there and they like me.

They said:

We’re a research institution.

I said:

I will continue to publish in peer-reviewed journals. But I’m also going to write in this new space, a place that’s revolutionizing our entire global society.

They said:

No thanks. (and I did too)

Today is a great day to mention once again that I’m thankful to be at Iowa State, a place that so far sees worth in my activities and encourages me to keep doing what I’m doing. May you all find a great fit for your own work too. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I wish I could attend this to provide a counterbalance to what I’m guessing will be a pretty one-sided conversation. Have any of you gone to one of these events sponsored by your local law enforcement? If so, how was it?

[see also Let’s Just Scare the #$%& Out of Them, Ok?]

[Download this file: png ppt pptx]

[from David Warlick, Happy Birthday Jude]

[cross-linked at the TechLearning blog]

Last year a middle school librarian in New Jersey received a lot of media attention for her anti-Wikipedia campaign:

Linda O'Connor regards Wikipedia the same way former first lady Nancy Reagan campaigned against drugs. . . . She put up a sign saying "Just Say No to Wikipedia" over the computers in the school library. . . . Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District.

At the time I said that I was highly skeptical about this librarian's stance. On any given day, approximately 1 in 10 Internet users visits Wikipedia. This fact alone should indicate that there's something going on worth paying attention to, something that warrants a more nuanced approach than simply prohibiting access. If it was terrible, it wouldn’t maintain its audience. Folks who take the time to understand Wikipedia learn very quickly that it's actually an amazing site. It's already 8 times larger than the Encyclopedia Brittanica, is growing incredibly quickly, and has been created entirely by volunteers. Peer-reviewed studies published in our top scientific journals have shown that it is as accurate as the Brittanica too, particularly those articles that reside in its mainstream core (rather than at the fringes).

If all of this is true, then why are so many educators, librarians, and media specialists upset about Wikipedia? I think the concerns stem from several different sources. One is their beliefs about accuracy. We tend to assume that print materials such as the Brittanica and school textbooks are error-free when in actuality they contain numerous mistakes. Even when identified, these mistakes usually linger until the next edition is printed and purchased (unlike Wikipedia which corrects known mistakes almost instantly). Second, the idea that volunteers can create something as valuable as that created by experts strikes us as ludicrous. But in this case it happens to be true. Sure, at any given second, some vandal or incompetent may have inserted something inaccurate into a particular article. But over time (and often unbelievably quickly), Wikipedia is remarkably self-healing, unlike the paper materials on our bookshelves. Wikipedia also is a counter to outdated information. How many of the reference books in libraries and school media centers contain incomplete or inaccurate information simply because they're old? Wikipedia doesn't have that problem.

Our students deserve better training about how to navigate our new, complex, online information landscape. They don't learn about information literacy, bias, media literacy, assessment of online validity, and other critical online skills by being denied access to that information. They don't learn how to cite and use online resources appropriately if they can't use those resources and learn from their mistakes because the materials are banned.

If you take half an hour to show administrators these things, their mindset changes. I like to have school leaders visit some Wikipedia pages with me. I start by showing them the asphalt article. After we look at the article itself, I show them the history tab (and take them all the way back to the first few revisions) and then the discussion tab. We talk about what we see and what their perceptions are regarding accuracy, quality, and neutrality. Then I put them into groups to check out more controversial articles like Sarah Palin, Islam, Vladimir Putin, or Pluto. They examine the articles for bias and inaccuracy and spend some time in the history and discussion areas.

The administrators inevitably walk away with a deeper understanding of Wikipedia and a greater appreciation for the safeguards that have evolved to protect against abuse and inaccuracy. Many of them also begin to see the site as an excellent lens for teaching students about how, as a society, we construct knowledge, negotiate meaning, and develop collective understanding. Some even begin to think about how their students might be able to serve as Wikipedia contributors. In the end, that richer understanding may be more valuable than the content of the articles themselves.

How are you using Wikipedia to teach information literacy and critical thinking?

Imagine if your house burned down. With only a short time to gather a few belongings and throw them into your car, what would you save?

Unfortunately, one of our edublogger colleagues, Barbara Barreda, is facing exactly this situation right now. Please read more at the web site set up by Clarence Fisher and Jen Wagner and donate generously during her time of need. If you don’t have any extra funds or clothes right now, even some supportive wishes would be most welcome.

Barbara is a wonderfully thoughtful blogger and administrator. She and I have been trading messages and resources for over a year about effective (and ineffective) grading practices. Anything you can do to help her (including passing this post along to others) would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/slworking/1795641717

On February 12, 2009, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm Central, I’ll be at a yet-to-be-determined location here in Ames, Iowa to discuss Seth Godin’s new book, Tribes. Godin has finally tipped over from writing about marketing to writing about leadership. The discussion around this book is going to be AMAZING.

What do you do for a living? What do you make? Leaders make a ruckus. (p. 19)

If you’re in, let me know you’re coming. Dinner’s on me. If you’re coming from out-of-state and need a place to stay, let me know and we’ll see what we can arrange…

My grandma turned 90 today. She doesn’t have a computer and probably will never see this message but I’m blogging about it anyway ‘cause I think it’s cool.

Andrew said:

It often seems like my school’s technology curricula are ten or fifteen years behind the curve, probably more, although our technology hard- and soft-ware are utterly up-to-date. the students feel (and are) disempowered, and the administration is uncurious about how to make technology work better for everyone — students, faculty, administrators.

How do you get the conversation started on these subjects?

My initial response (at the risk of every problem looking like a nail to my leadership hammer) is to focus on the administrators. Without their buy-in and understanding, nothing meaningful or substantive is going to happen in that school organization. There are a variety of ways to do this…

Your thoughts for Andrew?