WIKI-mania

So you probably know about wikis by now. They're becoming ever-popular, especially with the emergence of Wikipedia. In fact, when I was in India lecturing on the changing of education and technology trends, the topic of wikis came up, and many of them have even used wikis. Although, there's always a handful of gasps when I explain to them that anyone can get on Wikipedia and make changes, add information...even junior-highers with a sense of humor. But I will say, that I use Wikipedia daily to find out little tidbits, or to get background information on something. Latest Wikipedia searches: quipu, Lost (2004 TV Show), origin of cricket, history of the audience wave. You can't find that kind of stuff in a regular encyclopedia.
Anyways, all that to say, I found a cool educational application for the use of wikis. As the technology goes, a wiki is a website that allows anyone viewing the site to make changes and add information. Basic features of wikis also allow you to look back at previous versions of the website to see what it looked like before (or to revert back to an old version of the website if something got accidentally or intentionally deleted). It also has a place for discussions and for people to leave comments or suggestions for the website.
A common use by teachers is to allow students to work in groups to produce a website or collaborate on information. For example, if you are researching the ancient Inca civilization, one student could go on the wiki and post some information on their use of quipu as a memory-device. Then another could get on later and make spelling corrections, and add information about their developments in art and gold crafting. Then another student in the group could get on later and post pictures.
After a couple of these activities with my students, I figured out a cool way to use it with our yearbook staff. We had a problem with losing copy or interview quotes that staff members were working on. OR someone would conduct an interview, and then be sick for a couple of days, and we couldn't work on their yearbook spread without their notes. So, we started our own wiki. I adjusted the preferences so that only approved people on the yearbook staff could view the site, and then created wiki pages for each of the sections of the yearbook. When someone wrote an article on the basketball team, they posted it on the wikipage. Then myself, or the copy editor could get on and make corrections, suggestions, etc. Then the basketball photographer could get on and read the copy to see who they needed to photograph, or to find out who to interview or NOT to interview to get more quotes. It was pretty great because we could work on it remotely, and simultaneously.
If you've got any other applications for wikis, I'd love to hear them!

iTunes University

I know I just got done talking about how I dislike iTunes, and how they control and monopolize in ways. But I did want to mention a cool thing I came across that Apple is doing. It's called iTunes University. Apparently, they are working with schools to make content, lectures, podcasts, etc. all available free through iTunes. How cool is that!?! Now I know this would be helpful for students who may have missed a class, and could just hop on to iTunes and download the lecture they missed (or even listen in on a really deep lecture they wanted to review). Of course, knowing iTunes, I wouldn't be surprised if they put some sort of control on who can access the information, but how cool would it be if you were just interested in auditing a certain course, or a specific topic of interest, you could go and listen to the foremost lecturers on the topic. I was able to download a couple of lectures from UC Berkeley a while ago on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Brother's Karamazov" (one of my all time favorite novels). It was incredible to be able to listen in to the expert's insight. I'm excited to go and see if I can find a lecture by Harold Bloom (one of the leading Shakespeare Scholars). Talk about making information available!

I [heart] RSS

All right; I'm just diving in to this whole RSS thing... If you listen to podcasts on iTunes, you probably are loving RSS as well (whether you knew it or not). If you are in iTunes, and you click "subcribe" to a podcast, or if you purchase a season pass for all the episodes of 'Lost,' then Apple puts a little RSS feed in your iTunes music library that automatically downloads new episodes or podcasts as they are created. Pretty cool stuff. I'm getting into it more and more with Bloglines (as I mentioned in a previous post), by subscribing to a bunch of different blogs and news sources, so when any of those sources or blogs publish new information, my Bloglines account reads the RSS feed, and downloads the updated information. Here's another step with RSS... it's Google Alerts. If you haven't used this yet, try it out. You can perform a Google search, and have Google send you an email alert monthly, weekly, or even daily, as new information on that search parameter is produced. At first, I thought this would be cool for me to do a search for "educational technology" and so everyday, Google sends me an email with a list of all the news stories, websites, or blogs mentioning those terms. I got to thinking about other applications for this, and had some interesting conversations with friends who also use it. One buddy has a Google alert set for his name, so whenever anything is published with his name, he gets an alert. I did this, and got an alert from someone posting on a 'family reunion' website looking for long-lost relatives. Pretty interesting.

Then I got to thinking, 'this would have come in handy when I was searching to buy a bass guitar.' You could throw up an RSS Google alert search for "Fender Jazz Bass for Sale" and keep an eye out for any real good deals that come around. Another buddy checks Craig's List religiously, and found an $800 Wurlitzer for $50. If you don't have the time or the diligence to constantly scour Craig's List or Ebay, RSS feeds and alerts can help keep you on top of the news. I'd be curious of any other ways you are using Google Alerts.

Dedications...

We got our yearbook this last week! What a huge sigh and stress off now that it's out. But the big story for me in the whole ordeal was that my yearbook staff completely went behind my back to change some of the pages. They are celebrating their trickery in the above photo as we get our first glimpse of all their hard work (which was fabulous, I might add... the first all-color book in the history of the school... they were quite proud). Those conniving conspirators went behind my back, and re-submitted some pages without my approval. Let me explain: the opening page of the yearbook has traditionally been a place where the yearbook staff dedicates the book to an inspiring individual that embodies what the book is all about. We had all of these discussions and debates regarding the issue, and finally came to a consensus. Then they went behind my back, and when our publisher presented us with the first book, I found out that they had dedicated the book to me!!! They were too sweet. Raegan did such a great job with the page, that I thought I would include the copy:
Even though he has only been here but a few short years, Mr. Krake has made a lasting impression in so many areas. From freshman History to Senior English, even to crazy, overworked yearbook advisor, Mr. Krake covers all the bases of literature and fine arts.
When you think of Mr. Krake, no student hesitates in thinking of his unique teaching methods and true use of everthing the Smart Board has to offer. Whether it be detailed PowerPoint presentations to teach on the Byzantine Empire or reenacting Macbeth with a life-like fire on the overhead, creative teaching defines Mr. Krake.
For those on yearbook staff, Mr. Krake is so much more than a teacher. His dedication to the staff and desire to see the book come to fruition was evidenced by the late nights he spent working with the staff on deadlines.
But even more than that, Mr. Krake is a personable kid of guy. Always up on the latest music, fashion or even the students' lives, Mr. Krake is a friend to his students and just a fun guy to be around in general.
For all your hard work and dedication and for being a teacher that goes the extra mile, we proudly dedicate this book to Mr. Krake.

How sweet is that!?! I will miss them much.

New type of literacy...

So, literacy is changing. This is something that's been coming up in my classes as we have talked about how schools, education, culture will be different in the future. One of the things that I've been chewing on is this new type of literacy. How many people actually read the newspaper anymore? I mean, gets the cup of coffee and in your bathrobe, dodges the paperboy's skyhook on the front porch. The WAY we read is changing. Print media (while never to disappear), is taking a big hit, and news providers are changing. I could go on an on about the Time Person of the Year, but I just wanted to talk about Bloglines.
Blogs and news servers are changing the way news is disseminated by the use of RSS technology. Don't be afraid: RSS essentially stands for 'really simple syndication.' It's a way for people to "subscribe" to a blog or news source and have the information sent to you in real time as information is produced. Bloglines.com is an aggregator which basically is a place that manages and holds all of your RSS feeds. It's great because, instead of daily having to remember which blogs and news websites and such you want to read, you just go to your one-stop (free) blogline account and it will let you navigate through your subscriptions. This comes in especially handy since some of my friends and family members will only post things on their blogs once in a blue moon, so instead of me checking back for something new all the time, my aggregator alerts me when something new comes up.
My father is astonished at how I am constantly spouting off the latest fantasy baseball news claiming that I must spend hours daily scouring baseball news sites. Perhaps there may be some truth to that, but it brings me back to this idea of how literacy is changing. You don't have to spend hours combing over volumes of information; you have to be able to find the relevant information efficiently and keep moving. I'll subscribe to my fantasy baseball news RSS feeds, and rather than reading the newspaper and box scores cover to cover, I peruse the headlines that interest me, get the information I need or want, and move on. In case my principal is reading this, NO I do NOT spend hours reading fantasy baseball news. Thank you.

Cultural Driving Lessons and Skype

Spent a lot of time on the bus Thursday. Driving through the country-side, we saw several different perspectives of how the people lived. We went through a brick manufacturing village where they sun-dried mud then burned them in these tall furnaces to make them solid and red. Then they’d load them on a cart and a camel would cart them off to be sold/delivered. Speaking of furnaces, it felt like we were walking through Bible times. The furnaces reminded of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo. We saw shepherds herding their flocks, women drawing water from wells, fields of wheat being gleaned, and then children and poor mothers going through the fields gathering the leftovers… just like passages we’ve read about in the Bible. I could just picture Ruth out there in Boaz’s field. With the lepers and orphans, it was sort of surreal… like walking through a time-warp. At one point, it was easy to blame the government for not progressing and for poor leadership keeping the country in poverty. It was easy to feel sorry for the woman trudging through town with a water jug on her head. With a little technology, I thought, they could improve things, get running water, … something. But then you think that as easy it is for us to judge and say, “I would be miserable living like this” in the dirt and dust. But they’ve been living like this for centuries. Our civilization may have running water and electricity but we also have divorce, depression, suicide, etc. In the words of P. Diddy, “the more money we come across, the more problems we see.” To see these orphans happy with just a cricket ball, or kids on the side of the road playing in the mud makes you wonder if you really need an Xbox to be happy. These were some of the thoughts/feelings/discussions that came out of our devotion time that Joelle led after the trip on Thursday.
It was a pretty full day all in all with the driving, so we were exhausted when we finally got to the hotel. Jon and Veer risked their lives in a taxi ride to retrieve us Pizza Hut for dinner. We got our second wind as the whole team crowded into our room to eat pizza and video conference with school chapel on Skype. Lots of parents came to the school and some people on the team here in India got to see and talk to their families on the internet. What a great end to the day!

Sunday 1/7 9:00pm - We arrive in Delhi, and instead of staying in a hotel for the night, and catching a morning train to Kota, we had to rent a vehicle and drive through the night to make it to the conference in the morning. What would have been a 3 _ hour express-train ride, took 11 hours through the trafficked/pot-holed roads. We slept a bit on the drive, but we had no choice since we missed the train we reserved and the next train was booked solid.

Monday 1/8 11:00am - We arrive in Kota at 11:00am with enough time to grab some lunch, shower, and head to the conference to teach 5-sessions. Even though we were exhausted (an all-night drive through bumpy roads, and horns honking every 30-seconds allowed for little sleep), the presentations went well. We brought a video projector because Dr. Smith's presentations required one, and we thought I would be able to use the projector as well for my sessions. However, when we got there, we realized that we would be teaching at the same time, and what I thought would only be one time teaching, I found out I would present 10 times in all (twice to some groups, three times to other groups). Luckily, they had a video projector, so I was able to use the projector we brought to teach my sessions. We also lucked out, because we found this out at the airport before we left, and Shatrine brought her laptop to the airport for me to bring and use (thank you, SHATRINE!).

Travel Diary

Well, I'm back safely, and though I didn't have Internet access much while I was there, I took a journal, and thought I'd post them here:

Friday 1/5 11:15am – Off to the airport (DFW). We arrive with plenty of time (you never know when you fly international), but had no problems getting our tickets and through security. In fact, we were standing in front of our gate at 11:30, even though our flight wasn’t to leave until 1:45. We had barbecue, and did some strategizing/talking about our expectations for the trip. 1:45 came and went. The flight was delayed. 2:30, they said we could leave. 2:30 came and they said, “3:00pm” Because of bad weather in New Jersey (where we would connect with a flight to Delhi), air traffic control wouldn’t even clear us to leave Dallas until 5:00pm. By that time, we would not be able to make our connecting flight. So we went home, and figured we’d try again the next day (this time catching an earlier flight out of Dallas). After quite a while with Lisa (manager for Continental), we tried every other possibility, but very few flights go direct to Delhi, so we’d have to settle for the same flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi the next day.

Saturday 1/6 5:30am – Off to the airport (DFW)… again. This time, we got off without a hitch. We enjoyed our emergency aisle seats (thank you, LISA!)… and it was almost worth it; especially considering that our 14-hour flight from Newark to Delhi would also be in the emergency aisle. So I enjoyed the comfortable seat… awake. I did all of the math, and figured that I had to adjust my schedule so that I could be on “India-time” by the time I arrived. I planned ahead and only slept one hour Friday night. So I stayed up for the entire flight (24 hours with only one hour of sleep). Then I crashed at the airport (thank you, Ambien). I got 3 hours in Newark, and then we boarded our flight at 8:50pm (US-time) and I slept the first 6 hours.

Teacher's Conference: Kota, India

Here I am giving my presentation at the Teacher's Conference. It was neat to be able to share some of the things that are happening with technology in education. Many of the schools have computer labs, and learn html, java, etc, but because of costs, they have to work offline. They rarely get to navigate the web, and post their work.

I'm in India

I would post some pictures and videos and such, but I'm having technical difficulties. Perhaps I'll upload some soon so you can see what I've been up to here. We've been here 6 days now, and this is the first time I've had internet access. That says quite a bit about technology here (though EVERYONE has a cell phone). Hopefully when I return in March, I'll be able to help get some of the schools we visited set up with some high speed internet. Hopefully, in fact, some of my new friends from India may be reading this! The teacher's conference went great, and I met quite a few savvy teachers ready to utilize some of this technology, and several already are! It's just so expensive right now to get high speed going, and it isn't enough part of the culture for the demand to drive the price down. Hopefully soon. Well, I've got to run and catch a rickshaw, and I'll try and post some pictures when I get back to the States!