SOUR '日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)' = teachers, observe!

Kathy V., a colleague and instructional hero of mine, shared this example of the power of collaborative construction via web 2.0 tools and I'm very grateful.. The creators are all under 21.

Ask yourself as you watch it, educator: What corrollaries does it have for your instruction?

A corrolary I take? That teachers need to be blending more, as students so manifestly are.

How can a 20th century person not be amazed at what these kids are already beautifully, collaboratively, creating? Clearly, the makers have benefitted from instruction in basic literacy. They have learned linear, text-based narrative communication, as well as basic graphic design and aesthetic form. They preserve the forms, but they adapt them to the content provided by the new digital tools (in this case via their video web cams). It is a "blended" expression, blended literacy, for a global audience.

Why shouldn't our teaching, like their active learning, be similarly blended--neither all online, as in games of Halo 3 and such interactive global projects such as rendered this video (untested) and the sit-in-your-assigned seat "present" protocol of a traditional K-12 classroom (tested) ?

An article in e-school news says that the highest realms of US Educational administration seem to be getting this very message, and endorsing blended learning:

"Studies of earlier generations of distance and online learning courses have concluded that they are usually as effective as classroom-based instruction," said Marshall "Mike" Smith, a senior counselor to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

He goes on, amazingly:

"The studies of more recent online instruction included in this meta-analysis found that, on average, online learning, at the post-secondary level, is not just as good as but more effective than conventional face-to-face instruction." [emphasis added]

Kathy's link suggests to me that we should move boldly forward as a school, recognizing and acting on our role as stewards of the next generation of learners, willing to blend what we do now so well with what kids do now so well.

Lincoln v. Douglas 2.0 --why not?

Freedom-loving persons would not have wanted to do this one year ago, with George W. debating, but now, with eloquent president Obama, a golden opportunity for brand USA has been handed us by the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From July 4th's presstv:

Addressing Iranian heads of medical universities on Saturday, President Ahmadinejad offered to debate President Obama at the United Nations headquarters in New York before the eyes of all nations of the world.

Think of it: a live showdown of ideas in the best forum we have left for a peaceful world, the United Nations! In front of representatives from almost every nation, and also--through the wonder of our instantaneous global communication web--for a global audience of billions, these two men can put their alternate visions of a peaceful 21st century to the test of reason. The contrasts, as well as the common humanity of these two would make exciting viewing, don't you think? I predict the best ratings ever.

For my non-American friends, the Lincoln-Douglas debates occurred in the 1858 Illinois Senate race between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Their speeches--one long argument by one candidate, and a then a long response, and so forth--allowed voters an effective new way to advance their ideas in the public sphere. The two became like "rock stars" of their day, and instituted a new type of modern democratic discourse--the long form debate. It's a fascinating story, related well here.

It totally reminds me of the US Declaration of Independence, which sought to submit the argument of Britain's north American colonies to "a candid world." Let Barack and his potential enemy reason before the world, before hostilities break out between them, imperiling the world.

I won't deny that I'm hopeful that our the best ideas would win. Barack's positive and reasoned appeals would show up starkly against Ahmadinejad's extremism. In the light of billions of screens, the relative worth of their ideas could be seen, judged, discussed.

Even as the people of Illinois were able to weigh arguments and vote in the 1858 election, perhaps the interactive web would allow for some sort of feedback and follow-up to this great debate.

Using the new communication tools at our disposal, we could transcend simplistic "axis of evil," "death to America the great Satan," and "Wipe out Isreal" talk. We could move on more rationally.

Or so one hopes.

From the "Sloppy Floyd Building" comes confirmation

that the public's sense of reality is located on-line. We know this because Georgia politicians, who trade on the public's sense of reality, are vigorously defending their "brand" on-line. (James H. "Sloppy" Floyd was a state representative in Georgia from 1953-74. Apparently the state has named office buildings in his name).

The Georgia Governor's campaign yesterday verifies that not only has Wikipedia become the normative resource for truth in schools (which we teachers have known for some time now), but also in the mid-south, where one candidate's primary campaign has allegedly libeled the candidate of another where it counts: on Wikipedia. What was the libelous charge? That the candidate did not have a high school diploma, but only a G.E.D.

Said Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, defending herself against the --pay attention now-- slanderous charge of libel:

“I have no idea who did this... all I would like to really believe is that one of my opponents would not have engaged in something this low,” said Handel
“If anyone from my team did anything like that, that individual would be fired,” said Handel.

Two things occur to me about this:
1. Is it not very easy to identify the IP address of the trickster? So why try?
and
2. I had attributed clever originality to the political trickster responsible for this row, but then the WSB-TV report mentions that this same Wikipedia dirty trick was done previously, in 2006. So like much else in society, political campaigns have not changed their content, but the fields of their endeavor have brought on new forms.

Who needs a press corps anymore?

The current US administration is riding the wave washing out the old fourth estate, leaving an ominous vacuum. In place of the dying newspapers, Obama's websites and social media fill in the gap with status updates on proposed reforms, domestic and foreign affairs, and news of the family dog. Perhaps a benign-seeming president like BO can resist the temptation, but would a Dick Cheney not exploit communications media to craft and deliver critique-proof messages if he could?
I really liked this article by Paul Starr in the March 2009 New Republic. "The end of the press: democracy loses its best defender" describes what seems to be occuring in the new media-scape of our democratic republic. Its subtitles: "Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers
(Hello to a new era of corruption): Why American politics and society are about to be changed for the worse" indicate the author's stance.

Starr points out that what has made the metro daily work as democracy's watchdog in America for the last 100 years has not been an altruistic zeal for careful information gathering or for incisive, disruptive reporting, but instead he has worked for scraps of meat from his master's table. Were it not for the profit it has brought them, publishers could probably not care less about the press' role as guardian of the people's interests. Unless it improved paper sales, would capitalist publishers at for-profit corporations otherwise tolerate the muck-racking of anUpton Sinclair or a Woodward and Bernstein?

With advertising gone digital, papers are starting to die off, and suddenly it is in no one's rational interests anymore to launch excellent investigations into public corruption (such as have been in Chicago's two remaining dailies (the Tribune and the Sun-Times).

Into the void will step--who? That is the big question. Will it be crowd sourced and affirmed information, a million bloggers? a helpful .gov? Or perhaps "Intelligence" from our CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.?

The old model won't work anymore. The old guys left in the press room have become intermediaries we don't need anymore. They have become as superfluous as bank tellers or tv networks. But as a countervailing force to official cupidity and stupidity, democracy has come up with nothing better than the for-profit press.

As much as Barack and his administration seem honest, in the semantic web it is what gets through that gets heard. It would be possible for a heinous crew to play the press as patsies, as some allege that BO did at his last press conference--"planting" a question in advance, etc.etc.

#Iranelection and Chicago, 1968: the revolution is being televised (this time)

What an amazing spectacle, because of the web the largest political show ever: actual revolutionary battles that the people(the crowd, the mob, the mass of us, this time mediated by the web) are, so far, winning.

Clay Shirkey (the author of Here Comes Everybody) meets the barricades. "Here we come!" the mob of Iranians seem to say in this video, picking up rocks to fling at the badly outnumbered cops. The cops all run; the crowd cheers, the youtube post says "funny." But Shirkey's point is that the crowd, left on its own (and not oppressed off the streets by state apparati--cops in night sticks here, exploding tear gas and bullets elsewhere). If you leave the people alone, the people can organize and take basic actions relatively well.

But what about the complex action of rebelling and not getting killed? So far they seem less succssful.

The #iranelection phenomenon also shows the way that civilizations in bloom express exuberance through youth, who rise up and rail against "the man" in each; these young people are the soldiers of social progress in each venue--Paris, 1848; Prague, 1968; Chicago, 1968; Tienanmen Square, 1989; and now Tehran, 2009.

The full revolution narrative hasn't finished playing out: where is the counter-coup of the state (usually in the form of superior weapons)? What can rocks do against tanks?

Or think back to what happened almost forty summers ago in this town, Chicago, August, 1968. The young idealists convened to do the American thing, to peaceably gather and discuss ideas of how to reorginize the state for the common good. But the spokespeople were yippies and hence scary. The state warned the protesters not to do it. Parade permits and park use permits were denied. The kids got their back up, testosterone in full surge, this time to create a festival of "peace, love, light" etc.

In Chicago came the world's firt mediated revolution. "The Whole world is watching!" they screamed. and still the state, in snazzy baby blue shirts that televised well, played their oppressive part smartly.Oh, for a new script, and not just a new view of the drama!