Worth The Hype: Twitter

@derekbrandow: You on Twitter yet?

Friend: Not yet. Its a way to follow someone right? Find out what they’re doing?

@derekbrandow: That, and so much more.

Friend: I’m scared to get an account. I will inevitable check it too often, or use it too often. Which is probably the point. I guess you update it regularly, right? I mean if you’re on it.

@derekbrandow: Read this short, fun ‘twitter love story‘ by @lizbdavis. This might help:)

Friend: So its like getting a cell phone. Once you integrate it into life, you can’t go back.

@derekbrandow: Nah, it is what you want it to be, a tool you learn to use. We can all make the mistake of  letting the tool take over.

Friend: Yeah

@derekbrandow: It it s powerful tool to connect with people, share ideas, learn….get in the conversation.

So here it is… Twitter! If you are savvy enough to find this lil’ ol’ blog, you might already be aware of (and perhaps already have an account on) the clever micro-blogging tool taking the world be storm. If you are relatively new to this phenomenon, here is a short definition as seen on the Tweeternet: Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to answer there question, “What are you doing?” by sending short text messages of 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your friends, or “followers.”

There is the WHAT, but WHY would I want to clutter my world with another distraction like Twitter? This is a great question, one I have asked myself, and a question many people have done a nice job discussing from their own experience. Following is a short, diverse collection of links to answer WHY and HOW. (You are welcome to see my growing collection of Twitter related references on Delicious)

1. Hilarious video of a young man who struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away.
   
2. Twitter can save your life. A student tweets after being arrested in Egypt.
3. 10 most extraordinary tweets, to date.
4. If you blog, these 9 tips for using Twitter as a blogger might be enlightening.
5. If you are a teacher, Laura Walker AKA @mrslwalker offers “9 Great Reasons Why Teachers Should Use Twitter.”
6. Lastly, here is a site with an extensive, but not exhaustive list of 101 Twitter Resources.

 

Something To Know About Facebook

Facebook was started in October, 2003 by a sophomore at Harvard University named Mark Zuckerberg. It is a social network site thats name references the paper ‘face books’ depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. It was originally available to students of Harvard, then to other Ivy League schools, other colleges, and then the rest of us.

Here are some interesting statistics pulled from Facebook’s very own statistics page. Click the link to find more details about the founders, executives, timelines, etc

• As of today Facebook has 175 Million users
• Facebook now has users on every continent, with half of them logging in at least once a day. 70% of it’s users are outside the USA.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.
• Facebook obeys classic network-effects laws: It gets better—more useful, more entertaining—as more people join it, which causes it to grow even faster still.
• For the past several months Facebook has an average of 374,000 people have signed up every day.
• At this rate, Facebook will grow to nearly 300 million people by this time next year.

With the simple ability to put yourself in the network by way of pictures, videos, and text, and with so many people in this social network, keeping a sense of privacy is critical. Here is a great article by Nick O’Neill I have found very helpful that unpacks 10 safe and responsible practices to consider while enjoying the wonders of this social network. Let me know if it was useful.

 

A Vision Of Students Today

A short video By Mike Wesch from Kansas State University summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime.

 

Two Million Minutes

“Regardless of nationality, as soon as a student completes the eighth grade — they have just Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately a career. This important documentary examines how students in India and China are being better prepared than American students to compete in a flattening world.

For more information, go to http://www.2mminutes.com.”

 

Imagine That– A Day In The Life Of A YB Kid

A fictional account of a YB student

Annoyed, Jackson rolled over and slammed his hand down on the alarm clock next to his bed. He hated that alarm clock. But he knew he had to get up. Qui (YB Hong Kong) flew in yesterday with her mom, who was presenting at a conference in Seattle. Leslie (YB Seattle) was meeting Qui at the Amtrak station for the trip to Portland. They needed to check in at the YB Portland headquarters downtown at 11:00 and then Jackson would take them to lunch via light rail and then on to the Oregon Historical Museum.

Jackson knows that this needs to go well. He has been a YB student for over a year and this is his first time as “local host” for a group. After all, it was his project, he thought it up, but it was Leslie, the team leader, who pulled the group together. Leslie is really smart and has been team leader lots of times.

Like always, Jackson checked his email on the Mac Air that slept on the other side of his bed (opposite his alarm clock for safety reasons). Just the usual reminders of his appointments on his calendar, and he had a Tweet that the other two thirds of the research group were just leaving the Seattle station and would put the last polish on the interview questions on the way down. He had plenty of time.

Funny. This is not what Jackson had expected before joining the YB School. He had taken online classes before, but they were pretty much like the regular school he used to go to — read the chapter, do the problems, listen to the teacher drone on, get an “A” on the test and pray that you never have to take another math class in this lifetime. Repeat with English. Repeat with Science. Repeat with History.

“In YB you work hard, but you work hard on stuff you are interested in. Big difference. And you don’t work alone. It was really weird how Qui, Leslie and I all connected on the YB’s social networking site. Talk about coincidence. I knew from my family history that my great great great (I forget how many “greats”) grandmother came from China to San Francisco as a slave and wound up dying in Oregon. That’s about all anybody in my family knew. Nobody in my family even remotely looks Chinese. But Qui really looks Chinese (duh) and Leslie sorta looks Chinese.”

Last year Jackson took a YB seminar on “Who are you, really?”, filled in a Family Tree and made a YouTube movie about himself, including his grandmother’s story.

“I didn’t even know Leslie but she saw my Family Tree video and contacted me. She had worked with Qui on another project and sent her a link to my video. It was hard to believe that we all had a relative that came/went to America from China as a slave. I used to think that only African Americans came here as slaves. In the research for my Family Tree video was this New York Times article from 1886. Good old Google search comes through again. Here is the first part of it:

THE CHINESE OF OREGON AND WASHINGTON TERRITORY TO BE ORDERED AWAY.

Portland, Oregon, Feb. 13.–The Anti-Chinese Congress assembled here this afternoon with about 150 delegates present. The usual Committees on Credentials, Permanent Organization, and Resolutions were appointed. Burnette G. Haskell was named as Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. The principal resolutions were as follows:

Whereas, It is a portion of the common law of this land, solidified into universal and immemorial custom and usage, that the inhabitants of any locality which is infested with any immoral or undesirable class of people have the right to peaceably assemble and request said obnoxious elements to remove to other localities; and

Whereas, The Mongolian race in the State of Oregon and the Territory of Washington are a class of people who are constant violators of all health and public laws, immoral, degraded, and undesirable in every sense of the word, as well as a constant menace to our free institutions and to home and family;

Resolved. That this convention call upon the citizens of every locality to peaceably assemble and politely request said Mongolian race to remove from this State and Territory to the city of San Francisco or any other place where they are desired by the people, and this within 80 days from date of said meeting; and

Well, you get the picture. The article blew Leslie and Qui away and Qui thought we could do a film and a website on American Slavery and how it is not just black people and how it is still going on.”

The team had been working on the project for weeks. As host, Jackson had made arrangements for the group to have lunch with his dad and Dr. Lee,  President of the Chinese Historical Society. The team was to shoot an interview with Dr. Lee and then accompany him to view the Historical Society photographs. They really want a photo of the The Anti-Chinese Congress and Burnette G. Haskell if they can find it. The Historical Society policy requires adult supervision for students, and not just any adult supervision.  Because the photos have not yet been digitized, the public can only look at the images and request copies of the ones they want. And there was a charge for each photo.

Jackson looked at his ToDo list.

1. Meet up with Leslie and Qui at Amtrak. Everybody Tweets parents that all is well. (Why do they worry so much?)
2. SMS dad and Dr. Lee (they don’t tweet) that the group would be on time for lunch. (Don’t forget FlipVideo and backup batteries.)
3. Qui interviews Dr. Lee (Leslie has the questions we all co-authored on Google Docs, I run the camera)
4. Walk to Oregon Historical Society. Select photos and request copies.
5. Make sure to leave in time for the 5:00 train. (resist shopping requests)
6. Put Leslie and Qui on train. (everyone Tweets parents)
7. Send thank you iCard to Dr. Lee for helping out.
8. iChat with Mary Taylor our YB Consultant (why don’t they just go ahead and call them “teachers” that’s what they are) on the sponsor I found for photo reproduction.
9. Post video interview for Qui (in charge of producing the video) to download
10. Work on setting up our blog, The Other Slavery (don’t forget Google Ads – got to pay for those digital pictures)
11. Google for info on American Slavery, Chinese Slavery, Slavery today, anti slavery groups.
12. Find out who the heck William Wilberforce is.
13. Get overview of US history 1800-1900 (the Big Picture)
14. Look for Chinese slavery images through Creative Commons Search (wouldn’t want to step on any body’s copyrighted toes). Library of Congress site?
15. Share research with team using Googe Docs and images with Google Sites.
16. Evening – iChat with girls (Qui flyes out tomorrow) on who will write articles on Slavery. Can we get others to write articles? Who?
17. Check out What’s New on iTunes. Need some new music.

Jackson wants to be the team leader on his next project. He feels ready. Astronomy is his real passion and he has been having thoughts about an anomaly he noticed on the last batch of images from the Hubble telescope. His mom knows one of the scientists at NASA and has arranged an iChat with the guy. She claims she used to date him in college.

“Mom in college, I can see that. Mom dating? No, I don’t think so.”

 

YottaByte Concurrent Learning Model

 

Learning 2.0: Preparation for the 21st Century

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. – Alvin Toffler

It might come as no surprise to hear that the public school system is broken. Equally evident is the realization that no amount of money can fix it. Money simply cannot remodel the 19th century infrastructure on which public education is built to make it adaptable enough to meet the speed of the 21st century.

That approach has been tried many times before. And yet the public system remains broken for the following reasons:

• It’s drumming linear learning into the minds of students who will be asked to think abstractly in their collegiate and/or professional lives
• It’s ignoring the very real and very advantageous nature of ubiquitous technology
• As a huge bureaucratic system, it is simply incapable of adapting at the speed of 21st century life
• It lives in a bubble of history and policy — unable to address issues that, if unattended, will continue to under prepare children for a highly prepared competitive global workforce.

The YB Group is comprised of a team of professionals that will build a new learning model based on the following:

• Integrating core curriculum with 21st century skill sets such as technology, process development and collaboration
• Introducing the concept and facilitating the development of Personal Learning Networks as a core benchmark for growth
• Constructing our learning environment concurrently so that students are trained to manipulate process in real time, thus operating with more agility
• Focusing on the creation of customized environments that develop a passionate love of learning within our students

To meet these, and prepare students to contribute in a global marketplace, The YB Group will focus on development in three broad areas — Technology, Process and Character.

Technology — As an effective tool for learning and information integration, technology devices and web applications are largely ignored by the public education system. We will allow kids to select the appropriate tools and then blend them into their learning process.

Process — The current learning model is too old, too slow and too distant from reality. Powered by technology and collaborative environments, today’s kids make connections their predecessors never considered. Continuing to force them into a serial teaching model does them an injustice. At YB Schools, knowledge acquisition will be predicated more on need than on an entrenched system.

Character — Developing a student who is capable of navigating a shift in learning methodology means paying very close attention to character development. Ours is a style of learning that empowers students to take responsibility for their own process.

So, how are we going to tie these three elements into a new learning paradigm?

We teach students to integrate Technology, Process and Character into a style of learning that replicates what they’ll need in the future. Thomas L Friedman wrote in “The World is Flat” that the key to globalization is the ability to create new products or new solutions in a digital format, transmit that content worldwide, and then increase its value through collaboration.

We prepare kids for this by beginning with a personalized focus and moving through competency levels until they’ve achieved comfort with access to a global network. The progression looks like this:

Self — The first order of influence is internal. Self control over the component disciplines must be achieved before ascending to a body of work that will be predicated on successful integration with other individuals.

Team — In a professional environment, ability is often measured by what skills an individual brings to a team project. But operating effectively, efficiently and ethically as a team member requires skills not developed by traditional education. The YB Group will begin cultivating this ability by creating multiple project teams within each YB School.

Community PLN (Personal Learning Network) — The development of a Personal Learning Network is no less important than memorizing math formulas or the periodic table. In fact, as the professional world is increasingly defined by our ability to find the right people and the right information, The YB Group believes PLN construction to be vital for success. Beyond Self and Team, our students will learn how to navigate and own their communities to ascertain elements necessary for success.

Global PLN — Confidently and effectively navigating the previous levels of actualization will permit a YB student to begin considering how her developed skill sets can integrate into the pursuit of global data and contacts. It is The YB Group’s assertion that competency and achievement at this level will equip students to re-define the professional process and move toward genuine innovation.