QR code. (Big Bozo, Creative Commons)

Raise your hand if you know what that funny looking black and white thing is on the brick wall above.  That is a QR code. What, you may well ask, are QR codes?  QR = Quick Response.  A bit of an unknown here in the U.S., but they are all over Japan (and have been for years) and are starting to make headway in Europe.

QR code billboard in Japan

Think of them as fancy, 2D bar codes.  First introduced in 1994, these are matrix codes that, when scanned, redirect you to whatever digital information has been encoded there (urls, whatever).  They are a very efficient and reliable way to provide a url in non-networked situation – e.g on paper, on a billboard, on a painted surface – anywhere.  A QR code can hold a lot of information  - up  to 4,000 characters.  Even a simple jpeg can be scanned into a QR code, faxed, and then read at the other end.

But how are these QR codes read?  With any one of a number of free QR code readers – free apps that can be downloaded to a cell phone.  In fact, most new cell phones come already pre-loaded with QR code readers.  Once you have the reader, you just aim the phone’s camera at the QR code, the camera registers the data, and redirects you to whatever information was programmed into the code.  If it was a url, your phone will kick start the browser and take you to the desired web site. Bee Tag is the reader that I use, and i-nigma is a very popular one. Here’s a very simple, short video, showing you how it’s done.

And how do you generate these QR codes?  With any one of a number of free QR code generation sites.  Like Kaywa or QRStuff.   You just enter the url (or other data) you want to encode and the site spawns a printable QR code for you. Voila!

A QR code embedded with my contact information.

Here’s what QR codes look like.  This one, by the way, is embedded with all of my contact information, the url for this blog, my skype and twitter IDs.  I use it on my business card.

Clever uses of QR codes (Creative Commons)

So, how might they be used in teaching?  At the simplest level, you could include them in a printed worksheet (for homework or on an exam).  Another idea would be to use small QR code labels in a lab – print them on ready-to-peel labels or tape them onto basic lab equipment (microscopes, glassware, sensors, binoculars, cabinets or drawers). The codes would would lead students to teaching videos or amplified safety information. QR codes printed on labels could be applied to bones or preserved specimens to lead students to further information or investigation.  Perhaps you could assign students the project of creating these QR codes for your lab supplies and equipment? Another possibility might be to use QR codes in an assessment – they go to the pre-determined site, watch a video or an animation, then answer questions about it. Use them for orienteering in an outdoor education course or on a field trip.  The QR codes could connect to maps or destinations on Google Earth. Have students create their own QR codes that they submit as an assignment. Maybe a “get-to-know-the-lab” scavenger hunt at the beginning of the year? Maybe have them printed on t-shirts as end of the year prizes?  Put them on business cards, luggage tags or make temporary tatoos out of them!  Just for fun, check out this video of a summer project, sponsored by a Japanese company to make a dramatically scaled QR code, out of sand.

What ideas do you have for using QR codes?

Beth Kanter, International Social Media expert, gave the second keynote talk at the New Media Consortium’s Symposium for the Future today.  It was a wonderful session on the use of social media by non-profits, chock-full of great stories and examples.

Beth Kanter's entrance

She started off her session with a bang, by arriving in a Jetson’s-style vehicle, to the opening tune of the old Jetson’s TV show, wearing a pink, Jetson’s-style outfit.  What an entrance!

She went on to talk about what she termed, “Free Agent Fundraising”…that is, running campaigns using Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and other social media tools to raise money for a particular cause.  It’s happening and it’s effective. Agencies like… the Red Cross, Environmental Defense Fund, American Cancer Society, Wildlife Direct have all become “networked nonprofits”.  They are groups that have learned to work in a networked way.

Beth went on to identify and explain what she saw as four key themes to working in a networked way:

Simplicity.  Identify what your organization does best and network the rest.

Wildlife Direct

Movements. Learn to work in a networked way.  Or working “wiki-ily”.  For example Wildlife Direct.  Their basic approach is to encourage bloggers to write stories, the potential donors read those stories, donors make online donations, rangers do anti-poaching education, and the result?  More and safer wildlife.  The blogs are written by conservationists and others in the field – so they have urgency and authenticity.  But they don’t stop with fundraising – the goal of their work is to create a powerful enough movement to be able to respond to any conservation emergency quickly and effectively.  They’re not just turning on the switch and asking for money – they are keeping the network going so that, when an emergency occurs, they can catalyze the group into action.

Network weaving. Think rhizomatic plants (shared root systems).  One part of the plant gets nutrients, shares it with the others.  Organizations need people who weave new and richer connections between and among people, groups, and networks.  With that sort of weaving, the positive effects are amplified.  Beth says, it’s like Fantasia and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  Self-replicating behavior (broomsticks). These “weavers” model the networking behavior and spread it.

The Mending Wall

Transparency. Beth explains that it is important for an organization to ask (and answer)…what is private and what needs to be secure?  She encourages groups to be more fearless about what they share.  And to inspire us, she read the Robert Frost poem,  The Mending Wall.  She reminds us that is important to think about where you build these walls and that those walls might need to be moved, as the plans evolve and the context changes.

After developing those themes, she went on (with some great dog pictures) to encourage us to learn to become more comfortable with discomfort – to embrace our fears.  She explains that working in this networked way does indeed suggest some scary stuff but that if we embrace it, the benefits will come.  Here are some great examples of the “ohmigod” style fears that she hears from people when considering the use of social media…

• ohmigod, emloyees will spend all their time on Facebook or tweeting…
• ohmigod, we’ll be sued…
• ohmigod, the wrong information will leak to the wrong people…
• omhigod, engaging in social media won’t give us any time for reflection…

Sound familiar?  Beth urges us to embrace those fears, start easy (with small experiments), if need be, but move on.

And here are some helpful links, with many thanks to Beth.  Her blog.  And a fantastic wiki called We are Media, which is full to the brim of presentations, advice, tools, and tips for non-profits considering the use of social media tools to advance their agenda.

Wonderful session!

I just attended  Gardner Campbell’s amazing keynote address at the New Media Consortium’s Symposium for the Future (which is being held in the virtual world this week).  And what a keynote it was!  The title was “Two Painters, One Poet, and Some Sweet Soul Music”.

Gardner Campbell's set up

The talk (you really can’t call it a “talk”, let’s refer to it as an “experience”, shall we?) was held in the large amphitheater (pictured here) – so it was seating in the round.  In the ring, Gardner had placed three, raised daises (as you can see in this photo).  One with a funky, space-aged looking computer, one adorned with painters material (easels, paints, etc.), and the third, tricked out with a musical instrument set up for a rock band.  As the experience progressed, Gardner moved from one dias, to the next, pulling the threads of his ideas into a lovely tapestry.

He started with the funky looking computer on one of the raised platforms which, it turns out, was a mock replica of the M5 Multitronic computer featured on a Star Trek episode in season 2 of the original series (who remembers that episode?).  I’m only slightly embarassed to admit that I do.  I’ll spare you the details, but the main point was that the computer wreaks havoc on the U.S.S. Enterprise, taking over the ship, and blasting people out of existence.  The crew has to “out smart” the machine and take back control.  Gardner’s point?  You guessed it.  That our fear of computers and technology is deep-seated and long-standing.  We are afraid of computers because we are afraid of ourselves.  Our technology today, just like the M5 on Star Trek, is built by us, programmed by us, and fashioned as extensions of us – and so, we fear it.

The “poet” was Robert Browning (for those of you who don’t know, Gardner Campbell is a professor of English, a Milton scholar, and now the Director of the Academy for  Teaching and Learning at Baylor University)….the “painters” were Andrea del Sarto and  Fra Lippo Lippi (I had to look them both up), who were near-contemporaries in Florence, Italy – early 16th century.  Meet Andrea and the Fra:

Andrea del Sarto

Fra Lippo Lippi

Robert Browning portrayed both men in dramatic monologues and those poems, as Gardner explained to us, shine light on a lovely contrast. Andre del Sarto is a blamer.  Everything is wrong in his world and there’s nothing for it.  He’s miserable, bereft and forlorn. Fra Lippi, on the other hand, sees only beauty and light.  Yes, he sees all the same woes and tangles that del Sarto agonizes over, but he doesn’t wallow in self pity. Instead, he marvels at the world around him and gets on with things.  From Fra Lippi came my favorite quote of the day, ” If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best thing God invents”.   A cautionary tale for all of us, battling the webs and tangles of life.

And then Gardner pulled up a movie clip from the 1948 film, Portrait of Jennie. In the clip, the story of del Sarto was brought forth as a cautionary tale to another, modern day, painter (Joseph Cotton) who was being chided (by an art dealer played by Ethel Barrymore) for the hollowness of his work, the fact that he had no emotional charge, no vigor, no passion.  I need to watch that movie.

Lastly, Gardner rounded it out with the “soul” part of the talk, by walking over to the musical dais and playing some good, toe-tapping tunes, winding up with “Stand by Me” and an exhortation to us all to share and reach out to each other.

Lovely, lovely.  Gardner told the tale of our hopes and fears – the ones that characterize our response to our newest and most disruptive technologies – and he asks us the question – are you a del Sarto?  Or are you a Fra Lippo Lippi?

I’m becoming increasingly fond of electronic bookmarking services like Delicious and Diigo. Diigo, in particular, has become my bookmarking tool of choice, because of their collaboration tools.  You can highlight, add sticky notes, search, make lists, and create groups. Here’s a 4-minute video showing how the Diigo collaboration tools work.

But the best way to get a feel for what you can do, is to take a look at an annotated article. Here’s an example, from Will Richardson.  What he’s done is to bookmark an article (from the Wall Street Journal) in Diigo, highlight key passages and then embellish with comments using their sticky notes feature.  When you’re ready, Diigo spawns a unique URL to your annotated version of the article. When others use this Diigo-created link to navigate to the article, they see your highlights and comments (roll over the highlighted comments and his sticky notes appear).  In addition to reading the bookmarker’s comments, the reader can comment right back – agreeing or disagreeing with you, asking further questions, seeking clarification.  With time, you can imagine a whole conversation started (and recorded) around an online article.

What an interesting idea to try with science students.  You could start by bookmarking an appropriate (pick a fairly straightforward one) scientific journal article and highlight it to point out the key elements.  You can add your own comments (with the sticky notes) to make points that support what you’ve been talking about in class or lab.  For instance, “here’s the researcher’s hypothesis” or “notice the basic structural elements of the paper”  - or ask them a question “which is the control group?”.  When students access the url you provide, they will see your annotations and can add their own.

Let me know if you try it – would love to see a collection of Diigo-marked articles with teacher-to-student conversations.

Do you know how to take a picture of whatever is happening on your computer screen (known as a “screenshot”) and then play around with it and fancy it up?  If you do, find another entry on my blog to browse.  If you don’t — read on!

A little "meta-thinking" screenshot...

Taking a screenshot (and then futzing with it) can be a very, very useful thing to know how to do. For instance, you might want to highlight a few key elements of the shot, draw an arrow to point out a particular event happening, write an explanatory call-out in your own words, or layer an additional image on top of the screen shot.

I use screen shots primarily to give people directions. For example, I use them to provide step-by-step instructions on how to edit a wiki or how to sign up for Second Life and get your avatar.  Using screenshots to illustrate your story is really helpful, but it’s even better if you can annotate and draw on them.  Teachers can use screenshots as a way to determine whether or not a student has completed an online assignment.  For example, if you ask your students to complete an online activity for homework, ask them to email you a screenshot of the finished activity.  There’s only one way they can get that.

So, just to review how to take a screenshot on your computer.  If you’re on a PC, you just press the “Printscreen” (typically labeled “PrtScn”) button. That will save the image on your computer’s clipboard so that you can then paste it into any editing software.  If you’re on a Mac, you have your choice – if you just want a shot of the whole screen, it’s “apple/shift/3″ if you want to decide which segment of the screen to take a picture of, it’s “apple/shift/4″.  That last keyboard combination on a mac turns your cursor into a cross-hair and you can click and drag to the exact dimension of your preferred shot.  In either case, the image gets saved to your desktop. If you add space bar to that last keyboard combo, your mouse becomes a camera and you can move it to whatever application you want to take a picture of.  Add “control” to either of the two keyboard combo and you save the image to your clipboard, instead of saving the image as a file to your desktop. (gotta love it)

Now, here a few free tools to help you with the futzing part:

1.  Jing.  This handy little free app works with both PC and Mac and it can not only snap a picture of your screen but you can record short videos of on-screen action as well.  You just download it and the icon sits on your desktop, to be used whenever.  You can save your images/videos to your computer or you can take advantage of Jing’s ability to host your shots on their server and spawn links to your created items.

2.  Evernote.  This one is really a powerful tool and can be used for much more than just screen shots.  It’s really an uber note-taking device – a way to clip, store and organize all your various notes, lists, and ideas in one, handy online place.  So you can type yourself textnotes, clip a web page, snap a photo, or grab a screenshot. Definitely worth checking out.

3.  Irfanview.  This is a PC-only, free tool that’s quite powerful.  You can certainly do screengrabs with it but it also has an image editor so you can resize, add call-outs, arrows, whatever.

4.  Screendash.  With this one you can capture images from your screen, a webcam or an iphone.  You can draw on the captured images, enhance them, add clip-art, change sizes.  LIke Jing, ScreenDash will save your images on their server and spawn a link for you as well.  Free and very easy to use.

5. FireShot.  This is an add-on for use with the Firefox browser so youll only be interested in this one if you regularly use Firefox AND if you have a PC (since this little baby is not available for MacOSX).  This little plugin provides a sert of editing and annotations tools that can be saved to your hard drive or uploaded to a public server.

6.  Grab.  If you’re on a Mac, you already have this one (in the Utilities folder).  Very spiffy.  You just tell it what kind of a capture you want to do (selection, window, screen, timed screen).  With this one you can include a cursor or a pull-down menu in your shot.

So, now that you know how to take and augment screenshots – what are some of your ideas for using them?

Virtual worlds – what a concept, eh?  If you haven’t yet visited a virtual world to have a look around, I urge you to give it a try. What’s more, I strongly encourage you to go in with someone knowledgeable. The first time I went into Second Life, I went in alone, and have to admit that I wasn’t impressed.  The technical requirements were steep, the avatars all had a flat, paperdoll quality, and the interface was far from intuitve.  But worst of all, I just wasn’t sure I understood what the point was.  Why would anyone go to all this trouble?

A year later, I gave it another try.  But this time, with a knowledgeable friend. It only took about an hour, following her around from place to place, talking with other avatars she knew, and getting a short tutorial on how to build, that I started to grasp the possibilities. It wasn’t just all the things you could do there (build, shop, listen to music, learn, attend plays, look at art, dance) but it was the people you could meet. For me, it was other educators – from all over the world – whom I would never meet in other way. Creative, resourceful, and inspiring teachers who were keenly interested in figuring out how the unique affordances of SL could be applied to the challenges of teaching and learning.

My SL avatar

I still feel a bit disoriented when I’m there, I will confess.  For example, time just flies by.  I go “in-world” and, before I know it, an hour has passed.  It’s a combination of each new place you visit leading you to something else you want to see, or someone else you want to talk with but there’s also the complete immersion of it all. It feels as if you’re diving into a deep pool.  In fact, it does remind me a bit of exploring the underwater world as a SCUBA diver.  There’s a funny feeling that you don’t really belong – that you’re a visitor in a strange and exotic land.

So, what’s going on in there?  New information was recently released on the economy of SL.  In total, since it began in 2002, Second Life residents have transacted over $1 billion dollars worth of virtual goods and virtual services over the span of a billion hours in a world that boasts two billion square meters of virtual land.  In 2008, $100 million US dollars worth of Lindens (273 Linden Dollars $ = $1 US dollar) were bought and sold on the Lindex. The in-world economy grew 94% year-over-year from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009. That’s pretty impressive, but even more impressive to me is that the transactions that make up this economy are mostly micro-transactions, averaging in the $1 – $5 range.

Here’s more…approximately 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second in SL. 195 different countries are represented and the SL viewer is available in 10 languages. More than 18 billion minutes of voice chat have been used in SL, since voice was introduced in 2007. And users create more than 250,000 new virtual items every day.  There are now more than 270 terabytes of content in SL.

The Sistine Chapel

And what does all of that content look like?  Buildings, art work, clothes, animals, simulations, rockets, boats, and castles.  An accurate replica of the Sistine Chapel (pictured here), a recreation of  Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, a fly-through tour of a breathing lung, the Great Wall of China, a real-time weather simluator, a ride-able Newton’s cannonball, a virtual Africa, a replica of the HMS Beagle, an underwater park…just to name a few.

Electron Transport Chain Activity

For my part, I’ve been concentrating on my building skills (learning how to build out of prims – the legos of SL and script them with behaviors and responses), meeting avatars from all over the world, and coming up with ideas for biology learning activties. In June, I helped to organize a continuing medical education event – using the virtual world as a forum for practicing physicians to meet and extend their knowledge. I built a mid-air activity where students can get a feeling for the electron transport chain by “reducing” as they “fall” from plaform to platform (pictured here). I’ve just completed a cell structure activity where students can move giant cell organelles into even more giant plant and animal cell frames and, in the process, learn about the relationships between the organelles and how cells are put together.  I’ve got so much more to learn but I’m coming along.

The thing I keep thinking, as I roam the Second Life grid, is that, regardless of whether or not Second Life survives into the future, I have no doubt that virtual worlds will.  It seems inevitable to me that worlds like these will be the way we plot our course through the internet and its vast resources.  That avatars, representing us, will be our agents, our representatives, as we navigate the electronic world and reach out to each other.

And if you’d like to come see for yourself, send me a note and I’ll give you a tour.

“We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race.”   Clay Shirky

I can’t help but notice the startling contrast between the world inside school these days and the world outside of school.  Outside of schools, students are talking about music they’re producing, online communities they are part of, conversations they’re having online with people at a distance, and sharing, sharing, sharing.

Thomas Favre-Bulle, Creative Commons

Inside school?  Well, not so much. Inside school looks pretty much the same way it has for a very, very long time.

The National School Board Association recently published results of three surveys regarding social networking and I was not surprised to learn, in a recent THE Journal article, that 52% of all districts interviewed prohibited any use of social networking sites in school. But here’s the kicker – “almost 60% of students who use social networking talk about education topics online and, surprisingly, more than 50% talk specifically about schoolwork.”

There’s a new literacy out there and, you know what? …it’s happening with or without our schools. But just think for a minute how much better it might be if our teachers, administrators, and school resources were supporting and guiding that literacy journey that our students are taking without us. Just think what teachers could contribute.  Yes, students are pretty facile with all of this new media, but there’s still so much they need to know. For example, students need to know how to determine the veracity of a web site (and find out who owns the domain), how to safely navigate an online social network, how to make good judgments about what they post online, how to edit a wikipedia entry, how to navigate the sea of information available to them, how to use of the creative commons, how to curate their own work, how to connect with experts and peers  – how to embed, share, mash-up, remix, and animate.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act and standardized state curricula and assessments don’t reflect these  literacies. There’s no doubt about the fact that NCLB and the way student achievement is measured has had a strong influence on daily life in the classroom. By aligning our schools along the narrow band of what can be evaluated in a high stakes exam, we fail to assign value to the new knowledge and skills that our  youth need to become effective participants in a global, networked environment. It’s time for our schools to teach and foster responsible student mastery of new literacy forms.  That doesn’t mean throwing away the old ones – couldn’t we augment them with the new literacies?  We have a responsibility to teach students to critically understand and responsibly use these new forms of media  – and in order to do that, we need to understand them ourselves.

Web 2.0 is an ideal platform for this kind of participatory learning.  These tools help us to reach out to others, join in the conversation, creatively express ourselves, and find our teachers. As Chris Dede says, we want students to not just be problem solvers, but problem finders – out there, working it, finding fresh areas for investigation.

From Unfocused Mike, Flickr Creative Commons

Here’s another article, this one from USA Today (sorry about that), summarizing the latest thinking on social networking and the “contagion” idea (see previous post on social networking and contagion).  This article pulls together a few threads from different places…I like the idea put forth of flocking or schooling behavior as an analogy for human social networking.  And this image of birds on a wire really spoke to me.

Of course, there’s the usual drivel in this article, this time from Michael Bugeja (Iowa State University) who expresses concern that social networking sites, like Facebook, are just data mining and not “programmed to bring you a friend”.  Per usual, this sort of thinking misses the point.  Facebook, like any of the social networking sites, is a tool.  You use it to help you to build relationships, expand your network, deepen your connections.  It’s  like a fork or a shovel or a flashlight.  Not inherently good nor evil – just a tool.  No one is expecting Facebook to “bring them a friend” – they’re using it to deepen and broaden the connections they have. Why is it that people find that simple concept so difficult to internalize?  And speaking of tools, they make the point, in this article that, in addition to using social networking sites as a tool to extend one’s network, it is also a tool for social scientists to use to accurately measure our friendships and connections.  Good point.

I really like the wrap up in this article…”We’re not substituting online for offlline.  We’re augmenting.”

WildVanilla from creative commons

I had a couple of new thoughts on the importance and intricacies of wayfinding this week.  The first came from my son who is gearing up for the winter swim team at his school.  In order to get in shape, he’s joined a local gym (with a pool) and heads over there most days, after school, to swim laps.  The first day he went there was a lot of confusion – membership card, locker room procedures, padlocks required to stow his gear, swim cap rules, etc.  He came home frustrated, with a list of the things he still needed.  After his second time, he came back all smiles, saying to me, “You know it’s much easier the second time you do things.”  Sounds right to me.

The second thought came when I was kayaking on a nearby, smallish lake…well, I guess it’s really a big pond.  I know this body of water pretty well because I regularly hike there.  There’s a lovely trail that hugs the shore, coming in and out of the trees, that is a favorite of mine.  I had spotted two places where tributaries from nearby rivers come into the Lake and figured that I could get to them in my kayak, providing the footbridges over them were high enough.  So, there I was in my kayak, paddling in what I thought was the general direction, one morning last week.  I scanned the shoreline for the break that I knew was there, but could not see it.  I started to doubt myself – was this the right section of the lake?  I decided to press on.  As I got closer to the shore, things didn’t get any clearer – it just looked like a continuous rim of trees and reeds.  But then, as I got really close,  I could see it.  There!  A slight break in the shoreline and there was the inlet and the footbridge.  Sometimes you have to be right up close to a problem to solve it.

Here’s an online utility that you might want to consider using for student projects – - online book creation sites.  Sites like Lulu, XLibris, and Bookemon are free utilities that allow you to create a book, using your own assets (text and images).  These sites are well designed, easy and intuitive to use.

In order to build your own book, you go to the site of your choice, create a free account, upload your pictures or text (word documents) and the site creates the book for you.  On Lulu and XLibris, you can create your own cover design. In the case of Bookemon, you can go further and design your own layout, adding text boxes, borders, and frames.

Once your book is just as you want it, you can publish it and  – if you want – buy a copy.  The price of the printed book depends, of course, on a variety of factors (e.g. length, color, type of binding) but you can typically purchase a 50-page physical book for about $20.

On the Lulu site you can list your book in their online catalog for others to purchase and you can offer up ebook versions of it for people to download. On the bookemon site, you can share the online version of your book with others either by providing a link or embedding code into your web site or social networking site.

Here’s a 41-page book on Acadia National Park that one of Cheryl Hollinger’s AP Biology students (from York, PA) created using the Bookemon site.  The photos above are pages from this students’ book.  Her wonderful creation gives the reader a very good feel for the park – both scenically and biologically.  And she was careful to provide references and options for more information at the end.

Poetry, cookbooks, memory books, or books on a topic (like Cheryl did with her students) all sound like useful and creative ways for students to express themselves.