web 2.0

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Creative Commons Licensing

December 12, 2008 in Policies, Technology | 6 comments

You may have noticed the new symbols on my sidebar. That’s because I finally woke up and decided to start thinking about copyright issues for my blog and other content that I put on the Internet. I was moved by the NYSCATE conference to consider Creative Commons Licensing.

Creative Commons licenses allows creators  to share content that they have created, while retaining some rights to the material. Steve Hargadon posted this great YouTube video on his K12opensource site by JustinG4000 which provides a great overview.

Having heard about it at the conference and seeing this video moved me to visit the Creative Commons site. The site makes it very easy to create a license for your content. Just click on the License Your Work on the upper right hand side of the homepage.

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The up comes a page with a few questions and buttons to help you customize the license.

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You can also fill out optional fields, making attribution to your site a function of copying and pasting as snippet of code. You can fill in whatever is relevant.

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Click Select a license and you are delivered to page that allows you to select the appearance of the Creative Commons icon/link and gives you a snippet of code to past into the appropriate place on your site.

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As you can see, the Creative Commons site makes it quick and easy to license your work.

Licensure choices

Creative Commons licenses starts with the premise that you allow others to copy your work as long as they attribute it to you (You can choose their Public Domain license if you do not care about attribution). The first choice presented is whether or not you allow commercial use of your work. I was almost certainly selecting No until Jim Klein responded to my Tweet asking about CC licensing. He cautioned that not allowing commercial use may prevent paid presenters from using your ideas (of course they could always ask permission). For my blog, I decided that I would allow commercial use on the remote chance that somebody would actually use my ideas. For my test prep materials, on the other hand, I barred commercial use.

The next choice is to decide whether or not you will allow others to modify your work. As outlined in the video above, you have three choices:

  • Yes–allow others to change as they please.
  • Yes–”Share alike” as long as they grant the same license to those who might use the derivation of your work.
  • No–modifications are not allowed

I chose “Share Alike.” I feel that if anybody want to use my material and modify it, they should allow others to do the same.

Copyright, creative commons, and pedagogy

Now that students are becoming content creators on the Internet whether or not in association with schools, they need to consider copyright and its implications. The options  presented with the Creative Commons license variations provides a great venue for discussing the implications of copyright in general.

Furthermore, considering the copyright of their own materials will make discussion of intellectual ownership in general more relevant to students than the standard plagiarism lectures. It becomes a real issue and will almost certainly give students a new perspective on the issues involved.

Creative Commons licensing makes sense, particularly for content creators on the Internet. Web 2.0 makes the issue of copyright very important to a widening number of people. Creative Commons also highlights issues in the realm of copyright that make it a great vehicle for discussion of intellectual property in schools.

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Edublogs inserts content link ads in free blogs

November 11, 2008 in Blogging, Technology, open source | 6 comments

The popular “free” educational blogging site Edublogs has begun inserting inline content link ads in the posts of their free blogs. Once users are logged in, they no longer appear, but anyone view the blog sees the ads.

To disable the ads, one must become an Edublogs supporter costing $25 per year. There are other benefits such as more server space and Twitter integration. Alternatively, schools can set up Campus subscriptions starting at $900 per year for 100 blogs.

On the popular Classroom 2.0 site, teachers are registering shock and dismay at this unannounced development, saying that they feel “bamboozled.” Concern has been expressed about control over the content of these ads. Teachers and students have invested much into this blog platform and suddenly find the landscape has changed.

In fairness to Edublogs, the potential for advertising has been in their terms of service for some time–I looked into it many months ago. (You DO read the TOS before clicking I accept, don’t you?). In this tightening economy, the flow of easy captial has been shut off. The free hosted social applications need to pay their bills to keep their servers up and running and to pay staff.

I have always expressed concern about hosted Web 2.0 solutions for these very reasons. There is also the issue of data ownership. If one of these companies goes belly up overnight as has been the case with so many major corporations of late, what happens to your data?

The solution is free and open source software on either rented web server space, or on in-house servers. No, these are not “free” solutions, but they are inexpensive. Webhosting accounts can be had for as little as $5 a month and most offer ample resources for hosting your own Web 2.0 solutions. Furthermore, you will not find yourself blindsided by changes in policies and terms.

There are many options for software. Multiple blogs can be hosted on WordPressMU, Social Networks on Elgg, and the list goes on.

Stay tuned for more such developments and start studying up on free and open source Web 2.0 applications. As has been said so many times before: there is no such thing as a free lunch!

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Who will teach them social networking safety?

October 27, 2008 in Policies, Social Networking, Technology | 6 comments

Will Richardson expressed exasperation with a school leader in a recent post as he tried to blame parents for student misbehavior on FaceBook or MySpace. He proposed the schools need to play a big role:

There is a solution to this, one that we all know, but one that for some reason few seem willing to implement other than in the guise of a “parent awareness night” or some type of scary Internet predator presentation by a state policeman. For the life of me, I can’t understand what is so hard about opening up the first and second and third grade curriculum and find ways to integrate these skills and literacies in a systemic way. If you want kids to be educated about these tools and environments, then maybe we should, um, educate them.

He suggests that we not just talk to them about the dangers of the Internet and social networking, rather we integrate these tools in an age appropriate way from an early age.

As I posted earlier, using social networking is valuable for teaching Internet safety. These new literacies are the reality of our kids’ world and future. They are not going to disappear. Like the books we read, they can be used for good or evil. We need to harness these technologies for learning and promote their use as positive forces.

While parents should play a role, many simply do not understand these technologies. Congress has just passed a bill mandating instruction of social networking safety and cyberbullying. Since we must do it, we should do it in a way that is real and relevant, and in a way that teaches new literacies while harnessing their potential.

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New bill mandates social networking safety instruction

October 20, 2008 in Policies, Social Networking, Technology | 2 comments

New legislation passed unanimously by the US Senate and headed for the President’s desk mandates schools to provide instruction about safety on social networking sites. The language was appended to S.1492 bill Broadband Data Improvement. While the thrust of the bill is improving broadband Internet access to Americans, SubTitle A: Promoting a Safe Internet for Children includes :

(iii) as part of its Internet safety policy is educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response.

What better way to teach them than to use social networking software in instruction, rather than lecture them about online perils? A closed environment monitored by teachers would give students real life practice in a safer environment. It would add relevance and authenticity to instruction. Discussion of appropriate online behavior prior to actually using social networking software would have a positive impact on student learning and is more likely to have a lasting effect on student online behavior. Mistakes would have lesser repercussions than on a site open to the world at large. They could be powerful teachable moments.

I plan to use this to bolster my case for the use of social networking software in our school. What impact do you think this may have on schools and their potential use of social software?

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Commercialization of Web 2.0 in Education

October 5, 2008 in Technology, open source | No comments

Commercial interests have insinuated themselves into schools in many ways over the past several years: news programs aimed at students with advertising, sweetheart soft drink deals offering kickbacks to school districts. The list is endless. The newest manifestation of this trend is the offer of free web 2.0 tools for students and educators by a number of companies including Google.

Commercial interests have a profit motive in offering these “free” services to schools–otherwise they wouldn’t do so. If they do not charge for these services, how to they plan to finance or monetize these services? There are a number of ways.

First, there is advertising. Many of these free sites include advertising on their pages targeting the demographic of the typical reader. Worse yet, sometimes it includes advertising that is inappropriate for the educational setting. You have no control over what appears. To their credit, some sites offer advertising free access. That means, however, that they must be finding other ways to make it profitable.

Marketers highly value any information regarding the behaviors and patterns of school age children.  Aggregated data on Internet usage of children this age is extremely valuable and where better to find this data than our schools? By directing students to use these commercial tools, we are delivering a treasure trove of data to these companies. Brand loyalties also begin to form at these ages.This is why Coke and Pepsi were so willing to offer schools lucrative kickbacks for offering only their brands in school vending machines before there was a backlash.

Additionally, many Internet services have in the past started as free only to change to for pay models down the line once one has grown accustomed to the service. Those of us who have been on the Internet a long time has seen numerous such instances.

Another peril is data ownership. What many users to not realize is that hidden deep in the text of many Terms of Service is language which passes ownership of the content from the user to the company. Others simply have users unknowingly relinquish their materials to the public domain. Releasing content to the public domain can be a good thing, but individuals should understand that they are doing so.

Many Web 2.0 evangelists tout these tools on the websites, in their books, and at conferences. Cash strapped schools and teachers latch onto them without a second thought. In essence, much of the Web 2.0 movement is telling students to march lock stepped into the hands of these commercial interests. We are teaching acquiescence to big business.

I believe it is one thing to mention these tools to students and examining the terms of service while they do so. What I have seen however, is teachers blithely instructing students to register accounts on Blogger, or some other web service as a matter of fulfilling course requirements. I don’t think that we have the right to do this.

There are alternatives. Free and open source software alternatives exist for almost every web 2.0 tool. While they must be hosted on a server, such can be done very inexpensively on existing school infrastructure, or by renting servers or space on servers for little money. Last year, our school ran several such tools on rented server space for about $10 a month. I believe that we as schools and educators have a moral imperative to move in this direction. I discussed this in an earlier post as well.

Many of my previous posts have centered on open source Web 2.0 tools and their deployment in education. Future blog posts will continue to seek out the tools as an alternative to the commercialization of Web 2.0 in education.

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Web 2.0 Student Safety

August 10, 2008 in Policies, Technology | No comments

I’ve been wracking my brains trying to formulate a comprehensive web policy for my PK-12 school. There are boiler-plates out there, but most don’t get into the subtlety and nuance of various new technologies. In my previous post It’s got to play in Peoria, I discussed some rationale for integrating Web 2.0 into our instruction. I also outlined some strategies for enhancing student safety: moderation and keeping access to published material limited.

The options I mention can be best displayed on this grid:

Moderated and unmoderated refer to control over publication of content. In a moderated environment, a student may submit something for publication that must be approved by an adult in terms of policy, appropriateness, and content, before it is actually published. Unmoderated means that the student can publish without approval.

Moderation has impact other than security, it affects the ownership that the creator has over the content.

When content is moderated, the user must wait for someone else has viewed and approved what they have done. This can delay the display of the materials resulting in less user satisfaction and reduces spontaneity. Students feel less ownership and empowerment.

Public and private represent an oversimplification of access to the content. At one end of the spectrum what is published is available to the world at large, including search engines and archives. On the other end, whatever is published can only be viewed by the creator.

The choices have consequences beyond security. They also impact the creator’s sense of audience.

Audience is an important motivation to create. It also makes the creator more mindful of quality. A volunteer working after school with a student told me how he wanted to show off his blog and how much more motivated he was to do a writing assignment because of it. Another very poor writer found her voice and the skills fell into place. Others just wrote more. A wider audience also increases opportunity for collaboration.  Private access, while safer, limits the audience and conteracts the benefits.

If access is further controlled by putting the data on an intranet rather than the Internet it is even safer. It may, depending upon how it is configured limits the students’ access to the content to the school setting making it unavailable from home and other places outside school.

These are a few parameters in web publishing policy that one might consider for student web publishing, as well as their consequences. Again, as we will see in future posts, these matrices represent gross over simplifications and that these dichotomies are more realistically represented with shades of gray.

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It’s got to play in Peoria

July 22, 2008 in Policies, Technology | 3 comments

If you are reading this, you are probably already aware of and excited by the possibilities of Web 2.0 in education. You are probably already sold. But what about the people in our K-12 community: other teachers, administrators, parents, tech committees, and school boards? Mention social networking on the Internet, and they think of is the latest scandalous material that any one of out local teens has posted on MySpace. Blogs are places where people post outrageous materials followed by flame wars in the comments.

Web 2.0 enthusiasts in K-12 settings are often faced with a tough sell. Community members are rightfully concerned about safety and security. Like it or not, we must address these fears and understand that what we do must be in accordance to what is acceptable in the community–like it or not.

First, we need to let them know why this important and valuable. Whether they like it or not, Web 2.0 will be, if it isn’t already part of the children’s lives. My fifth grade student told me that her older sister set up a MySpace page for her. I know her sister, and I’ve heard about her antics on MySpace: very inappropriate, if not dangerous materials and cyberbullying. I guarantee that my fifth grader was not told about safety, privacy, and what is appropriate to post online.

That’s our job. When I was in school, we actually had lessons on safety and etiquette on the telephone. We talk about fire and bicycle safety as a matter of state mandate. It is more dangerous to ignore and avoid Web 2.0 than it is to teach about it and apply it in a safe educational manner.

Furthermore, higher education and many employers expect a certain level of expertise among our students. A few months ago, a recent graduate told me her professor told them to make a webpage as part of the course. When the students protested that they didn’t know how, he told them to find out. More courses are on-line or have on-line components. Students need to know how to blog, collaborate on a wiki, and participate on a discussion forum. It goes without saying that any technological knowledge opens doors to employment opportunities.

One approach I have used to help reassure stakeholders regarding student safety is the use of moderation. In our school website and student blogs, nothing appears on the wide open Internet until it is approved and published by a responsible adult. The litmus test for any web application used to publish to the Internet at large is that it must have a moderation mechanism allowing somebody to act as a gatekeeper. What is allowed to be published must meet the standards of the school community. I’ll talk about that more in a future blog post.

Another approach is a “walled garden” in which access to any materials is password protected. Students may publish freely within this closed community, but are held to account by adults overseeing the site. Students must know the rules and expectations. Adults need to be vigilant, intervene, and remediate when something unacceptable is posted. Students might do something wrong, but education and discussion will minimize such occurrences. One advantage to using a web application for this is that there is greater accountability. You can tell who posted what and when, rather than a “he said, she said” scenario common to physical schools.

For greatest safety, one can combine the moderation with a walled community. Nothing is posted without approval, and that which is posted is has an audience limited to the class or some other appropriate limited audience.

These measures often require you to host and configure software in your own district. Odds are you will not find free hosted solutions that meet these requirements (not to mention the privacy concerns of handing student information off to third parties).

These restrictions may fly in the face of the wide open nature of new Internet, but compromise is sometimes necessary if it is going to play in your school community.

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2007-2008 Reflection: NYSCATE 07

July 8, 2008 in Social Networking, Technology | No comments

November 2007 marked my return to NYSCATE after many years. I hadn’t gone since the NHEEP consortium which financed participation in the conferences dissolved. Energized by putting together our school website on a shoestring with third party webhosting and open sourced software, I wanted to share, so I proposed a presentation and it was accepted.

Presenting at NYSCATE was rewarding. I felt that participants genuinely valued what I was presenting. Many were technically oriented teachers from small districts where “many hats.” One was still using static html pages for their school website and was excited to find another option–open source content management systems that were easier to manage and update. Others found it refreshing to attend a presentation were nobody had something to sell. Still another remarked that the presentation was the highlight of the conference for him. One disappointment was that even though I left the door open for further communication through this website (the moodle portion), none took advantage. I’d like to know if attending my presentation led to any real change. Finally, with the presentation, scheduled for the last day, I found it difficult to focus on the rest of the conference.

The one big thing I took from NYSCATE was that if I didn’t start trying out web 2.0 applications as a user, that I would never “get” it. I dutifully signed up for NYSCATE’s Ning and Twitter. As a result, I found other Ning communities and have become particularly active in Classroom20. I also started this blog. The blog led to an exploration of tags, technorati, and new ways to connect with others. I am still in touch with a few people that I met there. Of course, it also led to setting up blogs for my class and my students.

Overall, participating in NYSCATE’s annual conference was a very important experience that has changed my teaching. I look forward to participating again next year as an attendee and presenter.

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Why Not Run Your Own School Web 2.0 Sites?

February 26, 2008 in Technology, open source | 5 comments

As I have begun to immerse myself in Web 2.0 for education, I have been struck by the prevalence of using “free” hosted services such as Flickr, YouTube, Ning, and other such sites. I don’t have anything against them for individual use, but I do have concerns about using such services with students–particularly elementary grade students. I feel that many Web 2.0 evangelists have overlooked open source alternatives. I prefer to run my own web based open source software on rented server space for a variety of reasons.

First off, it gives a great deal of independence. If you want to try a particular piece of server based open source software, you can. If you find something that looks promising or interesting, you can pretty much install it immediately and give it a run. I heard about Elgg, so I installed it. I ran into an educational distribution for Drupal and had it up and running within the hour. Prologue appears promising as a private Twitter and I have it going in a few minutes.

It also avoids issues with “free” hosted web services. First of all, we can host content without the issues involving other, often inappropriate, content on the same site. I run our sites without advertising. I don’t have to deal with as many concerns about privacy. Students can get accounts on the site without revealing personal information and details. Furthermore, nobody is monitoring the browsing habits and creating demographic data and profiles of individuals using the sites we created.

Using open source web based solutions can be as simple or as complex as one decides to make it. Many programs can be installed by absolute novices using a control panel that performs the process with a few mouse clicks and keyboard strokes–no more difficult than signing up for a free blog. A simple WordPress blog is very easy to administer–not very different from administrating a hosted blog. As one gains skill and confidence, the options and possibilities grow exponentially.

It also has, at our school, removed obstacles and opened opportunities. If an educator at our school wants to try something, it simply has to pass muster with the tech committee. As long as it is technologically feasible, it can be done without running the gauntlet of BOCES hierarchy and technicians. As an example, one local school wanted to host video through their BOCES run website. BOCES told them that they couldn’t possibly do it because it required too much of their servers and pointed them to YouTube! Our school published video directly on our website with no issues.

Another reason for using rented hosting and open source software is cost. The software is free, although plugins and templates can cost money (many are free). Our school started its website on a $10 per month shared hosting plan. We never came close taxing our server resources to limits. BOCES would have charged us thousands of dollars each year.

There is the investment of time learning how to use, configure, customize, and administer the software. As mentioned above–it can range from simple and undemanding to complex and challenging. In addition, you can pay a little more for a webhost that will take care of some of the set and configuration for you.

Using open source software has been an empowering learning experience. I had very few IT skills other than having hacked together a third rate static html webpage and ftp’ed it up. That was several years ago and I had long since forgotten it all. Once I made the plunge with a cheap shared host account, I immediately discovered the ease of setting up websites through the control panel. Within a few days I had several domains registered, and a few sites launched. As time has gone on, I have continued learning and expanding. I like learning and I have found this rewarding.

I believe there are compelling reasons to consider open source web 2.0 software on private servers. It has been a wise investment for our school and has opened many possibilities. It has been a source of growth and development for students, staff, and teachers alike.

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