Unthinkingly

On Teachers Moving from Web 0.5 to Web 3.0

David Warlick posts insightfully about the uses of technology in education. Right now he seems like a pretty stressed out guy.

I’m not an educator (though I do work in education via nonprofit evaluation). And I don’t get quite as excited as he does when discussing the latest crop of communication technologies.

But in one of his most recent posts on his blog 2 Cents, I am right there with him pulling out my hair. The story is kind of funny actually, in a sick way (kind of like the way it’s funny when Cheney shoots a 78-year-old man).

The story is like this: Warlick presented to a large group of teachers here in North Carolina recently and polled them informally about the technologies they used.

“How many were blogging, I saw only three hands.

How many read blogs? Perhaps 20.

How many had listened to a podcast? Maybe ten.

How many had podcasted? Zero!

How many used flickr? Zero!

How many knew about social bookmarks? Zero!

Delicious (del.icio.us)? Zero!”

This is all really not that surprising to me. I know that two years of hype about blogging has done little to clarify its value as an fun, educational tool. And these are a particular type of hype-prone (”Web 2.0″) technologies.

And yet, really, these things are exciting and useful. Teachers would love these things. They aren’t just hype. I only wish teachers knew more about these great, fun technologies that kids would love. For sure, I have seen great integrations of podcasting (AKA: grassroots audio) and blogging (AKA: networked writing) into the classroom — and I have seen how serious critical thinking skills are engendered in the use of these technologies.

So I think these teachers’ technological literacy is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s a tragedy, as David might say at this point. I think we are just at an early stage, and we (progressive type/educational bloggers) are impatient to show off the great strides the internet has made in recent years. Or at least, that’s the polite way of putting it.

But when I read the following I was a little more disturbed:

“I asked how many of them had used Gopher. About three-forths of the hands went up. This surprised me. I asked about Telnet. Again, a vast majority of the hands when up.”

That’s right. Gopher and Telnet are not only still on people’s radar, but teachers are apparently much more familiar with these medieval implements than blogs. Why is this so difficult to catch on to? It’s just writing on the internet. Where are the barriers to understanding and use coming from? I know that technological literacy and the digital divide are real complex issues, but dammit, I don’t get it. Why did people stop paying attention when it got interesting? Blogging is so much more engaging and Telnet was … just such a drag!

As David writes: “These are educators who, in the early 1990s, were on the edge. They were paying attention, recognizing an emerging revolution in information, and latching on. What happened between then and now? Why have they missed the new revolution?”

I hope that online communication will become much more mainstream this year. But for now I think that white-hot hype + cold, ivory-tower perspective of technologists has done a lot to keep powerful new communication tools out of the mainstream, locked in some elite computer lab. For now I resolve again to remember that I’m part of an extreme minority of addled programmers and gizmo fetishists. I want to do what I can to remind people that simple, free, worldwide publishing and distribution is now a reality. And for now I just hope that educators aren’t teaching kids that dial-up BBS’s define the world of technology.

Beautiful Packaging, Ugly Statistics

Recently in my commutes to work I’ve been using these incredible flash-based, interactive representations of development statistics. (Don’t worry, I ride the bus.) These modules, created by a Swedish group called Gapminder, are attractively designed and highly educational. I have long been a great fan of sharp design in the interest of development. These are as great a communication tool as I have ever seen.

From the Gapminder website:

“Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualize human development. … It all started in 1998 from an idea to enhance the understanding of world health. We developed prototype software showing time series of health statistics as moving graphics and varying life conditions as 360¬? photo panoramas from homes, schools and health facilities. From the prototype emerged the Dollar Street project with Save the Children Fund in Sweden and the World Health Chart project with WHO. Within the later project Gapminder developed the free software Trendalyzer that turns boring time series of development statistics into attractive moving graphics. “

This Island Blog. (Or, What the Hell is a Blog?)

Your dear author recently posted about the ambivalence and misunderstanding that abounds with regard to the concept of RSS. Based on this weeks hilarious (in a laughing-at-you, not-with-you way) usability survey of blogging from Catalyst Group Design, blogging (yes, the entire concept) is about a mainstream as the Kabbalah.

The people they interviewed (about 25 of them) were smart folks in a wealthy, highly industrialized country. They used the internet all the time. But when they came to a normal blog, they were stumped. They asked: What kind of a website is this? What are these categories? Are they organized chronologically?

These are not stupid questions — they just sound stupid to folks who work with blog publishing software.

The point is this, geeks: people don’t understand what blogs are. They don’t know how to use them effectively and, often, they don’t know how to read them. They certainly don’t know how to subscribe to them via RSS.

If you are a blogger, this may be a difficult concept for you to accept. It was for me.

But ask around. Ask your friends who aren’t geeks. Ask the people at work. I’ll bet you a dollar they don’t know what a blog is. I’ll bet five they don’t read them, and I’ll bet you ten they would be intimidated as hell by the idea of creating their own. (And if I lose that, I’ll bet $50 that, once they start it, they won’t keep up with it.)

For now, we (bloggers) need to recognize that our readership is other bloggers. Don’t get depressed: that’s a pretty decent concept, mate. We can have our little blogger community and create positive change among ourselves. But clearly, we’ll have to move on to reach other users … like real people.

So this technical-sounding “usability study” of blogs means a great deal for people trying to create change with online publishing. Here are a few tips that I have tried to follow here:

For one: If you are a blogger, design down your site. I think that simplicity has an inherent currency in all forms of learning — and all publications are deigned to teach. Consider that your blog, as a text-based medium, would do better to take influences from the world of books (remember those?) than cable TV.

For two: Write for real people, not just geeks. Surely, there is a place for geeky forums, but if your online work is meant to be relevant for people with real lives (present readership excluded), try to avoid terms like trackback and ping, which have a clinically-proven tendency to cause impotence and sleep apnea.