Ethics of a Walled Garden

The concept of a walled garden has been in use for some time to describe an approach to school access to the wider world, and the internet in particular. A school with a walled garden approach to internet access only allows students to explore a limited part of the internet that is deemed to be safe and of educational value to students. The term is mainly used in a derisory manner by ICT in education people to describe over-restricted student systems that provide teachers and students with a severely truncated version of the internet.

For young children we have always provided a highly protected learning environment as they start to gain skills and understandings about the big wide world. By the senior years we are used to the idea that they read adult literature and explore sophisticated and sometimes quite dark ideas - like some of the themes in Shakespeare. Throughout my career there has always been some tension between the notion of providing children in the middle years with an enclosed school environment - a walled garden - or engaging them more with the world. The internet has brought this tension to the foreground because it opens a great big window into the world from any computer, making it difficult to isolate the school from the wider world. Children can have more choices where they play and explore.

At home, most students have quite open access to the internet. I think this creates a real ethical dilemma for administrators and teachers. In who's interests is a walled garden approach to the internet? If their school's internet is a highly restricted walled garden then children will certainly be attracted to the lively forest over the wall.

Education departments and administrators justify the maintenance of very restricted internet access for students on the grounds that internet access including collaborative activities can lead to privacy risks, bullying and access to damaging material. This is said in full awareness of the fact that outside the school, children may well face all these risks with little protection. Experts in child safety are unanimous that the best protection against the risks mentioned above is child awareness and skills development. This can be done best by schools working in cooperation with parents. It seems to me that ethically, teachers should be focusing on what is best for the student and this is not served well by restricting the learning that can best occur in a classroom. If schools engage their students with sensible use of the internet this learning will help children in their home use of the internet. School administrators who support a highly restricted school environment often cite parent complain or litigation as risks. This is a hint that their actions may be more self-serving than being in the interests of their students. Students who are engaged in wide-ranging internet access will learn discrimination skills and selectivity. Students engaged in school social networking for learning will learn about managing their privacy and online safety measures. They will learn skills that help them in their online life at home.

For a school to largely withdraw their students from engagement with the internet and some of its potential risks is to my mind ethically questionable when we know that a large majority of students from at least age 12 and beyond are actively engaged in this world out of school. Educators cannot use the argument that this is not the school's role because the internet is a dominant and growing medium in our society and in education.

Parents are likely to be very supportive of initiatives in this area. The boundaries of appropriate behaviour are not firm and teachers are well placed to help their students think through what is appropriate. The level of engagement with the internet I am supporting for middle years students includes password protected collaborative sites, engagement with peers and lightly filtered but monitored internet access: a walled garden but with a low wall.




Image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walled_garden_-_geograph.org.uk_-_273916.jpg

Australian Curriculum site: finding your way around

Here is a little video (4 min) I made based on a few hours exploring the site. It demonstrates the features and tricks to navigate the Australian Curriculum Consultation web site. The site is polished and encourages feedback..

eBooks and horses

In returning to The Infernal ebook topic of January, I am reminded that I have been told over and over again by people sceptical about a future with ebooks that nothing can replace the book - the feel the smell etc. etc. Well people used to feel that way about horses. When horses were ubiquitous in the community, they were generally valued and even loved (the feel the smell etc. etc.) and few people could imagine life without them. It took about two decades for the automobile to largely replace the horse in our community. We won't have that much time to adjust to the ebook. So it would be a good idea for people to have a calm and dispassionate look at what ebooks have to offer: especially if they are involved in education. This is not a for and agains argument but a little list of what ebooks offer in addition to that which books offer.

Storage: fifty or a hundred books stored in a package that weighs less than one hardcover book.
Accessibility: immediate acces to any part of any of these books; bookmarking and notes 'in' the text.
Integration: for web capable ebooks like the iPad, one device for internet research, reference (ebooks) and creative tools.
Portability: see Storage
Cost: too early to tell; they are generally about 20% cheaper, and there will probably be dramatic reductions in some texts that are purchased in large volumes. Many ebooks are free. Education systems will be motivated to produce their own texts to support some curriculum.
Reading Experience: In my experience most of the critics have never read an ebook. I have only used a small screen such as an iPhone, and I find a book a slightly better experience. But when the ebook costs $20 and the book $26, I buy the former.
Sharing: Books are easier to share, but this may change as purchase options change with ebooks. Some libraries are finding lending ebooks on line just like a real book to be very popular.

To return to the horse - automobile analogy, I think it likely that in ten years it may be a strong one, with paper books being an expensive and a slightly exotic way to give someone a special present. But if book printing-on-demand really takes off, then the balance of paper and digital books will be much more complex.

Digital Natives myth debunked (again!)

The Economist has a story on March 4th The net generation, unplugged which looks at the popular idea of modern students being 'digital natives' - a different kind of person to most of their 'digital immigrant' teachers. The term was coined by Mark Prensky, and is very popular among people trying to excite teachers about the need for an educational revolution. But it is being widely questioned, says The Economist.

'Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical, saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population.'

The article is worth reading as are the very smart comments that follow it, mostly agreeing. An exception is from Don Tapscott who coined the term Net Generation in 1997. He says he has evidence that it is real.

I think the different generation message might make the conference speaker spreading it feel smart and superior and in the forefront of thinking, but it is a damaging message to teachers struggling with the challenge of learning a lot of new skills. The digital native idea suggest that they can never catch up with their students who have differently wired brains due to growing up with technology. I am old enough to remember the same argument being put regarding comics! Over-generalising about the young and about social trends contradicts the diversity teachers see in their students.

My post of just 12 months ago on this topic provides reference to a research project on the subject that is worth reading.

Which school computer? Accessibility rules

There must be some attraction for school leaders for the NSW department's approach to provision of computers for schools under the DER. There is one netbook computer for all Yr 9-12 students and teachers, with one set of software at one low price. Don't have to worry about that choice question for quite a while. The other state systems at are leaving the choice of type of computer to schools, with some restrictions. It is a fearsome decision to make. With the NSW approach, a very cheap price can be negotiated and school and system management is greatly simplified. But, it prevents schools making their own adaptations and maybe, locks the system into a less than optimal set-up for several years. There are obvious advantages and there are potential risks. One of these is the constantly changing hardware environment. Netbooks only arrived in the last two years.

Apple's announcement of the iPad might, just might, change the whole environment regarding which computers are used in schools. At this stage the iPad is two months away from release, and it appears to be significantly under-powered for school computing. But our perception of what level of computing is required for which students is constantly evolving.

It is interesting that the Queensland department has a different view to NSW and has not accepted netbooks for DER funding, arguing that notebooks or desktop computers are required if students are to be able to engage in the more creative uses of computers. Most of the other jurisdictions are leaving the decision to schools. Victoria and SA recommends that schools get netbooks, but offer a choice of netbooks, laptops and desktops. Of course the term netbook is not defined. It is a small, relatively low powered computer, and there are big and small members of the family.

So what is the best choice? There will be debate about whether the iPad constitutes a 'laptop computer' within the DER definition but I am betting it will qualify. [Update: no it doesn't because it lacks a physical keyboard! (ruling by DEEWR) 10/3/10] With lots of discussion about smart phones being include in the mix of school computers, there will surely be good arguments to include the iPad. Not for all situations, but my bet is that the iPad will be a very suitable computer for 80% of school purposes. At about $500 it is in the price range. It is very portable and lightweight. It provides instant web access and is a platform for a vast number of applications, with many more purpose-built apps for education on the way. But it does not multi-task, yet, has no camera and has limited storage and will not run lots of standard PC applications. But maybe we need to think about using more than one appliance? Students can take photos and video with their phone, email these to the iPad, create a voice, text image and video presentation upload these to the web and view from any computer anywhere.

The Economist says that the iPad may have its greatest impact on netbook sales. That's the market it is aimed at. I think we need to pay a lot attention to accessibility of a computer. It is the immediacy of iPhone access to the web and to applications that is one of its main appeals. The rigmarole of setting up a laptop, getting it started and accessing information is quite frustrating in a class when the whole process takes at least five minutes - which can feel like an age. Immediately accessible small devices are very appealing. Which to me counters some of the argument of the people who believe that a full strength laptop is the only option. Of course, taking a class to another room where the desktop computers are is at the negative end of the scale of accessibility. Notice that I just argued that accessibility may counter higher power. The two factors have nothing to do with each other, but that is the type of thinking that we go through. Am I willing to trade off factor x in order to increase factor y. By bet is that one-to-one computing is all about universal accessibility to the new tools. That means any-where access (home and school wireless), open systems (minimal filtering and student responsibility) simplicity, portability and speed, so every teacher and every student can use the tools.

Social Bookmarking: an essential learning tool

It is a bit bold to say that any tool is essential for learning, but I think the advantages this tool brings are clear and decisive. The major feature of social bookmarking is that one's bookmarks are stored on the internet and are available from any computer. This is a huge advantage. Few people work exclusively on one computer. The second feature is that bookmarks are categorised by tags and searchable notes so there is no need to put bookmarks in folders in order to locate them. Tags are the way of the future. There is no need to be worried about having too many bookmarks, so long as you have some order in your tags. The third feature is that social bookmarking is social. Your collection can be shared with people you learn, work or play with. In a formal teaching situation this is very valuable learning opportunity if teachers use it.

There are many social bookmarking applications. Delicious is the best known. I like Diigo because it has some extra features and it is quite education-friendly. The video below gives a very brief introduction to the basic process of creating a bookmarking and using tags to organise your collection.

Teachers can log their student into Diigo as a group. They can the work as a private group to share bookmarks on topics they are studying. This means that students can get feedback on their selection of bookmarks and the comments and tags they use. They can develop the quite sophisticated categorisation and selection skills involved in this process.

Diigo is distinctive in that it has an additional feature, that it allows web pages to be annotated with sticky notes. This means that if student are searching for web information on a class topic, not only can they bookmark it and share this with their classmates, but they can also attach notes (annotations) to the actual web page that are only seen by members of their class group. This creates some very interesting opportunities for discussion about web sites.

A class Wiki: a do it yourself learning management system

Wikis have come a long way and now some big players are providing free wiki sites they are becoming an attractive option for most teachers to consider. The video below is a getting started guide to using Google Sites which is the system I like. But there are many more like WetPait, WikiSpaces and EduBlogs.

Most teachers seem to be introduced to technologies like this by first looking at what functions the sofware perform, then they start to consider how it might be useful in their class. In an ideal world they would probably do it differently. First consider teaching purposes, then ponder all the way of helping achieve these, narrow the options down to maybe some software, then, do an analysis of the software and select the most suitable. I think in reality people are not so cold bloodedly logical, and jump back and forth from see an idea in a tool, thinking about its classroom use, then going back to look at the tool. It is a mishmash of seeing an opportunity, checking out its learning potential, wrestling with practical issues, personal skills development, trying it out with students, taliking about it with colleagues. Practical learning is working at several levels simultaneously.

So, this video will tell you a bit about functions that Sites offers, and it shows some of the quite practical steps to getting it running in your class. Because this is the thinking processes that I suspect you will be going through when considering whether to use a tool like a wiki.





Teachers who quickly find a use of a wiki are interested in student publishing, creating a real audience for writing, collaboration and student responsibility and creativity.

My experience in workshops is that teachers can effectively manage their Sites wiki after about an hour of exploration. This is a testamnent to the first main feature of a wiki - simplicity.
The second feature is colaborative editing, so a group can manage a site, and the third is access to version of the site, giving one the capacity to recover from mistakes or vandalism. Together, the three features make it a very good tool for a class web site with student involvement.

An important aspect of wikis like the Google one is that even though they are fairly simple to manage, they have some powerful features. An example is the ability to subscribe to a site or a page. Once this is done the subscriber receives an email each time the site or page is altered, which makes it easy to keep up to date with a page or site you are sharing respobsibility for.

The best way to find out if software like this is useful to you is to give it a go. It's free.