澳门跑狗论坛

鈥淲hat鈥檚 your red paper clip?鈥� Will Richardson asked the 30 K-12 educators assembled before him last July. The educational-technology consultant鈥檚 intent was not to kick off the all-day workshop outside Boston with an office-supply riddle, but to illustrate the snowballing effect of interactive software on teaching and learning.

Richardson is the author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, a how-to manual in which he refers to what鈥檚 known as the Web 2.0 phenomenon as the Read/Write Web. He was recounting for his audience the story of Kyle MacDonald, a 27-year-old Canadian who began swapping items with readers of his weblog in July 2005. As the blog鈥檚 title, 鈥淥ne Red Paperclip,鈥� indicates, his first offering was a seemingly insignificant item. Fourteen trades and one year later, however, he鈥檇 bartered up enough to land himself a mortgage-free house in a small town in Saskatchewan.

鈥淭he new Internet isn鈥檛 about technology anymore,鈥� Richardson told the teachers, librarians, tech coordinators, and administrators from across North America, each sitting in front of a monitor in a computer lab at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts. Gone, he said, are the days when Web publishing involved manipulating HTML code and other complicated technical processes. New software is mostly 鈥渙pen source,鈥� meaning it鈥檚 available online for free. 鈥淚nstead, it鈥檚 about your imagination,鈥� Richardson said, 鈥渁bout thinking, quite literally, 鈥榦ut of the box鈥� of the traditional classroom.鈥�

It was 10 a. m., Monday, July 17th, the first of the four-day Building Learning Communities conference. Every year for the past seven, Alan November, founder of November Learning, an edu-tech consulting firm, has paired experts with those eager to learn how to integrate technology into education. This year鈥檚 event drew more than 400 participants from around the world. Richardson鈥檚 workshop was a leadoff session, demonstrating the use and effects of Internet tools. Tanned from a recent vacation, the tall, muscular 48-year-old radiated a positive, robust energy as he projected PowerPoint slides and Web pages onto a large screen.

鈥淭here are over 1 billion people connected to the Web,鈥� he told the crowd, 鈥渁nd that will double within a decade. The Internet contains a trillion links on 100 billion Web pages, with 7 million pages being created daily. Where there were only a handful of people blogging in 1999, there are over 50 million blogs today, and 50 new ones created every minute.鈥�

The effect that this statement had on Suzanne Stacey, a 34-year-old English teacher at Falmouth High School in Maine, was predictable. She sat at the back of the room, shaking her own light-brown, ponytailed head. Consternation flashed across her youthful face. Later, she admitted, 鈥淩ichardson talked really fast, and I felt totally overwhelmed at the beginning. There was so much information.鈥�

But instead of slowing down as the workshop progressed, Richardson sped up, as if to demonstrate his premise: that the Web鈥檚 exponential growth and penetration into every facet of society has created a cultural tsunami. What鈥檚 needed now is what another conference presenter, Darren Kuropatwa鈥攁 Canadian high school math teacher鈥攖erms 鈥渓iquid learning. We are awash in so much information that we have to learn how to manage as it keeps expanding.鈥�

鈥淔or educators,鈥� Richardson said, 鈥渢his means getting our children on board with Web literacy, or they鈥檒l be left behind in the global economy.鈥� Then, in a reassuring tone, he added, 鈥淏ut the task is far more exciting than daunting.鈥�

He should know.

Four years ago, Richardson was teaching English and journalism at Hunterdon Central Regional High, a large, achievement-oriented suburban school in central New Jersey. Up to that point in his then-19-year career, he鈥檇 helped students publish their work in school newspapers and anthologies, believing that public exposure encouraged kids to write better essays, articles, and stories. But he wanted them to have a bigger, more immediate audience. So in fall 2002, Richardson integrated a blog into his Modern American Literature class. Juniors and seniors were now able to read and comment on classmates鈥� work as soon as it was produced, and anybody with an Internet connection could access the kids鈥� writing.

The blog was also used to 鈥渄iscuss鈥� The Secret Life of Bees, a coming-of-age novel that had just been published. Richardson initiated talks about Bees in class, but the kids took it from there, posting their homework in the form of essays about the book鈥檚 characters, themes, and literary devices. They responded to each other鈥檚 work online, and Richardson graded their efforts. These cyberconversations 鈥渉elped one girl in particular who was very reticent to speak in class, then wrote lots of interesting stuff on the blog,鈥� he recalled.

Soon inspiration struck: Why not invite the book鈥檚 author to participate? Sue Monk Kidd agreed because she was able to log on at her convenience from her South Carolina home, where she was busy writing another novel.

Toni Gibson, now a sophomore at Penn State University, was one of Richardson鈥檚 initial bloggers. 鈥淲e had heated conversations about what the bees 鈥� and so on represented, but everyone鈥檚 answers made sense,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hen we heard directly from the author what she meant, which enabled us to explore the book so much beyond the surface.鈥�

Although Kidd couldn鈥檛 be reached for comment, the following is taken from one of her blog entries:

When I was growing up, we had what we called the 鈥渇amily bees鈥濃�� [living] inside the wall of a back bedroom. ... I thought all the time about ... how they sounded, their incredible vibrating hum. They engendered feelings of awe, even mystery, inside of me. ... When I anticipated writing a novel ... I started to picture a girl in early adolescence lying in bed while a cloud of bees poured through cracks in her bedroom walls and flew circles around the room. I imagined the bees coming as a visitation, as if there was some hidden purpose in it. I kept trying to imagine what it might be. I asked myself: Who is this girl? What does she want? Take a vivid image and ask those questions, and before you know it, you will have a novel.

Within weeks, Richardson recalled, 鈥渆normous numbers of people all over the world were visiting the blog. The kids were amazed, and it flipped a million hits in less than a year. The Secret Life of Bees made the New York Times bestseller list for a long time, yet our blog came up first on Google鈥攂efore the author鈥檚 or Amazon鈥檚 sites鈥攁nd still does.鈥�

He said he was most impressed, however, with the realization 鈥渢hat this fundamentally changes what we ask our kids to do. Instead of saying, 鈥楬and it in,鈥� which is always, 鈥榯o me, the teacher,鈥� now we鈥檒l be seeking audiences for student work beyond the classroom walls. There鈥檚 some low-hanging fruit here, since students feel far more motivated when writing to a real audience.鈥�

In 2004, Richardson posted a separate set of blogs, linking his journalism students to professionals in the field whom the teens had recruited, via e-mail, as mentors. One student, Meredith Fear, was able to partner with Scott Higham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with the Washington Post. (See sidebar, right.) As Meredith developed, reported, and wrote her stories, asking questions along the way, Higham sent comments and advice via the blog, even as he traveled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a story about a secret CIA detention facility.

Richardson used these and other examples during the workshop to illustrate how profoundly the Read/Write Web affects teaching. 鈥淲e must become connectors,鈥� he told the participants. 鈥淭here are lots of people out there who know more than we do about our subject, and we have to start being OK with connecting our kids to them.鈥�

It was Wendy Smith, a software trainer, who introduced Richardson to the Internet in 1994, while they were on a date. 鈥淲endy brought over her computer and took me online for the first time,鈥� he recalled. A romance ignited鈥攚ith Wendy, of course鈥攁nd they got married two years later. The Richardsons now have two children: Tess, 9, and Tucker, 7.

Will was also enthralled with the Web, which was then primarily an information archive. It fit perfectly with his fledgling journalism class because, he said, his students responded so positively to researching stories online鈥攋ust like professionals.

Today, schools still use the Internet mostly as a research tool. Even before attending Richardson鈥檚 workshop, Suzanne Stacey, the English teacher from Maine, had her freshmen investigate themes such as suicide and teen romance online as they read Romeo and Juliet. The searches, she explained, not only augmented the text, but also engaged struggling students.

But their interest in the Web was limited. Although the Falmouth district supplies all freshmen with laptops, Stacey said her students considered the computers more of a burden than an opportunity. 鈥淭hey treated them like textbooks and often forgot to bring them to class,鈥� derailing many of her lesson plans as a result.

Part of the problem is that many students鈥攁nd teachers鈥攃onsider computers look-up devices only. 鈥淲e鈥檙e now beginning to see Generation Google at the J-School,鈥� says Sree Sreenivasan, dean of students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 鈥淪ince high school, they鈥檝e defaulted to plugging search terms into Google, then selecting material from the first several hits, as if reaching the top of the search engine鈥檚 pile proved its validity.鈥�

But Web-literate students dig deeper and authenticate sources, Richardson told the workshoppers. He showed them the home page for MartinLutherKing.org, which, at a glance, looks legitimate. Its link is even positioned high on Google鈥檚 list. But the site is maintained by Stormfront, a white supremacist group, and contains racist propaganda. 鈥淲hen students encounter suspicious content,鈥� Richardson said, 鈥渢hey need to know how to determine Web site ownership and what it means.鈥�

They also have to learn how to navigate the Internet鈥檚 biggest youth draw: social networking sites. On MySpace.com, for example, sexual material is included in many of the personal profile pages. But the site also serves as a virtual hangout for kids鈥攁 place where they can 鈥渢alk,鈥� share interests, and express themselves. Fear of exposing students to inappropriate material and to online predators, however, motivates schools to restrict access to such sites.

鈥淢ySpace has over 93 million members and, as a country, would be the 12th largest in the world,鈥� Richardson claimed. 鈥淲e have to deal with it, and while I don鈥檛 expect schools to unblock MySpace, they certainly need to have a unit on how to create accounts responsibly. Most kids are on it anyway and can benefit, for example, from talent scouts who mine the site. 鈥� In music alone, there are a million bands with a presence.鈥�

Richardson isn鈥檛 the only one who feels this way. In June, prior to speaking before a gathering of 49 school superintendents in upstate New York, he asked the readers of his education blog () what he should pass on to the school officials. Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, wrote:

Tell them that locking out the sites and tools of this new world our kids live in will render us irrelevant and useless when our students need us most. 鈥� Tell them that many of our students know how to reach a larger audience more quickly than any school district memo could ever hope to. Tell them that our students need our help to make them understand how powerful that is. ... Tell them that we can build the 24/7/365 school if we embrace the technologies our students are already using.

Just before lunch, Richardson took the educators step-by-step through the process of setting up their own wikis at pbwiki.com. Much to the relief of the techno-novices, this proved remarkably easy. 鈥淎 wiki is a type of Web site that allows users to easily add and edit content,鈥� Richardson explains on one of his blog鈥檚 resource pages. Most wikis are open to the public, so the content may be changed any time by anyone鈥攁nd quickly, which is the meaning of the word in Hawaiian.

Wikis make especially effective tools for collaborative writing, as Richardson demonstrated with a tour of Wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedia. Hundreds of thousands of anonymous contributors have generated millions of reference works in 200 languages. As an open work-in-progress, Wikipedia is fallible by definition and vulnerable to abuse, but students often cite it as a credible resource, so it can鈥檛 be ignored, Richardson insisted. In fact, he noted, the site affords an opportunity to teach Web literacy. Kids need to learn how to fact-check independently by cross-referencing information with online university databases, for example. He also recommended that teachers show students how to use their reports and research to become Wikipedia contributors.

At Hunterdon Central, Richardson鈥檚 media-literacy students started using a wiki in 2003 to collect research on advertising and the media. Although Richardson set it up, students maintained the wiki, and it has been expanded and referred to by succeeding classes, making his job easier in the long run.

On his resource page, Richardson lists 19 examples of education wikis, several of which he talked about in July to demonstrate the range of applications. At the elementary school level, 鈥渒ids from around the world write collaboratively about the places they live on he said. A truly riveting site, he added, is the 鈥淗olocaust Wiki Project,鈥� (). Created by Dan McDowell, a high school history teacher in southern California, it puts each student in the shoes of a Jewish child who lived in Nazi-era Germany.

鈥淐an wikis be used for generating paperless student portfolios?鈥� asked David Sherman, the 42-year-old principal of South Park Elementary School in Deerfield, Illinois.

鈥淪ure,鈥� Richardson answered, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 better to use blogs, since they allow feedback.鈥�

Parents, he pointed out, can see portfolios posted on a blog, and they can comment and ask questions. Also, teachers don鈥檛 have to worry about storing every last student paper in bulky filing cabinets.

鈥淲ikis,鈥� Richardson continued, 鈥渁re more about creating content, and blogs more about conversations. Think of it as connective writing versus the wiki鈥檚 collaborative approach.鈥�

As wonderful as blogs and wikis sound, you actually have to possess such tools鈥攁nd the specialized know-how鈥攖o make use of them. While virtually every public school is Internet-connected, some, especially those in poorer areas, don鈥檛 have the staff and technical support necessary to make full use of computers. Many underprivileged kids don鈥檛 even have PCs at home. Richardson doesn鈥檛 mince words; he acknowledges that, without such resources, 鈥渘ot much鈥� can be done to help students become Web literate.

There are also these questions: Is technology overrated? Does it distract from a child鈥檚 core education?

Even edu-tech consultant Alan November, a former high school teacher himself, is cautious. 鈥淭his new technology isn鈥檛 a magic bullet that鈥檚 going to automatically improve education,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n fact, it takes a tremendous amount of work and creativity, and you have to recognize what problem you鈥檙e trying to solve with technology. Are we simply preparing kids to go into the business world by getting them to understand technology? Or are we trying to transform the culture of teaching and learning to really prepare kids to be self-motivated, true lifelong learners?

鈥淚鈥檓 in the latter camp but don鈥檛 see evidence that schools are moving in that direction. Currently schools aren鈥檛 taking much advantage of technology.鈥�

Which is where Richardson believes that he comes in. And as a believer in the 鈥渃onnective鈥� potential of technology, he considers blogs the Internet鈥檚 most powerful tool. After he鈥檇 helped the educators set up their own on the conference鈥檚 Web site (), he explained that bloggers are free to write about any topic. They can also post photos, graphics, audio and video files, additional pages of content, and links to other sites. Because visitors can comment on entries, blogs are also open to discussion.

Although blogs have been around since the late 1990s, educators weren鈥檛 as quick to make use of them as, say, businesspeople and journalists were. In the last few years, however, they鈥檝e made up for that early reluctance by using the tool in various ways. Richardson鈥檚 blog-resource page links to a handful of examples, including a Hunterdon Central-based project called 鈥淣J-Georgia Connection.鈥�

In 2003, Richardson coordinated a blog relationship between his journalism students and a 4th grade class in Conyers, Georgia, in which juniors and seniors taught the principles of reporting and news writing to elementary-schoolers. The 4th graders, in turn, were truly engaged. 鈥淭hey all wanted to write well for the high-schoolers,鈥� says Anne Davis, who coordinated the Georgia side of the project. 鈥淭heir response was totally different than the usual handing work into the teacher. It was wonderful to find a way to keep kids on task and end up with such high-quality writing.鈥�

Richardson told his workshop audience that, while there were only seven blogs devoted to discussing education when he first got into the practice, 鈥渘ow there are 69,000.鈥� Most edu-bloggers, he added, 鈥渆stablish a small online community of five or 10 correspondents鈥攗sually teachers or administrators facing similar challenges鈥攚ho help each other with suggestions and break through the professional isolation of the classroom.鈥�

Weblogg-ed.com is an exception. According to site statistics, Richardson has hundreds of readers daily, partly because he solicits information and advice from leaders in the edu-tech world. He asked the conference attendees to click on the 鈥渆d blogs鈥� tab on his site. Soon they found a list of links to roughly 60 teachers, principals, tech coordinators, and college professors whose blogs Richardson reads and responds to regularly. And they read his.

鈥淭his is my learning community that transformed my life,鈥� he declared. 鈥淚 learned more from interacting with these educators over the last five years than in my entire career before.鈥�

As Richardson built up a blog following, he also began instructing colleagues at Hunterdon Central on Internet use. Soon he was conducting professional development seminars for the entire staff. By fall 2003, he was the school鈥檚 full-time supervisor of instructional technology, teaching only one journalism class鈥攊nstead of the five he鈥檇 amassed over the years鈥攐n the side.

Tom Smith, Hunterdon Central鈥檚 director of curriculum, says Richardson 鈥渕oved the whole school forward with technology. What he started is being carried on by the humanities departments.鈥� Indeed, half the school鈥檚 English teachers and 40 percent of the social studies staff use wikis or blogs, and student blogging is required for many courses.

Richardson also attracted media attention鈥攁t first because of the Bees blog, then because of his own. 鈥淭he New York Times and other major publications started calling me as an expert on the use of software tools in the classroom,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淣ot long after, my [blog] readership jumped from 250 to 1,800 a day.鈥�

Soon he was also advising educators outside his district, accepting increasing numbers of bookings for workshops and keynote addresses鈥攁nd making extra money. During the 2005-06 school year, he moonlighted during almost all of his 23 vacation days. So this past spring, he had a decision to make.

鈥淚鈥檇 found my passion,鈥� Richardson said of being an edu-tech expert, 鈥渁nd I knew I couldn鈥檛 stay at Hunterdon Central and follow it.鈥� After conferring with his wife, he chose to retire from public education and form his own company鈥攚hich he calls, appropriately enough, Connective Learning. It wasn鈥檛 easy. He鈥檇 taught for 22 years and loved working with kids. And he wasn鈥檛 yet fully vested. 鈥淚 lost about 60 percent of my pension and all my benefits,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut I knew I was doing the right thing.鈥�

The new career suits him well. He鈥檚 gotten far more speaking and workshop requests than he anticipated, and as the all-day event near Boston drew to a close, he appeared more energized than when it began. 鈥淚鈥檝e become a nomadic learner,鈥� he explained later. 鈥淚 graze on information and knowledge as I need it鈥攁nd I know where to find it online.鈥�

A self-confessed 鈥渂logvangelist,鈥� Richardson is focused on converting teachers and administrators to his viewpoint. He believes the Internet and the right software tools will liberate students from the anachronistic traditional classroom. They鈥檒l then become self-motivated learners and creators, driven by their own passions.

鈥淩ight-brainers are going to rule the flat, wired world,鈥� he told the educators, paraphrasing the subtitle to Daniel Pink鈥檚 best-selling book A Whole New Mind. 鈥淜ids will become designers, or they鈥檒l be flipping burgers. We have to prepare them for what their real place in the world is going to be.鈥�

As the workshop ended, Richardson asked the same question he鈥檇 posed hours earlier: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 your red paper clip?鈥�

Nobody answered, and the reason may have been fatigue. During the last 90 minutes, Richardson had sped through lessons on posting multimedia files on the Web and using social bookmarking software, leaving everyone gasping for breath. Fortunately most had taken extensive notes, and many ended up buying Richardson鈥檚 book so they鈥檇 be able to experiment in the coming weeks.

A few days after the workshop, however, Carol Amaral-Ly, head of the computer department at the private preK-12 Wilmington Friends School in Delaware, had an answer to Richardson鈥檚 question. 鈥淚 think that my red paper clip will be to try to encourage other colleagues to identify a red paper clip of their own,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n addition to some one-on-one work, we will pursue mapping out a mechanism for sharing this information through mini-workshops, at faculty meetings, and possibly by archiving information about these tools in a wiki.

鈥淭he most important thing I learned from Will鈥檚 workshop was that these are the tools that our students will learn about and use, with or without us. So expanding their learning space to include these technologies is critical.鈥�