Dedicated to relinquishing responsibility for learning to the students
This Storify essay is a first, rough draft of history – a social document for future historians. Text, image, video and tweets from the initial reaction to the event. (March 10, 2011 GMT-8) ~ I regret that my first use of Storify was to document such a tragic event. My prayers go out to all those impacted by the earthquake and tsunami. I hope to be able to tell happier stories in the future.
I’m pleased to be invited as a guest blogger to the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference 2/20-22 in Portland, Oregon. To help live and virtual attendees follow the backchannel here’s two Twitter visualizers based on the the conference hashtag #ITSC11.
Also – here’s my Prezi intro to Portland.
Wiffiti Screen
(2/27/11 Note) Since this visualization is time sensitive, I have posted a short video screen shot.
Twitter StreamGraph
Flowing graph of the words most frequently used in the latest 1000 tweets marked with the hashtag #itsc11
View full screen
(2/27/11 Note) Since this visualization is time sensitive, I have posted a screen shot. For the next few weeks you can click on link to live versions.
I posted this Twitter StreamGraphs visualization that displays a flowing graph of the words most frequently used in the latest 1000 tweets marked with the hashtag #SOTU. (#SOTU is a Twitter code for Tweets about the State of the Union address.) It was a great way to follow the backchannel Twitter chatter during (and just after) Obama's speech.
Because the level of Tweets using the hastag #SOTU has dropped way off – here's screen shot of what it looked like when it was live. Click to enlarge.
But since there are still a few people tweeting with #SOTU, click here for full screen of the live graph.
Navigation tips: Click on a word to highlight and see included tweets below.
Scroll to right for the latest keywords. Scroll down to see the full Tweet.
If you see a large spike in one time period that hides the detail in all the other periods, click in the area to the left of the y-axis to change the vertical scale.
Hat tip to Twitter StreamGraphs – @JeffClark
A recent post by Mike Gwaltney “Keeping Kids off the Internet – What’s With the Draconian Filtering Policies?” posed some important questions “Is filtering necessary? If so, why filter so aggressively? Is there a way to filter effectively that both protects students and allows them to use the Web to its potential? Aren’t we doing students a disservice by blocking the full internet?”
Here’s my response:
I grew up in a heavily curated information landscape. The news was limited to relatively few sources. I can even remember the days of the 15 minute evening national news cast. Schools were just another one of the information gatekeepers that ruled my life. But at the same time it was rather tough for me to get in trouble. (though at age 16, I did manage to read large portions of the newly banned “Fanny Hill” in the aisles of a progressive bookstore).
Today, students are awash in text without context. They are only a click away from reading that the “Holocaust was a hoax.” Ironically many schools respond by filtering. Wouldn’t it make more sense opening up the internet at school – providing thoughtful analysis and responsible use?
Filtering teaches hacking, not responsible use.
For more on this subject see my post “What Happens in Schools When Life Has become an Open-book Test?“
Image credit: Flickr/GIANTsqurl
Received a nice email from the folks at SlideShare this morning.
"Hi peterpappas, Your presentation "The Student As Historian – DBQ Strategies and Resources" is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team. We thank you for this terrific presentation, that has been chosen from amongst the thousands that are uploaded to SlideShare everday."
Cute baby photo – tough competition!
