Onionskin

Summertime means many things to many people, but I daresay that it means the most to teachers.

I, for one, can’t wait to do may of the things that most of you will be doing — sleeping in just a little later, catching up on leisure reading, getting my house back under control, taking the kids on daytrips to our favorite spots.

However, like so many other die hard ed techies out there, I’ll be splashing around with new Web 2.0 tools and trying out apps that I just never seem to get to during the school year. I stuck my toe in the water with Diigo, but have I really explored all that it can do? I can’t wait to tap into my Twitter network to learn more about this. (I’m sure someone tweeted two weeks ago that they were developing a tutorial!)

But first I have to come clean and say that I haven’t yet explored a couple of the most basic spaces on the web that I should have, by now.

So, in this order, I hereby resolve to immerse myself fully (in the shallow end!) of MySpace, Facebook, and SecondLife. (A audible roar from the DEN STAR educators… I swear I heard it!)

Please put on your lifeguard gear. I fully expect that you’ll be there when I gurgle, “HELP! HElp. hel……”

Photo Credit: Lifesaver? by GarySmith70 on Flickr

Most Twitter users casually refer to this tool as a “social networking tool,” but by-and-large, the connotation within my PLN is that we connect with other educational technologists in a chatroom-like environment that mimics a social gathering at times.

In fact, if and when we actually meet some of these people at an ed tech conference, big smiles and hugs are the standard greeting — amongst people who have never been in the same room in reality.

Recently, a small informal group of us “introduced” our children via a smaller and carefully controlled Twitter group. Exchanges between the Twitter-8s has been choppy and sporadic, largely due to the busy schedules of the parents. But the kids have pursued the interest, often bumping parents off the computer “for just a few minutes” so they can tweet their virtual “friends”.

Yesterday, warm weather and an ease-up in schedule allowed the first scheduled F2F (face-to-face) meeting of a couple of these kids. The boys had a grand time riding bikes and scooters, flying kites (well, trying), feeding ducks and geese. As will happen with boys, each ended up with a minor scrape or bruise, but they are looking forward to seeing each other again.

All of the Twitter-8s were invited, but you know how weekend activities tend to swallow up the free time. Disappointment was evident in the responses of those who couldn’t make it this time. We’re hoping to get the others to join us for future gatherings. After all, this is all about social networking!

A convergence of events has resulted in an exciting experiment!

First, my son posted his VoiceThread. Second, people from my Twitter network whom I had met face-to-face at recent ed tech conferences were kind enough to comment on it. Third, the Twitter chatter before or at that time revealed that several of us had offspring that are currently eight years old.

One Twitter friend wanted her son to comment on the VoiceThread, a more authentic and age-appropriate critique than the ed tech folks that kindly responded to my request. My son’s response? “Does he have e-mail? Can I meet him? Can he come over and play?”

Tweets were exchanged. Moms checked out options. (We didn’t like Youth Twitter, for those of you who wonder, because the Tweets are ALL public. Unlike our Twitter, there’s no @ function or DM.) But we really wanted to harness the power of this interest in connection among our own kids.

So we set them up with their own Twitter accounts – protected and followed closely by us. We struggled through the details, like if we follow them, they see all of our exchanges with our friends. (No, no, no. That’s not what I had in mind!) We closely monitor their Twitter time, and we happily deny requests for followers that we don’t know personally.

Funny thing is, within ONE DAY, the number of Twitterers in this small group had doubled. Now we have FOUR kids of ed tech geeks – none of whom have met each other – vying for computer time with their parents, just to see what their Twitter network has to say.

So far the messages have been somewhat tentative. There have been few repeated exchanges. As parents we agreed to let them “spell creatively” for the time being. (They are, after all, in about second grade.) Then again, one really geeky parent pointed out that his child already knows how to “ff” for spellcheck. (I didn’t know about that option… thanks!)

Also, one parent noticed that her child really wasn’t into messaging these kids that were strangers, thus far. Just wanted to send Tweets to Mom. (Awww, how cute!)

On my end, I found it fascinating that my son wanted to dictate his Tweets to me, rather than type them himself. (He types letters and e-mails to people all the time!) I went along with this request for the first day, so that he could see how the process worked. But then I told him it was his Twitter, and the other kids need HIM to write his own Tweets – spelling and capitalization errors and all.

Last observation… it is hard for my child, a talkative boy with a great vocabulary, to fit his thoughts into 140 characters. Does anyone else experience this? (And I’m talking to the adults here…) We may have to use two or three Tweets in a row for a while. That’s OK. No one minds. These four are rarely online at the same time anyway!

So… What topics dominate this beta-group of Twitterers? Surprisingly childlike topics… the “Ironman” movie… the PC game “Age of Mythology”… kite flying… ice skating.

And it’s nice to know that kids – even kids of ed tech geeks like us – will still stay kids. (At least for a little while.)

Last fall, I attended an Administrators’ Academy by Meg Ormiston titled “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts” and was introduced to the potential of VoiceThread. I watched a sample VoiceThread, and thought, “Hm. That’s not so difficult. My youngest son could do that.”

A few weeks ago, I attended a session by Will Richardson titled “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts”. (The business manager almost didn’t let me go to this. Because it had the same title. Hmmm!) Anyway, Will brought this online tool to light once again, and I resolved to complete the project with my youngest son that I once envisioned in Meg’s session .

Background Info: In February, we had a rare set of circumstances come together that allowed us to travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We were packed (virtually, at least) and ready to go when the message came back from youngest son’s school, “Please have him read every day, and have him write a Travel Journal.”

This innocent request, made by hundreds of thousands of classroom teachers to those (awfully irresponsible) parents who have the NERVE to pull their children out of school for a family vacation, actually stopped me in my tracks.

I have an “outdoor child,” one that we have affectionately called “BBB,” as in our Barefoot Backyard Boy. He spends every moment of any free time he has — outside, digging and bug-searching and planting and eagerly scanning the fences for neighborhood buddies who might have escaped their houses to their own backyards.

This child, I was certain, would be “in his element” at the beach, digging and building and holding marine life in his hands. How — I repeat, HOW — was I going to get him to spend even one waking moment with a pencil and paper in his hand when there were so many undiscovered treasures out there at the water’s edge?

On a truly impulse buy (my husband says I know no other type), I stopped into the Apple Store and picked up a Belkin recorder that would attach to any one of our iPods. I envisioned my small son running up to me on the beach and excitedly relating his tales of discovery and kingdom conquest (LOL) as I demurely pushed the “Record” button on my Belkin.

Truth be told, we did SOME recording while there, but not of the level nor quality I’d expected. However, once home, I refused to delete these audio files from my iPod, thinking that they’d be useful eventually.

Last night, I pulled up the VoiceThread into which we had uploaded our photos, and recruited youngest son to do narrations. I even played the audio files for him from my iTunes, just to get him “in the mood.” In the end, I thought he did an amazing job of composing his thoughts for each image, and overall, of telling the “story” of our trip.

However, I didn’t expect some things…

• I had no idea that “free commentary” would be so daunting to him. My ever-verbose child INSISTED upon dictating his words to me. I keyed them into Word, and he read from there. Towards the end, improvisation and ad-libbing dominated, even with the script before him. Yet I was surprised at his “dependence” upon having it in front of him.
• While I worked very hard to not let the “teacher” in me come out, I found it amusing and somewhat disheartening when he would “self-correct” for what was seemingly my benefit alone. Twice he recorded the “spontaneous” voice saying, “We are busy-busy bees,” (which I know to be reflective of his experiences with his kindergarten and first grade teachers) and deleted it. I worked hard to convince him to keep it because HE liked it, no matter how “trite” it felt to me.
• I was surprised at how very aware he was of his audience. Originally, of course, the only intended audience was his teacher, and the purpose was for a grade. Once I resurrected the project from the “forgotten” pile, his audience became my Professional Learning Network (PLN). (Funny, he knows them from the Twitter screen. “Oh, she’s the one that sent you the “Bulgarian ‘Ken Lee’ YouTube link!” or “Oh, she’s the one that has the baby chicks, and she has a son my age,right?”)
• I was even more surprised at how the awareness of this audience affected his choice of words. He knew that he was speaking, for the most part, to educators, so he threw in his own editorial about the integrity of Christopher Columbus. Yet, he also knew that there would be students in his audience, so he captured the essence of “My parents made me do this…” every now and then. (Wouldn’t want to be TOO enthusiastic about something educational and reality-based, now, would we?)
• I was surprised at how this “child of nature” began several narrations at the end of the Voice Thread with, “This is a…” and seemed to stop there after identification purposes, despite volumes of knowledge contained in his head about that species. Oddly enough, he had more to say about the historical sites that we (evil parents) dragged him to see, unwillingly. (Justice. Grin.)
• Finally, I was surprised that he was adamant that his classmates should not see this. He didn’t mind “creating his digital presence,” as Steve Dembo promotes. However, he didn’t have any interest in having his current peers comment on the current product. He actually begged me to swear his teacher to secrecy and not share this with his classmates.

As always, I learn every time that I work with kids and technology. This time, the lessons were more esoteric. Now why wouldn’t I have expected that from this child?