I read a great post by a student in my grad class last week that has me thinking again about the idea of a backchannel.  I wrote about this a while ago, but it seems the topic has surfaced again recently about the value of a backchannel.

The past several conferences I have attended have tried to implement a conference-wide backchannel discussion, and most have failed.  Whether due to poor wifi, poor implementation, or simply lack of interest, it seems to me the idea has started fading a bit.  I don’t know if I think that’s good or bad.

Certainly the story that surfaced this week about the backchannel gone bad at the Web 2.0 Expo is evidence of how this idea can be a complicated matter.  This spurred much discussion on Twitter, and the experience leaves many wondering what is the value in having a simultaneous chat running while a person is presenting his or her ideas.  I still believe, if done well, the chat can add a great deal for both the presenter and the conference attendees.  I really do.  However, as some have noted recently on Twitter and in other conversation spaces, it seems that often times the backchannel fails to connect to the message being presented and breaks down into a virtual cafeteria where the kids are all talking about any and all topics other than the ones being presented.

I found the post above by Michael to be most interesting.  It leaves me wondering what the role of this experience could be in the classroom.  Could it be that if we built this the right way, kids could greatly benefit from the chance of moving from passive listeners to active engagers of what is happening around them?  The idea of allowing students to backchannel during a read aloud is fascinating to me.  It takes courage for teachers to try such a thing, but if, like Michael, the end turns out to yield something of value for students, I think we should try it more.  Allow them the chance to mix their ideas with their peers in a nonconventional way to see what the recipe ends up making.

Maybe it won’t work for your students, or your teachers, or your presentation audience, but I still do believe there’s something to this idea.  It just takes some work and effort to keep the connections aligned with your learning goals, and obviously sometimes we fail at that in our endeavors to get students to invest in their learning through technology.  But if our work with technology does indeed increase student investment, then I say turn on the backchannel and see what you can hear, so to speak.

Thanks to tranchis for the use of the Flickr image.

I wrote a post this week for my Tech & Learning blog entry about books.  If you haven’t read it, I would love to get your thoughts on the topic.  The more I’ve thought about it, the more I wonder if the question simply doesn’t matter.  Bud Hunt responded to the post on Twitter by saying,

He makes a good point.  I was certainly leaning this way when I wrote the original post, and I’m close to there.  But, I just wonder about the scores of people who feel so passionately otherwise.  Are they misguided, or is there something to their argument?

If you get the chance, I’d love to hear where you stand on the question.  Feel free to comment here, or comment over on the T&L post.

Thanks to Gibson Claire McGuire Regester for use of the Flickr image.

I was eating breakfast with my dad last weekend, just sitting enjoying the beautiful Sunday morning meandering through the topics of our lives, when half way through my plate of banana nut pancakes the conversation turned to politics.  My father, never one to hold back an opinion, began to passionately engage the conversation.  He worked hard to prove his point, and when the “it’s a matter of fact”s came out, I knew all was lost for our peaceful breakfast.  But I noticed, more than I ever have in the past, that his matters of fact were, in fact, matters of assumption.  I raised the point with him.  He didn’t care much for the point.  And I realized there, in that moment, how bad things have really become.  Because we’ve pushed our assumptions of others to the point of assigning them the value of fact.  I fear that while that has likely always been present in human logic, it is becoming more prevalent.  And I realize…

We are a polarized people.

Let’s try an experiment.  See how bad it is.  Read both of the following observations.

The Obama Administration recently set up an email account the public can use to report misinformation they hear about the present health care reform initiative.  The White House blog explains that a great deal of erroneous information is being disseminated through “chain emails or casual conversation”.  The blog maintains that the White House can’t keep track of all this misinformation, so they would like for us to help and report anything we hear that “seems fishy” to the email account they have set up.  Because of the current laws with electronic communications and the requirement that all such records be held permanently, the White House will ultimately have a list of people who have reportedly disagreed with their policy.

The Bush Administration set up a list of suspected individuals who could potentially commit acts of terror against America.  The list was collected through various means, including phone taps and individuals who were reportedly observed engaging in suspicious activity.  Many of the individuals on the list were prohibited from flying within the United States.  The Bush Administration ultimately collected a list of people who they then monitored based on suspicion.  The ACLU maintains the list has grown to include over 1,000,000 names.

Consider your reaction to both stories at this moment.  I’m nearly certain you are currently forming an argument in your mind defending one of the two scenarios and finding fault with the other.  There’s a good chance you might even be working on your rationale to post below in the comments.  You might have even found yourself, at some point through your reading, uttering a “come on” in your mind or even aloud.

And that’s my point.  Think about it.  You are forming a position very likely based on the administration you believe in and support.  You might even find yourself irked at me for bringing up the scenario, or even in your estimation, misrepresenting one of the two sides.

The scenarios aren’t the point.  The point is how much we assume when we read them.  It seems we’ve become a polarized, perpetually skeptical people.  We believe in “our side” and view the other side with an air of uncertainty to the degree that we assume the worst of their intentions.  And we convince ourselves we’re right to do so.

I had the incredible pleasure of hearing Deborah Meier speak a month ago, and one of her most poignant points was that we’re failing to teach empathy in our pursuit of democracy.  I believe she’s absolutely correct.  We’re forgetting that there are multiple sides to a story.  We’re losing our perspective.  And it isn’t just happening in politics.

I see this mindset increasing from a trickle to a torrent in education.  Each interest group grows increasingly more skeptical of the others.  Teachers assume administrators are determined to fleece them at every opportunity.  Administrators assume teachers want to preserve only that which is in a teacher’s best interest.  Parents assume teachers want to take the easy route.  Teachers assume parents don’t respect teachers as professionals.  Technology administrators assume teachers won’t do what it takes to properly use available technology.  Teachers assume network administrators only want to lock down a network to make their job easier.  It goes on and on.

It’s quite sad, really.

Where is the empathy?  Where is the perspective?  Where is the consideration in our own position for those who maintain another?

I earnestly believe we have the capacity to change.  Quite honestly, I earnestly believe we have to.  We can’t continue to allow this state we’re in to perpetuate to the point of eventuality that it has started.

We have to start seeing both sides of the coin.  And I would hope we would feel compelled to allow this lesson to be learned by our students.  Because if we don’t, the polarization might well turn into sure schism.  It’s dangerously close here where we now stand.

We have the means to be better.  I hope we’ll exercise those means.

Thanks to jonr for the use of the Flickr image.

I’m of the conviction that the term “Web 2.0″ is inherently problematic.  There are many who maintain that the nomenclature provides a needed context for the changing nature of the web.  I would maintain it does much more to deter understanding than provide any functional enlightenment.

Proponents of the term state that the nature of the web has evolved in an organic fashion, and thus, we must qualify that new nature.  The web is now interactive, collaborative, and dynamic instead of static, nonreciprocal, and isolated.  While I certainly acknowledge the fact that the web has evolved over the past ten years, it remains, at its very core, still the web.  The addition of the 2.0 on the term only serves to confuse.

I heard, on quite a few occasions, teachers at a recent technology conference utter their confusion at the term.  One teacher asked where the url was for the web 2.0.  Another teacher stopped a panel discussion focused entirely on “Web 2.0″ tools to ask “what in the world” the term meant.  I think that is the rule, rather than the exception in the circles of general educators.  It’s a problem that the term immediately confuses and alienates the very people who would be best served to make use of the tools and concepts the new nature of the web presents.  If we used terminology that is exponentially more clear from the outset, such as “Interactive Web” or “Social Learning Web”, we would effectively make more headway and likely allow more students access to these experiences in their everyday learning opportunities.

I think the naming is likened to the naming conventions of cars.  Hear me out on this.  Cars have changed dramatically over the last 100+ years they’ve been around, yet they remain, at their very nature, still cars.  If at every iteration of change, we added the requisite 2.0, 3.0, and so on, what number would we be up to today?  When I’m going to go out and get something out of my car, I seldom yell out to my wife, “I’m going to run out to the mid-sized Japanese import car 10.0 and get the baby’s blanket.”  I just say car.  Because that’s what it is.  Yes, there are different kinds of cars.  There are Fords, Chevys, Hondas, Toyotas, Bugattis, and hosts of others.  There are even different types of cars beyond a manufacturer’s name.  We have SUVs, hybirds, pickup trucks, sports cars, minivans, and the like, but those naming conventions make sense.  They call the cars what they are.  We already have the equivalent in our web naming structure.  We have blogs, wikis, content management sites, social networking, learning networks, and so on.  All of these, at their nature, remain aspects of the web- a changing web, yes, but still simply the web.

A term like web 2.0 begets the notion that there will imminently be a 3.0, 4.0, and beyond.  The convention serves those within a specific group much more than it does those who need to understand the concept the most.  The term serves as a layer- an immediately unnecessary layer at that.  The convention allows those inside the realm of understanding to point to those outside and express how much the outsiders need the insiders in order to understand and be enlightened.  I’d rather we just all moved forward together in a way that makes sense and promotes progress rather than bifurcates.

And I really don’t take this issue as another instance of “let’s fight over the name of something” as much as that might appear what this post is all about.  Okay, so maybe it sort of is, but it isn’t just about the name.  It’s about what happens as a result of the name.  The web is, in my opinion, the greatest development in modern history.  And unfortunately, too many aren’t using it as such.

I know this one post won’t serve to change the way most people use the Web 2.0 term, but I hope it will give cause for some consideration.  The English language is a precise language.  I truly believe if we used it as such here, we would see one roadblock removed from the progress we should be making in engaging our students in dynamic learning.  And I’m entirely in favor of doing that which removes roadblocks and moves progress forward.

And now I’m stating such- on the web.

Thanks to xxxtoff for the use of the Flickr image.