A Week of Experiments: Monday - BookDiscussions.com

I've always wished there were an easy way to start discussions around a book using a social networking platform, but without requiring starting a whole new network.  If you have a class, team, group, or other set of people wanting to hold an online book group, or to have an online component to a book group you are currently running, BookDiscussions.com is my attempt to provide a solution.

This site is very much a "work in progress," so your feedback and help are most encouraged!  By virtue of other pressing projects, BookDiscussions won't get a lot of attention from me right now, but I didn't want to delay in making it available to others who might benefit from it.  In the same breath, let me say that if there is someone for whom this is a real passion and you want to help somehow, let me know so I can bring you into the mix here!

Because I'm pretty dedicated to the education space, BookDiscussions will be first and foremost a student/family-friendly site, so please keep the language clean.  I've started a group right off the bat for Sir Ken Robinson's The Element for those planning on attending or listening my interview with him tomorrow night.

To set up a book discussion, click on "Book Groups" at the top of the site and then "Add a Group." You'll have some choices about your group--a good starting place is to choose the "Discussion Form" and "Text Box" features to start with, and then decide if you want anyone to be able to join or only those you accept (safest). I do not recommend that you allow the option for members to send messages to the entire group.

Because book discussions groups are often for a particular audience, there can (and should) be more than one group for any book. I'm going to start seeding the network around the book authors I interview at my FutureofEducation.com and Conversations.net series. These are live events held in Elluminate.  If you want to hold your own free, live, public events to do the same, more information is at the Host Your Own Webinar Group in LearnCentral.org or contact me directly.

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]

Generated by BlogIt

BlogIt - Auto Blogging Software for YOU!

A Week of Experiments: Tuesday - Library 2.0

This is day two of a week of experimenting with social networking projects, and I'm cheating a bit.  But for a good cause.

Library 2.0 was started by Bill Drew in early 2007, a few weeks before I fired up Classroom 2.0.  We kept in touch, and every so often we would correspond about our experiences running educationally-oriented social network.  Some weeks ago I read that Bill was struggling with a spam problem on his network and had decided to shut it down.  I emailed him and mentioned that I'd developed something of a system for dealing with spam on my networks, and asked if he would like me to help him or take the network over.  It seemed a shame to think the network would be shutting down--first, because there were over 4,500 members, and second, because of my belief that librarians are a great model for the expanded role teachers will have in a Web 2.0 world.

Bill opted to have me take over the network, so I purchased the Library20.org domain name and set about to find a sponsor to remove the advertisements.  Thanks to Elisabeth Abarbanel and Buffy Hamilton and the other librarians at Brentwood School, who generously stepped forward to sponsor the monthly fees from Ning, Library20.ning.com was seamlessly reborn last week as Library20.org.  Wahoo!

So, in truth, Library 2.0 is not really an experiment and it didn't really happen today, but in a larger sense it really is part of this week of expanding projects--so we'll claim it anyway.  And it is worth highlighting, so I hope you'll come visit or join the site if you are a librarian interested in the use of Web 2.0 and Social Media.

More to come!  Tomorrow - Students 2.0.  Thursday - Aula 2.0.  And Friday - EduBloggerCon, OpenSourceCon, and GlobalEdCon.  :)

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]

Generated by BlogIt

BlogIt - Auto Blogging Software for YOU!

A Week of Experiments: Wednesday - Students 2.0

So, while yesterday's "experiment" wasn't really that new or from scratch, today's certainly qualifies.  "Students 2.0" is a brainstorm that has been growing for the last few months, and which started in a small restaurant with Jenny Luca telling me she wanted to teach a class on social media to students who might not otherwise be taught about blogs, wikis, and social networking in the context of building their own learning experiences.  We brainstormed that evening and online, and the idea was actively simmering when I visited with Jackie Gerstein in Philadelphia after she'd presented at Educon 2.2 on "User-Generated Education."  I realized that, for me, this was more than just about teaching the tools of Web 2.0 to students--it was about a mind-shift in thinking about how involved students can/could/should be in the shaping of their own educations.

Of course, I've been well-prepared for this moment.  My original interview series at EdTechLive was with many of the superstars of the Open Source Programming world, all of whom did important work at a young age that was outside of their traditional schooling, but involved apprenticeship, mentoring, and communities of practice.  My oldest daughter chose to homeschool herself and became a serious scholar of Shakespeare and other great literature, so I'd seen a student be a self-motivated scholar when provided with the right kind of mentoring and opportunities.   I'd interviewed Arthus early on as well as the gang at the original Students 2oh project that Clay Burrell had facilitated, and I'd appreciated the work of Sylvia Martinez at GenYES supporting students being actively involved in tech support and teaching teachers.  So the idea of some group of students actually being capable of driving their own learning made a lot of sense to me.

Here's what we've done to start:

• I've scheduled a series of "Students 2.0" events at FutureofEducation.com to discuss this topic.  We start with Robert Epstein to talk about his tome, Teen 2.0, and the idea that adolescence is a historically unique construct that, it can be argued (and I think he does), severely limits the inherent capabilities of teens.  I have to say, I'm desperate to plunge into the book, and can't wait for the interview.  Then Jackie Gerstein is going to come on and give us that presentation on "User-Generated Education," followed by Michael Furdyk, a teenage entrepreneur who then became one of the co-founders of the impressive TakingITGlobal.  In June Elizabeth Kanna is going to speak on "Real World Student Preparation" and Jennifer Openshaw will speak on "What Every Parent, School, and Student Should Know:  Preparing Our Kids for a Global Economy."  Hopefully we'll draw in the good folks from Science Leadership Academy and other schools providing students with opportunities to shape their own learning--and send me your suggestions for other speakers!
• We're launching Students 2.0 as a social network.  Here's our vision:  "Students 2.0 is a network for you to connect independently with other students and with mentors to shape your own educational paths and experiences outside of traditional institutions. It's a place to explore passionate interests, build professional competencies, and form your own Personal Learning Network (PLN)."  The site is very much still in brainstorm mode, so please encourage students and mentors/educators to join and help us make something significant.  
• Jenny Luca is scheduling a "Learning Web 2.0 Series" for students that will be held in Students 2.0 and live in Elluminate, and which will start on April 21st and go eight weeks.  She'd love some help, and we hope that this is just the start!  As you can imagine, we've got lots of big ideas and really want to share them.

This should be interesting!  Still to come:  tomorrow - Aula 2.0, Friday - EduBloggerCon, OpenSourceCon, and GlobalEdCon.

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]

Generated by BlogIt

BlogIt - Auto Blogging Software for YOU!

A Week of Experiments: Thursday - Aula 2.0

We're in day four of our week of social networking experiments.  :)  Today, Aula 2.0.

Tomás Chaskel from Bogotá, Colombia, has been super-anxious to help start a version of Classroom 2.0 for Latin America.  When I announced that Classroom 2.0 was celebrating it's third anniversary last month by hitting 40,000 members, Tomás emailed me again about this idea and it was with some surprise that I found that the domain aula20.com was available.  And so, another experiment was born.

Tomás has been starting to populate the site's framework with some of the same features as Classroom 2.0, and it's his hope that some other passionate educators will come and help build up the content and discussions.  While I lived in Brazil for a year as an exchange student in high school, and my rusty Portuguese allows me to "compre-stand" most of what he's writing, I pretty much passed the point of my greatest utility once I got the network up and going.  What I can do now is to look forward to helping create a framework for a series of Spanish-language open professional development events using the "Host Your Own Webinar" program I work on for Elluminate!  (If anyone wants to help with that, email me directly!)

Much of what I love about the Web is the ability to experiment, which comes with a deep lesson:  projects often surprise you.  Something you think will be a slam dunk ends up fizzling, and something that comes out of left field can create and sustain significant interest you would never have expected.  In general, I've found that I really don't know what's going to happen until the wrappers are taken off and others can play with the ideas--especially because early adopters are often more influential than the creators to the success of a Web 2.0 project.  The experiments this week might never become big-time projects, but I can tell you that they wouldn't have the chance to be anything at all if they just stayed a set of notes in a Google Doc that didn't ever see the light of day and withstand the scrutiny actual users. Which is why I determined this week, while it's Spring Break and our kids are occupied with their own fun, to take some evening hours and actually push these ideas out into the open.  So far:  BookDiscussions.com, Library 2.0, Students 2.0 and now Aula 2.0.  Tomorrow's the last day:  a special double-play with OpenSourceCon and GlobalEdCon.

Stay tuned!

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]

Generated by BlogIt

BlogIt - Auto Blogging Software for YOU!