Monthly Archives: September 2003

Blogging and fair use issues

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We know that teachers must respect copyright when they prepare materials for their courses, but what about their weblogs (and Web pages by extension)? There’s an interesting post at the New Media Journalism blog at Seton Hilll University on Fair Use and Blogging.

How much text can you cite from another website in your blog before you’ve crossed the line and entered into copyright infringement? Is it okay to post an image you didn’t create in a blog? Even if it’s just for window dressing? Does the “educational” use of blogs in our journalism classes give our bloggers greater freedom and protection to cite text and post multimedia?

The author includes some interesting links to fair use resources online. I think we all know that the Internet is not a copyright-free zone, but it’s good to get a reminder.

Googling by location

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The folks at Google Labs have just released their latest Web search innovation. The Search by Location feature gives the typical Google search some geographic smarts. You add your search terms and a zip code or an address and Google will try to return results that are close to that location. I tried:

The search results seem right on the mark overall. What educational applications could there be for this technology? By the way, I checked and Google can’t find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan either.

A poor man’s Smartboard?

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I thought it would be interesting to print the comments from Scott Roiger (who also just set up a blog) about using one of the presentation remotes I bought recently. Scott said:

The presentation remote is a great tool that allows me to be mobile and
interact with students while I am teaching a lesson. A good example is when
I taught a lesson on how to create a Power Point slide show and was able to
page through my own slide show while walking around and giving students help
and feedback. The laser on the remote also allowed me to point out details
on the screen without having to go to the computer or front of the room. It
is very easy to use and can be moved from one computer to another
seamlessly. I would definitely use this everyday if presented with the
opportunity.

Is it possible that a $50 remote control can accomplish a good portion of what teachers find compelling about a smartboard? I need to sit in and observe some smartboards in action before I can really say, but it’s an interesting idea. By the way, the remote I ordered is the Keyspan PR-US2.

Facts are cheap

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I was browsing Gizmodo and ran across an article titled Schools dealing with wireless cheating which included a link back to an article on Yahoo! News titled Schools Set Rules on Classroom Gadgets. The article says that one-third of American teenagers carry cell phones and an estimated 7% of school districts provide some students with PDAs. Teachers and administrators are having to deal with a new set of classroom behaviors including cheating via text messaging, instant messaging friends during lectures, and off-task Web browsing. Is anyone surprised at this? Is this a symptom of school curriculum not keeping up with the information age?

How long will we continue to ask students to regurgitate facts that could be retrieved instantly from google? Let’s try some google searches:

Does this mean that we shouldn’t ask kids to memorize things anymore? No. But sooner or later educators and students will have to adjust to a world in which pure knowledge is cheap and knowing what to do with it is what matters most.

We’re tipping too

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Will R. of Weblogg-ed has been describing the incredible rate that teachers are catching on to blogging at his school. He says they’ve reached a tipping point. It’s early, but my experience has been similar. After talking about blogging to some key tech-savvy teachers here in the district, I had five of them email me requesting blogs within an hour of letting them know that Movable Type was ready to go.

Now I need to get up a little directory at http://weblogs.hopkins.k12.mn.us/ so visitors can find all these blogs more easily.

You are now free to move about your classroom

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One of the things I hated most about Powerpoint when I was teaching was being tied to the computer. I’m a roamer when I teach and I like to be able to move around the room freely and interact with my students. Classroom management also suffers when the teacher is tied to a keyboard.

I think these little presentation remotes are great. The newer ones use RF (radio frenquency) instead of IR so you don’t need to point the remote in any particular direction. The range of the Keyspan unit I ordered is plenty to give me room to move. Some of the remotes include full mouse control and a laser pointer as well. When you consider how inexpensive these units are (most are $60-$100), it’s a wonder that they’re not more common.

Who would argue that a teacher lecturing from a lecturn at the front of the room is best? I’m not sure that using Powerpoint and being just as tied down is really much better.

Weblogs build community

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In less than one day this blog was discovered by Will R. over at a really interesting weblog called Weblogg-ed.com. Fewer than 24 hours have passed, and this work has become part of the larger community of people who are interested in using blogs in education.

If you have a hobby or professional interest there’s probably someone blogging about it somewhere. Are you into jazz? Try The New Jazz Thing – Vince Outlaw’s Weblog. Are you into cooking? How about the Cooking In Color blog? I could go on and on. One of the best ways to get started thinking about blogging is to start reading blogs. Try the blog directory at blogarama.com to get started. When you get tired of checking all those Web sites daily, we’ll talk about RSS aggregators.

What can’t Google do?

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I discovered a very cool new Google feature recently. It turns out that Google is now a very capable calculator with built-in unit conversions, support for many physical constants, and the ability to handle numbers in text form. To give it a try, go to google.com and try the following searches: