Marc Andreessen: From Web Browser to Social Networking

It's hard for me to imagine someone more interesting to interview than Marc Andreessen. Marc was one of the co-authors of the original web browser, has a history in the Free and Open Source Software movement, and now is one of the founders of the "build-your-own" social networking site Ning. The Classroom 2.0 social network I set up on Ning has really helped to galvanize my thoughts on the substantial contributions that I think social networking will have in education, both for student use and for teacher professional development.

Marc is not only fascinating to listen to, he's also a true gentleman--you may notice a skip in the recording, which is where my recording software failed in our original interview. Marc was kind enough to re-record the second half of our discussion some days later. His comments on the future of blogs and social networks toward the end are challenging and insightful, and his descriptions of the qualities he looks for in employees could provide a great platform for discussion on the skills we teach in schools (see also his blog post on this).

I also owe to Marc my first experience editing Wikipedia. I've been a huge wiki user and lover for quite a while, but I'd never actually played in the "big leagues" by editing Wikipedia. When I was researching Marc for the interview, I noticed that a couple of the links on his Wikipedia were broken, so I fixed them. I have to admit to feeling a little thrill editing Wikipedia...

For a related interview, Marc's business partner at Ning is Gina Bianchini, and you can find my recent interview with her here.

Listen to the the Interview in MP3 format
Listen to the Interview in Vorbis OGG format

(Cross-posted from www.SteveHargadon.com)

Social Networking as Professional Development

Will Richardson has written:"I've learned more in my four-plus years as a blogger than I have in all my years of formal education." He's not talking about blogging as a teaching tool--he's talking about blogging as a personal and professional development tool. And he's saying that it's been a better learning tool than all his formal schooling. How could that be?

It's because, for Will and many others of us, to blog is to be engaged in really meaningful conversations about education. Indeed, the tools of Web 2.0 (or the "read/write Web") often trigger a personal learning renaissance. I now engage daily with great thinkers as I use the tools of Web 2.0 to read, to listen, to interview, and then to blog myself.

But let's face the reality of talking about the value of blogging to educators. It's not easy. Most educators are far too busy to squeeze in another hour (or more) to each workday to 1) learn how set up a blog, 2) start writing in it, 3) comment on others blogs, 4) learn how to track the conversations that take place where they comment, and then 5) "speak to the empty room" for six months before their audience builds up. So, is there an easier way to experience the value of blogging and the read/write web? The answer is yes, and it's coming from somewhere I never expected it to: a social networking site.

I've watched the MySpace phenomenon, and have even gotten an account there--and while I understand the appeal of creation and connection that it provides, just haven't felt it was worth any time for me (the unsolicited "friendship" invitations from immodestly-dressed young women to this 45-year-old male are, let's face it, not believable and just plain creepy). When Facebook opened its doors to the general public, and because I have a daughter in college, I got an account to see what it was all about. I have to say, I've been pleasantly surprised. Facebook has none of the garish ads that make MySpace so busy, and the ability to connect socially in appropriate ways with total transparency is actually kind of comforting to me as a parent (I know more about what my kids are doing because of it than I did before). But as good as Facebook is for social interaction, it really isn't that great at facilitating an in-depth dialog. I started and joined several Facebook "groups," but there don't have any good tools for engaged conversations, and mostly the feedback I've seen from other participants is: "OK, I'm here. Now what?"

But then I tried Ning.

Co-founded by Marc Andreessen (of Netscape fame), Ning has evolved into a fascinating kind of "do-it-yourself" social networking site that probably didn't make sense to anybody except those working on it, but now that it is out is something of a "wow" experience. It could be, for educators and students, the perfect way to test out the waters of Web 2.0 quickly and easily. Ning's social networking platform introduces you to some of the most engaging aspects of the read/write web: social networking (of course), user profiles, blogging, forums, photo and video sharing, and even RSS!

Encouraged by a "Library 2.0" network that had been started at Ning (and that currently has over 700 members), I created a "Classroom 2.0" social network in a just few hours last Friday. While I would encourage you to join Classroom 2.0 just to see how it works and to network with some great folks who are talking about the read/write web in the classroom, here's the best part: you can now create your own social network. A class, a school, a district, a region, or any other group you care about can now be introduced to the benefits of engaged dialog on the web with very little work and safely. Profiles can be anonymous, and both the network creator and each user can opt to approve content and comments before they are posted. All that we have to do to make this completely student-friendly is to get Ning to allow educators to eliminate the default Google ads for bikini/singles stuff. (For $20/month you can turn the ads off, but they can do better than that for educators. I'm emailing them a copy of this post.)

So if you've been looking for an easier way to be part of the Web 2.0 revolution, give Ning a shot. See you there!

The ITM @ CUE

Some of the "ITM gang" (our whatever we call ourselves) were at the CUE Conference in Palm Springs last week. It was a great event - great people, great ideas, great tech tools, and great blog coverage. My favorite moment of the conference came when a high school student named Tony ran up to me with a big smile and said, "Are you the guy from the Infinite Thinking Machine?!" Turns out we have a fan or two! Very cool. If you watch long enough you'll see him in this video.

Another highlight was CUE Live. With the help of my production partner, Jonathan Lemon, we recorded a series of informal discussions with speakers, attendees, and anyone else foolish enough to stop by our "studio."

In particular, I thought some of you may be interested in our special segment, "We ARE the Infinite Thinking Machine", where Mark Wagner, Steve Hargadon, and myself shared some insights on how AND why we produce the ITM. Let us know if you like it, and we'll put it into the ITM iTunes feed for easy downloading.

BTW - In our FAQ, we recently posted some additional details on the technical equipment and tools we use to produce the ITM shows. Of course, you can produce a video podcast with less expensive equipment than ours, so don't let this scare you off. If you have something to say, don't let the technology stand in your way! Thanks to YouTube, Google Video, and other sites, it's never been easier to "broadcast yourself." In fact, we're looking for students and teachers to be official "correspondents" for the ITM shows, so drop me a line if you want to produce segments with us!

"Edublogging" and a Short History of the Edublog Awards

James Farmer started the community-based Edublog Awards three years ago, and sixteen months ago started an educational blogging site called Edublogs, which gives free blogs for educators, librarians, and students (over 30,000 so far!). Edublogs is a labor of love for James, who wanted to give educators a way to express themselves and communicate on the web. He doesn't really think of Edublogs (which runs on the multi-user version of the Open Source software WordPress) as a blogging site--to him, it's more like a website tool to allow educators and students to create "tons" of pages to host podcasts or videos, to provide websites for student resources, or just to communicate with each other. His day job is the "Online Community Editor" for The Age in Australia. Visit Edublogs for a free blogging account, and listen to James talk about the service and how to get started here.


Josie Fraser, who now runs the Edublog Awards from the other side of the world (she took over from James after the first year), is getting very little sleep these days. She, too, holds a day job--one that has a serious commute--so running the awards is taking up any free time she used to have.

Josie talks about her background and the awards in a short (ten minute) interview here, discussing how the awards have been, and are, a way of showcasing the benefits of blogging technology in the face of educational filtering solutions, since these filters often block blog sites altogether. (This is very similar to the impetus behind the SupportBlogging wiki--which, by the way, has also been nominated for an Edublog award this year). Her passion for educational blogging becomes more and more evident as the interview goes on. The awards are also intended to be a resource for educators to draw on for inspiration, to bring educators and students together on a global level, and to help build a feeling of community amongst educational bloggers (there is an online party on the night of the announcement of the winners that Josie says is really fun).

It's well worth looking at the list of nominees for great blogging (and wiki) inspiration. The two previous years' nominees and winners are also posted at the official site. Anyone can vote (so call your "nana," as Josie says). Vote for InfiniteThinking.org here and SupportBlogging here.

Flat Classrooms

Two pretty amazing "School 2.0" stories to report from the trenches.

Vicki Davis' 10th grade Computer Science class at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia and Julie Lindsay's grade 11 ITGS class at International School Dhaka (ISD) in Bangladesh are in the middle of a two-week combined project to discuss topics from the Thomas Friedman book The World is Flat. The students are paired, with one student from each high school classroom, to work together. First they record an introduction to themselves, then they work together to produce a collaborative wiki, video, and podcast. There is even an amazing grading rubric. Wow.

Chris Craft, that innovative language arts teacher from South Carolina, has done it again. Using old computers and Skype, Chris brought his 6th graders into a direct videoconference with students at an American school in Lima Peru. To prepare, he had them work on a wiki and research common topics about Peruvian culture. They chose topics such as food, sports, and others. In their dry run, when they established video contact, the kids were wild with excitement. Click here to read this description of the actual day--you'll be glad you did! Talk about helping students become excited about learning. Double wow.

Vicki, Chris, and their students are the "Infinite Thinking Machines." Hear them describe their projects in a short audio clips here.

More on the Wide and Wonderful World of Wikis

Kim Cofino is an IT teacher and the IT integration specialist for Mont’Kiara International School in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This past August she read Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom, and discovered the new world of Web 2.0 for schools--in particular, the power of wikis.

Most people have heard of Wikipedia, the wiki-based collaborative and free encyclopedia, but don't really understand what wikis are, and are maybe a little intimidated by thinking they will need to learn a lot in order to work with wikis... Not true! For a simple overview of wikis, click here. And consider taking the plunge, because wikis are truly incredible and empowering.

Kim took the plunge, and helped the science teachers create a wiki for the 6th grade students across three different classes to model the creation of a medical clinic. The "Strings" (orchestra) class wiki has students researching different kinds of music to present to each other. She also has an IT wiki and a study skills wiki, both of which allow the students to become the authors of the material. And she is working on a wiki for IT teachers in middle schools to collaborate together on the use of technology, called The Tech in the Middle.

Listen to a "Take 5" short interview where Kim describes her work with Web 2.0 here. Get free educational wikis at Wikispaces. See examples of other educational uses of wikis here. Read Tom March's previous post on Wikipedia. And take the plunge!

Blogging to Learn English

Craig Wherlock teaches English as a foreign language in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, to 13- and 14-year-olds during the day and adults at night. He estimates that only 1-2% of homes in Greece have access to broadband, and recently read that only 27% of Greeks have ever even used the Internet--so while he would love to involve his students in podcasting or video sharing, it's only realistic to do blogging right now. And blogging his students do!

Each class has a class blog, and he gives assignments to the class to write posts from home in English. One of his most successful assignments was to ask each of the students to post "10 special things you have done that very few other people have done," for which he got very enthusiastic responses.

Blogging can have an incredibly powerful, transformative effect for some students, and Craig describes the excitement when students realize that they can quickly have an international "audience." A great place to learn about educational blogging ("edublogging") is at SupportBlogging.com, a collaborative wiki built by "edubloggers" themselves, and that lists (and allows you to search) over 300 blogs, websites, and articles on educational blogging.

Listen to Craig describe his blogging experiences in a quick five-minute audio interview here, visit his own blog here, or visit one of his class blogs here.

The Student as Historian

I interviewed Doc Searls recently, and he said that he likes to think of what he does as releasing ideas as "snowballs" to see if they gain momentum and strength as they roll down through the blogosphere. OK, so here's an Ed Tech "snowball."

One of the intriguing elements of the "read/write" web is the opportunity that all students now actually have for their work to gain a wider audience and to truly contribute to the sum of public knowledge. Here is one idea to give them a taste of this truly remarkable change.

While it is unlikely that you're going to have a student who will unearth some new, significant information about Lincoln or Napoleon (although this may also happen), it is likely that all of your students could become the world-experts on their grandparents, great-grandparents, or other long-lost relatives. Those boxes of old family photos, newspaper clippings, and letters in their attics or closets or basements--combined with the power of wikis, blogs photo-sharing, and podcasting--give your student the chance to become primary-source historians.

This isn't just important (and I think it is important, since this kind of a project can help students better understand their heritage and what history is, as well as actually providing valuable historical information), but it can be very exciting. I had an experience that convinced me of that.

Some years ago I received an email from a woman asking if I had ever heard of a "Kate Hargadon" (my same last name), who had been the traveling companion of her grandmother on the Titanic. This intrigued me, so I searched the web to find that all the Titanic websites listed a young woman age 17, from Ballysodare, Co Sligo, Ireland, whose name was spelled "Kate Hagardon." This young woman boarded the Titanic at Queenstown and, sadly, died in the sinking of the ship. Because all of the members of the "Hargadon" family trace back to County Sligo in Ireland, it seemed possible to me that "Hagardon" was actually mis-transcribed from "Hargadon." I wrote the Irish Titanic Historical Society, who had someone look up the original passenger manifest, and found that "Kate Hargardon" was in fact "Kate Hargadon." They in turn informed all of the Titanic historical sites, and for many years every mention of "Kate Hargadon" carried a footnote acknowledging me as the "historian" who had discovered this.

Now, I majored in history in college, but nothing I did in school compared with how exciting and fun it this little historical adventure was. Truth be told, it wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it had some small historical significance, and it was me being involved in history in a very real and tangible way. The read/write web now provides an opportunity for students to experience this same kind of excitement. Let me know what you think.

Sixth Grade Spanish Teacher Integrates Technology

Chris Craft teaches Spanish and Latin to sixth graders at Crossroads Middle School in Columbia, South Carolina. Having worked in technology-related jobs before becoming a teacher, Chris has actively sought to integrate computers into his classroom. He has his Spanish students using wikis (JotSpot and WetPaint) to explore the topic of immigration, and has set up a blog for each of his students using the Open Source program Drupal--which has allowed him a more tightly controlled environment for blogging.

Chris uses computers which were "resurrected from the trash heap." His only requirement was that they could connect to the Internet and run the Firefox web browser. His oldest machines he keeps running by installing the Linux operating system distribution Xubuntu. He applied early on to what is now Google Apps for Education and made sure each student had a Gmail account. His goal was to take his students from being "consumers" of Internet content to being "contributors," and to truly engage them.

When his students realized that there was an "audience" for their work, even just the audience of other students in the school, the quality of their work "absolutely skyrocketed." They went from "turning their work in" to "publishing it." One really fun project he has them do in Spanish class is to have the students work in teams to create a "radio commercial" on why it is important to learn another language. By using the Free and Open Source program Audacity for recording and editing, which even runs on an old computer with 64 MB of RAM, the students can put in special effects (like echoing) in the commercials.

I asked Chris how the parents have reacted to his students active use of Internet technologies in class. He said that his kids had been talking so much about how much fun they were having in class with these technologies that his classroom was "standing-room only" for the school's open house--while other teachers later lamented how few parents had attend their classrooms. He walked his parents through the online privacy issues, and made sure that everyone was comfortable with what he was doing. He also showed them how to access his class blog, and taught the parents what an RSS feed is so that they could easily keep up with what was going on in class.

Listen to Chris talk more about his experience with me in EdTechLive.com's "Take 5."