The story in the newspaper is about a surprise that was ruined by Facebook’s new “Beacon” feature.  You know, the feature that allows Facebook advertisers to put up an ad on your friends’ pages alerting them to recent purchases you’ve made.  One embarrassed guy saw the surprise jewelry gift he had planned for his wife “ruined” when it was announced to her when she logged in to the site.

But the real story is about the surprise for Web 2.0 junkies who thought that all the free services that companies like Facebook provide maybe ain’t so free after all.  Apparently, our collective acceptance of google-ads, pop-ups, dancers promoting lower interest rates, little flash videos, and so forth says that we think the commercials are worth the information and services that we get for free.  But once the SQL servers start creating ads with our data, well, that crosses a line.  It takes a little shine off the Internet party when a billboard above the fireplace starts flashing data on where we bought our underwear, for how much, and invites the partygoers to make a similar purchase of their own.

Surprised?  I’m not.  When “old media” tycoons like Rupert Murdoch pay half-a-billion dollars for a social networking site like MySpace, you can surmise that he sees financial gain in it.  Half a billion is a lot to pay for a name, some software and servers, and a squirrelly bunch of teenage “users.”  Unless you see a big payday somewhere down the line.

Surprise!  Since you have input your likes, dislikes, and lured all your friends to sign up and sign in, I’m guessing that the terms of service you agreed to without reading them gives MySpace the right to use that information in just about any way they want, as long as they don’t, heaven forbid, sell that information to anyone else.  That was one way that folks imagined that they would be able to monetize their social networking investment but it hasn’t panned out.  And why should it?  These new service providers decided “why sell the information?”  It’s more valuable to keep it for themselves.  And it allows them to adopt the holier-than-thou position that they would never sell your information to anyone.  No one.  Ever.  But that’s because it is just plain too valuable to them, in business terms.

I guess we just didn’t see that one coming.  Surprise.

One of the topics that emerged this fall at TeacherPlaces Book Clubs is "play" and its role in education.  After reading several great posts on the topic by people much better informed on the topic than I am, I have arrived at this conclusion: the status of "play" in education is largely hypothetical.  To read some of these posts yourself, here are some links:

Bringing Play Into the Mainstream 

Yes, play gets lip service, mostly for children who are too young to read or writ.  But the minute that we could reasonably expect kids to track print with their eyes or hold a pencil, time for "play" is over and it is time to get down to the important "business" of learning the content and skills of academia.  Ned Hallowell, in his book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, refers to this impulse as the "great Harvard fallacy."  In other words, if we don't start working on that g.p.a. and SAT prep ASAP, getting into Harvard will slide off the table and a certain lack of adult happiness (read: earning power) will result.

So, even the most ardent defenders of play are very careful about what they say about its usefulness in certain situations.  Yet, it is easier to get into Harvard if you know how to play than if you don't.  It is axiomatic among college counselors that the so-called "perfect" record in high school (high grades, team captain, class president) can be the kiss of death at the most highly competitive colleges.  Those kids who show academic aptitude but who have done something more, something different, something exceptional, have a better chance at admission than those who followed all the rules to a "t."  Hallowell provides just such an example in his book.

So, how can we define play so that it sounds more productive and on point to those who think good grades are the key to success?

This topic came up as part of the TeacherPlaces Book Clubs discussion of Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  Click here for the first post on this topic.

In that post, I cite the following definition for this phenomenon:

The book addresses a very interesting topic on pages 159 and following: the availability bias, defined as "a natural tendency that causes us, when estimating the probability of a particular event, to judge the event's probability by its availability in our memory." In other words, "we intuitively think that events are more likely when they are easier remember" (page 160). Hence people predict that homicide takes more lives than suicide, even though there are fifty percent more suicides in the United States in a year than homicides.

Tehre is more information about this bias at Wikipedia:

"The availability heuristic is a rule of thumb, heuristic, or cognitive bias, where people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind. In these instances the ease of imagining an example or the vividness and emotional impact of that example becomes more credible than actual statistical probability." (Source: Wikipedia).

At the Book Club discussion, Sherry raises an interesting point about whether kids will now predict a greater probability of bridge collapse because of the bridge failure in Minnesota--a greater probability of bridges collapsing than, say, having an accident on a bridge.  Interesting question, and very pertinent to how our students build up cognitive biases based, in part, on how we handle the news of a particular event.

If anyone has example of this phenomenon to share, please do so here as a comment or at Book Clubs as a post.  When the Book Club is finished, we can keep this topic alive here if folks are interested. 

Over at the TeacherPlacesBookClubs I recently posted a summary of a research article that folks might be interested in here.  How asynchronous discussions impact learning is a very interesting topic, so I am reposting it here for comment. 

 "Asynchronous Discussions and Assessments in Online Learning"
Journal of Research on Technology in Education 39/3, Spring 2007

I recently read an article in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education entitled "Asynchronous Discussions and Assessments in Online Learning" (JRTE, 39/3, Spring 2007). The authors studied the use of online discussions in five graduate level courses at two midwestern universities. The article makes a number of points that are worth touching on here:

• first, the authors note that prior studies demonstrate that online discussions allow "every learner to respond to questions, participate equally, and offer a potential to support the co-construction of knowledge through meaningful discourse" (p. 311)

• one of the findings indicates "that the structure of an online discussion is essential for successful learning" (p. 315)

• one of the study's participants noted that "discussion questions need to be designed and monitored to grow and adapt to the responses from students so that they don't get repetitive and boring" (p. 315)

• other participants noted "that providing optiosn for students to choose among options of interest can diminish redundancy of the responses in the discussions" (p. 315)

• assigning participants roles within the discussion is another technique seen as effective by participants in the study (p. 316)

• others noted that "it is necessary for a sense of community to be built first" for "learners to feel comfortable sharing their opinions with a group they may not know" (p. 317)

• the authors also emphasize the importance of writing for students in the asynchronous environment to "facilitate reflection, metacognitive processes, and articulation of students' own learning" (p. 323)

These findings were particularly interesting to me, as the authors cite Vonderwell's 2004 study to say that online learning "requires the reconstruction of student and instructor roles, relations, and practices" (p. 309). We are truly reconstructing many things when we participate in a virtual discussion, especially one that is asynchronous.

What I appreciate in the authors' findings is the idea that structure is key to making an online discussion successful. My learning on this topic comes from years as a classroom teacher and, more recently, as product developer on a project designed to help struggling older reader learn to comprehend and discuss what they are reading. Radical redefinitions are in order when we remove the participants from the constraints of time and place that have traditionally defined the teaching and learning situation.

So...in the leader's guide to the site we have recommended 1) a start and stop time for the study of the book in question, 2) a model of "reading and doing" rather than "reading and attending" as would be the common approach to a class or book club, and 3) an active, organizing role for the leader, so that the tasks associated with the group do not become "redundant and boring."

I hope that further contributions to this research collection will help us all discover ways to make networked discussions like these rich and satisfying for the participants.

Just a note on user images or avatars. If you click on Account settings in the upper right and then on Your site picture at the top, you can scroll down to a place to upload your own avatar or user image, personal icon, whatever...

Just use the Browse button to locate on your computer an image you want to use to represent you visually on the site. You can also visit AvatarsR.Us to download an icon of your choice to your computer which can then be uploaded to this site.  This is a free service with copyright-free images for you to choose from.

Icons or avatars add to the fun of the site, so pick an image and dress up your posts! (Oh, yeah, that's me with the baton over there...)

A question came up yesterday concerning the use of the "Filmscript Language" graphic organizer for Monster.  Anne and I brainstormed some ideas:

(Keep in mind that that Janet has designed Plugged-in to Reading to reflect her strongly held belief that "if you present it to them, it is information; if they build it themselves, it is knowledge.")

So, you can use this graphic organizer in many ways to let them "build it themselves":

1.  Use the organizer to assess background knowledge.  The TG suggests that you put the g/o up on the overhead and ask the kids to define as many words as they can.  This could also be done in small groups if the class is disciplined enough to work this way, with each group taking a few of the words to assess.

2.  Use the organizer as an ongoing vocabulary collection tool.  Give each student a copy of  the g/o and have them fill in the definition for words they recognize or predict the definition, and then use the sheet to offer definitions as the words are encountered in the reading.

3.  Use the organizer for a vocabulary scavenger hunt.  This approach gives kids even more independence in ferreting out the specialized vocabulary words and providing definitions. Set aside some time every day or two during the study of the novel for this activity.

As you can see, these options focus on the organizer as a tool for inquiry and discovery rather than as a static exercise to be completed, graded, and put away.  At the Bradenton institute earlier this summer, Janet commented several times that so much of what constitutes real teaching takes place between the traditional teaching activities of planning and grading.

You can view a copy of the organizer in PDF format here.

Choate Student Work Policy Will Delamater asked me to post this policy that was approved by the Senior Administration in 2004, but never published in the Student Handbook. I'm curious to hear your feedback on the policy and whether you think it is still appropriate two years later.

I have set it up so that this post in my blog should be fed into the community blog.  Let's see if it works!