Digital Signposts

Mapping the Past, Present and Future

 

I have recently spent quite a bit of time watching, David Rumsey's inspirational keynote describing how digital technology and visualisation can aid the understanding and interpretation of historic maps; thus building new knowledge, not only of the maps, but about people, the societies they lived in and  the prevailing culture and values of the time.

Using Google Earth overlays, historic fly-throughs, 30ft globes, and virtual worlds
this 40 min video is awesome, the screen capture above offers a flavour.  Indeed it is one of the best uses of virtual worlds that I have come across in a long time. 

The Creative Commons licensed Rumsey Map Collection accessed through the Luna Browser,  is a good example of how digital technologies can refocus our interpretation of other cultural artefacts, for example, posters, photographs or moving images, in order to shed new light on our past and our present.

The idea of digitally synthesing of old and new is beginning to gain momentum, and there are projects, open to students and educators, including Hypercities which explores layers of time through city maps, or HistoryPin which crowdsources old photographs and superimposes them on Google Street View. 

Even if mapping isn't  your personal interest, digitised archives or artefacts can provide a stimulus for meaningful learning designs and contexts for all stages of learning. Applying digital tools to data we already have allows new interpretations and ways of using the data which makes this a very rich field for educators to explore using digital technologies.

And whilst at first glance, some of the artefacts and ideas from the past may seem absurd today;  in context, they reveal the hidden codes for our future, which are gaining recognition amongst an emerging cohort of paleo-futurists, digital humanists, digital anthropologists and archaeologists who participate in innovative projects and networks.  As Tom Seinfield from the Found History blog states:

"innovation in digital humanities frequently comes from the edges of the scholarly community rather than from its center—small institutions and even individual actors with few resources are able to make important innovations."

 This is highly encouraging and it is certainly an area I plan to spend a lot more time studying and working in.

Don't worry about the commitee...

Image (remix) Credit: occ4m  CC Licence 

A recent post by Neil Winton highlights the issues of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) in digital resources created by teachers. Neil's post also prepares the ground for a debate on the opportunities digital resources offer teaching and learning, something I will cover in more detail in the following post. Although Neil's post referred primarily to QA of resources and their suitability for inclusion in glow, the subtext and comments discussed the 'ownership'  of the resources, and the complexities around the issues of a teachers' own time and any monetary value.

Accepting the probability that such IPR clauses may be written into, (many), teacher contracts, and that legally, resources created by teachers are the property of their employer e.g. Local Authority (LA) or school,  it now seems high time that all parties get together to openly discuss the IPR/employer issues in the context of Web 2.0 and user generated content in order to arrive at a workable solution.

It is highly improbable that the likes of; Flickr, You Tube, social networks and digital publishing tools were considered, or even around, when IPR clauses were written into teacher contracts. More likely, they were drawn up around a scenario of teachers writing textbooks or publishing collections of worksheets.

Ewan notes in the comments, teacher publishing is not yet mainstream,  I suspect this will remain the case, certainly for writing books.  As Ewan suggest those teachers might consider setting up a, (self employed), business to do this, or they could be up-front and negotiate  an agreement with their employer. On the other hand Web 2.0 offers teachers, who would not normally consider writing a book, the opportunity to create and publish digital resources and indeed make themselves known and establish a presence within educational communities. Indeed many are already doing so. This point is particularly well illustrated by the excellent collaborative sideshow below, (one of many), from Tom Barrett,  which demonstrates the possibilities and opportunities for teachers to become involved and why the old terms of reference are no longer applicable.

Collaborative Google doc Presentation resource created and developed Tom Barrett, contributed to by many under a Creative commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License. If you would like to contribute to this resource, please contact Tom

This kind of resource does not need committee approval; applying a Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike license will prevent any employer claiming exclusive IPR; but they would be entitled to adapt, share and add their name to the credits and gain attribution. I believe this might be of greater value to them than the monetary value, if any, of the resource. Alternatively, they could choose to ban such content in schools or lessons, but that does not seem very wise, and I really cannot see many be willing to go down this route.

In conclusion I would argue teachers don't need to be too worried when creating digital resources. LAs are not really, (or if they are - should not be), in the business of acting as agents for resources, teacher developed or otherwise. Instead they should be encouraging teachers to participate in developing new resources, and realise they would benefit by association. Where LAs and official bodies might also offer support is in facilitating CPD and other initiatives that  help teachers who wish to create and share materials, work together and avoid the pitfalls of using third party copyright materials in their resources.

I think it is unlikely LAs would be willing to pursue IPR claims on teacher generated materials through the courts, (it costs a lot of money, more than they would ever make be likely to recoup selling the resources), and such a move would certainly raise eyebrows amongst council tax payers.

So hopefully there will be a move towards official support and encouragement for teachers leading the way in developing learning materials. They certainly should not have to worry about some committee or legal dept.

A Hootenanny in the Cloud

image credit: Scottish Dance Records by  bob the lomond  cc Licence

I don't really suffer from a shortage of music, (7.6 days worth if I listened to it from end to end), but I'm always up for hearing more; either online or by going to (mainly local) gigs, hoping some of the magic might rub of on to my playing. So when @iusher flagged up Spotify on Twitter a few days ago I thought I'd give it a go.

Initial impressions were good; excellent streaming, with little or no buffering and a wealth of tunes; this seemed Ideal for checking out an artists archives or to do keyword search on a genre.  Since Pandora was killed dead, here in the UK, I have been using and having some fun with blip.fm  but it's still rather insular; whilst Last.fm doesn't cut it for me.

It wasn't until @GeorgiaWonder, (who played for the Teachmeet at BETT), posted a collaborative playlist that the true value of Spotify became apparent. After some playing around, I decided to launch a themed playlist: Caledonia - which has  one simple rule; all tunes must have some connection or link with Scotland, I posted 12 songs initially and have added one or two since.  This has taken off like wildfire and the playlist now stands at over 140 and covers genres ranging including Rock, Punk Folk Strict Tempo Dance Bluegrass Comedy Poetry,  The traditional includes folk from Ewan McColl and Karine Polwart, there's's dance music from, (naturally), Jimmy Shand and from this era Phil Cunningham, great rockers such as Frankie Miller and  the late Alex Harvey line up next to the pop of Lulu and Sheena Easton; Andy Stewart and Billy Connolly supply  laughs, and Robin Williamson carries on the tradition of the Celtic bards. Perhaps one thing that would make Spotify a killer app, would be the opportunity to see who has uploaded individual tunes; (and catch the culprit responsible for adding The Bay City Rollers!!). Perhaps also a online chat or comments would complete the picture, making it do for music, what Twitter has, for our personal social and learning networks.

And great fun though it is; this is about much more than sharing tunes; the playlist reflects a shared, yet very diverse cultural identity,  I would be surprised if any of the collaborators didn't discover a few new tunes.  Woven into the  musical experience were anecdotes, banter and whisky.  So, to anyone reading this please  join in the - you don't have to be Scottish - just the music. Here's the link

Since then  I have been thinking quite deeply about how  we access/store/listen to music; is the time coming when  like a lot of our other data; a great deal of our music will live in the Cloud?.  Spotify certainly suggest this might be a possibility.  Since using it I have had little desire, to visit my library on my HD. Spotify seems much more immediate, and there's always a surprise in the  next song.  How I will listen to music in the car driving up to Teachmeet Borders later today is of course, a different story!

Seriously though, if it is now possible to have this degree of interaction, community and  collaboration for music, it can also be achieved in other areas. We can do it for  knowledge, we can do it for learning, for learning resources, and offer some real shared community learning.

It's not really about YouTube

Image attribution;  AlexMuse under this CC licence

The perennial debate on filtering and blocking of web sites, in education, has been lively on several fronts recently, including Twitter, ETR (Ed Tech Round -a group of teachers and others who meet online weekly), and the Naace advisory list of UK ICT education professionals, reaching over 50 posts in a few days. The idea of creating a Google Maps mashup to demonstrate blocking on a national and local level was one of the ideas proposed. Whilst I don't think a name and shame list will do much to change the situation, the data might be useful as  a broad indicator, especially if there is some creative detail, that others can add to. What is clear is the increasing degree of irritation with the status quo by a growing number of teachers, whilst advocates of blocking show little sign of changing their thinking, no matter what evidence is brought forward.

It will come as no surprise that much of the debate was centered around YouTube, so in this post I will consider some of the the wider issues relating to YouTube, though much of it could apply equally to other online services. I visited a, (primary), school a couple of weeks ago which allowed access to YouTube, parents are aware and supportive and the world has not come to an end. Quoting; Lisa Stevens, the languages teacher who speaks regularly in the UK and Europe on creative use ICT, including Web 2.0, in school:

"We make them, (children), aware rather than blocking. I use YouTube a lot in lessons. I like the fact that it not blocked and I can be spontaneous, but I always check before I show it to the kids. I think it's a great resource. There's lots of cultural information, especially  songs, I can find for Spain. If you ask my children to name the planets they will burst into a Spanish song. There are times when they will go on to YouTube and find things, then, I have to say to them could we not go ever there, now is not the time and explain to them why. I know there is TeacherTube but to be honest there isn't as much good stuff there

We made an animation about the Carnival of the Animals and shared it on you.' and they were so excited  "Miss Miss we are on YouTube,"  Look at the hits that can't just be my Mum." I say "no its not - and they are on iTunes as well".  The kudos of being in a place  place where others than their peers can see them.  And, parents like to see what their children have been doing.

Access and Control with the number of mobile devices and Internet connected laptops growing,  and students playing the bypassing filters game, it is probably only a matter of time before blocking may no longer be a realistic option. Indeed, a great deal of blocking seems to be a knee jerk reaction to behavioral issues rather than seriously concerned with pupils e-safety. YouTube itself does have a notification process, perhaps not ideal in everyone's eyes, but it is available. Probably of much greater concern might be the 'comments' left by those who use comments features to abuse others, (and their right to free speech). Teachers may find Comment Snob a very useful  addition when using YouTube with a class.

The inappropriate Content case is a Straw Man, it is unlikely anyone will disagree there is much low level rubbish, both from user generated, and professional sources, and some may say YouTube has a dark side, but that is easily counterbalanced by the growing number of good educational channels, including recently digitised treasures from the BFI.  It is the breadth and freshness of content, that generates YouTube's value for teachers, often addressing current issues such as this video analysis of a topical 'copyright' issue, (Satriani v Coldplay). In fact YouTube reflects our culture at all levels, and future social anthropologists will be far more likely to study YouTube than the professional produced, authoritative media preferred by Andrew Keen.

From the discussions it is clear, many teachers 'download' the video streams from YouTube to use in different ways and contexts. Even though everyone's doing it, (many possibly unaware), that it breaks YouTube's, (restrictive), terms and conditions. It is not my role here, or in my nature to suggest teachers stop downloading, but, is important to know, in order to make  informed decisions on using use YouTube materials. Considering the hundreds of tools available to download video, it would be naive to assume YouTube (Google) will be unaware of this, but since 2006 there seems to be no official response from YouTube, and from their point of view it may now be case of, 'let sleeping dogs lie'.

This leads naturally on to Licensing, along with many others, I maintain YouTube could do much more here, for example allowing users to add Creative Commons licences to the videos they upload, as is the case with Flickr and Blip.tv. I suspect that is because a large number of videos may have copyrighted materials embedded in them. Lawrence Lessig extrapolates on the issues, in depth, here. 

Finally the Technology. YouTube continues to improve its services, recent developments included: captions and video annotations, deep linking, wide screen format, a bigger player  and HD quality video. Add to this low cost easy to use mini video cameras, (now including HD) and visual quality is set to improve dramatically. There are a  now number of third party services allowing you to deep link  or edit  online with more likely to appear. There are also  tools that will transform the use of video in learning now emerging from the research labs.

The future
All this suggests that, (online), video including YouTube is here for the long run, and as technical standards, cost and ease of use will continue to improve there is a great untapped potential for learning. It is up to (educational) users of YouTube to make sure their voice is heard as YouTube evolves, rather than it be left to the media industry, repressive regimes or governments that should know better.

The first casualties of social media?

This analysis suggests that social media has claimed a big casualty, namely Hillary Clinton. It will be very interesting to see who/what will be next. Do our 'traditional' education systems and institutions need to take heed?
via socialmedia

Bitmap to Vector Conversion (Yes online!)

I've been becoming rather blase lately about online image editing. With a good number of freely available tools such as Picnik, (my personal favourite), and Adobe due to launch the free online version of Photoshop before the end of the year, there is certainly plenty to experiment with.

However, VectorMagic (beta) from Stanford, made my day, and I think this Web 2.0  service opens up a new dimension in Web 2.0 graphic editing. Up till now I have found it necessary to use Adobe Illustrator to convert bit maps into vectors for editing, but I suspect this tool will make my use of Illustrator for basic tasks much less frequent, just in the same way that Picnik changed my dependence on Photoshop.

Not only does the tool deliver an excellent  conversion, it is fast and intuitive, making it a delight to use. With some good  basic editing tools, context sensitive help, and the ability to download you images as an .eps or .SVG this is a really useful tool.  When you add the ability to store your finished graphics online and share them, then this becomes a very powerful tool indeed. The potential for creating re-usable vector 'assets or learning objects' is not to be sniffed at.

In my experience, working with schools,  teachers often shied away from vector graphics. So if it is necessary to explain " the difference between bitmaps and vectors" in  enjoyable way, then this is the bees knees.

Rethinking information handling

Exploring the fundamental changes in the way we work with information, Information R/evolution (above) is the new video from Michael Wesch, whose other works include the viral The Machine Is Using Us, and more recently,  A vision of Students Today. Combined, these videos set out some fundamental and inescapable challenges that education systems must address. It is worth noting some business professionals are already aware of the implications. (via The Obvious)

Incidentally, I installed beta version of Leap on my Mac today and the need for folders is becoming less critical by the minute. T

Seam Carving - It really works!

Rsizr The intelligent image resizing tool,  I mentioned in my August 31st  post is now available as an online application.  It takes bit of getting used to, but it really does work. The secret is to use the selection tools to choose which areas of an image to protect, or even remove. My first attempt is shown above. I look forward to spending some time exploring the creative possibilities, and seeing the work of others. Its also quite fascinating to watch the image processing take place before your very eyes.

The world's biggest, never ending, slide show

This is seriously addictive. Dave Troy has just released a beta version of Flickrvision; a site that lets you view geotagged images on a  dynamic Google map, in real time, as they are uploaded to Flickr. The effect is hypnotic, photos from around the globe continuously appear and disappear from view, as the map shifts around to accommodate them. The potential is vast, especially as new features are promised to allow developers to customise this service; for example, checking on uploads from a specific location.

In class, even 5 minutes of watching this should inspire students, encourage questioning, help them identify social and cultural aspects around the world and discovering places and their relationships in the wider world. Please comment on any good ideas for educational use.

Footnote: although only a day old, this site has already had  over 1500 posts on del.icio.us

Busy day at Google

Yesterday was a busy day at Google with the release of My Maps and a Mac version of Google Desktop.  My Maps makes it easy for anyone to create their personalised Google maps, by simply positioning a marker and adding text or media to create an interactive map.  I made this in ten minutes. The marker listings on the left are neat, but can't be rearranged, which is a shame.

My Maps includes line and shape drawing tools and the maps can be saved as KLM files for use with Google Earth. However, I think there are there are a some features missing which prevent it from being as useful as it might be. The most important is the absence of any embed code, it would also be nice to  measure distances between markers. An RSS feed for updated maps, tags and  tools that enable collaborative work on maps, (think classes), are also be on my wish list.

There are some problems with  video from third party sites. Google Video and YouTube work fine, but Videoegg did not, and the HTML disappeared, others have also commented that Google strips some HTML elements. Having said that clips from Veoh did work, so I suppose it's trial and error. A final worry is that this may have detrimental effects on some mapping services such as QuikMaps which provide  excellent  tools and support. Whatever the benefits of My Maps we need these third party innovators

I believe My Maps will strengthen the case for using Web 2.0 and social software  in schools. Because it is so quick and easy to use, teachers and students should find plenty of uses, in all subjects and areas of study.