STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

Future of Learning Manifesto

Check out the Future of Learning Manifesto put together by Christian Long and posted by Randy Ziegenfuss on 1-07-07. 

Or you can download and ponder the PDF version put together by Scott McLeod.

I wonder what our students would think of this? You may add your thoughts by clicking on the Comment link at the end of the post.  How about you?
Posted by Randy Ziegenfuss in • Change • Teaching & Learning

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If you check out Scott McLeod’s blog, he acknowledges top down that Christian Long invited us to mash up his Future of Learning Manifesto, so he did. That lead me to Wikipedia’s definition of mash up.  I’d heard it before, but just didn’t pursue the learning curve.  Today I did.  Here’s what Wikipedia said:

“A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. It is generally created as a critique or commentary on an existing work or product. The tactic owes much to previous recombinant forms including: content repurposing, most notably by Kenneth Anger in his 1963 film Scorpio Rising; DJ mixing and culture jamming.”

The definition continues, too technical for the purpose of this comment.  But the term “content repurposing” really got me thinking.  I repurpose every time I trackback to someone else’s blog.  My last blog was, I think, a mash up.  Actually, most of my blogs are mash ups of sorts.  My blogging is often a commentary or critique of existing blogs.  The trackbacks are my virtual calling card and my internal citation.  I still do the “according to...’ but instead of MLA format, I hyperlink.  How much closer to source can you get?  How can index cards compete…

Then there’s the plagiarism issue.  Is content repurposing plagiarism?  Used properly and virtually, I don’t think so.  What I am learning from blogging and social networking is that how we document sources has drastically changed.  It becomes more difficult to visualize a flat research paper, when a virtual term paper provides so many more affordances.  Why write flat, when you can hyperlink to podcasts, vcasts, film clips, social networking sites, incorporate blogs and trackbacks as primary sources, cite webinars, webisodes, virtual in-services.  Why write flat when you can create virtually with oral history using video skyping or multi-point videoconferencing techniques?  Why not.

And all of that, especially for teachers of English, the how-to gurus of citation, changes everything.  And everything changes everyday. What do you do about that?  One way is to drop a student’s essay/paper into a “dropitin.com” program that identifies plagiarism.  Another way is to teach responsible blogging/writing.  Teach citation with newer tools that students use after school and teach it the way students learn best.  And if you’re thinking [or asking] how all this connects to curriculum, you really need to read Scott McLeod mash up again.

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