Lightning in a Bottle

I’ll admit it. One of my favorite things to find is information that supports my biases. (Actually, I also enjoy articles that challenge my thinking, too. Really!) I encountered the former in the March 2007 issue of Seed magazine. In an article entitled The Truth Seekers, there is a discussion of the work of a researcher named Alan Sanfey. In brief, he studied why people who participate in a standard economics-based decision game called “Ultimatum” tend to make choices that don’t make sense.

The game works like this. There are two subjects, and one is given $10. He or she then has to share the money with the other subject, but can decide how much (or how little) to share. The other participant can choose to accept the offer or reject it, but if he or she rejects it, neither subject gets anything. According to standard economic theory, the second participant will accept the offer, no matter how unfair, because a little money is better than none.

It doesn’t work that way, however. If the offer is unfair, the second participant will usually reject it. The choice isn’t rational, it’s emotional. This experiment has been around for about 20 years, and what’s new is that Sanfey had participants play the game while having their brains scanned, so he could see what parts of the brain were active. When faced with an unfair offer, the part of the brain dealing with strong emotions is where the action happened. To quote the article, Contrary to the expectations of most economists, our anger almost always overruled our reason.

I’m throwing this into a blog on ed tech because I think this is true in many areas beyond economics. As I’ve written before, I’m fascinated with why some technologies are adopted and some aren’t. It’s clearly not an issue of rational decision-making sometimes, and sometimes when decisions are rational, they are completely unsatisfying. (Does anyone really love overhead projectors?) When we look at new technologies that may hold promise for the classroom, we need to look beyond whether it simply makes sense. Will it make students and teachers feel better about what they’re doing? New technologies are almost always a pain in the neck to implement. If I don’t feel like it’s making my life better, all the rational arguments in the world aren’t going to get me to use it.

I can’t believe I’m thinking about new workshops for next year already. (It’s probably because it’s more interesting to think about than budgets, which is what I should be working on.) I have one idea for a class that I definitely plan on doing, though, and it’s How To Publish Your Own Classroom Book.

This is possible now through several services, but the most well-known is lulu.com. There have always been “vanity presses”, where an author can pay a company to print copies of his or her books, so self-publishing isn’t a brand new concept. What sets lulu.com apart is that there is no up-front cost to publishing - you can upload your text, cover graphics, design your book and have it ready to sell without spending a dime.

How can this work? Because lulu.com is a print on demand publisher. They don’t actually print a book until someone orders it. Then the book is printed, bound, and shipped. Lulu.com then splits the price of the book with you.

This really appeals to me as a teacher, because for a relatively low cost you can take your students’ writing (and/or artwork) and create professionally-produced books that will have enormous appeal. (Book prices range based on length, binding style, and other options.) You can order your own copies of the books at “author cost” to sell to the students, and also have them available for orders online from relatives and friends.

I expect the set up the class so we meet several times over a course of a couple of months, starting with the basic idea of how it works, then stepping teachers through the process of planning the book with their students, producing the work, uploading and designing the book, and ending with a book fair where participants share their final projects. I’ll check back in with you next fall and let you know how it turns out!

I had planned on blogging while at the Northwest Council for Computers in Education conference last week, but it’s hard enough to find time at the conference to be at the conference, much less blog about it! (I know I should blog from the sessions, but I always forget to ask permission before they start, and I don’t want to typety-type away in the back and look like I’m doing email or playing Scrabble or something. Being a presenter is hard enough without worrying about participants surfing the web.)

All that being said, it was a great conference! For instance, here are just a few things I learned about Wikipedia -

• The whole Wikipedia system is a lot more complicated than I ever realized. There are multiple levels of participation Readers, Editors, Admins, Bureaucrats, Stewards, Root, ArbCom, and Board of Trustees. The bandwidth of Wikipedia now peaks at over 3 gigabits per second
• There is a gigantic, active social structure among the registered users of Wikipedia that reinforces the goals of the project.
• There are teams of editors that work to undue vandalism on a constant basis. “Vandal bots” constantly monitor edits, and if certain terms pop up the bot emails the editors to check the new contributions and fix any obvious problems.
• If you want to cite a Wikipedia article exactly as you are viewing it at this moment, click the link on the left of the page that says Cite this page. Not only will it give you a bibilographically correct citation, it will also cite the version you are viewing, rather than whatever version is currently active in the future. This prevents embarrassing moments when a page has been vandalized, and also makes certain that the citation reflects the information you want, regardless of future edits.

I have uploaded some pictures of the conference at my flickr page. Videos and podcasts from the event are now up at the new, updated NCCE website. I should be tired, but I’m already getting psyched about next year!

Technorati tag ncce2007

We are pleased to be hosting the Metiri Group for a two-day workshop on May 30 & 31. The presenters will be Cheryl Lemke and Ed Coughlin, and it promises to be a great program. The focus of this seminar will be on how to measure the impact of technology in schools, a topic that is of pretty high priority to almost everyone I know working in our districts. Cheryl and Ed have an enormous amount of experience on this issue, and have worked on evaluating technology in education in a variety of contexts in districts states across the country. I’m really looking forward to what they have to say, and the conversations that will develop between our participants!

Registration is $275 for an individual, $500 for two, and $225 for each additional registrant from a single district. We really encourage team registrations to have a more meaningful experience. You can download a form with more information and a registration information here. I hope we see you in May!