Dipity-More than a Timeline (or how social networks work)

This summer I found out about a great online interactive timeline named Dipity. My original thought was that Dipity would be a cool tool to have students work collaboratively on timelines. Pretty cool stuff. Well, a few weeks ago I read a tweet from Vicki Davis, of the Coolcatteacher Blog, about a post entitled Dipity Do Da--An Interactive Collaborative Timeline To Track Wiki Contributions from Beth Kanter's Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media. What I found out was that Dipity was a whole lot more than just an interactive collaborative timeline. It also had the capability to track your personal contributions on wikis, blogs, Flickr, Twitter, and other web 2.0 sites.

I then created a timeline of my Tweets from Twitter (I know for you non Twitterers out there that sounds utterly ridiculous) and my American Cultures 2.0 blog posts. It provides me with another way to view my online posting habits. Take a look:


Of course, I love Dipity for the potential it creates in collaborating on class material. Here's a timeline I just began creating for topics we will be studying this year. The timeline is very incomplete because my plan is to have the students fill it in as we progress throughout the school year.


Finally, besides sharing the possibilities of Dipity, my intention is also to show those who are unfamiliar with the learning potential of social networks how they can be used for good, and not evil. I monitor Twitter most days. Usually it takes no longer than a minute or two, but on some days I find nuggets of great information that take me to other places on the web. This happens because I choose to follow people on Twitter that share interesting resources and information. For example, I know that Vicki Davis is a minefield of great resources so, of course, I follow her. On August 9th she simply shared an interesting post she read about Dipity and linked to the post. Since Vicki's tweet interested me I clicked on the link and found Beth Kanter's blog post about using Dipity to track wiki contributions. The rest is history, and now you are learning about Dipity, Twitter, Vicki Davis, and Beth Kanter. Talk about virtual networking!

We're talking about SKILLS here

"...like nunchucku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills...Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills." --Napoleon Dynamite

Even Napoleon Dynamite recognized the need for skills. As a history teacher I teach the content of American history, but just as important are the skills that I teach to prepare thoughful and engaged citizens of the 21st century. Finally, there is a curriculum map that helps to determine what skills should be taught in a social studies classroom of the 21st century. This map goes beyond reading, writing, and communication skills (although it includes all of those) to include creativity, information literacy and adaptability skills. With technology and information changing at warp speed students need these new skills to be prepared for the reality of the world we live in today. Many people have seen the video "Did You Know? 2.0", but if you haven't take a few minutes to watch this thought provoking video that demostrates how today's world is far different than it was just 10 years ago and the impact it has on all of us.

(Created by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and XPLANE)

So, in July, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the National Council for the Social Studies unveiled the very first 21st Century skills curriculum map. The document includes student outcomes and outcome examples for grades 4, 8, and 12. There are twelve specific skills contained in the map, they include:

• creativity and innovation;
• critical thinking and problem solving;
• communication;
• collaboration;
• information literacy;
• media literacy;
• information and communication technologies;
• flexibility and adaptability;
• initiative and self direction;
• social and cross-cultural skills;
• productivity and accountability;
• and leadership and responsibility.

I am generally not a fan of curriculum documents (one only needs to look at the Pennsylvania History Standards and the minutiae it contains to understand my way of thinking), but this document seems to meld the NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies) national standards to the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) standards. This melding is what makes this curriculum map so intriguing and potentially valuable for social studies teachers.

21st Century Skills Curriculum Map

What are your thoughts?

Common Craft does it again

Common Craft is a company run by a husband and wife team that produces short, easy to understand videos that explain complicated topics. Most videos are focused on web applications and software, such as wikis, blogs, rss, etc... However, Common Craft has just created a video long overdue. Electing a U.S. President in Plain English succinctly explains the often misunderstood Presidential election process. This is something that I think students (and their parents) may find informative. Just in time for the 2008 election season.



(Thanks to Jim Gates for posting this on his site Tipline-Gates' Computer Tips.)

Top 10 things I learned in Web 2.0 Class

This week I've been taking a Web 2.0 grad class at Harrisburg University. The instructor is Jim Gates of Tipline: Gates' Computer Tips fame. This course is easily the best class I have taken in years. I am learning so many new ways to teach and to learn. My greatest challenge now is to sift through all the resources to find the ones that will work for me and my students.

To help my sifting process here is a list of the top 10 things I learned this week:

10) Pecha Kucha--A great suggestion for presentations: 20 slides, 20 seconds each. This forces the presenter to be prepared and to tell a story to keep the audience happy. Here is an example of a Pecha Kucha presentation by Dan Pink:


9) ePals --I think I like ePals, but I'm still waiting for my student blog site??? I have my profile and email account, but why so long for the blogs? Maybe it's my fault, no, on second thought I can't remember the last time I made a mistake. Early onset senility has its advantages. Anyway, I do like the fact that you can search for classrooms around the world looking to virtually get together. The email and blogs can also be moderated.

8) Creating forms in Google Docs --On the first day of class Jim Gates had us fill out a form with our name, address and years teaching. Instantly we could see the spreadsheet Jim made filled in with our information. We then viewed a scatter plot graph showing the years of teaching experiences for the teachers in class. The coolest part was viewing Google Earth with pins locating where we all lived. Very cool mashup!

7) Live Blogging with Google Docs --It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with Google. Create a Google Docs presentation and you can live blog the thing. Amazing!

6) Thomas Friedman's MIT Milestone Presentation Keynote Address
Fascinating view of how technology is changing our world. Usually, people don't realize what's happening until too late, and then are forced to be reactive to events instead of proactive. Thankfully, Friedman's thesis of the flattening of the world and the forces that are causing this to happen helps to explain the current state we face in the world. This makes what we do as teachers even more important to help keep the U.S. relevant, competitive, and creative.


5) Coveritlive --Being new to live blogging I think I like it. I will need to participate more in live blogging events to be sure I like it, but the ease at which it took to set up an event made me want to give this a try.

4) Embedding UStream into Coveritlive --Now I think I really like Coveritlive! I still need to get a cam (I'm sooo last century), but once I do watch out! Until I get a cam I could still find a UStream and embed it into a Coveritlive session. Again, the ease of embedding UStream in Coveritlive makes me want to at least give it a whirl.

3) Diigo Groups --I love Delicious, but I never knew what to think of Diigo. Actually, I'm still not sure what I think of Diigo, but I now see a feature that I like. Diigo has groups of like minded people who share links, ideas and discussions in a professional network setting. I signed up for the Educators Group, organized by Coolcatteacher Vicki Davis; the Classroom 2.0 Group, organized by Steve Hargadon who formed the Classroom 2.0 Ning Group I already belong to; and the Social Studies Group, organized by Adrea Lawrence who I don't know (virtually speaking).

2) Today, Jim Beeghley of Teaching the Civil War with Technology blog was sitting beside me -- and I didn't realize it. Earlier when we were sharing blog posts I shared one I recently read from Jim's Blog on tagging flickr photos to Delicious. Two hours later he came in to observe the class and he sat next to me, with me, of course, being oblivious of who was sitting next to me. I actually thought Jim was some sort of Harrisburg U administrator. After I found out who he was and introduced myself, I let him know that I was the teacher he blogged about in his post More Uses of Web 2.0 Tools--"Oh, you're Mr. T!" "Yep, I'm Mr. T" Funny how you sort of know someone from reading their blogs, but when you meet them in person it makes the virtual connection real. Very exciting. Can't wait to have Jim come to Hershey and share his love of the Civil War with my students.

1) It's not just about technology. It's about how technology enhances our professional communication, networking, and learning, in order to improve the learning experiences of our students. This may not be something I learned this week, but it is something that was reinforced reinforced.

What a fun and exhausting week!!!

Josh Hamilton's amazing story

As anyone who knows me knows I am a huge baseball and Cincinnati Reds fan. I am also a huge fan of Josh Hamilton, the former Red and current All-Star outfielder for the Texas Rangers. Last night Hamilton put on a home run hitting clinic at the annual MLB home run derby. He not only hit 28 home runs in one round (four more than anyone has ever hit in a round and twenty more than anyone hit in this years first round), but he consistently hit them farther and harder than anyone in the competition. He even hit one off the back wall of Yankee stadium. As a baseball fan I knew I was watching an amazing feat.

Before the home run derby I knew Hamilton would put on a hitting display. Last year I watched batting practice before a Reds-Pirates game and was absolutely astounded and captivated by watching him hit. He has such an easy and free swing, yet the ball just jumps off his bat. Every time he hit the ball it sounded crisper and louder than any other player I ever witnessed. His hits were like jets streaking across the sky at supersonic speed, while everyone else's hits were like, well, er, baseballs hit by talented, yet mortal baseball players. Yet, Josh Hamilton is mortal.

Josh Hamilton is certainly a modern-day version of The Natural, a story based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel about Roy Hobbs, a "natural" baseball phenom who's career is cut short, but who, against all odds, makes an amazing return 16 years later only to fall from grace at the end. Only, I prefer to think that Hamilton's story is more like the 1984 movie version of Malamud's novel. In the movie version Hobbs ends his career with the New York Knights by hitting a walk off, light shattering, ball unravelling, pennant winning home run. The movie ends with Hobbs playing catch with his son.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Hamilton's story is not over. How it will turn out is unknown, because Josh Hamilton is a drug addict. Each new day may be the day he relapses. It is only through his faith in God and the support of his friends and family that he has been given a second chance. And what a second chance it's been. After being out of baseball for three years and never before playing above single A minor league baseball, Hamilton is arguably the best baseball player in the game today. Also, take into consideration that the years he was out of baseball he was a suicidal crack addict.

Josh Hamilton's amazing story should be an inspirational story for everyone. He made amazingly stupid mistakes by getting into drugs in the first place. Haven't we all made stupid mistakes in our life? Most of us haven't been to where Josh Hamilton's been as far as addiction and despair (although there are many people there right now), but we have all regretted mistakes that we have made. That is part of being human--we are imperfect, we make mistakes, but we can make things right.

Isn't this something that we need to teach our students? Try your best, but when you fail (like we all do), learn from it and make things right. And there will be teachers, counselors, friends, parents who will be there to help.

If you want to learn more about Josh Hamilton and what he's been through read these excellent articles:


"I'm proof that hope is never lost," by Josh Hamilton (as told to Tim Keown)
ESPN The Magazine, July 5, 2007


Faith brings Texas Rangers' Hamilton back from the brink, by Evan Grant
The Dallas Morning News, February 29, 2008


The Super Natural, by Albert Chen
Sports Illustrated, May 27, 2008