April 28, 02010

Meeting w /Mark and Seth: April 28, 2010

Format

Frame: Ford funded Center → Network concept; MacArthur funded network of worked examples; here are our recommendations for what the field needs.

A “request for comments” feel (early days of the internet):Here’s something I’m working on and what do you guys think? A very set structure.

A network for collecting worked examples from all comers. We or they build it using these specs. But any network built will have to have these elements regardless, to be successful.

Purpose

Overall purpose: why is this Network necessary? And why should it be a Network? Why should it be using modern technologies, etc.?

It needs to engage more people than just academics. Just engaging th epeople who are just academics isn’t enough. People building and trying and experiencing things in their local school should have a voice in the conversation.

-the need for a national network to link "ordinary people" in sharing exciting successes/struggles to make things better in education -more people weighing in on what they think is good.

Education as everywhere. Broadening the idea of education. And, we’re helping to have people everywhere talking about education.

-the need for a searchable network (core to internet)

-that helps people link up to people struggling w/ similar issues – allowing people in similar situations to find each other, and providing them a basic space to move forward together on their own – social features allowing users to communicate, find each other, create subcommunities, share information. (so we wouldn’t ACTIVELY link people as Yentes.)

-the need for local ecosystems around kids, to be linked in a national ecosystem of people sharing ideas about making life better for kids

A local ecosystem connected to a national and even global ecosystem of people sharing ideas about helping kids.

The action of the group = sharing examples.

Real use cases into the document. How might a teacher, mayor, kid, community organizer. Marlene, able to ask others how they reduced discipline, rather than call me. Searches for exciting visions of what education can be. Pros and cons of approaches that people are taking. Reports on what they can do. A timeline of how we got it done. A flow chart of how we did it.

We might give some e.g.s of subdiscussions that could happen. E.g., community organizers could keep talking to community organizers. Aggregating by self-interest, and choice of topic.

Evaluation of the examples shared. A folksonomy where people evaluate “what they like.” Social collaborative filtering. But how to also link in ‘official evaluation’? EVIDENCE of success on some measure you care about. What ever you are trying to achieve, show us that you’ve achieved it.

On Digg: people submit new content to the network. It has a null value when they do. Other people vote + or – on the network. Some networks, like DIgg, let high-users be “worth more.” So, people can “down-mod” something and kill it.

How to break a stranglehold on what = “quality” in education. So we want a system that allows more examples to be rated as cool. But also, more evaluators allowed to evaluate! Allowing kids to rate, as well as academics, as well as parents. BUT: when you get too democratic without any controls people can “up vote” something that just “looks popular.” Also, be careful about “scoring” things and giving “points.” But, perhaps give some precedence to someone who EXPERIENCED the events.

Evaluating these examples!! Beyond “I like this, this is cool.” E.g.: people doing ongoing asssessments of their own efforts. this network gives me the idea of starting a reading night in my school. TEMPLATES for doing your thing.

Linda Darling-Hammond’s model: show a video, get everyone to agree this is really cool, and then, get people to say “why this is cool.”

How to NOT APPLY A TORTURED FRAME to the “cool examples” that we just know are really cool!! Avoid forcing people to label things before they go express them.

Evaluators: should the network care if you have a degree? Wikipedia doesn’t care. They care about the fact you stated. And then, others correct it.

We want to democratize. Social filtering, economic systems. Also, the potential of showing people which examples have the most debate around them! how to get out of “who’s good? Who’s bad? Who should get money? Who should get attention?”

What’s the unit of analysis? Can it be individuals? Or not b/c of privacy issues? Or, is it communities? Or, is it topics? All of the above?

What is the incentive for people to post?

• Open licensing of content (allows for interoperability between projects)

   *  How Commons Based Peer-Production favors unity of purpose and work
   (replying to their desire to multi-purpose their site)

   *  Taxonomy vs Folksonomy (Attributing worked examples to theories, or