Multi-faceted Refractions

This morning, I was trying to remember how many times I have attended the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators (IL-TCE). I know that I attended at least six of them as a part of the Video Etc., Education Alliance, Advanced Technology Workgroup teams, plus twelve out of the last fifteen years that I have been here at North Shore. I am figuring that it is at least 18 or 19 years.

This year, however, will be special. I am participating as a Spotlight Speaker. My topics this year are “Personal Learning Networks - Engaging the Adult Members of Your Community” and “Cultivating Global Collaborations”. I both excited and nervous about the presentations. On Thursday, I am presenting in the Amphitheater Main Stage, where I have hung on the words of Will Richardson, Tim Wilson, Larry Anderson, and Steve Dembo in the past. I only hope that I am half as good at inspiring others as those whom I have seen there in the past. A challenge that I am looking forward to.

Earlier this week, I received and email from the Google for Educators group that I belong to. In it, they introduced their Doodle4Google. Google is eventually going to award a student whose work is judged the best a $10,000 college scholarship and their school a $25,000 technology grant. The best 40 designs are going to be used by Google on their web site. Earlier this year, Google was encouraging students to work on several challenges, most of them documenting open source software. Complete three tasks, earn $100. Complete a certain number of projects and the student would earn to trip to the Google Campus.
I don’t begrudge the student who will earn a scholarship and the school who may get an infusion of technology that is desperately needed. I do appreciate the tools that Google is making available (Docs, Presentation, Earth, Maps, Sketch up) to educators for free. These are wonderful tools which provide the foundation to help reform education.

From a certain perspective, what Google is doing could be viewed as slave labor. By tapping into work efforts of children, most of them under the age of 16, Google is saving themselves thousands of dollars of their development time. At the cost of $875 per logo, which I am guessing that they can write off as a charitable contribution, they will now have 40 new logos to display. At a net cost of $0 development time for themselves.

This is the same way that Google hooked a few of my high school students into documenting different projects, which took them several hours to complete, Google was able to have tasks completed for less than the going rate.

So I am a bit skeptical about Google’s motives. Sure, I can understand their desire to build brand loyalty into young people, so that they are more embedded into the Google brand and culture more so than they may already be. Google may be no better than Ganz, with their Webkinz, and developing branding and developing the culture of social networking. But  why are they creating such a brand loyalty in young users? Are they making sure that they can stay profitable and continue to be a great investment for the future? Are they creating the Google Borg? Are we getting closer and closer to the predictions in the EPIC series of videos?

I think we may be and I am concerned. But I will let you decide.

_{Image from Dysonstarr on Flickr}

Technorati Tags: google

With a shift towards more instantaneous communications via twitter, it seems that blogs and podcasts seem to have fallen out of favor in the last few months. But for me, the art of reading fully developed thoughts, which are over 140 characters and the listening to conversations remains to be a way that I am able to think and create new thoughts and ideas to test out and implement in my life.

Four weeks ago, a new podcast from an old friend appeared in my aggregator. This podcast, Shifting our Schools, really has caused me to stop, listen, and think about the conversation. Jeff Utecht (The Thinking Stick) from the Shanghai American School and David Carpenter (Lessons Learned) record and post a conversation every two weeks. Each week the conversation centers around an essential question. The first three episodes have been about:

• Why Shift
• How Does Making Connections Affect Our Schools
• How to Nurture and Grow a Passion for Learning

With the help of other great thinkers, including Julie Lindsay (123 Learning), Kim Cofino (Always Learning), Justin Medved (MEDagogy), and Clay Burrell (Beyond School) the discuss the topic, bring great thoughts and insights into the conversation. These conversations cause me to stop and reflect and challenge me to question my assumptions.

The next episode is this upcoming Thursday, February 21st. I am anxiously awaiting to see how I will grow from the upcoming conversation.