I really enjoyed seeing a soldier read to his daughter via Second Life. Reminded me of the days when I traveled a LOT for work and read to my daughter over the telephone ... using a book at each location.

So what does this mean for education? Perhaps that social workers and psychology majors should start getting used to tele-therapy options.

Not that I think they will replace all face-to-face interactions. (Why, whenever we talk about adding a virtual or computer-based tool, do people assume that we intend to use it to replace co-presence interactions??) But it may allow us to bridge distances in situations where being together is not practical. Think about specialized care consultations that could save on travel time - or even become possible where economies of scale would not allow a specialist to be consulted locally. Or where abusive spouses could talk to family members without any risk of physical harm. Or where families who are scattered due to military service or work requirements could be together.

Being virtually co-present is different than talking on the telephone. You can do things together in a game or a virtual world beyond just talking, providing the common experiences so necessary to maintain or (re)develop relationships. But unless tomorrow's leaders, teachers, and therapists have experience with these media, they won't have any idea of how to navigate the differences successfully.

We should be exposing our students to these developing tools now and working with them to help them succeed in whatever media is available to them as they live and work in a world of mixed interaction modalities.

Kino is literally a desktop mask that hides the background on your big, gorgeous screen so that you can focus on the task at keyboard ... saving attention so that you finish the project and can later put the digital real estate to good use watching Iron Man 2 trailers. This puts it into the category of tools that self-aware procrastinators, like me, use to manage ourselves. It ranks along side habits such as turning OFF my cell phone, shutting down my email program, and setting a timer in World of Warcraft. These actions make sure that I can hit a project hard, complete it, and move on to actually watching Iron Man 2 in the theater.

Problem is that they are all voluntary. And there's the rub. None of the tools to eliminate distractions work unless a person (student or teacher) wants to engage in them. Oh sure, parents and lab administrators can install programs to actually take the decision out of the hands of their students, but is this really necessary? Or is it actually counter-productive? At some point, teens and young adults (and older adults) need to start self-regulating by turning off distractions or turning on the distraction-muting programs themselves. As any early childhood educator will tell you, learning to self-regulate is a major life skill. If a 13 or 23 or 33 year old hasn't mastered that one yet, it is time for some remedial training.

Truth is, teens and college students are more capable of choosing to limit social media than we may think. Reports are coming in that they are logging off Facebook and other sites in order to improve grades and achieve other goals. One of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits has a list of tips for teens to manage the balance between goals and socializing via media.

The key is that, no matter how hard it may seem, you have to decide that you're in charge of how much of the data stream you will enjoy - and when. I'll keep posting tools to help whenever I find them!

Since my current courses are taught mostly online, it makes sense to have students give me feedback online as well. Unfortunately, response rate is under 50% ... and it seems to be the 50% who have "suggestions for improvement" who respond. The other half of the class presumably found the course acceptable to the point where they did not need to voice an opinion. But without data, one does not know what parts of the course should be retained as is, since they may have met the needs of the majority ... or not.

I like the suggestion in the post that there should be some sort of incentive to complete these evaluations. They would, of course, need to be given by the system confidentially. But if it brings response rate up to something reasonable ... such as the 80% cited in the study, I would think it worth the work. Otherwise, we may be basing promotion and retention decisions on inadequate data as well as asking teachers to "fix" course materials that really are not truly broken.

And I bought that argument for a while, but it made me uneasy. After all, there are many technical aspects of research theory and practice that are not easy to discover on your own ... just look at seasoned researchers who make mistakes and end up in the news! "Guidance" via more words and redirection to students' own experiences and the textbook (none of which really meet our needs for this class fully anyway) did not work very well for two semesters.

Then, I discovered Camtasia Relay.

This little program allows me to record mini-lectures over PowerPoint presentations. In 15 to 30 minutes, I can give direct information and guidance to my online students ... every week. This keeps them on track, reassures them that I'm still really "there" as their instructor, and has significantly raised the comfort and satisfaction my students have for the course.

It also allows me to use my computer display, with voice over, to show students many of the tools and techniques that I use in research and analysis. Using dummy information (gathered from the class on non-personal questions), I can demonstrate how to calculate statistics or used thematic content analysis to answer a research question. In theory, you could use this capture technology to show and talk about any subject matter you could show on your computer - with or without Power Point.

One of the best things about the software is that it works for both Mac and PC ... a rarity in the ed tech world. And with Camtasia Relay 2 coming out, many of my concerns may be addressed.

Up to this release, I'd been concerned about what I would do when I had a hearing impaired student in my class (which has happened in prior terms). But Relay 2 promises voice to text - something I need to verify.

I'd also been bothered by the fact that I have to unplug my second monitor whenever I did a recording. The new version manages multiple monitors and multiple microphones!

It also promises better integration into Moodle, which is currently my CMS of choice. Heaven!!

So, if you teach online and feel that your voice and expertise is missing from your classes, check out Camtasia Relay!

The tool, as it says in the title is Foursquare. This social networking app for the iPhone, Droid, and the Blackberry makes use of the ability of smart phones to know where they (and presumably you, the owner) are located (called "location awareness"). By combining your location with information (created by others) about where other things (businesses and other people) are located, you can record where you are over time and broadcast that information to others nearby. In the social world, that lets you find your friends on a night out. It also lets you see where your friends have been, giving you some indication of places that you might find fun and interesting too. That's assuming that you enjoy the same things that your friends do ... or are extremely open to new experiences.

As an educator, I get excited by this because of the "tip" and "to do" feature built into some apps, like Foursquare. This could allow me to map out an experiential tour of a city or a building or ecosystem for my students, using the "to do" feature. For each location, I could have them look for something specific or do something ... like take a water sample or a picture of a building. And they could also make notes of their own at each location, uploading the results of a water sample, for instance.

Once done with the tour, I and the class could access the notes each student put up. By combining observations over time, we could show how research teams actually DO analyze samples, show the variations in data and how we use statistics to assess them, map results, etc. This is not a new idea - researchers such as John Martin and Kurt Squire have been working on augmented reality games for science inquiry for several years. The stunningly wonderful thing is that these simple apps made for social networking could be re-purposed for education. And given the number of students who already have these "phones", we rapidly loose the need for specialized, expensive single-purpose devices ... needing only to address how to provide access for students without the means to own a smart phone.

And while I cannot argue that smart phones are inexpensive, they are still often much cheaper than the laptops we have been requiring them to purchase through various laptop initiatives. Plus, the phones are significantly more resilient as well as able to access data much more effectively in the field.

Something to think about ... and for some bright developer to create for Foursquare. If you want to see an educational use of this program, check out and follow the History Channel's excellent list of tips in Foursquare. They even have a tip to see the Minnehaha Falls!

Meanwhile, enjoy the bit of humor from LOL Catz. Thanks to them, whenever I think of the word catastrophic, I end up there for some lolz.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This little college in the middle of no-where gets it. Social media is not the enemy of academia unless we make it so. Maybe they understand the future roaring down on us because they must reach out and intentionally use communication tools to connect with the larger world. As I well remember from summers in Le Sueur, MN, you appreciate communication when it is a break from isolation. But for whatever reason, they are leading in directions we should consider adopting.

So why is this little crowd sourcing tool use so cool?

1) It is virtually (pun intended) any time any where place to jot down creative ideas to a problem. Rather than wait for one meeting a year where we frantically brainstorm and vote, this service allows people to record their creative ideas soon after they have them, whenever they have them. And as anyone who works on creativity in business (and yes, a university is a business) knows, people are creative thinkers at the strangest times. In the shower, upon waking up, when they go to sleep, when they exercise, etc. This sort of tool allows them to be creative 365 days a year instead of one. Think of the great ideas that could be captured in volume!

2) It is open to the stakeholders as well as the providers. If there is one thing that the U is very bad at, it is including the people who are affected by decisions in making them. Crowd sourcing would not only get new ideas from them but also allow them to vote on the ideas that would affect them most. This gives the service providers some idea of what to tackle first or where to invest the most effort and resources. While we often think we know what the biggest problems are, we are often wrong. Or we overlook the little nagging things that don't seem to be important (like dripping pipes) but that add up over time.

3) It puts this information in one place. Right now, we have no single place (at least at UMD) for feedback and suggestions that relate to computing services. Depending upon who you know, you might email the Director or call the Help Desk. Or talk to your friendly neighborhood tech -- centralized or college-based. But these ideas get scattered across numerous departments and lodged in the memory of many people ... most of whom are not allowed to attend strategic planning meetings because that's above their pay scale.

I've suggested centralized systems in the past without success. It would cross too many boundaries and threaten power silos, I suspect. But there are places where these emerging tools are being used successfully to get work ... and yest teaching and learning .... done. Like fire --- they can be threatening, but they could help us do our jobs too.

As is usual, I find myself mulling a difficult question or two. And I haven't even had my second cup of coffee (don't get me started on addictions ....)!

First off, as the article points out, defining behavioral addictions is problematic and open to debate. Many addiction specialists question the label "addiction" applied to compulsive behavior. And many Madison Avenue behavioral shapers simply enjoy the income. But that's not the question I am focused on today.

My question is: is this really new behavior? Or is it just shifted to a new medium? And how would we study this question?? I only ask because, as I reflect on my own use of social media and slick devices, I do not see substantial changes in behavior other than the fact that I can now do things once instead of twice.

Let me explain. Back in the old days, when I carried around a DayTimer instead of an iPhone, I'd spend a substantial amount of time --- at odd moments of the day --- making notes about what I needed to do when business hours started: who needed to be contacted, what memos needed to be written, what newspaper article I needed to clip and file, etc. And I do mean at all hours of the day. Being a multi-tasker and insomniac from my teens, it was not unusual for me to be up at 4 am writing out reports long-hand on a legal pad so that a secretary could type them up when normal people started working.

Now, I drink my coffee and read the paper as always, but I can file clips (in the form of URLs) immediately (in Endnote or star them in Google Reader). Instead of making myself a note to remind my students of a paper due next week, I can send it out now via Twitter or the Moodle news feed. I type up my own memos (more likely emails) and can send them out at 4 am, if that is when I'm thinking of it ... instead of making notes and hoping I'll remember what I was thinking about. Does this mean that I'm addicted to social media? Or was I addicted to (something .... work perhaps) before social media came along?

People frequently make a big deal about how we text or read electronic media in bed ... but how is that different from the prior sins of reading fiction or watching TV before falling asleep? I'd argue that a quiet game of Bejeweled is more relaxing than watching the nightly news, but I think I'll leave that question to those who feel like researching it (anyone want to get wired up in the sleep lab?).

Instead, I'll continue to wonder if we are all Rip Van Winkle, suddenly waking up and forgetting the progression of the past 50 years. We did not suddenly become a sedentary, media focused society with the invention of the smart phone. We've been sitting and amusing ourselves with cheap paperbacks, readily available newspapers, crossword puzzles and TV for decades. Is the shift to electronic media really increasing our consumption of media? Or do we just notice it now that we're not consuming the privileged print as much as we are the disruptive electronic forms?

As a gamer who is also interested in using virtual worlds and video games as educational tools, I naturally like to hear ways in which games are helping society instead of signaling its tragic end.

Take a few minutes (about 20 of them) to listen to her argument and tell us what you think! In particular, at the end, she talks about some of the games she is creating that actually may train players to think strategically about real world problems and make real, lasting life changes.

Yes, we all know that some people (adults are as vulnerable to this as kids) spend too much time playing computer games. Do I really have to say it? I do not advocate that anyone spend too much time playing video or computer games. I similarly do not advocate that anyone spend too much time watching TV, reading, running, or hiking in the woods (don't scoff...I have relatives who can't hold a job because of hunting, fishing and trapping addictions - somehow we never hear about those in the media!).

Unfortunately, "too much" is something that people need to define for their particular situation. I can't give you a number, which frustrates parents who ask me how much time their kid should be spending playing games. The answer they are looking for is really, "less than what he is spending now" ... that negotiation needs to be taking place between the kid and his (or sometimes her) parents or guardians.

My general rule of thumb, especially for parents or worried spouses is this ... figure that it is a hobby or a sport. How much time is reasonable for someone to spend - for instance - on reading fiction for pleasure or stamp collecting or something sedentary like that? Use that as your guideline and suggest other, more acceptable uses of time.

A note to parents: if you look at some of the more popular games ... World of Warcraft is one ... you CAN set time limits for how long a child is in the game. Use these tools if necessary in conjunction with discussion and modeling of appropriate behavior. If you have a hobby, use it to discuss the appropriate balance between getting the necessary stuff done ... and having some fun too. Kids need to learn how to balance fun and necessity, so look at this as an opportunity to teach some important life skills. It's not easy, but it is essential for all of us to learn to play responsibly.

Once upon a time, I had a very few friends and colleagues who shared my interests in education and technology. Now, the number is probably easily in the hundreds (and no, it is not because I'm popular.... perish the thought) because I have been lucky enough to make a great many connections in the intersection. And they don't all use the same list-servs or social media services.

Hence, Twitter becomes my default method of broadcasting something I think may be useful to anyone with similar interests. Could be my students ... could be family ... could be perfect strangers. That's the joy -- the burden of trying to figure out who might be interested is taken off of me and placed on the shoulders of potential consumers. They can choose to follow me (i.e. subscribe to my feed) or simply search on keywords.

Either way, it is now up to them to decide to access my tweet or not, without me trying to remember their individual interests ... and feeling like my ideas may not be worth the time it takes to delete a message in their email in-box.

For me, it is a sigh of relief combined with the feeling that I am still contributing to the distribution of information.

Yes, I research in WoW at times. More often, however, I still play it for fun.

Why? It runs smoothly and looks great. I know that the art style is not for everyone. It is a little more cartoon-like than, say, Guild Wars or Lineage. But there are still many times when I move into an area and just look around, appreciating the hard work some artist put into designing even out of the way, infrequently visited areas. It's lovely, and is a special break in the middle of winter in the northern US. For people who live in urban areas, I imagine this aspect is even more compelling.

The game has many dimensions and appeals to many levels of game play from casual to hard-core. Depending upon my mood, I can run around an unspoiled wilderness to explore, fish, and gather herbs or engage in a major battle to free a fortress with a hundred other close friends and allies. This explains some the game's huge popularity, and a reason why my family all plays it together. Anyone can legitimately participate in the game and can pick the activities and level of difficulty that suits them.

You can even decide, strangely for a multiplayer game, how socially you want to play. My husband generally plays by himself, happily completing quests and depressurizing from his very social and stressful job. Where my daughter and I tend to be more social players, actively contributing to our guild's progression through the hard, end-game battles.

And, it is simultaneously, a place where I can go to challenge myself to master skills I'm not good at (a hunter who cannot kite or jump-shot ....oy!) while also ensuring that I can accomplish something and mark it off my "to-do" list even if the rest of the day has been a bust.

So, it is a game I come back to again and again for recreation between bouts of playing other games for work. A rough life, I know. But someone has to play the other games to explain them to you!

So, when I find installations such as Maslow's Hierarchy, a build described in The Educator's Second Life, I am very glad to see creations that go beyond mere content distribution and move into creation of an experience for the visitor.

This installation is a walk through of the levels of Maslow's classic model ... literally. The learner starts at a basic ground level point (meeting physical needs) and literally walks an obstacle course to get to the self-actualization level in the sky. The course is not difficult, although I did find myself confused at one point since the path is not always clear, and the middle levels seem to blend into one another. Still, the idea of rising in virtual space as one ascends the pyramid hammers home the concept.

Fortunately, this installation goes beyond what many such educational builds do. Instead of just handing out note cards, the build does encourage some interactive participation ... such as building a shelter out of Lego-like blocks and beating a drum with others in a Native American circle. By the time the participant reaches the top of the course, he or she is exposed to numerous tools used by educators to aid students in self understanding and reflection.

It is worth visiting this place, to begin to understand that the classroom can be stretched and expanded ... an that the online course can contain experiences like this, which are not exact duplicates of what one might do in a physical classroom, but that can be used to increase understanding and retention beyond what can be achieved with mere words.

An online professional development program for K-12 teachers is receiving kudos from ISTE (http://www.cblohm.com/news/pbstl/PBSTL_090630/). What does this mean for the education of pre-service teachers? How old - or how experienced - do you need to be to be capable of learning how to teach online?