In a previous post, I laid out ten ideas for making Google docs better. Here are ten more. Feel free to contribute to the list!

1. Invitations to meetings in the calendar view are too subtle. I mean really, do you expect me to see that tiny question mark?
2. I like that you add email addresses automatically for me. That’s cool. What would be even cooler, would be to scan the message for additional address-like data (like that in most signature files), open a window in my contacts, and add that data too, allowing me to edit as needed.
3. When you add a new document folder in Google Docs, the list should automatically refresh to reflect the new alphabetical order.
4. There’s no way for end users to see who is in an enterprise-wide email group, so what we do is to maintain a separate Google doc which, of course, needs to be updated every time we make a group address change. We shouldn’t have to do that. Let the administrator determine who has rights to view the members of an email group.
5. In Google Sites, you should offer a report to the site owner about dead links, and automatically fix links to other Google sites within the enterprise if and when they change.
6. While you’re at it in Google Sites, allow the webmaster or users to tag individual pages, to then crate tag clouds.
7. All, and I mean all, of your K-12 Google docs customers would benefit from a better calendar. Start with allowing the administrator to setup a daily schedule for the school that can be toggled on-and-off by users so they can easily schedule events by time of day or by period of day.
8. Any color (labels, calendars, and so on) would benefit by being able to control their transparency. Solid color are not only passé, they hinder multiple calendars within the same view.
9. Google To Do lists are lame. See Remember the Milk for some ideas about getting it better.
10. Appreciate the fact that we can upload PDF documents into Google Docs. Now, make them editable!

What’s on your mind about Google docs?

Q. What do velcro, pine tar, and email have in common?

A. They are all sticky applications!

While I was working at Netscape (you remember them, don’t you? They helped Al Gore invent the Internet) we talked about Internet browsers and email as “sticky” applications. By this we meant a software program that people are loath to give up. They have invested time and energy into learning it, creating and maintaining their bookmarks or address books, and the software may even be associated with a particular Internet service provider with a non-portable email address. We tried to make such applications even stickier by adding more features to them and integrating them with other applications.

We used a less flattering analogy sometimes as well — “getting the needle in their arm” — to describe the addictive nature of certain applications that our “users” (ironic choice of words) found difficult to give up even when they knew there was a better way.

If I may, I’d like to suggest yet another analogy for sticky apps: boat anchors. And what brings this to my mind today is my school’s email messaging system, which shares many of the characteristics of a boat anchor:

• it provides a safe harbor for many users during a time when there’s a sea change happening in technology.
• like an anchor, email can slow the rate of change or acceleration in an organization; useful if one is about to crash upon the shoals.
• an anchor is a really simple machine; a chain and a heavy weight describes the essence of an anchor just as sending and receiving electronic messages describes the essence of an email system.

But even the heaviest of boat anchors are meant to be hauled up and moved with the ship when it’s time to move. When an anchor becomes permanent, it becomes a mooring. When software becomes permanent, it becomes a liability to learning and innovation.

Email software and its associated features (address books, calendars, chat, and so on) are moving from the desktop to the cloud. Special purpose applications are giving way to the web browser, which itself is often a gateway to not just displaying information but interacting with server software tuned for the computer or handheld device accessing the site. Email is blending with blogging, wikis, social networking, Twitter, SMS, podcasts, vodcasts, photo sharing, and voicemail. The electronic, text-based message is morphing into its next, but certainly not final, iteration. It has lost it’s stickiness as a stand-alone application by becoming more fully ingrained in everything we do. So in a way we are more firmly attached to email than we at Netscape could ever have imagined, even as we could not imagine Netscape in its current state as a high-noon shadow of it’s former self.

Out with clients, in with the cloud, and anchors aweigh!

Something has been sneaking up on this digital immigrant that I find both disturbing and fascinating.

As a teenager more years ago than I like to admit, I lived in the cleanest, neatest house in the world. It’s true. Those were the days of the mangle iron, where after line drying the wash, my mother would sit and iron. Everything. Even the sheets. Even my tidy whities. My mother’s cleaning prowess was mythic. She made up the saying, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” You can look it up.

But teenagers are not always the neatest beings, and one day my mother and I clashed. While at age 95 she sometimes forgets what she said five minutes ago, she still recalls the time she moved something in my room and I exploded in adolescent rage at her intrusion into my space, and messing with my own form of organization. Where she saw chaos, I saw a system. I knew which pile held what.

Some years later I grew to appreciate the calming effect an organized home can provide. I extended that concept to my computer use. On my work and home computers, I maintain a complicated yet intuitive file folder structure for my documents, music, photos, and videos. I work diligently to keep my computer desktop and email application organized through filing, deleting, and file aliasing.

People who come to me for technical help often apologize for the state of their computer desktops, littered as they are with dozens, maybe even a hundred files all over the place. “I know I should clean this up,” they sheepishly admit. I secretly pity their lack of discipline and disorganization.

Enter today’s teenager. Messy desktops, nonexistent file structures.

And an entirely new way of finding what they need and launching applications that is often faster than my neatly structured, hierarchical approach.

Search.

More than once while working with a student I have suggested that they use another application. They look in their Mac’s dock,  and if it’s not there immediately Go to Spotlight, search, and launch. Applications folder? Fuggadaboutit!

Can’t find a document? Use Spotlight. Or use Google Desktop.

Folders are for sissies and neat freaks.

My inner teenager exults! My inner mom cringes.

Can this old dog learn new tricks?

It’s time for schools to re-examine their student cell phone policies.

Last year, the New York Times reported that a New York court affirmed the right of the Department of Education to ban (not restrict, not regulate, but ban) student cell phones from schools.

The following month, the New York Sun reported on how teachers, students, and parents see the use of cell phones in the classroom as of great benefit.

The State of Utah is requiring schools to adopt a cell phone policy, and have created two model policies. [1] [2] Let’s hope that schools choose an enlightened route.

And while I know that Google search returns are not a reliable means of measuring much, searching for student cell phones cheating returns over a million results. And yet, performing well on tests leads some schools to reward students with… wait for it… a cell phone!

Are you confused about the proper role of cell phones in schools?

Cell phones are no longer just about talking on the phone. Cell phones are portable computers, multimedia players, PDAs, game systems, cameras, and web browsers. I use my iPhone for all of theses things and as a flashlight, a level, and GPS.

Ban cellphones? Just say no! We have to embrace these devices!

Will cell phones lead some students get off task? Well, let’s see. Do some students daydream? Do they pass notes? Do they absentmindedly doodle in their notebooks? Do they fake attention while secretly retiring to their own thoughts and fantasies? Do students fall asleep in mid-lecture?

The cell phone is not a culprit in off-task behavior. Yes, such devices can be addictive for some students (and adults, I should hasten to add.) American Idol is addictive for some. (Thank God I’m not one.)

Educators are smart people. We can figure this out. Especially if we enlist students in helping us think about cell phones and if we use our own phones for more than (gasp!) making phone calls. (E.T. Twitter home!)

Schools, including my own, should take a look at their cell phone policies and probably just throw them out. Incorporate cell phones into your overall school acceptable use policy. And if you’ve not looked at your AUP in while, it’s time to dust that off, too. Take a look at my previous post, From Acceptable to Honorable, to see one suggestion to approaching this.

As an educational technologist I should be eager to make a pilgrimage to NECC (National Educational Computing Conference). But, alas, in good conscience I can’t do this, nor can I urge others to go either. It has little to do with the NECC conference per se, and a lot to do with large conferences in general.

The time has come, I believe, to re-think large conferences, their purposes, and their place in the educational landscape.

Here are some of my problems with large conferences.

1. Conferences are large producers of greenhouse gases. Huge facilities such as hotels and convention centers consume enormous amounts for heating, cooling, and lighting. But by far the most intensive source of greenhouse gas emissions is the air travel associated with moving large numbers of people to and form the conference city.

2. Conferences are large sources of waste products. There’s a mind-boggling number of cute but otherwise useless tchotchkes, wasted handouts, brochures, business cards, and other materials associated with vendor booths and conference sessions. There’s also an impressive amount of food waste associated with luncheons, receptions, happy hours, and the like that can’t be donated to charitable organizations or shelters after sitting on top of a Sterno-heated buffet dish for hours.

3. Conferences promote a culture of consumerism. How could they not? Conferences are designed to inform people about new products. Conferences are underwritten by major corporate sponsors who see them as marketing opportunities to promote and sell their products. Have you ever been to a booth where the sales people tell you “You’re just fine with the stuff you’re using now! In fact, here’s a list of ways to make your product last for five more years!” I’ve previously written about the opportunities presented by our economic recession to examine our spending priorities, and I invite readers to take a look at that post.

4. Conferences model an outmoded and inappropriate instructional model. The instructional model of most conferences is is very “sage on the stage” oriented; this is in opposition to the model  progressive educators are trying to move towards, the “guide on the side.” Surely there are better systems for one-to-many communication than putting someone on a stage in front of hundreds of people sitting in uncomfortable chairs, in rooms that are too hot or too cold, but never Goldilocks “right.” (I’m always stuck next to the blabbermouth who’s arranging dinner for eight on his cell phone and bragging about how wasted he got the other night.)

5. Conferences are a questionable use of scarce professional development dollars. Given the cost of travel, lodging, and meals it can be very expensive to send someone to a conference. Those funds might be better spent for an in-depth training experience at a local university, or bringing an expert to your school for an in-service program for all faculty.

6. Many conference attendees are the already converted. What is the value in sending your school’s technology director or academic technology to NECC year after year? How much new information do they really glean form such events? Sure, we wizards love to “to confer, converse, and otherwise hob-nob with [our] brother [and sister] wizards,” but we have many opportunities to do this in other ways.

7. The mammoth size of national conferences depersonalizes the learning experience. NECC expects 18,000 attendees in Washington, D.C. this year. This means huge sessions, standing room only crowds, and packed exhibit halls. It’s a great way to meet lots of people in a short time, but that’s also the problem. It’s very difficult to have in-depth learning occur in such a frenetic environment.

Okay, wise guy. What are the alternatives?

It’s time to rethink the national conference. We’re “21st century” teachers and learners. What does that mean for conferences?

I think it means the following:

• smaller, more nimble events that arise out of a community of educators with an interest in joint learning, collaboration, and exploration
• virtual events, linking learners across geographic and time boundaries
• open content, with the proceedings of events not controlled by an organization who sells archived presentations for profit
• an emphasis on environmental and economic sustainability, with electronic document exchange, low costs and modest technical needs to participate

Clearly, I don’t have all the answers. And you may think that my analysis of national conferences is way off, that they still play an important and vital role for educators that far outweigh any downsides. I welcome your ideas, comments, and arguments.

The young woman who created this video and this project is a former student of mine. She is a woman of compassion and integrity.

For some time I have been reading about the challenges social networking present to schools. Not the students in school, mind you. They have taken to social networking like ducks to water. But the adults are a different story and are largely playing catch-up. Some schools have responded by banning all of use social networking by students and employees. Others (a small number) are using social networking tools in interesting ways. Most seem to be in the middle, engaged in much hand wringing and asking colleagues in other schools:

• What are YOU doing about Facebook and MySpace?
• Do you have a policy we can look at?
• Our faculty and staff are asking for guidance in this area. What do we tell them?

I don’t have the answer. But I do have some opinions, and I’d like to float them here to see what others have to say about them and then, in the best of social networking tradition, incorporate your suggestions into something that I can run by my colleagues. So here goes.

Proposed Guidelines for Use of Social Networks by School Faculty and Staff*

New technologies, such as social networking tools, provide exciting new ways to collaborate and communicate. Nevertheless we must exercise care to be sure we use such tools with students in ways that are both age-appropriate and consistent with the mission of the school.

School faculty and staff are expected to behave honorably in both real and virtual (online) spaces. Activities which are improper, unethical, illegal, or which cause undue discomfort for students, employees, parents, or other members of the school community should be judiciously avoided in both physical space and cyberspace.

To that end, we offer the following guidelines for school employees who use online social networking applications which may be frequented by current or former students.

1. COURSE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING: In order to provide equal, age-appropriate access for students to course materials, faculty should limit class activities to school-sanctioned online tools. New social networking tools and features are being continually introduced which may or may not be appropriate for course use. The same care must be taken in choosing such tools as other tools and support materials.
2. MODEL APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR: Exercise appropriate discretion when using social networks for personal communications (friends, colleagues, parents, former students, etc.) with the knowledge that adult behavior on social networks may be used as a model by our students.
3. FRIENDING ALUMNI: Accept social network friend requests only with alumni over the age of 18. Do not initiate friend contacts with alumni.
4. UNEQUAL RELATIONSHIPS: Understand that the uneven power dynamics of the school, in which adults have authority over former students, continues to shape those relationships.
5. OTHER FRIENDS: Remind all other members of your network of your position as an educator whose profile may be accessed by current or former students, and to monitor their posts to your network accordingly. Conversely, be judicious in your postings to all friends sites, and act immediately to remove any material that may be inappropriate from your site whether posted by you or someone else.
6. GROUPS IN YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK: Associate with social networking groups consistent with healthy, pro-social activities and the mission and reputation of the school, acting with sensitivity within context of a diverse educational environment in which both students and adults practice tolerance and accept competing views.
7. PRIVACY SETTINGS AND CONTENT: Exercise care with privacy settings and profile content. Content should be placed thoughtfully and periodically reviewed to maintain this standard.
8. MISREPRESENTATION: Faculty who use social networks should do so using their own name, not a pseudonym or nickname.
9. PUBLIC INFORMATION: Recognize that many former students have online connections with current students, and that information shared between school adults and former students is likely to be seen by current students as well.

===

*Some of the ideas for this list come from a Facebook group I belong to, Faculty Ethics on Facebook. It is geared towards higher education, and so if you stumbled upon this post and really want to read about colleges and universities, head on over to Facebook. I also appreciate colleague Matt Montagne’s feedback via Google Docs on an earlier draft of these ideas.

Colleague Matt Montagne and I had the opportunity to sit in on today’s free webinar from ISTE entitled School 2.0: Technology and the Future of School featuring the U.S. Department of Education’s Tim Magner. Yes, the people who also brought us No Child Left Behind are actually thinking about the future of American schools and we’re impressed.

After the standard PowerPoint slides on the use of technology by today’s teens, the rise in literacy, high school and college graduation rates in the world compared to the U.S., and the imperatives they raise for the U.S., Magner showed us a new web site, School 2.0 (located at http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit). The web site has a wealth of information for educators interested in thinking about and planning for schools of the future. The site is a work in progress, with some information still to be completed. But that’s par for the course in web 2.0; always a work in progress. Of particular interest is their interactive map of a Learning Ecosystem. Be sure to check it out. Magmer has a related, much shorter presentation available on YouTube (below). If ISTE releases an archive of the seminar that is available to the public, I will post the URL on my blog.