DaveShearon

Citizen Journalists

The Nashville Scene's editorial in this week's edition begins:

If you want a glimpse into the future of journalism, you'd be advised to visit a Web site out of South Korea (www.OhmyNews.com). Granted, you won't understand a word, but you'll get the drift.The site was begun about five years ago—as best we can tell from various news sources including Wired and the San Jose Mercury News—when a South Korean investigative reporter named Oh Yeon-ho got fed up with his job and quit. Angered by what he saw as the conservative bias of the major media outlets, Oh decided to start his own newspaper. But he had no money.

So he went the low-budget route. He put his publication on the Web (hence no printing cost) and told anyone who wanted to write for it that they could (hence very low editorial costs). Amazingly, the thing took off.

Today, some 26,000 so-called "citizen journalists" supply content for the site. As the hundreds of stories pour in every day, a staff of editors reviews them for accuracy. The success of the site is self-evident: it has some 2 million daily readers. Were such a site in the United States to claim the same proportion of our population, it would have 12 million daily readers. Observers agree the site has become one of the most influential news organizations in South Korea. In the last presidential election, it is said that OhmyNews played a huge role in electing the country's new, progressive president. (After the election, in fact, the new president's first interview was with OhmyNews.)

It goes on to mention blogs, the Northwest Voice, and goskokie. Goskokie was an experiment by journalism students at Medill School of Journalism and apparently ended as a going concern when the class ended. And, to give you an idea of how little some folks understand about this phenomenon, see this article where "a spokesman" says it's been replaced by the librarian-created Skokie.org which, "works like the goskokie site should." Huh? Skokie.org is a typical municipal info/booster site that has nothing to do with citizen journalism. Clueless.

Here's a Wired News story on Northwest Voice that mentions OhmyNews

Another Great Nashville Blog

Quiet Declarations is a blog by Chad Willcox, 23, and a recent Ph.D. from Vanderbilt. I suspect he's far to balanced and thoughtful to gain tremendous readership numbers, but I'm glad I found it and he'll be on my list. Check out this post on how the two sides seem to be totally unable to understand each other.

Quote of the day

With the picture of SpaceShipOne occupying the upper left corner today, this Frank Lloyd Wright quote seems appropriate:

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in the thing makes it happen.

Working with Wikis

I'm working with a wiki in an effort to develop a one-stop, online site where CLE course sponsors can create an application for MCLE accreditation to all 40 MCLE jurisdictions. The wiki is for coordination and discussion of those on the board and the broader industry. I'd never set up a wiki nor even really participated in one much before launching this effort, but I'm very hopeful for it. Anyway, I ran across this post today by someone far more versed in on-line learning than I am about his initial effort with a wiki. I particularly like this line:

In my book, resources are for researchers, not learners. To turn resources into courses, you need to add context, sequence, and some kind of activity beyond reading and clicking links.

Image-Seeker

Image-Seeker by LTU Technologies applied to 60,000 royalty-free Corbis images. Pretty cool

Black Christians, Black Churches, Black Politics

I've been thinking lately about what "liberal" and "conservative" really mean. One thing seems to be that liberals are more uncomfortable than conservatives with politicians or voters who take their faith seriously (with the exception of anti-war guilt and angst). That makes Harry R. Jackson, Jr.'s op-ed in today's Washington Times even more interesting to me. He's predicting a far larger black vote for President Bush in 2004 than in 2000. This makes even more sense in view of these two passages:

The primary research enunciated in my new book, co-authored with George Barna, "High-Impact African-American Churches," shows that black Christians are more likely to read their Bibles and practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting or worship than their white, Hispanic or other ethnic counterparts. They are America's answer to a morally bankrupt society. These high-impact churches are beginning to address the problems of our nation.

and

The black church has come of age in terms of size, finances and political power. In fact, blacks, more than any other ethnic group, are represented in mega-churches. Many black churches have more than 10,000 members. In the Washington area alone, there are several churches in the 20,000-member range.

That's saying something. And I suspect the trashing of President Bush's faith cannot be sitting well. And what does Bishop Jackson think these church members want?

They will vote for President Bush and hope for major policy adjustments in six vital areas: protection of biblical marriage; wealth creation opportunities for minorities; educational reform, which emphasizes urban change as a priority; African relief that stops genocide in the Sudan by placing trade sanctions on that nation; prison reform that rehabilitates inmates with spiritual solutions; and health care for the poor.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Hat tip: RadioBlogger

Small Schools and The Tipping Point

Assorted Stuff comments and links re: small schools. The Tipping Point by William Gladwell had some interesting points that relate to small schools. Here are two paragraphs from my book note:

The Group Size points are very interesting for education. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has shown that the size of the neocortex (the part of the brain that deals with complex thought and reasoning) in primates seems to be most closely correlated with one thing: the average size of the group in which the primates live. Humans have the largest neocortex and can handle the largest group size: about 150. Dunbar found that, for 21 different hunter-gatherer societies for which we have solid historical evidence, the average number of people in their villages was 148.4. The number pops up in many places, including modern business where, for example, Gore Associates, the company that manufactures Gore-Tex fabric, keeps all its operating units to 150, and has a flatter, more responsive organization than its competitors.

The implications for this in schooling are fascinating. For example, in complete harmony with the research on small schools, Mr. Gladwell says, "If we want to, say, develop schools in disadvantaged communities that can successfully counteract the poisonous atmosphere of their surrounding neighborhoods, this tells us we're probably better off building lots of little schools than one or two big ones." P. 182.

"School-based" factors drive out teachers

From a study in Australia:

"Whilst I had been anticipating factors to do with social dislocation, it seemed to be for those choosing to leave it was to do with school-based factors, which they felt they had no control over," says Sharplin.

School-based factors included teachers being forced to teach outside their area of expertise, lack of support and sometimes alienation from school leaders and colleagues, and insufficient information about the teaching and learning plans used by previous teachers.

Teachers described their situation as "sink or swim."

Once again: manage and lead teachers like professionals. It's the cornerstone of improvement.

If teaching is important ...

The post below focuses on how the importance of teaching (and therefore teahcers) was lost and is now being regained. I believe that we are a long way toward regaining it, but we haven't begun to understand what it means for teacher education and, even more importantly, the management of schools and school systems. Here's what it means:

** Teachers are professionals.

** Teachers must be led and managed as professionals.

** That means Job #1 for education leaders is to focus on the passion and engagement of teachers. Are they involved? Are they working together on improving the quality of their teaching? If not, how can we provide the opportunities, support, and culture to support that effort?

** And, finally, if school boards don't have the information they need to judge these factors, they should be asking their administrators, "Why not?"

Coleman got it, but we missed it!

Case Study of a Paradigm Shift (The Value of Focusing on Instruction) by Daniel Fallon, Chair of the Education Division, Carneige Corporation of New York looks at how the Coleman and Jencks research was read as downgrading the importance of teachers and instruction despite the fact that Coleman got it:

An implicit logical conclusion of the analysis put forth by Coleman and Jencks is that, when it comes to student achievement, teaching doesn’t matter very much.