As I’ve discussed here and here, there are risks involved with using free services offered by organizations who keep their code — and your data — out of your reach.

Google recently announced that they are shutting down support for their SOAP search API in favor of an AJAX-based API. To translate the geek-speak: Google used to allow people to build applications that would use Google’s search features, but return the results outside Google. Now, with the AJAX API, the results are displayed within Google. With this shift, Google has replaced a very useful tool with more limited option.

Admittedly, this is a pretty small shift. And, Google has a very good argument in that they don’t have to give anything away for free — and both of Google’s API’s are completely free.

But, from the perspective of educators, what would happen if, in the middle of a course, the ability to access your material changed? How would you cope if, for example, your free service changed to a fee-based service? You would be faced with a choice: ante up the cash to finish the term, or lose access to your work.

When you rely on the largesse of a company providing a free service, you assume and hope that their largesse will continue. But, on the chance that the terms of service shift midstream, what’s plan B?

Note: Forward this to your “Shameless Commerce” division… If you’re going to be in Philadelphia at the end of January, consider making some time for any one of a series of workshops being hosted by Steve Hargadon at the Science Leadership Academy. The principal of SLA, Chris Lehmann is hosting the sessions: run by Michelle Moore on January 29th and 30th; run by Will Richardson on February 2nd and 3rd; and run by yours truly.

In planning my session, I’m trying to build a training that allows educators to use the tools they learn about. Toward that end, all participants in the Drupal session will receive Drupal hosting through August 2007. So, a workshop participant can learn how to build curriculum in the session that they can deliver on their first day back in the classroom.

For those interested, here’s a rundown of the curriculum I’ll be covering –

Overview: This workshop will cover how to access Web 2.0 tools in a secure educational environment. Participants will learn how to work in Drupal to give students access to social bookmarking, blogging, podcasting, and collaborative workspaces. Participants will also learn how to design curriculum within the site, and best practices for working in an online environment. All participants in this session will also receive hosting for a fully configured Drupal site through August, 2007, as part of the conference cost. As this is a working session, participants are encouraged to bring materials from lessons they are planning. The goal of this session is to provide participants with tools they can use immediately in their classrooms.

Day 1:

• Creating accounts for instructors and students;
• Student blogs;
• Tracking student work/providing feedback on student work;
• Curriculum Development;
• Managing the day to day operations in a course.

Day 2:

• Social bookmarking;
• Photo sharing;
• Podcasting;
• Aggregating rss feeds from external sources;
• Creating customized searches and webquests;
• Managing content over time (aka how not to drown in a sea of student writing).

Some interesting thoughts about media literacy, google bombing, and white supremacism in a conversation started by Tom Hoffman and moved along by Will Richardson.

So, let’s get some of the important stuff out of the way:

Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.



Martin Luther King Jr.
I love the smell of in the morning. These legitimate links to sites on MLK will gain an incremental boost in page rank, thus pushing the crap at martinlutherking (dot) org further down in the rankings. While I don’t particularly agree with artificially gaming systems, I disagree more with racist propaganda. So, Googlebombs away.

On a seemingly unrelated note, in several other places I’ve seen hue and cry about the need to teach MySpace to students. On the sites where people actually take the time to explain what they mean by this, they usually equate “teaching MySpace” with teaching students how to protect their personal information online.

I shudder when I read these posts because I wonder if these people are really serious, or if they are cynically using the popularity of MySpace as a search term to buoy their own pagerank, and, by extension, their perceived credibility.

To me, online security and Google bombing both fall under the umbrella of media literacy. As the whole lonelygirl15 show demonstrated (and I’m intentionally not linking to any sources about this; if you need background, just google “lonelygirl15”), Identity is now content. MySpace, and YouTube, and blogs, and podcasts, and [fill in the blank with another web 2.0 buzzword] blur the lines between content creators and content consumers, but make no mistake about it: content is being consumed, and professional content creators (we can just call them salesmen or advertisers) are infiltrating “amateur” spaces in increasingly sophisticated efforts to work an angle and make a buck.

Credibility can now be gamed. Popularity can now be gamed. People actually spend time trying to figure out how to . I don’t point this out to criticize the internet, merely to demonstrate that the same issues that exist in Meatspace exist online. There is nothing wrong with making money. Even I try and do it on occasion. But, whether one is online or offline, ethical lapses abound. As educators and learners, our responsibility remains unchanged: how do we help our students and peers analyze the information they consume?

As Tom Hoffman points out in another post, this isn’t new ground. As a species, we have made use of critical thinking in past generations. But, as the tools for gaming credibility change, we need to teach our students how to look behind the curtain.

And this points to a frequently-overlooked value of blogging. Many people see blogging as the act of finding an audience, and denigrate blogging that occurs within a walled garden, or within a course that isn’t accessible to the entire internet. These folks miss the point. Blogging can be about finding an audience, but it also provides an accessible medium for finding a voice. In the process of learning how to structure an argument, one also learns how to spot strengths and weaknesses in the arguments one encounters. Through learning the technical aspects of writing well, one can learn the critical and analytical skills needed to navigate the internet safely.

Oh, and one other thing. Critical thinking works pretty well offline, too.

For a K-12 language educator, teaching vocabulary presents some singular challenges. While we all agree that vocabulary is a critical skill, the agreement tends to disappear when it comes to how to present vocabulary in a classroom setting. Talking about words has the potential to expose students to the power and paradox of language; however, vocabulary instruction frequently descends to a balance between exposing students to as many words as possible, defining the words clearly, and keeping the class awake in the process.

The challenge: minimize the rote repetition, maximize the time spent using the words.

A. One way through the morass:

A teacher logs onto a web site and types a list of words into a form. When the teacher submits the form, the following web pages are automagically created:

1. One page containing a master list of all the words, and a link to definitions of these words in two online dictionaries.
2. Individual pages for each word, also with links to definitions in online dictionaries.

Later in the post, I’ll explain how this can work. For now, though, let’s take a look at what this could achieve.

In the time it would take to type ten or twenty words, an instructor could present students with a list of words and reliable definitions. Some online dictionaries also have pronunciation guides. The master page with all the words organizes the words in one place, to simplify studying for vocab exams. The individual pages for each word create some possibilities. From the pages containing individual words, students can be assigned (on a student-per-word basis) to:

• use the word in a limerick/haiku;
• write a one paragraph scene that illustrates/suggests the meaning of the word without using the word;
• write 2 sentences using the word that demonstrate incontrovertible mastery of the word;
• use the word in a simple/compound/complex/compound-complex sentence;
• incorporate the word in a zeugma.

Students could add their responses as comments on individual words, or as blog posts.The list included here is a quick start. A range of possibilities exist, and the best approach will be determined by the nature of the class. Speeding up the delivery of the definitions allows more class time to be spent working creatively with the words. As with any subject, questions will arise. Using this approach, however, the questions and their subsequent explanations are rooted in specific, concrete examples.

I have taught vocab in this way with some classes — coding the links by hand, of course, and by having students respond on paper if and when internet access was an issue. I buttress this approach with flashcards, and I’ve found that students tend to retain the definitions fairly well over time. In my classes, I have had students tell me that the process of learning the word (the limerick, the paragraph scene, the zeugma) became the mnemonic device through which they retained it. Of course, this is all anecdoctal, so take it for what it’s worth.

B. Taking a step back:

This approach has applications beyond studying vocabulary — instead of searching a dictionary site, however, you would want to search through a broader range of sites. In a Biology classroom, an instructor preparing their class to learn about photosynthesis could type in: photorespiration, carbon fixation, Calvin cycle

The comma marks the break point between individual search strings.

In a World History course, an instructor could type in: British colonial expansion India, British colonial failures India, British colonial wars India, British colonial rule Mahatma Gandhi

For what it’s worth, the same search strings for the World History course could also be used to teach online research methods and the critical thinking skills required to analyze bias in source material.

C. How this works:

It’s all about hacking search urls. Most search urls are composed of a prefix, the actual search string, and, in some cases, a suffix. The prefix generally contains the site address, plus some additional info to access the search. Looking at a few examples will help illustrate the point.

Example 1. Click here to get a definition of peripatetic from Merriam Webster online, and here to get a definition from Dictionary.com.

If you look at the url at m-w.com, you will see that the prefix is http://m-w.com/dictionary/ followed by the search string — in this case, the word. You can substitute different words to see what happens

With the url for Dictionary.com, the prefix looks a bit more verbose: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=

Example 2. Search Wikipedia for “be bop a doo bop”

The prefix for this search is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search= followed by the string: be+bop+a+doo+bop — it will also work without the plus signs connecting the words, but it’s bad form, and violates techno-geek etiquette. The suffix for Wikipedia is &go=Go

Example 3. for the Calvin cycle.

As would be expected, Google offers some fun options. For the basic search, the prefix is http://www.google.com/search?&q= followed by the search term. As with Wikipedia, the “+” signs are suggested but not mandatory. However, omitting the “+” signs does officially take you out of the running for the free pocket protector and propeller hat.

Example 4. Use Google to for information on invasive species.

In this example, the prefix remains the same: http://www.google.com/search?&q=

However, by attaching the suffix site:www.nbii.gov only that one specific site is searched.

By the way, to run a Google search in safe mode, just change the prefix: http://www.google.com/search?&safe=active&q=

At the risk of oversimplifying the process, to build this app, you’d set the code up to take the comma-separated values (as seen in this example), and build a search url by concatenating the prefix, the string, and the suffix.

D. Next steps:

The bad news? This app doesn’t exist, yet. The good news? It wouldn’t be too hard to build. My initial instinct would be to build it within Drupal and include this functionality in Drupal-based class sites. Left to our own devices, we’ll probably build it at some point, if or when our workload lightens up. If a developer is interested in building this out, we’d be glad to work with you to help you get it done; contact us and let us know. If someone wants this functionality, or if a couple schools want to get together to sponsor development on this, that’d be great too. No matter the route, it will get built, and released back to the open source and educational communities. It’s just a question of when.