Criteria for moderating comments on a viral video

Two days ago, my nine year old daughter recorded a two minute video response to President Obama's September 8th speech to students and I posted it to YouTube. Since then, in a little over 48 hours, the video has been viewed over 70,000 times, received thousands of comments and ratings, and on the first day received "YouTube Honors" as a top education video in over twenty different countries. Neither my daughter or I anticipated this type of viral response to the video. I am thankful I chose to enable comment moderation at the time I published it, but this entire experience has raised some big issues with which I'm still grappling. Marco Torres talks about how our students today have the opportunity to share their ideas and publish on "the global stage." Although I've used that phrase previously and think it about it often, few experiences have driven home the reality of our new media landscape as forcefully as these experiences moderating YouTube comments on Sarah's video the past two days.



One of the first issues which immediately arose, after I realized the video was receiving thousands of views and hundreds of comments on Tuesday, was to decide on a personal criteria for comment moderation. Initially, I decided to remove comments which contained profanity or which were disparaging / demeaning to my daughter, Sarah. While I was tempted to just approve comments which were positive and supportive of Sarah, it is true that she made some factual errors in her video which commenters were quick to highlight. Commenters also criticized her delivery, speculated on whether she was reading a script, debated whether she was being brainwashed by her parents, wrote supportive comments for President Obama, and frequently lashed out against the President or one of our main political parties. I did not keep detailed statistics, but I'd estimate about 10% of submitted comments included profanity. A much smaller percentage, probably 1 - 2 percent, were personal attacks on Sarah that were vulgar, cruel, hateful, and sexually explicit. I estimate about 25 percent of all comments have been anger-filled comments directed at other commenters, our President, or particular political parties. About 25 percent have been very positive, supportive comments for Sarah, which she has found very encouraging as well as inspiring.

Being thrust into the role of moderating hundreds of YouTube video comments like this has been challenging. Not only has this consumed several hours of time over the past two days, since I've individually read each submitted comment and decided whether or not to approve or delete it, it's also been psychologically draining. This experience has been analogous to holding up a large mirror to our society in general. While there have been MANY submitted comments which were very supportive and edifying of Sarah, there have been an approximately equal number (which I have removed so they have not been made public) which were highly disparaging. That language, in fact, is likely too tactful to be accurate. Many comments have been filthy beyond imagining. It is difficult to understand how human beings could be so filled with hate and contempt for others that they would write such words of condemnation. By simply reading them, I felt defiled. Thankfully, my daughter has been spared the brunt of those nasty comments, but she did see some this morning on my computer which I had not yet moderated. This situation brought forth an acute and personal sense of how we want and need to protect our children from the sometimes cruel nature of the world, but at the same time need to prepare them to have tough skins and to be able to survive (eventually) independently in it. This experience has at times been agonizing, but it has also been very instructive.

As the moderator of comments surrounding Sarah's video, I felt it would not be a good idea to remove / filter out every single critical comment. Not only was I concerned that only approving comments with a positive / supportive tone would invite direct contact and criticism of me via YouTube's mail service and possibly my own email, I also became aware of the open dialog into which I was cast as a controlling moderator. While my desire to protect my daughter from cruel and profane comments is difficult to question, what about a desire to only approve / permit comments with which I personally agreed? Would it be correct to make the video's comment forum into an echo chamber of support, devoid of critiques? I didn't think so, therefore I approved many comments which were not strictly positive or supportive of Sarah.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have filtered out all the comments in which a person made a personal attack on another commenter? Frequently, those types of exchanges build on each other. In the case of comments which have been critical of Sarah, like those who suggested a nine year old has no business watching a political speech or making comments about it, it has been good to see many people rise to Sarah's defense and the defense of young people more generally in being civic minded and active.

One of the most common themes commenters have addressed is Sarah's opening story, regarding a student in her class who declared he was "not allowed to watch the speech because we're Republicans." I definitely agree with those who take issue with a closed-minded approach like that, and I am proud of Sarah for being willing to share that story and bring it to light. While it can be depressing at times to hold a mirror up to our society, seeing the hate and ill-will which is there in the hearts of some, it also is valuable to hold a mirror up and reflect attitudes like this one which are unfortunately common. This is an important role of journalists in our society, and today we can all become citizen journalists. In this context, Sarah is serving as a storychaser, and I think the window into our schools, homes, and communities which she tried to open is important to consider.

Looking back, if I was to re-live the past forty-eight hours and again moderate all the comments being shared on this video, I think I would make one change: I'd remove all comments which included any type of personal attack on someone else, in addition to removing those with profanity and those disparaging to Sarah. I would again remove comments which were inflammatory, racist, and disparaging to our President -- not all of those which are critical, but certainly all those which step over a line of respect and disrespect.

These YouTube comment moderating experiences reflect how much individuals in our society want to discuss, to debate, and to be social. Many, many people want to be RECOGNIZED. As Michael Goldhaber noted in 1987, we live in an "attention economy." YouTube is many things to many people, but predominant among those is a space to seek and vie for attention, not only with shared videos but also with posted comments. Many comments are clearly written with an intent to provoke. The same can be said of some blog posts as well, I suppose, but this is even more common in the world of YouTube commenting. Whether good or bad, it seems to be a fact: We want recognition. I'm reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who addressed "recognition" in the context of becoming a servant. Visit the homepage of the King Center to see these words and hear them in his own voice.

Is it dangerous and undesirable to garner worldwide attention via YouTube, even if it is fleeting, when you are nine years old? I have had some close acquaintances suggest that it is.

Is it amazing and positive for a nine year old to be able to share her perspectives and ideas with tens of thousands of people around our globe, all within the space of 48 hours? I'm inclined to think it is.

How would you establish a personal criteria for moderating comments submitted to a politically-charged viral video, like Sarah's? I could close off comments at any time to the video, but for now I'm keeping them open and still moderating. If you have suggestions and guidance for me, I'm all ears.

The global stage is here, and while we may not like everything we see and hear on it, it reflects our society as we are. Are we doing our best to help our children as well as ourselves to not only remain SAFE, but also thrive in this opportunity-rich environment? If not, it's time for us to BECOME the change we want to see, to quote another leader I deeply admire.

Cross posted to my blog, "Moving at the Speed of Creativity."

Friday Five: Create, Express, Learn with Primary Source Material

This week, I'd like to share some powerful web resources that use the increasing amount of primary source materials online and have the power to engage students using digital tools and their desire to express themselves.

As an educator who believes in teaching students to honor intellectual property, I'm always looking for sites that include materials students can use to create multimedia projects. Fair use guidelines gives us some flexibility in using multimedia inside our classroom. But in the world of Web 2.0, the audience for these media projects has expanded outside our classroom, with more and more interest in publishing for an authentic global audiences. All one has to do is look at the popularity of You Tube and other video sharing sites to know that young people are highly motivated to express themselves to audiences outside the classroom. Thanks to the Creative Commons license, more and more materials are available online that students can use to create and publish their multimedia productions for a global audience.

This week, I'd like to share 5 sites that go one step further than Creative Commons materials. These sites host primary source materials and encourage young people to use them to produce and publish their own creations. Some even include online tools to help students with the process.

1. http://www.remixamerica.org/

This site was created by a voter registration organization who wanted to keep the young people they registered involved and engaged. To do this, they provided them with free online tools and raw materials through “America Now” and “America Then” playlists. Remix America encourages students to draw parallels between the present and the past. They hope that viewing seminal speeches and events from American History will inspire young people to express themselves and take action on the issues that matter to them.

Teachers around America have stumbled across Remix America and incorporated the materials in their classroom. One teacher asked her students to take a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and apply it to the 2008 election. Another asked her students to create PSAs on the issues that matter most to them – censorship, war, civil rights. You can browse through “Favorite Remixes” section to see some of these great remixes!

2. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/diypodcast/
   
   NASA has done something similar to engage students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The NASA's Do-It-Yourself Podcast activity provides students with audio clips, video, and photos related to space. Students can use the NASA materials to produce their own audio or video productions.
   

3. http://www.primaryaccess.org/

PrimaryAccess is a web-based tool that offers teachers and students access to digital images and other materials that enable them to construct movies using tools provided by the web site.

Although many of the primary source materials are photograph and still images, the tools provided on the website allows students to add motions to create a movie effect. I first learned about Primary Access while listening to Glen Bull's presentation during the 2008 K-12 online conference.

4. http://take2videos.org
   
   This project is slightly different in that it not only provides the raw materials for students to produce a video, but also complete an advocacy event. The project requires schools to register and the topic is more focused. According to the project web site “Each year, Take 2 shoots 2-3 months of high definition footage in a different conflict region and creates extensive supporting and background documentation then licenses the package free of charge to qualified educational institutions. Participating schools will complete one small task to help grow Take 2’s infrastructure and undertake at least one advocacy event upon completion of their projects
   
   
5. http://www.kitzu.com/

   This website is not yet populated with lots of materials, but has promise in offering students free, educational, copyright-friendly media resources. According to the project website “Students and teachers around the world can access pre-made collections, or "kits," of various digital assets - still images, background music, narratives, video and text. Each kit is built around a common theme, or curricular topic. For students, this becomes the construction paper of the 21st century --allowing them to create reports and projects filled with rich, immersive media for communicating their vision of whatever subjects they chose. AS they master the technology, they will progress from building projects with supplied materials to projects where they find or create their own resources -- a strategy that results in truly authentic assessment as measured by the projects produced."

Have you discovered similar collection of primary source raw materials and tools that encourage students to create and express themselves? I'd love to find more of these.

Brightstorm: Expanding the Reach of Great Teachers

Every wonder what happened to the eccentric star of the original Infinite Thinking Videos - Chris Walsh? Well he hasn't strayed too far from the world of "effective use of video" in education.


He's been busy recruiting rock star teachers that support his belief that video provides a powerful medium to help students learn and helping to build a new online learning network. The network, Brightstorm, has recently launched 19 video based courses lead by expert teachers helping high school students deepen their understanding of college prep content and skills such as Algebra II, Geometry, SAT Math, Writing and History.

Video based courses have been around for a long time, but this implementation aims to match the interest and learning styles of today's high school students with their digital consumptions habits. The countless hours that today's teenagers spend watching You Tube videos attest to their interest in online video as a medium. What Brightstorm had done is recruit stellar educators with a proven track record in instructional design and made their teaching style and expertise available to any student, teachers, and parents for $49 a year. Each 5-hour interactive video courses is broken down into 10-20 minute lessons, with interactive quizzes, challenges, study guides, and discussion groups.

Almost every topic includes courses offered by at least two different teachers. Watching free lessons allows the learner to find the teacher that best matches their learning style. The concept of student choice is key to the Brightstorm philosophy of learning. "Choice is the easiest thing you can do for personalization" states Chris as he describes how students can use the video medium to stop, start, zip through episodes, skip around, and chart their own learning path. "We give learners tools where they are in control and can get what they need when they want. They even have choice around who they get it from."

Helen Beethan and Rhon Sharpe's book "Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age" supports the impact that tools like Brightstorm can have by reporting that "Simply being able to study at a time, place and pace to suit them can profoundly change learners relationsip with conceptual materials."

But within a design that gives learners choice, Brightstorm puts the teacher at the center. Believing that teachers are the most essential ingredient to great learning, Brightstorm has put their energy in finding real teachers that have a proven track record at connecting content to the relevant tasks that kids are doing.

The video courses are not ONLINE courses that replace the 'for credit' course offerings. They don't pretend to offer the full scope and sequence of traditional courses; they don't offer assessments on student performance. Instead, Brightstorm assesses student engagement by reporting on the amount of time students interact with the materials. Brightstorm delivers their video courses directly to learners who could benefit from additional materials to engage them in a way that matches their learning style.

Although Brightstorm markets directly to students and parents, as a teacher, I immediately saw a value added for teachers. A service like Brightstorm can support teachers who are looking for ways to encourage active, independent learning, but find themselves with limited tools wthin the physical environment in which they teach. I could see a teacher using a tool like Brightstorm to "engage disaffected pupils, to allow them to take control of their own learning by enabling interactive, individualised learning at the pace and level appropriate for them." as recommended by Terry Lamb in his keynote address at the Independent Learning Conference (2003).

Any teacher interested in emerging pedagogical models seeks "access to an enabling suite of tools to support greater learner choice and self-direction" as described by John Stephenson's "Learner Managed Learning". Stephenson comments that "new media open up opportunities for different pedagogical approaches to be used. Moreover, they argue, the technology itself is driving pedagogical change towards a more learner managed approach." This along with
lessons learned from pedagogy research support the development of tools like Brightstorm.

Lessons Learned:

• We need to provide multiple routes through the materials and allow students to make their own choices.
• We need to communicate proactively with the students and provide structured formative feedback on achievement.
• We need to allow the students to build on their existing skills and knowledge and to undertake learning activities that are relevant to their interests and learning needs.
• We need to provide plenty of opportunities to communicate for those who are most comfortable in a community of learners, whilst allowing those who wish to plough a lone furrow to do so.
  

I look forward to see how all of those in the learning equation (students, parents, teachers) will benefit from lessons learned in using Brightstorm and other emerging tools that give our students access to resources meeting increased demands of differentiated instruction.

Hopes and Dreams

It’s almost that time of year again for many teachers – the time when eager little smiles will walk into your classroom outfitted with clothes and supplies from their back to school shopping trip. For some teachers with a different school year than mine, your back to school experience might not be this month, but hopefully it is filled with the same feeling of rejuvenated hopes and dreams. Many teachers I know actually build in a Hopes and Dreams student activity as part of their beginning of the year routines. I hope you do! Perhaps this student's hopes for her new classroom can inspire you to integrate some 21st century tools in your classroom.




Perhaps you can learn a new tool to help your student express their hopes and dreams. Perhaps you can help them expand the scope to more global hopes and dreams. Perhaps you can provide the next stepping stone to dream that will only be realized long after they leave your classroom.

Recently, I overheard a teacher tell a colleague “This year, I’m going to make sure that the kids write hopes and dreams that we can actually accomplish in our classroom”. I wanted to say “Oh, please don’t!”. Today’s technology puts tools in your student’s hands that will allow them to express their dreams in ways that were not possible only a few years ago. What about using Animoto or Voicethread to create a classroom hopes and dreams project? Perhaps start a list on a project like 43 things.

Today’s technology can knock down the walls and open the possibilities for you to reach far across the globe. How about using Google Maps, Google Earth or Google Sky to take a field trip that your students’ could only dream of not so long ago. Video’s available through You Tube, Google Video, or other video-sharing websites, along with other video services such as Discovery Education Streaming, Annenberg Media, or National Geographic Video can also help your students’ dreams reach far beyond their classroom.


Today’s technology makes it possible for you to connect with someone who can help your students achieve one of their hopes and dreams. Astronauts, authors, video game producers, Olympic athletes, visiting your classroom are more possible than they ever were through tools like email or video chat. Consider having your students use a service like Skype or GabCast to turn a phone call interview into a podcast of someone who has achieved one of their hopes and dreams.

Today’s technology allow you to collaborate with others who have similar hopes and dreams. Consider joining one of the many collaborative projects made possible by collaborative tools such as those featured at Global School House’s Project Registry, Taking IT Global, or Epals. If you’ve never experienced the power of global collaborative projects in your classroom, check out Jim and Mali's Keynote Address from NECC 2008 (two outstanding teachers whose practice was transformed through their participation in global collaborative projects)

But most importantly, today’s technology is available to you as teachers to be a tool that helps your students reach their hopes and dreams.

As teachers, we are in the fortunate position to help our students get one step closer to realizing their hopes and dreams. If for any reason, you need a little convincing of this, I strongly suggest you put aside an hour to watch “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. Randy, whose legacy includes ALICE, a program that helps kids learn the concepts of programming through storytelling and animation. In this inspirational video, Randy shares his childhood dreams with his audience during some of the last months of his fight with cancer. His lecture is filled with inspirational messages to today’s teachers, parents, mentors, and children about the people and events that helped him realize his childhood dreams.

May you be one of the forces in your students’ life that takes them one step closer to realizing their hopes and dreams. And please, please, share your Hopes and Dreams activities with other readers or simply add to the this Hopes and Dreams VoiceThread.

Shining Eyes of Passion

School’s out for summer - yet for many --more learning is happening in shorter periods of time than happened during the 180 day school year. Having just spent a week with 22 girls during TechSavvy Girls summer camp and another week with 32 middle school kids during TechSavvy Kids summer camp, I started to think about what makes summer camp so much more engaging than school. Surely it takes more than replacing the word “school” with the word “camp”… to transforms the experience. Why is it that we would rather spend time at “summer camp” than “summer school”.

• Is it because there are no bells that tell us it’s time to move to the next station and we have larger blocks of time to immerse ourselves into our learning?
• Is it because there are no mandates that create solid boundaries about what will and will not be learned and how we should learn it?
• Is it because there are no test and quizzes that try to quantify how much we remembered about what we learned?
  

No… I don’t think it’s the absence of something; but rather the ‘presence’ of an important element – PASSION!

A week long experience where talented passionate instructors focused on creating fun filled experiences that pass on that passion to others --– whether it be humanities camp, chess camp, outdoor camp—will yield lots of learning, lots of eager smiles, and lots of shining eyes.

And for those of you who think that this formula only works when learners themselves are passionate about the subject – think again as you watch the masterful Benjamin Zander create an understanding and appreciation for classical music amongst the unsuspecting audience of the T.E.D. 2008 conference.






Consider your role as a teacher as you listen to Zander describe his role as a conductor.

“The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound..
He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful.

My job was to awaken possibilities in other people..
How do you know if you are doing it
Look at their eyes.. if their eyes are shiny you know you're doing it

If not.. you should ask..
Who am I being that my players eyes are not shiny?”

What do you need to do this summer to come back to school in September ready to bring out the shine in your student's eyes?


Do you need to immerse yourself into a new experience that lights your fire? Do you need to do something new you’ve always wanted to try – and reflect on the parts of it that make your eyes smile as you do it ?

Do you need to immerse yourself into the powerful words of writer who allows you to escape into the passions of their experience? Perhaps escape to Italy, India, and Indonesia with Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray Love or to a village in Afghanistan’s with Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea.

Do you need to immerse yourself into an experience that takes you out of your comfort zone? Every couple of years I try to learn something that I’m not naturally good at or perhaps even fear. In the past few years I’ve tried tennis lessons, swing dance lessons, and motorcycle riders classes. Each of these has helped make me a better teacher by helping me tune in on what it takes to bring a reluctant learner’s fear of failure to a state of confidence and success. Success doesn’t mean I’ll ever play in a tennis tournament, participate in a dance competition or drive a motorcycle in real traffic, but it means I gained an appreciation for those who have passion for each of these activities in real life.

Do you need to immerse yourself into a self study of some new technique or tool that might engage your students when they return to your classroom this Fall? Pay attention to the young people around you this summer and notice what they are passionate about.

• Take note of the little white buds in their ears and think about how you might be able to bring ipods or other mp3 players into their learning environment.
  
• Take note of their thumb typing skills and consider ways to use cell phones as a learning tool.
  
• Take note of how they interact with the web and look for websites that bring the same type of interactivity elements to their learning.
  
• Take note of the messages in Darren Draper’s Pay Attention Video and the related Transforming Teaching Through Technology tutorials and strategies and challenge yourself to select one new technology tool to play with this summer that could transform one of your lessons into an engaging experience that bring a shine into your students eyes.
  
  
  

News Flash!

Kristin Hokanson is a technology integration mentor in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, and she recently introduced me to a great Flash-based videoconferencing tool called Flashmeeting. Flashmeeting is very easy to use from both meeting attendee and meeting booker perspectives. The interface allows for one person at time to speak using audio and video. Other meeting attendees can text chat at the same time. Link and file sharing, voting and virtual whiteboards are some of Flashmeeting's other features. Meetings are recorded and can be viewed again at a later time. These replays are editable, and meeting minutes containing the chat log, voting records, files and URLs. These can also be saved PDFs.

To book a Flashmeeting, you must jump through a few hoops and fit certain criteria as Flashmeeting is part of a research initiative at the Centre for New Media within the Knowledge Media Institute at The Open University in the United Kingdom. Data from meetings are used for research, so you must agree to having events recorded.

A week or so ago, I booked my first Flashmeeting as a meeting space for a Ning I
created, the Global Education Collaborative. Sunday night's meeting was a trial run for me. I thought I had booked a meeting for Sunday, September 16th, at 8PM CST, but I actually had booked it a day earlier as FlashMeeting's server is on UK time. Of course, they caution users about this, but I obviously didn't quite get it. Just prior to the announced meeting time, I scrambled to schedule another meeting for the correct time, and shot off the new meeting URL to potential attendees. Fortunately, about 10 or so people popped into our conference over the next two hours and great connections and conversations ensued.

Sharon Peters of LEARN was one of the first people to join the conference, and this Canadian is a treasure trove of knowledge. She has experience to back up her ideas about global education, and she cited many resources of which I had not previously been aware (view the replay to find out her recommendations). I was multitasking during our Flashmeeting, and I noticed Kim Cofino, the Elementary 21st Century Literacy Specialist at the International School Bangkok in Thailand, submit a message via Twitter, a sort of group instant messaging service. I sent her a direct twit with the link to our meeting and she subsequently joined us, fresh with ideas from the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai, China. I also noticed my friend, Westley Field, from Sydney, Australia, online via iChat and quickly sent him the link to our meeting. He joined the conference and told us all about his work at the MLC School and with Teen Second Life.

Early in the meeting, Sharon said that global collaborations happen when people
develop personal connections. If that is a criterion for successful projects, then I think Flashmeeting definitely can facilitate the necessary relationship building.  It was a truly invigorating online meeting, and you can see for yourself by watching this edited replay. Check out the meeting notes,too, for a flurry of URLS that were shared. I look forward to holding more Flashmeetings and connecting with educators world-wide. Let me know of your interest by stopping by the Global Education Collaborative ning site and leaving a message!

The ITM @ CUE

Some of the "ITM gang" (our whatever we call ourselves) were at the CUE Conference in Palm Springs last week. It was a great event - great people, great ideas, great tech tools, and great blog coverage. My favorite moment of the conference came when a high school student named Tony ran up to me with a big smile and said, "Are you the guy from the Infinite Thinking Machine?!" Turns out we have a fan or two! Very cool. If you watch long enough you'll see him in this video.

Another highlight was CUE Live. With the help of my production partner, Jonathan Lemon, we recorded a series of informal discussions with speakers, attendees, and anyone else foolish enough to stop by our "studio."

In particular, I thought some of you may be interested in our special segment, "We ARE the Infinite Thinking Machine", where Mark Wagner, Steve Hargadon, and myself shared some insights on how AND why we produce the ITM. Let us know if you like it, and we'll put it into the ITM iTunes feed for easy downloading.

BTW - In our FAQ, we recently posted some additional details on the technical equipment and tools we use to produce the ITM shows. Of course, you can produce a video podcast with less expensive equipment than ours, so don't let this scare you off. If you have something to say, don't let the technology stand in your way! Thanks to YouTube, Google Video, and other sites, it's never been easier to "broadcast yourself." In fact, we're looking for students and teachers to be official "correspondents" for the ITM shows, so drop me a line if you want to produce segments with us!