Kim’s Ventures in Educational Technology

In case you hadn’t heard latest backlash and outrage by citizens of the edublogosphere and twitterverse amidst the many emails flying back and forth to ISTE and edubloggers’ posts, ISTE has retracted part of their new audio/video recording policy and is allowing podcasting/vodcasting and streaming of presenter sessions at NECC2008.

Miguel Guhlin shared on his blog the response he received from Leslie Conery, Deputy Chief CEO of ISTE. Portions of Leslie’s email response in listed below in italics and bolded for emphasis with Miguel’s personal comments below Leslie’s.

• We …have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC. What valuable admission is this from the ISTE Organization and what a powerful message it sends to the membership.

• Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community. We’re invited to participate in a discussion about our content. While it’s obvious that such conversations are necessary, how many organizations do you know that seek to work collaboratively to develop guidelines? This is the ISTE I’m proud to be a member of!

• For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.That takes care of the education podcasters I was concerned for. Great.

• …for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive. Not a problem. Does anyone have a form they would like to share?.

Feel free to visit Miguel’s blog read the entire response Leslie sent to Miguel shortly after he emailed her. Response time was quick – less than 24 hours.

What I found extremely interesting is a comment left by ISTE’s Donella Evoniuk (Email:devoniuk@iste.org) on Charlene Chausis‘ blog,

I must add that it is unfair for the blogosphere to unload on ISTE over this. We are so sososo supportive of the amazing sharing and communication AND collaboration that is possible with 2.0 tools. The response at NECC 2007 blew our minds and reinforced all of our beliefs about the power, potential, and excitement that is generated by facilitating educators-as-creators-of-content.

‘Unfair for the blogosphere’ to unload on ISTE? If this was unfair to ISTE then I don’t have the correct definition of unfair. Unfair is how this policy was announced to the blogosphere with little time to meet their conditions to record audio/video of presenter sessions. ‘Blew your minds?’ This policy announcement blew the minds of the authors of the blogsphere that a policy like what was originally suggested wouldn’t cause a negative reaction.

Many educators rely on the podcasting from the conference to attend virtually and with the previous policy that would have been severely limited if not nixed altogether.

My question is this: was the timeliness of the notice sent to presenters knowing there would be very little time to seek permission from presenters much less from ISTE personnel who was and is currently traveling to San Antonio and would be unavailable for several days? I would like to think it was merely a coincidence and a decision not properly thought through versus a deliberate decision made late so that permission from presenters and ISTE would be so difficult to obtain PRIOR to NECC people wouldn’t even bother? That’s what I would like to believe. But the fact that they changed the audio/media coverage policy indicates that 1 of my 2 suppositions stated above is correct. Which one remains to be seen since the policy will be readdressed by ISTE post NECC 2008.

So for now, the score is ISTE = 0, Podcasters/Vodcasters 1. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the ISTE members have won the battle but not the war.

Check out this brief example of a podcast created by a colleague of mine, Rudy Vidal at Sky Harbour! Podcasts are just one of the technology tools of web 2.0 that teachers can use to enrich instruction. Students do NOT need an iPod to listen to the podcast. Podcasts may be listened to directly from the internet or downloaded to a playing device like an iPod or mp3 player and are basically an oral recording of an online post or message.

Don’t miss the podcast and view the resources available at “Fabulous Podcast Resources” link (to the left of this article) for more information about podcasting from one of the leading educational bloggers, Miguel Guhlin. His blog is full of information, resources and strategies for implementing many of the web 2.0 tools.