A movement underway called Save our Schools (SOS) seeks to remind our elected officials that public education is crucial, important and worth saving. There was a rally this week in Washington and a blogging effort out of the Cooperative Catalyst collaborative blog space is underway. They are asking bloggers to write about public education and then link to their site. The hope is to show support for public education in a myriad of ways.

I thought about writing something serious, such as my feelings that public education touches more lives than just about any institution in our culture; about how public education does more to equalize opportunity than other other program in the private or public sector; that public education seems increasingly under attack from the government we turn to for support. You know … serious stuff.

But I imagine all that is being said, so then I figured, why not add a little levity. So, here are a series of Boolean Squared comics that I had created around standardized testing, which has become the hallmark and lodestone of so much of educational reform. I have mixed feelings about the testing (the data is useful, the carrot-stick approach is stressful) and I hope that gets captured a bit with these comics.

Peace (in the test),
Kevin

A participant in our Western Massachusetts Writing Project Summer Institute asked me to help her find some resources for a project that she hopes to do this year, using fake Facebook sites with her students to create posts for characters from various novels. She also wondered if there was a place to do this where kids (as literary characters) could interact (in character). That gives the idea a little wrinkle.

After a little research, this what I wrote to her:

First of all, here are some possibilities for creating your own “social network” concept in your classroom:

• Edmodo is a free networking system for schools. I have not used it but plenty of teachers swear by it and love it. http://www.edmodo.com/ It is closed system, and designed to at least resemble the idea of Facebook within a teacher-monitored framework
• Edublogs — You could set up blogs for your students, or a single classroom blog (which is what I do) where students contribute to the site. (now ad-free, by the way). http://edublogs.org/
• Kidblogs — Another free site that popped up last year. I have not used it but other teachers have said they like it. It’s for elementary and middle school students, so there are some limits to what they can do as bloggers. That may not matter, though. http://kidblog.org/home.php
• Ning — here, you create a real social network, and you can make it private or public. They do have a free service for teachers, sponsored by Pearson (which makes me wary), or paid services. The lowest is about $20 a year, I think. I believe users need to be 13 or older to use it. https://www.ning.com/
• WordPress — another free blogging platform.

But, if you are looking to replicate Facebook for literary characters, you need to check out:

• Fakewall — it is designed to resemble a facebook page but it is not real. http://www.myfakewall.com/ Looks interesting to me.
• This blog post shares out five different ways (including Fakewall) to create fake facebook pages. http://web20edu.com/2011/04/16/fake-facebook-templates-and-pages-for-student-projects/ It’s worth checking out. — and you should check out his other blog post about 11 Ways to use Fake Facebook ideas with students — http://web20edu.com/2011/04/18/11-ways-to-use-fake-facebook-applications-to-enhance-student-learning/

I hope that all helps. I’d be interested in knowing how it goes for you. If you are at the University level, the Ning platform would be the way to go, if you want my opinion. You could also use some of the Fake Facebook Templates and then embed them into Ning, where conversations could take place.

But I knew I needed to show her, too, and since I had no experiences with this, I decided to use Fakewall to set up a fake Facebook page for my webcomic character, Boolean from Boolean Squared. To be honest, he is not the sort who would stay long on Facebook — too mainstream for a hacker like him. But still …

I found Fakewall very easy to use, and it seems like a simple way for a teacher to bring the concept of social networking around literary characters into the classroom setting. The only downside is that others cannot comment on a page, so the entire fake page is really the work of one person.

See Boolean’s Fakewall Page

Peace (on the fake page),
Kevin

I am reading The Information by James Gleick (it’s good), which maps out the history of ideas around information flow, starting with ancient writing. I came to a section last night that stopped me in my tracks, because it was all about George Boole. He revolutionized the philosophy of logic, and his Boolean Logic ideas are still at the heart of computer programming (the 1/0 system of data).

Well, it also turns out that when I was searching for a name for the main character of my old webcomic series,  Boolean Squared, I used the name Boolean because it connoted technology and math. It also sounds funny. So, it was fun to read deeper about Boole’s impact on the world in The Information and I am happy to have given Boolean a connection to someone so famous (although, I am not sure Boole would be so happy about it.)

See Boolean Squared Webcomic

Peace (in the name),
Kevin

This is the second in a series of comics about Boolean’s cyborg, Cylene, taking on a job of robo-calling. In this case, I have Cylene working for a political candidate.

Peace (in the calls),
Kevin

During our last tumultuous here in Massachusetts (ie, Republican Scott Brown), our phone was overwhelmed with robo-calls. Every hour, it seemed, we were getting some recorded voice, touting the candidate. It got so bad that we didn’t even want to pick up the phone. My students were complaining about the robo-calls at their homes. It was nonsense.

Which makes it a good topic for my comic strip, as Boolean decides to enlist his cyborg, Cylene, in some daytime robo-calling to earn some extra scratch to buy a Saxophone Hero (hey, if guitarists and DJs can have their own Wii game, why not us saxophonists?).

Peace (in the calls),
Kevin

This ends the last comic in my series of the prank pulled on Mr. Teach and his GPS unit. Urth comes home but Mr. Teach still needs directions from a machine with an attitude.

Peace (in getting lost),
Kevin

Today, on Boolean Squared, Urth clashes with TomTom inside the GPS unit.

Peace (in the voice),
Kevin

As I was developing this Boolean Squared story about the boys pulling a prank on Mr. Teach with his GPS unit, I realized that it might be fun to have Urth (who is inside the GPS) encounter a grumpy TomTom. And I figured TomTom could talk like Bob Dole, in the third person.

Peace (in the device),
Kevin

You know it’s a bad Boolean Squared day when Urth is inside your GPS, right Mr. Teach? Bad for him but good for us (I hope).

Peace (in the unit),
Kevin

The kids pull a prank on Mr. Teach.

Peace (in the gadget),
Kevin